Can anyone really say that with a straight face?

Look, we need to DOUBLE ALL OF THE FOLLOWING:

Hybrid Bus
Electric Bus
Streetcars
Light Rail
Monorail
BRT (that's what Sound Transit is in some segments)
Commercial Passenger Rail (NOT in the underpopulated areas)

and last, but not least,

High Speed Passenger Rail (between major cities).

Travel, see the world, and realize this Seattle Process Discuss My Solution And Death To Your Solution is a total car-based waste of time.

The northern half of the Silver line runs to the airport in a dedicated underground tunnel. Midway the bus driver has to get out and remove the bus from the electric lines and switch over to gas. Complete insanity. Boston has had a rich rail history which has been completely mangled by mismanagement, cost cutting, and NIMBYism. It's a goddamn shame.

The "Seattle Process Discuss My Solution And Death To Your Solution" isn't just a car-based waste of time, it's how nearly all business is done here. The Puget Sound region needs a personality transplant. And this will only occur when the people choose politicians with a backbone.

It's a fool's errand to take a reactionary approach to infrastructural improvements. Laying down rail takes years and if we don't start soon then we'll be painfully far behind.

I think it's pretty clear that those who think more buses are the answer have NO INTENTIONS of EVER using public transportation.

I was thinking the same thing right after I made that post. We are the living example of reactionary transportation planning.

Enough process - we want RESULTS NOW!

(1) make a list of every single successful civic project and action

(2) make a list of every "constraint" that seattle faces that makes us so "special" and unlike any other city anywhere, ever.

(3) make a list of major "world-class" cities

(4) now, fill in the blanks:

our make it so that in SEATTLE, we could NEVER POSSIBLY do . it worked in but we're DIFFERENT!

I don't mean this to sound as cynical as it will sound, but... well... I don't think our elected officials do anything about increasing Seattle's share of King County transit service because... well... not enough of us are asking them about it. We get up in arms over pea patches and pot policy and where the pride parade will be held. Sometimes, we debate other things like renaming our county for Dr. King instead of Vice President King and whether the city should've banned concealed weapons in parks. And go us. These are things we should think about - but, we the people have an odd habit (especially here) of coughing up the ball when it comes to The Really Really Important Things.

I wasn't here for the Nisqually Earthquake, but why weren't people screaming about the viaduct right after it happened? I was sitting thousands of miles away in a geology lecture about a year after that quake, and we did a case study on how it's public knowledge that the viaduct was severely damaged, and how something should be done "soon, as in yesterday" about it. And suddenly, years later when I'm living here, one day all of Seattle turned around and said, "Oh, it ain't safe? Since when?" Same with 520. Same with Washington State Ferries (we didn't "suddenly" have a shortage of ferries... we've known this was coming for years). Same with King County Metro. Same with the monorail. It seems all of my examples are transit related, but that's just where my mind is now. :-)

But maybe nothing gets done because we don't demand it. We're still about pride parades and crappy June weather and fees to check bags on American Airlines flights. We're not about letting the mayor, the city council (all 9 members, since they're elected at-large), our representatives on the county council/state senate/state house, and the governor know exactly what we want and are absolutely desperate for.

I guess they aren't doing enough because... well... not enough of us are asking them. They're only accountable to us if we make them accountable to us.

Wow. That is a little more cynical than I intended it to be. Oh, well!

Seattle had mass transit 100 years ago. 40 years ago, we narrowly missed building a light rail system in 1968 that would have been completed more than 20 years ago.

It's not that we're not ready as a city, it's that we've made bad choices for decades, thanks to the wide availability of cheap oil, cheap land, and development policies that encouraged the wasteful use of both. We don't have any of those excuses anymore for continuing to make the wrong choices. We need to invest now across the board. Ideally we'd empower a transportation district with permanent taxing authority and stop the damnable public votes on every possible incremental advance. We're decades behind, and $700/year/resident behind compared to the national average.

Bygones.

Why don't you people do something about it instead of bitching on Slog like a bunch of little bitches?!?!?!?