This post is a smart way to persuade voters to spend more money on public transit.

Maybe in next post you might suggest making private car ownership illegal?

"You'll go where and when the State tells you, citizen..."

"Fuck that noise, asshole. I've got a car!"

Well said, Charles. Thank you!

Chuck,
I see you're back to the Viagra blue wash for your photos... Whatever puts the lead in your pencil. I guess. (But God it's ugly).

Maybe you could throw Cialis some props and feature a couple of bathtubs next time...

less analysis more synthesis.

what are you proposing? fees for entering downtown with a car, like in central London?

The problem being that if in a democracy/democratic republic, if the state imposes an unpopular system, the state tends to get voted out.

IFF a really decent transit system was already in place, you might get away with fairly draconian but small no-drive or all-streets-tolled zones without causing the voters to snap, but overall, I can't imagine anything other than a gradualist approach would be tolerated.

I agree with you Charles...new technologies invent (or allow) new designs in living.

Pre-modern cities were situated on harbors and waterways, because of shipping trade.

Industrial cities were situated on rail lines (Chicago).

Modern cities were only possible with pre-stressed concrete and steel girder construction (New York).

The suburbs are possible with the rise of Private Transit -- the automobile (California).

What technologies will impact the 21st century?

These would be:

Cloud computing
Pervasive broadband
Robotic technology -- for cars and delivery

What does this spell? It spells an archipelago of spacious mini-farms, where each person, or family unit, has no need to "drive" only to be driven. Young people can be sent to the soccer field. The groceries can come to you. Students can sleep in an auto-pod for hours and end up at the state college of their choice.

The city of the future will not be a city...it will...farms!

http://you-read-it-here-first.com/viewto…

sniff, sniff...sniff...nah, this trollbait is tooo stinky, even for me!

Once again, you're too fucking lazy to talk about the hard, difficult work would actually be done.

What sort of campaign are you looking at? What has worked in the past? What hasn't? How long would it take, and what do the transitional phases look like? What pitfalls would you have to deal with on the way there?

Why in the fuck can't you be bothered to have this discussion? I get it, you hate cars. Great. What's next?

Unless you're willing to actually deal with these issues, your posts are nothing more than superficial rants.

Can some engineering of public transit remove the armed (even though barred from being so by laws regarding previous felony convictions) fare evaders or proliferation of armed criminals who hang out around the downtown bus stops ?

@11, police presence like any other normal city will reduce those problems.

The increasing shortage of the easy to reach fossil fuel along with rising prices at the pump will make people more amenable to public transportation. We've just got to have the political will to spend the money to make that public transportation option available to more people---Good luck with the Goober legislators in Olympia.

@11 can you make a sensical ontopic post?

@11: how do you know they're armed? are they open carrying?

@14, because they pull their guns out, you moron.

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014…
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Video…
http://www.fifthavenueseattle.com/2013/0…

Can we address the psychological manipulation/social engineering permitted by private, profit-driven corporations? Why no outcry of them manipulating your mind and social opinion for their private benefit? Psychological warfare is ok when done by companies??

Taking this seriously: @12 is right.

The automobile did not require "social engineering" to gain acceptance. That's nuts. Yes, there was some resistance to new technology, as there always is, until early adopters worked through the teething pains and the broader public was willing to (and could afford to, thank you Henry Ford) try them out. They were wildly, organically (bottom up) and in every free market sense successful, overnight. At the very least, on a local transit level.

Supplanting rail and shipping for long distance travel took longer as national-scale infrastructure (fuel and roads) required some government tinkering to become viable.

Public Transit consistently becomes popular as the value/utiltiy experienced by any individual traveler starts to compare favorably with the automobile. Safety (as noted above) is but one metric; cost is another very large one, and rising oil prices will probably what ends the reign of the automobile, at least for commuting. But the really big obstacle is private, point-to-point personal transportation - something public transit will never be, and automobiles are. That means the price differential has to get pretty big.

Top down mandates will have the opposite effect of what public transit advocates want.

"But the public transportation problem, for example, is not going to be solved by just building a system and waiting for people to use it."

Actually, that's exactly how the problem HAS to be solved. People choose public transportation because it meets physical, not psychological needs. I mean, transportation is just a means, right? So whatever most flattens the barrier between two higher priorities will get used.

When I lived in West Seattle I almost never took buses because they were too infrequent, inconveniently routed, and more expensive than a car. Now that I live nearer to downtown, I take buses all the time because they are convenient, nearby, and less expensive than the alternative. The state needs to find the will to build a public transportation system that provides a similar value shift for more people. Only then will they find broader support for that system.

@15: thanks for the links, asshole.

When Transit offers time saving compared to driving, people use transit. When transit takes twice as long as driving, people don't use it. I already work a 10 hour work day. It's going to be a tough sell convincing me to trade in my reverse commute (20 minutes each way, door to door) for public transit (1 hour each way, door to door). I'm just not willing to give up 7 1/2 more hours each week to use public transit.

