Comments on Prop 1 Version 2: Consensus

Did I not make it clear that RTID is dead?

You want a giant regional transit agency of indirectly elected board members, try it somewhere else.

But not here.

Which part of HE11 N0 don't they get?

Governance reform is the Trojan horse of the mass transit foes.* It all sounds very benign and non-threatening, very Seattle, and yet, it has one purpose and one purpose only, to grind light rail expansion to a halt.

* Well, another good Trojan horse is BRT.

If there's one red flag word in Seattle transportation politics, it's "consensus." Whenever anyone speaks of achieving consensus, they're being either (A) foolish or (B) disingenuous.

When Ted Van Dyk speaks of a consensus emerging in the wake of Prop. 1, the only consensus is the opposition to light rail among light rail opponents, which I believe is a tautology.

Just a refresher for where Ted Van Dyk stands on Sound Transit: Stop light rail in its gold-plated tracks.

What he's asking for is Metro II. Metro was founded in 1968 to solve a regional sewage problem (lumps of human shit on Matthews Beach, and then took over the buses before it was folded into King County.

It's a good idea if it's done right. It shouldn't be elected, and it should be charged with very specific tasks: regional transit. Transit is a regional problem, not a city one. But Ted's thing isn't going to fly; it's a highway agency under all the verbiage.

And even if (huge "if") they could come up with a governance package that made sense, it would delay by years any new transportation vote. Voters are rightly skeptical of new agencies, and will not grant new tax $$$ to a new agency until it proves itself.

In short, governance "reform" is a recipe for more delay.

The real solution is the opposite option: devolution of transportation funding and implementation. Keep the regional vision so that systems across localities are interoperable and planning based on the same data, but otherwise let smaller jurisdictions raise money and build projects.

Then Seattle can build as many light rail lines as Seattle voters will support, and pay for it by itself. The Eastside can get its Bellevue-to-Microsoft rail line and supplement with buses (or build more rail). Tacoma can build a nice system of its own, as can Everett. Seattle and East King County can collaborate on a cross-lake route. Each project can stand and fall on its own merits, and the era of fingerpointing and whining about the people who live somewhere else in the region can come to an end. Eventually, the smaller local systems will knit themselves together into a regional system, and probably faster by building it in pieces rather than trying to get a whole region to agree on a unified package all at once.

But, Cascadian, HOW do you knit systems together? They have to run on the same kind of track, with the same platform heights and the same curve radiuses and yadda yadda. There SHOULD be a regional transit authority, and they should have the power to tell the cities and the counties to shut the fuck up. That's how real transit systems get built. What you describe is the way bullshit transit systems, with half-a-dozen trains to nowhere. It's the recipe for more SLUT. You want more SLUT? How are you going to knit SLUT with the monorail and the waterfront streetcar and Tacoma's silly thing and Sound Transit light and Sound Transit heavy?

We should just have Metro annex neighboring places we want to go to, and make them part of Greater Seattle.

BRT is a temporary sidetrack on the route to a real transit system. Nothing wrong with it, but it's mostly so people can pretend it's ok for them to drive all by their lonesomes in their cars and point to it as being transit while they do nothing themselves.

@8: I dunno, BRT might be viable for limited applications like across the I-90 and 520 bridges, since the buses weigh much less and don't need those complicated rail couplers. However, this would only work if there were good rail connections right on either side of the bridge.

Other than that, though, I agree that BRT is a false choice. It requires fixed right of way just like rail does, so why not put in rail instead?

Exactly, @9. It's a stop-gap or transition choice. Not bad for 520 bridge, until Microsoft builds the light rail stations ...

If we want to entertain thoughts of merging some of the transit governments together, why not start with something small and relatively easy?

Let's combine the bus systems in the Puget Sound region into one regional bus system. Everett Transit, Community Transit, Pierce Transit, and King County Metro?

It could be a new agency, or folded into Sound Transit. They all work together in one way or another already. You achieve greater efficiencies in purchasing equipment, synching up route schedules, they already have a shared pass system, etc.

So I was driving into work yesterday morning at around 8:45am and the red SLUT passed me. There were 10 riders on it. 10 riders going to South Lake Union at 8:45 in the morning. Today as I was driving in the red SLUT passed me again, this time there were six riders on it. Eight whole riders at 9:00am. Brilliant, just fucking brilliant.

Light rail is a bunch of fucking shit. Really, it is. In Seattle light rail is advocated by people who don't take the bus but feel guilty about driving to work. These idiots hope that some mythical white, er, I mean, "light" rail line will be built that will zip them from their house to their job and back again with the same speed, comfort and convenience as their cars and without having to put up with any of those icky handicapped, black or homeless people that Erica C. Barnett and Dan Savage hate so much.

As far as the bullshit mantras about light rail being more attractive than buses to potential transit riders well, if that's the case then why is it that Seattle, which has an icky bus system has a higher percentage of people using mass transit than Portland does with their wonderful MAX system? If transit on tracks is so much better than nasty old buses then why oh why did I only see eight people on the SLUT this morning?

As far as BRT v. light rail goes BRT has one huge advantage over light rail. It's flexible. Wait until there is an accident involving the SLUT or Sounder light rail along the at-grade portion along MLK. The whole system is going to be down until that accident is cleared. If you have the leeway to build dedicated right of way then the primary disadvantage of BRT, namely that it's stuck in traffic (a disadvantage that the SLUT and Sound Transit light rail both have) is eliminated, and if something happens on the dedicated right of way buses can use alternate routes, trains can't (unless there are rails). So why build rail then?

