Comments on What They Said

Bus Rapid Transit??!?!

Can anyone really say that with a straight face?

The one place I think BRT could really work is across the I-90 bridges. Buses have separate ramps and drive in the (separate) HOV lanes all the way across.

You single solution people are all wet.

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.

Boston installed the 'Silver Line', a BRT system that tries to replace lost subway service that used to run to underserviced poor neighborhoods in the south of Boston. Its competing with traffic and snow makes it a complete hazard to try and board.

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.

Rapid mass transit is NOT created because some people want to get YOU out of your car. Rapid mass transit is created because of need from the majority of the people. Seattle is not there yet, despite what one might think, chose to believe, hope for, wish for, or think they know. Need is the Mother of invention as some say, and Need has not come to Seattle yet. Wishing, hoping, wanting, dreaming have come to Seattle, but need is still out there a few years. You think I'm wrong don't you. Ever take a look at the freeways and see all those people in their car, sitting there, wanting, wishing, hoping for mass transit? Have you? Those people want YOU out of your car so they can drive freely again. That won't bring rapid mass transit to Seattle. THOSE people will have to get out of their cars and max out the bus system, MAX IS OUT; then the next level of transit will be made. But it's still not painful to sit in traffic for most people. When the discomfort of sitting in their car is greater than the discomfort of sitting in a packed bus, then we will progress to a higher level of rapid mass transit.

@3 Will, I agree with you.

@3:

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.

Last night I sat in the HOV lane on 520 going about 5 miles an hour all the way from 405 to the water. If you change that into a BRT lane, how are those buses going to move any faster than Sound Transit currently does?

Sargon Bighorn,

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.

@9 We ARE painfully far behind.

Everybody find a Seattle voter who said 'No' in 1968 and 1970 and punch them in the face.

I watched a discussion on this subject on the Seattle Channel and those who proposed that all we really need are more buses were types that I never see on public transportation.

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

Greg @ 10

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

Thanks, @6 and @7 - which brings up a point - why are our State Reps and Senators in Seattle such wusses at demanding Seattle's due of King County bus service (our lines are profitable, we pay 40 percent of the tax, have 30 percent of the people, and get 20 percent of new bus service) - and why aren't our City Council and County Council speaking up for US?

Enough process - we want RESULTS NOW!

seattle mad libs:

(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!

kinkos, you do have to take into account the different political landscape that we do have here. Things can work here but the way the system is set up to make infrastructure improvements happen in WA, it is hard.

@14:

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!

Sargon,

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.

Remember when we had elevated transit downtown at the waterfront?

Bygones.

All this ranting on line about transit and just to think, all that time and data gone to waste.

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

Awwww, Cato. Can't we do both? :-)

I love mass transit. During my time with the military in Korea, it was sweet as hell to be able to stumble from a bar onto a cheap bus onto a cheap sub onto a cheap train onto another cheap bus and then back to my room without endangering a single life with my drunk ass. And because of the competition, cabs were pretty damn cheap too. Man, I miss it. Without it, I now spend the entire night balancing my desire to have a good time with the necessity of getting home without killing myself or others. We give the MADD-types just one more excuse to continue waging their war on booze, drunk drivers another reason to continue driving drunk, and just plain deprive ourselves of sheer convenience.