IOW, War on Cars.

One strategy that would help in this regard is a policy that allows sound transit to build integrated TOD around stations, as happens in place like Singapore. Let's take a look a Beacon Hill Station. The station is almost entirely underground, yet the land on top of this station is basically wasted space.

We really do not need anymore wind swept plaza, bamboo, and benches with "bum deterrents".

Imagine if Sound Transit were allowed to develop the property above the station in an efficient and profitable way, say a 12 or more story residential/commercial building with integrated station entrances. The profit from this development could be put right back into expanding the system, plus we would be expanding the supply of affordable houses.

I have a sinking feeling that even Kshama Sawant would be opposed to this... but I hope I am wrong.

Automobility actually did provide vastly more freedom for people than what was available prior to it. Yes, you had to use marketing, but the end result was a massive personal, sexual and commercial revolution.

Just spending more money on marketing won't change the incentives, economic and otherwise, that make the vast majority of travel happen in single occupancy vehicles.

It's not just about easing congestion.

Take a look at the history of the subway system in NYC. Things were so congested, it was virtually impossible to get around, so the government built a transit system that bypasses the street as fast as they possibly could, while they completely skirted any responsibility to the workers who constructed the system, a number of whom died; this is why a similar feat could not be accomplished in this country today.

NYC is still a clusterfuck at rush hour, but if you want to bypass the mess, you can. In Seattle, unless you're traveling from downtown south, you can't bypass the traffic at all. Being stuck on a bus in bad traffic is worse than being stuck in a car, because a car can take the passing lane, doesn't have to stop every two blocks, and can reroute if necessary.

It's all about the pocketbook. For example, if you live in Redmond or Kirkland and work in downtown Seattle (without free/subsidized parking) you can pay almost $8 a day in tolls (or spend a lot of extra time avoiding them) and $20+ for parking downtown, nevermind your gas and car expenses. Or you can ride the bus for $3 each way.

Guess what? A whole lot more people are riding the bus these days. You have to make it painful enough to get people out of their cars.

@22
U R correct.
The Beacon Hill Station is a classic case of stupid government. It is so pathetic it makes me want to vote for some idiot Republican.

That's an interesting point. Social perception of public transit is def a thing to consider for improving use of it, besides just infrastructure. Would be curious to suggested approaches though.

I mean, saw the quote paste on cars getting marketed as freedom and safety machines - but what's a similar approach for the pros of public transit? I have not read much Stranger lately, but it seems like the articles I'm seeing are "This is an issue/thing!" "here are quotes!" but not saying much about that thing or ideas on how to improve. Is that how it is mostly?

And yet link light rail ridership steadily rises, and will continue to do so as the the Capitol Hill, U-District, Northgate, and Bellevue/Redmond extensions come online.

@Apotheosis: Social perception of public transit ...

It's just marketing, not rocket science. I won't bother making any specific pitches because I suck at marketing, but Metro and Sound Transit could pretty easily hire a professional advertising agency to help sell their services and boost ridership/revenue.

Christ, Charles. Fix the white balance on your camera!

Social engineering? Naw. I'm going to borrow a term I recently heard used in reference to the growing US soccer fan population: soft evangelism.

It's already happening on its own. What's popular among the kids these days? Driving a souped up charger with the hemi? Fuck no. Urban living. You make it cool, you make it palatable, you make it sexy.

But that's just what pushes it over the edge. Before any of that, the value proposition must be in place. My employer subsidizes my orca card, so my transportation is near-free. If it weren't for this, I might be driving or riding a motorcycle across 520.

If you told the average Microsoft, T-Mobile, Nintendo, or whatever is in Redmond these days employee "yo son, if you take the train instead of the car across the lake it will save you $4 and 20-50 minutes of commute time" I'm pretty damn sure everyone that has easy enough access to both terminals would jump on it crazy quick. Not a difficult sell.

Social engineering? No. A gentle nudge maybe, but don't scare off the noobs.

@30, Charles' camera has been like that since the day he bought it, despite literally hundreds of comments like yours. I don't think the problem is with the camera. More likely, as we used to say in law enforcement, it's a loose nut behind the wheel.

@22's right. Talking about making single-occupancy (or double-occupancy) vehicle travel more expensive and onerous won't make people take the bus. That's equivalent to saying the beatings will increase until morale improves.

Aggressive social engineering? Wow, do you people still call yourselves "liberals"? Progressives couldn't be further away from free will and liberty.

Camera's not broken, he just needs to adjust the settings.

But, who knows, maybe he's making some sort of statement about race

@35 is an unregistered right wing comment worth responding to. harrycarray says: "More government rules equals less freedom. Wealth creation is not a zero sum game but government intrusion vs freedom is...."

