Comments on Headline of the Day

So mass transit projects are immune to similar cost overruns, then?

Yeah, and our experiences with rapid transit show they are impervious to the inflationary pressures that caused the 24% rise in construction costs for roads. I'm as much of a fan of transit as you, and there's no way we'll "build our way out of gridlock". But the truth is no matter what we build (BRT, light rail, monorail, roads, more buses), it will cost a lot more than Seattle/WA residents are willing to admit.

The real problem here is the "small Seattle" mentality that causes everyone to freak out about large number figures for our roads, transit, education or whatever other state spending we need to maintain the necessary level of infrastructure for our much larger than 20 years ago state.

Combined with the idiotically regressive and apparently impossible to fix tax structure, and WA state is screwed unless the residents wise up.

Frankly, I have given up all hope for this state to seriously deal with transit issues. Try taking the bus just to get across town during off peak hours! It is a PAIN IN THE ASS!!! And when you try to explain to the average Washington State voter (think people who live in Centralia or Cheney WA, not Seattle) how transit is a better long term solution for the large metropolitan areas they whine and bitch. I may as well just by an SUV with a V8 engine and get an F-350 for my back up vehicle.....

Hey, I agree with all of the above comments.

This reminds me... Some fellow saw me wearing my Stranger "Mayor Gridlock" T-shirt the other day, and we got to talking about transportation and the monorail project's demise. Unlike me, this guy grew up here, and he couldn't help contrasting Seattle with Chicago. See, Seattle has this reputation for being progressive, but it's really quite conservative, he said. And Chicago has this reputation for being corrupt and backward, but really it's quite progressive.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but, until light rail gets running in 2009, Seattle will remain the only big city in the United States without any mass transit. And no, I'm not counting the 1-mile monorail or the Sounder trains that got plopped on existing freight infrastructure. And gosh, it won't be until 2016, if then, that light rail really goes anywhere.

Actually, let me play Erica Barnett here for a moment. Remember Erica's comment on The Seattle Times story on Seattle waiving the parking minimum for new buildings in certain areas. Erica had noted how the opening to the story dismissively focused strictly on the perspective of the driver.

Here's what I noticed about today's piece. Second sentence: Even if voters pass a huge ballot measure in November, new state figures show that the plan will deliver fewer road lanes to ease congestion in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties.

More road lanes = less congestion?! That's a really, really big assumption, and I think most of the scientific traffic research out there contradicts it. Unless you're willing to put tolls on lanes, more roads (more freeway lanes) inevitably mean more cars, more sprawl, and with more sprawl, even more cars. Induced demand.

Now, I'm sure there are some real bottlenecks where increased capacity does ease congestion, but I'm sure those are the exception. And by the way, I also wouldn't necessarily discount the wishes of those who can now drive somewhere that they just otherwise wouldn't venture to visit. It's a complicated issue.

But let's just get straight about motives here. I'm sure that none of the politicians and vested interests who are promoting freeway expansion believe themselves that the goal is easing congestion. They know better. "Easing congestion" is just a bromide, an empty talking point. If you believe this multi-billion-dollar road-building binge is truly motivated by a desire to ease congestion, then maybe you believed that the Iraq war was about spreading democracy. I'm not saying there aren't some legitimate motives, but easing congestion ain't one of 'em.

Cressona,

Not to get into a long pissing match, but I can offer a real-world local example of an instance in which a road capacity increase did in fact reduce congestion - the expansion of I-90 (granted, that would only be along I-90, and it has doubtless contributed to the congestion along I-405 because those connections weren't improved).

Nevertheless, if you're going east from Seattle or west from the Eastside, the expansion of I-90 did make a real difference in the levels of traffic congestion and delay along that route.

BTW - as I recall, before the Big Dig fiasco, the expansion of I-90 was one of the most expensive interstate projects in history.

Mr X.

Even with all your caveats, can you really prove that the I-90 expansion reduced congestion in any meaninful way? Like how about end-to-end commute time?

And the I-90 expansion project as something to repeat?! Didn't the bridge sink? Wasn't there a promised rail line that never materialized? Didn't the MI folk get use of the HOV lanes as a private driveway as a consession prize?

All these roadway project are doing is making killing of the miserable monorail project look stupider and stupider with time.

I remember reading something not too long ago on the history of Seattle which described a developer's plan to build an extensive network of light rail throughout Seattle. I imagine it would have been sort of like the Boston T without the underground sections. This was about oh, 100 years ago, and the whole project was killed because it was going to cost the unheard of, earth shattering sum of $100,000.

All mass transit projects since have eventually been killed due to cost concerns, except Sound Transit which seems to have more lives than a cat.

Have you ever driven on Santa Monica, La Cienega or Sunset in LA at rush hour? You've just seen Seattle's future.

Sure makes monorails look cheap now, doesn't it?

This will sink the underwater tunnel and the RTID, though.

Paybacks a b.t.h.

Original Andrew, as far as I know there was a plan in the early 20th century to build a monorail, of all things, in Seattle. There was just something on Evening Magazine about it, and I could swear I've read about this elsewhere. Evening even showed a picture of a demo car and track with passengers inside, but they couldn't identify the location.

As for LA rush hour, I hate to say, but at least LA has a subway. It's only one line, but I mean, it's a SUBWAY, and apparently a top-notch one at that.

And here's an entry from an LA Times "New Year's Wishes" editorial: For local officials to spend some of their Proposition 1B bond riches on extending the Red Line subway down Wilshire Boulevard to Fairfax Avenue; getting it all the way to Westwood would be even better.

Yeah, LA, the freakin' auto capital of the world, can build a subway. And liberal Seattle can't build anything unless public officials lowball the costs and triage the route.

"And the I-90 expansion project as something to repeat?! Didn't the bridge sink? Wasn't there a promised rail line that never materialized? Didn't the MI folk get use of the HOV lanes as a private driveway as a consession prize?"

I don't have the actual commute times handy (one can only goof off at work so much), but the sinking of I-90 occured before it was expanded, and the Mercer Island agreement is also a product of the original highway (and, yes, they should have put light rail across it. In fact, this would probably have done more regional good as Phase one of Sound Transit than running a street-level system through the Rainier Valley).

Were you even here before I-90 was expanded? I don't need the figures you're demanding to tell me that it takes a whole a lot less time to get from point A to point B now along I-90 than it used to, and that includes the fact that the Eastside has grown simultaneously (as well as Seattle to Eastside job commutes, which now match the number of those folks coming this way)...

I remember the sinking. I went to work on that side of the bridge, and when I came home, it had started sinking.

But that was before we built half these unneeded highways for SOV cars that get 7 to 16 mpg.

I, indeed, did not live in Seattle before the I-90 bridge expansion was finished in 1989. I think we were both wrong about the sinking, which happened in 1990 on the remaining old bridge. (bothered to look it up.)

The expansion might have improved times for drivers living right on I-90, but it has made life more miserable for those of us West of the lake. A big part of the major backups on North 5 at the convention center comes from cars disgorging from I-90.

Study after study has shown that adding capacity to a city like Seattle, with all the strict geographic limits, tends to make traffic worse overall.

At least we can agree on the need for rail. ;p

Nope, we can agree on the need for more transit. Rail is just a form, and in some places it's good, in others it's not. But we need much more transit.

fuck mass transit. I want Star Trek transporters!

I'll settle for the flying taxi in the Fifth Element.