It's a pity that so much money has been pissed away on Sound Transit. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on a heavy rail system that costs over $100 a rider per round trip and which is nothing more than a subsidy for McMansion developers in South King County and up in Snohomish. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent duplicating bus service that could have been provided by Community Transit, Pierce Transit or Metro and billions have been spent on a light rail line that is three years late, seven miles short of what the voters were promised in 1996 and which, when completed, will be no faster than riding the current bus service and which will draw much of its ridership from existing bus lines. I have to wonder what Metro, which does a pretty good job moving people around the county (better than Portland's MAX apparently, and hey, check out Metro's new hybrid buses) could have done with that money.

I'm glad RTID died, and I think that all of the white, er I mean "light" rail supporters that rail can make a comeback at the polls next year if only it is divested of those nasty icky roads are going to be in for a rude awakening. Rail supporters in the Seattle area are world class fuck ups. To date these incompetent assholes have pissed away billions and delivered nothing but the SLUT and Sounder heavy rail and tons of bullshit about how wonderful the monorail was going to be (before it was fucked up by Joel Horn, Greg Nickels, Ron Sims or the Jews, I can't remember who's currently to blame) and how wonderful light rail will when Sound Transit finally completes it (three years late, seven miles short and 1.5 billion dollars over budget).

There's not much you can say to @12. He has neither the facts nor reality on his side. His principle argument that all Light Rail is irrelevant because of ridership on the SLUT is totally absurd. (This is, by the way, why the SLUT was a marketting mistake to build.) The SLUT does not connect any population centers and it is not on dedicated right-of-way. It only has 8 people on it because it is connecting Westlake to UW Medicine. Link Light Rail will connect Sea-Tac, Rainier Valley, the Stadiums and the entire length of Downtown. wile-e_quixote... try to think logically.

Also not logical, his belief that light rail supporters are those who drive their cars to work. Right. In fact, we are the ones who ride the bus everyday, crushed between 4 people at the back door step, on an overcrowded, 15-minute late bus. We are the ones looking forward to larger capacity, reliable light rail that will not leave us stuck in traffic.

Passing judgment on light rail on account of the joke that is SLUT is a bit like refusing to invest in Google because you had a bad experience with this Internet startup that this dude set up out of his attic.

Now, if this sounds like I'm passing judgment on SLUT... Well, yes, I am. Because I've actually ridden it, or attempted to.

I really don't know what the hell @12 going on that it's just about the whites wanting the light-rail. IF he took his head out of his ass, he would realize the demographics along the CENTRAL Link, Not Sounder dipshit, is 70% Black and Hispanic.

A bit of information for 12 since he seems not to know a damn thing.

First and foremost, I'm Black and I'm 23 years old and very active in Transit and have been for several years. I also drive a 2006 Scion xA, modded, etc. Big deal right? Actually for me it is since I use transit more than I drive and prefer it that way.

Last year I saved $1459 in fuel, maintenance, other misc things by taking Transit. I use a combination of Sounder Commuter Rail and Metro Transit. I always buy a 3 zone Puget Pass since I tend to travel beyond just going to and from work. The general thought of those that believe that the bus is for commuting back and forth to work.

I rode the Seattle Streetcar today, I live in Kent and this will be my 3rd ride but my second public trip and on the 11:17a Streetcar, we left with 18 people, we arrived at Westlake 11 minutes later with standees and I'll give a rough estimate of 80-90 people onboard.

The return trip at 11:30a the train had 5 people and by the time I got off at Lake Union Park where I boarded, it had 43 people, several that were talking how more service will be needed when Amazon gets into South Lake Union.

To compare a 14 mile light-rail $2+ billion dollar light rail system to a 1.3 mile $53 million dollar Streetcar system that doesn't have any tunnels is simply fucking stupid.

And you want to bring Portland into this? Are you stupid to even compare Portland to Seattle or Tacoma?

For your information once again, Portland Streetcar sees about 11,000 riders, daily. Tacoma Link (Streetcar) sees 3400 riders, daily, the Seattle Streetcar to date has been seeing 6400 riders, daily.

So really, what is so stupid to see that rail works and buses aren't? Why did Houston kill 3 BRT routes in favor for Light-Rail. Why is Charlotte, NC Light-Rail system, only 9 miles long mind you, exceeding it's expected ridership by 3,000 to 8,000 a day. The route was a previous BUS ROUTE.

So really, if you continue to have your head up your ass and believe that buses are better, they are in some applications but in long distance routes, like for a great example, the 590-595 between Downtown Seattle and Downtown Tacoma, most of it's ridership has stayed the same since 2003, the 800-1200 riders a train and most times standees on Sounder is testament that rail does work and does bring people of all types to use the service.

Now, just think how many buses it would take to match the ridership on Sounder, daily and translate that to road maintenance, fuel, driver expensives including training and holiday/vacation pay, insurance, etc.

Meanwhile those 800-1200 passengers a train sit back, relaxed, never stuck in traffic, arrive on time at Tukwila, Kent, Auburn, Sumner, Puyallup, and Tacoma and Sound Transit will be added an additional 3 trains South and 1 more train North and trains to Lakewood will start in 2011 or so.....

Ugh, anywho....