that is the most depressing thing i have read all year

A profoundly depressing book for a Seattle resident, eh, what?

Did you see this promotional map they sent out for the book?
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/212-transit-map-of-the-worlds-transit-systems/

Lisbon has lots of hills. I wonder: however do they manage to have transit lines there?

My fave is the Italian train schedule.

Please note, when using it, that you should pick up the latest International Herald Tribune to see which routes will be on strike that day and the next.

But it was so fun to use!

Is St. Louis's metro Link in there?

But in the time it took to actually build something worthwhile, we were able to fracture the community even further and engage in a lot of public debate about all of the reasons we can't get anything done in this city. We also got to vote down some good progressive ideas. In the end, isn't that what living in Seattle is all about?

I love transit maps for some reason, I think they're beautiful. I want that book, did you happen to catch the price?

Yes, great book. I reviewed it with sadness recently.

An on line analogue is at urbanrail.net.
Transit maps of all cities. Seatle is sadly lacking.

If you look at the transit systems of the world you find that they involve several lines that intersect and cover all parts of the inner, dense core of the larger metro area.

No part of the city at the center of the region is left out.
They use old RR coridors whenever possible, too.

When fighting for the monorail I always tried to show that it was merely a "west side line" and not focus on the monorail technology VERSUS the light rail technology...I had to struggle with the monorail agency just to get a map showing both the monorail line and thelight rail line.....to me, we only have one transit system and they were both just the "east side line" (light rail) and "west side line" (monorail).

They were transferable ... like transfering from the red line to the orange line in DC or from the no. 1 to the F train at W. 4th in Manhattan.

With the transfers you could have gone from the U Disrict to Ballard in 20 minutes. From West Seatle to Beacon Hill, ditto.

BOTH were far more useful to all riders of the "system" than building either one alone.

With networks you get increasing returns .....

Add a line over or around Lake WAshington, add the BNSF line north-south on the East Side, and we would have a great rapid transit system like the ones you will see in the map books or at urbanrail.net, showing systems of other cities.

It's only with this universal coverage that the whole thing becomes so useful that basically everyone rides it for lots of trips a year and sees the expense is offset by personal savings. Without this universal coverage, is particularly screws the neighborhoods that get taxed for 20-50 years but can't access the system.

What we seem to be proposing here in ST2 is half or a a third of a good regional system. Just one long line north-south that leaves out half of Seattle (W. Seattle, Seattle Center, Ballard). Plus one line e-w that goes to the east side Bellevue and Redmoind, maybe, but leaves out Kirkland, Renton, and most of the east side. Sad, becaus we have an existing right of way (low hanging fruit) of the BNSF line which is also connectable up to Evertett and around to Southcenter.

So our plan is to connect Fife and Mill Creek before Ballard, Seattle Center, West Seattle, Renton and Kirkland, and Southcenter. But to tax all those places. Why would they vote to support it?

This is really a problem. It is not addressed adequately by personal attacks on anyone, or looking to the past.

Probably the 12/15/07 promised start date (thanks, Joel) of the failed monorail will cause varous retrospectives. There's a little piece in the PI today quoting Peter Sherwin.

The bitterest loss for me is the notion that even today, some folks still sem to believe that we can build 1/3 or 1/2 a system, that the loss of the green line monorail corridor isn't EVERYONE's problem, and that we can get voters to support ST expansion without being transparent about finances andwithout having a good and deep discussion of costs and benefits.

Or that we can win at the polls without a strong across the board pro rapid transit coalition. Just covering half the area that needs tobe served = half a coalition = loss atthe polls?

Study the maps of other cities. Ask yourself if any of those systems could have been built if the voters were told that the DC system would only have two lines (leaving out NW DC and Northern Virginia and the Capitol, for example) or if a NYC system would make sense if it just included the Bronx and Manahattan, but tried to tax everyone including all of the folks in Queens and Brooklyn?

It's about a system that takes everyone pretty much everywhere. It's about building coalitions. It's about getting something if you pay the tax versus not getting something.

How do we get there if we only plan half a system?

I've been on the Lisbon Metro and it's great. Sparkling clean stations and cheap fares (70 euro cents, anywhere in the city). It's because the national government heavily subsidizes rail transport in Portugal--not a bad idea.

This month? HAHAHAHA riiiiiiiiiiight

They would still be scratching their heads over how to get the rails over the water once Plan A exposed its problems... if the hold-up squabbling hadn't continued past the 2005 vote.

Some of us have tried to piece together a system which could cover the entire Sound area - click my name to see a proposed alignment of possible routes which would cover the East and West Sides, the North and South ends, and basically connect the region with a system.

Presently, if I want to enjoy the Ballard Art Walk (a great art walk, btw), and I take the bus, it takes an hour. If I drive and park near Building C, it takes 20 minutes. Which transit mode is actually more efficient? My vehicle carbon footprint is small enough and my time valuable enough that the car option is and will remain a valid and useful option. Unless....and here's where our transit leaders come in...

I think ST and the PSRC need to sit down, stand way back and see what kind of system does cover the region and come up with a finance and construction timetable which returns an investment to the Puget Sound community in less than a lifetime. Waiting for 20 years to get to the end of a proposed line is simply not acceptable. Having a finance plan longer than a normal mortgage, or a taxing authority longer than a mortgage is also simply not acceptable.

The idea that commuters who live some fair distance from Downtown or the UW and can get there in half the time that residents who live in the city is also a stopping point. I live 6 miles from downtown and about 10 from the UW. I should be able to get to either of these locations in a reasonable time. I can do that now by car in 10 minutes for DT and 15 for UW. By express bus it's still only about 15 to DT but at least 40 to UW. That's not good transit and until we actually have effective and time-guaranteed transit, most folks are still going to choose their cars because even if gas is expensive, time is more expensive.

