Comments on Sims Rejects Gregoire's Limited Option

god forbid they make their own fucking decisions. washington government: you pay them to ask you what to do.

Sims is so much better with Sandeep on his staff.

Good for Sims.

His statement reads as one of the most thoughful and definitive of any of our political "leadership."

If he supports the tunnel over the rebuild, then I guess the "boldness and vision" Sims is looking for must be the courageous ability to defy any kind of fiscal restraint with pure wishful thinking. You'd think he hadn't just overseen an escalating liquidation of King County responsibilities for human services, parks and other basic government programs over the last decade. Nice to know that while he's busy turning the county executive job into triage management, he can still find time to keep a multibillion dollar boondoggle on the table (I know, he supports the surface option-- but to even have a tunnel be his second choice is, especially for him, obscene)

Spoken like a man who will never win a statewide election.

My man Ron! Homie's on his recovery-bed from gall bladder removal, and he's STILL dissin' the Gov! See those references to "transit" in his missive? That's ST he's talkin' 'bout bay-bee! That man is DOWN with ST2. See, he knows what from wherefore - the viaduct options don't mean a thing - only ST2's got that schwing . . . ..

WF - Yeah, you're right. Most of the rest of the state doesn't dig looking forward into the future.

If the surface boulevard could shave ~800 million off the rebuild (plausible), we'd have enough cash left over to build the Green Line as a streetcar (minus the seattle center/5th ave detour).

That would provide a real alternative to a lot of viaduct trips.

If we are going to get a chance to vote on the so-called "surface/transit option" then we need to vote on the Retrofit. Of couse NO ONE among the leadership cadre of this city wants that since they know it would win hands down.

Gregoire just gave the Republicans a running jump at the Governor's Mansion.

I disagree David. This wimping out by Gregoire was politically astute, if a policy disaster.

She's been playing the "big bad Seattle" game for a while to shore up her support statewide. She must figure who else are Seattle-ites going to vote for.

By coming out strongly in favor of the financially untenable tunnel, Nickels made himself a lame-duck in this discussion. She shrewdly played the best political hand, keeping an eye on re-election.

Only Sims seems to be seriously considering this problem as something to be solved, rather than something to score political points with.

Sims, like usual isn't showing leadership, he's just picking the parts of the carcass.

What I'd like to know is where the hell is his transit option? Or is Sandeep spewing out stuff? I hear nice glossy stuff about "surface/TRANSIT option" but there's no beef.

Hey Ron Sims: The guv left off your surface street option because... wait for it... THERE'S NO TRANSIT. Buses on the same clogged streets aren't transit. They're gridlocked.

Since you're the King County Executive, and have some control over stuff like TRANSIT why don't you actually do something about it instead of leaving everyone that lives west of Highway 99 out in the cold?

Dave @ 11 - WSDOT's surface option that they studied comprised six unrestricted lanes side-by-side. The outcome of that study was predictable. What they didn't study and should have was the impact/benefit of converting two of those lanes to transit-only.

Let's assume for a minute that 2 of the lanes on the Viaduct are converted to transit only. We still have the displaced traffic on the downtown grid (only probably more increased without proper rapid transit). You might have some quick bus routes, but once they leave that viaduct they'll be mired in the same traffic downtown as cars (only worse most likely looking to the future)

Until the government (Guv, Sims, Nickels) realize the only way through if they really want to change this is to create proper rapid transit to actually relieve the street traffic all that is going on in reality is a shifting of chess pieces on the same grid. And that chessboard will become more crowded by 100,000+ in the city and 1,000,000+ in the region over the next 20-30 years. Take away one of two through routes with a surface street option and you'll see I-5 clogged many more hours each day. Happy travels!

Dave @ 13 - The point of transit-only lanes is that when buses run predictably on-time and out of traffic, more riders take them. Thus they shoulder the load of some of your "displaced traffic." The conditions for your doomsday scenario were achieved when the downtown bus tunnel was closed, hundreds of buses were brought to the surface and third avenue was closed to automobile traffic in the peak period. Yet the sky didn't fall.

My prediction of what happens with converting two lanes of 99 to transit-only isn't worth any more or less than your prediction of what happens, cuz we're just a couple of blog groupies. But that's the point. WSDOT should check it out. If they find that six lanes of unrestricted traffic moves people better and more predictably than four lanes plus two transit-only, great! If it turns out the other way around, why shouldn't we want to take that route?