I gave my Mafioso-leaning "uncle" the coffeetable book "John Deere: History of the Tractor" for Chanukah this year. The color of the cover matched his favorite shirt, I couldn't resist.

Amen Gomez - there's not a snowballs chance in hell that the monorail would have come on line this month. My question is why don't they include (or do they?) the map of the system Seattle is ACUALLY BUILDING? Like right now? That will be running in 2009?

You assume it will be running in 2009.

perhaps the unbiased authors saw the greenline as an urban transit system whereas the DT to airport shuttle, not so much

Well said, Chas.

I lived in Lisbon for 3 years and loved the transit system. Besides the Metro (the subway map which you shared with us) there are busses, streetcars, "elevadors" (trams climbing the 2 steepest hills), and trains to the 'burbs. The only parking in the center of the city was pay lots, so it made so much sense to take public transit. To drive into the city was a 2 Euro toll, each way, from just outside the city, ranging up to 10 Euros from the furthest suburb. The cost for the train from the furthest suburb was abou 1 Euro, and there was security everywhere. The most fun I had on the train was coming back from Cascais after watching Portugal lose to Greece in the EuroCup (soccer) in 2004. It was an amazing train ride with train cars packed with drunk, crying fans. I've never experienced anything like it before or since.

I'm living in Lisbon right now, sitting at the convergence of those lines at the south as I write (Baixa). It is indeed very well-connected here, I hear complaints about the system all the time, but I can get anywhere I want quickly and haven't the slightest need for a car. Universal car ownership is still somewhat a novelty of Lisboners though, so they don't all appreciate the transit yet....personally I'd have to have a Smart if I drove here, they're just so perfectly scaled for this city...

#17 The same thing happened to me a couple months ago when the Celtics were playing in town, the already-crowded subway pulled into a station and a sea of green-clad English-speaking folk poured onto the train while carrying half-consumed open pitchers of beer and liquor. Never seen anything like it before.

The monorail was such a fucking joke, that tihng was never going to open, then never even put shovel to earth, and had no idea how to build the system.

@19, unless you're referring to the Boston NBA team, it's "Celtic," singular.

Apropos to interesting Transit maps (and to map geeks throughout the universe) here's a diversion certain to put a smile on a few faces.

The real issue with the monorail was that it was financed with a progressive tax. That doomed it. There's a lot of muttering about other stuff, but all that would have been gotten past if not for the tax structure.

It was cheap (14 miles for a fixed cost bid of 1.5 billion) fast (separate right of way, something that defines the "rapid" in "rapid transit") and didn't require anyone to invent anything (hey PRT - that's *you* we're talking about :-).

But it's pretty clear the fact that a couple of rich guys would have had to shell out a little extra money on their SUV fleets meant it was never gonna happen.

Sound Transit works cause it's built on top of money extracted preferentially from the poor and middle class.

You *really* want transit in this town? Figure out how to charge it all to the working poor. Now *that* would be a public policy innovation worthy of the label :-)

@23 - well, yes, part was the tax, part was the powers that be being jealous that they didn't think it up, and part was the powers that be on the transit and roads side being jealous that their funding sources might be used for transit that people wanted that wasn't under their control.

Gomez and Andrew should park their anti-monorail hostility down in the dead-cow patch that is Lewis County.

Seattle voters were duped by Nickels, who worked overtime to kill the monorail. Joel Horn and Tom Weeks should be in jail for their arrogance and incompetance. But the real evil was accomplished by a Seattle system that allows, even after 3 votes, projects to be recalled (monorail won that vote too) and badgered to death. If we continue to allow, or force, every public project to be voted upon by citizens who are not equipped to understand complex engineering, urban planning, or transportation possibilities, our righteous Seattle will sink right into Elliott Bay.

Monorail did not fail due to technology. Seattle monorail failed due to process, competition, and frivolous lawsuits. While taxpayers wail about what they got for the $123 million they paid out for monorail taxes ($60 million in land, $20 million for engineering, design and planning, and $43 million in lawsuits!!), the same damn problems make every other transit project bloat beyond recognition. Sound Transit is the most expensive light rail project in the world -- and we allow that one to continue because 1) the Board is untouchable, and 2) the costs are so well hidden.

In the end, Seattle's Monorail still "wins" when compared with the mayor's cut & cover tunnel and Prop 1: on it's last and final vote, monorail got more votes than either the tunnel or Prop 1, and got 5.14% higher percentage than the tunnel. That's notable, since the tunnel was the primary reason Mayor Nickels wanted the monorail killed, perhaps believing the taxpayers were stupid enough to kill one in order to tax themselves for his folly.

But in any case, monorails continue to get built all over Asia and Europe. Just as Asian and European automakers continue to bring innovation and fuel economy to cars, Asian and European monorail manufacturers continue to innovate and make affordable mass transit. Meanwhile, Detroit and US light rail trainmakers continue to foist 19th Century technology down our throats, and we wearily beg for more.

There were many mistakes made with the monorail, but the biggest was that they let the anti-monorail advocates fight over the total cost of ownership and nobody called them on it.

When you buy a house, you talk about the price of the house. You negotiate and have your discussions around the price of the house. You don't talk about what you will pay over the course of your 30 year mortgage PLUS the maintence costs over those 30 years.

How much did it cost to build Safeco field? 500 million. What is the total cost of ownership for Safeco field? I Don't know and I don't want to know.