Ward, I'm actually not opposed to looking at options. However,according to Gregoire's report 76 options were narrowed to 5 then to two. When does it end? We're doing the same things now that happened back in the 60's/70's... debating the issues ad infinitum till nothing gets done. All the while, the costs go up monthly (according to Gregoire, 10 million a month). So lets look at it, set a date certain then move in a direction. Let's have ONE vote, then move on. That's what I say. Of course, it won't happen that way. Whoever loses will tie whatever up in lawsuits or multiple elections till they get their way. Or they'll change face just as the Stranger did on the Monorail...

that should read "the papers" and not the Stranger... at the end of my blurb @15. Too late in the day...

How can the governor, or the electorate, evaluate a "surface plus transit" option when no such animal exists anywhere? The PWC "plan" goes into no more detail than "hey, there could be a choo choo!". And the green line? Monorail? THAT GOT VOTED DOWN, REMEMBER?

THERE IS NO TRANSIT OPTION.

FNARF,
The difference between the re-build and the 6-lane surface option that WSDOT studied is $700m (taking the middle numbers, $2.8m & $2.1). Soooo, what does $700m get you in transit? I don't know. But, let's study it. We're moving people not cars. Murray is for studying it. Chopp is for studying it. Sims is for studying it. WSDOT never studied it.

Mapquest says 4 miles from the end of the SLU Streetcar to central Ballard via Westlake. At $50 mil/mile = $200 mil to serve Fremont & Ballard. Why can't we have this?

From the Tunnel to Morgan Junction? 4.7 miles of new track. Say another $200 million for this?

Call me crazy, but that's a transit option. I'm OK with surface or elevated, but we need to address the half the city the monorail was going to serve. Half-assed BRT won't cut it.

Trams are cool- I love Trams. Melbourne Australia is one of the great cities because of their trams. However, Melbourne, with very wide streets (and that famous Melbourne hook turn- look it up...) has MANY tram lines, going MANY places. You can swing from tram to tram, 18 hours a day, point to point, and be many places quickly.

What do trams mean in Seattle? Well trams that get around mean probably closing some streets to do it. I'm ok with that, but I can hear the howls already. Or lets say along a corridor of 15th NW, a tram going north runs along 14th NW and a tram going south runs along 16th NW, with those streets becoming one way.

A tram SYSTEM would be a great thing for this city and would change its dynamics. However, a single tram I think would be like the waterfront streetcar- a novelty and probably poorly riden. Looking at that map of North Seattle, I figure I'd spend at least an hour if I were coming from Lake City into downtown on that thing. However, if there was another tram (or as the map points out, it connects into something else... like the light rail) and I could easily transfer it could be a system that works.

Somehow, somewhere, Sims', Nickels' and Gregoire's heads need to be pulled from the sand (or out of their ass) and roads and transport need to work together. As I pointed out in an earlier piece, I think that a transportation grid needs to be laid out first (and like spokes on a wheel from the middle of the city and other gathering points) and then proper roads planned around that. Only then will we get proper transportation policy in this state.

I agree we need an integrated system. No exams today, so here's my laboriously photoshopped transit vision.

Things to note:

-Leverages SLU streetcar investment: connects to Westlake & Eastlake and onto Fremont, Ballard, the UW & Roosevelt. Westlake is wide & needs very few grade crossings.

-Reuses Broad St. underpass slated to be abandoned in the two-way Mercer plan to connect Eastlake to the Waterfront Streetcar.

-Connects Capitol & First Hills, the CD and the ID. (These are already in planning)

-Creates a cross-town streetcar Ballard-UW along Pacific/Leary.

Puts "true" BRT on Aurora, 15th NW and to West Seattle Junction with bus lanes, limited stops with ticket machines, etc.

Creates semi-BRT circulator lines connecting Seattle neighborhoods to light rail & streetcar.

$700 million would get us most of the way to a decent intra-city transit network.

As long as Sound Transit is in charge of the transit part, it'll be well worth it.

I'm well past trusting Sound Transit to do squat. Their plan does NOTHING for anyone west of Highway 99. I wouldn't trust them to run a flea circus.

$700 million will get you 2 or 3 miles of light rail. Yippee.

Well, you can't blame ST. We the people through SMP were in charge of western Seattle.

$700 million would buy:

~12 miles of street level light rail
(Interstate MAX, $60 mil a mile)

or,
~17 miles of streetcar
(SLU Streetcar, $40 mil a mile)

Actually, I do blame Sound Transit and the rest of the politicians that have balkanized (and continue to do so- look at Gregoire yesterday) transportation policy in this state. Roads, buses, trains, they're all interconnected. But none of it gets treated that way. Instead time is spent bitching (yeah, yeah I'm doing that here) and fighting over turf instead of solving problems. That's what's fucked Seattle and the entire Puget Sound region for nearly 40 years.

Gregoire had an opportunity yesterday to do something grand and leave a legacy. I'm not talking about individual projects- I'm talking about leadership. She could have said what she said and then added- lets work on this together for a solution since it affects us all. But she didn't say or intimate that. She played the old fashioned game of let the voters decide (which I can live with) but then was a chicken shit when she said "but then Seattle, if it wants a tunnel, will have to come up with the money". Fair enough to a degree, but she comes off as politician looking to cover her own ass as opposed to actually doing something.

I'm fairly left leaning, but I'm sick of the same old crap that goes on. It's about time to clear out some of the dead weight (Sims, Gregoire, Chopp, Sommers) and put some people in that 1) will make decisions and 2) look at things from a holistic standpoint instead of covering their ass. I consider them (along with Nickels and the City Council) to be a bunch of leaderless chicken shits.

No argument on Nickels, the council and the legislature. Someone needs to grow a spine and insist CT, Metro and Pierce Transit merge into sound transit. The arbitrary division of transit into regional and local agencies is clownshoes.

Yep or something similar to ST. To be honest I'm not enamored with ST, but I think at least it's a template that could be made into something that works. Roads and ferries (and bike lanes, etc) should be included so that the system as a whole works together. You should be able to buy a ticket in Everett that will work on your transfer in Tacoma. ST in my book won't be a real regional transit until they address those that live west of Highway 99. The minute the monorail went down in flames, they should have been on top of it. They haven't been, and I think it's intentional. They need to deal with the entire region. Other major metropolitan areas around the world have figured at least that part out... and now it's our time to do so.

The idea that roads and transport are two separate worlds needs to change if we're to have comprehensive transportation policy. Instead of those two things competing against one another, prioritize both of them together and make a master template for the region.

The Legislature is a place to start- if they have the fortitude they can set broad policy for the state (ie spending parameters) and let the chips fly where they may. We all know there are "limited dollars" to go around, but the development of infrastructure should be a broad policy decision taken at the state level, not cites. Enough funds should be made available to cities/counties/entities to maintain said infrastructure, coupled with proper municipal contibutions. If cheap ass tax payers in some suburb don't want to contribute to the overall roads network, they don't get roads.

BTW, Ron Sims' cute little transit system failed me in my commute home from Georgetown on Thursday, thanks to the Seahawks game and the weather, and it failed me on Friday too, when drivers on both the 23 and 174 decided they weren't gonna run the 8:00 portion of their routes and left me high and dry for an hour. I only got downtown because a bus headed back to base was nice enough to pick me up, and even then I had to walk downtown from 4th and Holgate.

So I don't buy his notion that transit can pick up the slack, when it can't even pick up the slack in certain neighborhoods under current conditions that are better than the PWC is proposing.

I call bullshit, Ron Sims. Until your transit system meets my basic transit needs, I don't buy that it can meet this entire city's needs once the viaduct goes down.

Gomez @ 29 - You mean a bus on congested streets couldn't magically transport you through all that traffic? I wonder why... could it be that dedicated transit lanes would have helped? And traffic was gummed up Thursday evening with a fully functional, six-lane viaduct. It'll be just as screwed up after you replace it with a tunnel or a rebuild - it'll just cost you a few billion bucks, is all. Mmmmm, that's good thinking. It's like selling air. I guess a more accurate analogy would be it's like selling really, really expensive air that's difficult to breathe.

By the way, the power crapped out on half the region that evening - are you giving up on electricity, too since that failed? Is your computer running on wood chips?