NOT true. It depends on the rules. Some countries cell phone companies are required to all use the same frequencies -- so an Android or iPhone bought on one carrier / company can be used on another. Cell phone coverage is better and cheaper than in the USA where the companies mostly have different non-compatible networks.

Same with healthcare. In many countries, government rules require everyone gets health coverage whether you have a job or not, paid for by taxes on your income if you're working, or premiums, or both, but picked up at other taxpayers' expense if you're not. In those countries, a worker is free to say "shove it" to a bad employer and not have to worry about getting sick.

Smart government rules actually increase individual freedom *in practice* especially for ordinary people. Of course, it can also work the other way... soviet style bureaucracy.

Social engineering is necessary to get the voters to want govt. to invest billions in mass transit infrastructure instead of car-centric infrastructure like Seattle's tunnel.

However, social engineering is not necessary to get 99% of people to use mass transit. If you build a great network, keep it clean, run it often so it's not to crowded and run it long hours, with a great network including lots of ways to get from point to point without always having to go downtown -- people will use it preferentially, because it will save time and time = money for everyone, even if it's never as comfy as a car. Look at Singapore, London, Seoul, Tokyo, NYC... the 99% prefer public transit, the break-even point for a taxi being preferential is when you are going someplace you can't get without lots of transfers, and for a car only if you have a private driver who deals with the hassles of traffic and parking.

Sadly USA even in NYC doesn't invest much in new mass transit infrastructure, smelly stations that are hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and no new lines between Queens - Brooklyn even though now the population of the boroughs exceeds that of Manhattan by many times and there's cool stuff happening in the boroughs. At least it's 24/7.

Of course, when cars for the middle class go driverless, this may change the calculus... but for the current time a good mass transit system is inherently superior for most people. The key is has to be good, and that requires major up-front investment.

got fuel to burn
got roads to drive

The only "social engineering" required to make mass transit a success is the failure of individual transit, i.e., the fact that driving yourself to work makes you waste hours of your life in stop and go traffic. Social cons, who are motivated by fear (such as the fear of sharing space with individuals who are not like themselves) would rather be stuck in traffic, and there isn't much you can do about them. (Nor should you.) But most people will realize that commuting via transit has many benefits - it's usually cheaper (especially for those who have to pay for parking, although depending on the commute one will also save the expense of gas and also more frequent maintenance due to the fact that one drives to work every day), it's less stressful if you're not the one doing the driving, and you can get some time to relax, read a book, or even nap. And if you have something grade separated, it won't get stuck in traffic and may be faster.

These benefits won't work for everyone, of course. Many places of employment aren't served well by transit. It's not worth it if you have to transfer multiple times, or spend a long time at a transfer point. If you have to walk a ways from the nearest stop, the likelihood of bad weather at certain times of the year makes it a lot less attractive. Personal safety is more of an issue at night, if that's when you have to commute. And of course, in Seattle's case, Metro has chronic problems with buses staying on schedule. One doesn't need to be a fool who equates cars with liberty to prefer driving oneself in those situations. These issues can be solved by improving service (routing transit closer to work, improving security, etc), which would make it more attractive. Dumb cons like to say "if you build it they won't come" but the success of light and commuter rail systems built in the past few decades prove them wrong. THEY won't come, but people motivated more by sense and less by fear will.

Charles' source seems to imply that automobile manufacturers cleverly changed the situation through marketing and lobbying. That's not entirely true. Suburbs began rising before the advent of the car (which we can pinpoint to the decade of the 1920s) - it was actually the streetcar which kicked off that phenomenon, as lines were built beyond city limits to nearby towns, which then began to build up with working class families. The car of course contributed to this, but it didn't start it. Suburbs were more a reaction to the crowded cities described in the passage Charles quotes than they were a result of corporate efforts. Car companies didn't possess that much foresight.

Still, they would later do something much worse. Car companies convinced cities nationwide to sell them their streetcar services, which of course they dismantled so that people would buy more cars. This was postwar, and concurrent with the construction of the first freeways. Perhaps the freeways can be seen as a form of social engineering, but the auto industry's actions were just a ruthless strategy to grow their market.

At the end of the day, social engineering, which implies a concerted attempt to manipulate the citizenry into a desired course of action, is probably too heavy handed and would likely result in a backlash. Governments should instead just improve transit to the point where it's the more attractive option, and enough people will choose it to make it worth while. Just beware of people like that Eastside developer (I'm forgetting his name, but the guy who owns Belleview Square) who resist it and use their wealth to fight it. Those people are the true social engineers.

Matt from Denver @40 FTW.

@40
Your urban history is so fucked up I won't even bother to correct you.

@40
"...the fact that driving yourself to work makes you waste hours of your life in stop and go traffic.."

This is a "fact" that does not pan out for me. When I drive to work I get there, on average, 50% faster than when I bus (at the same times of day).

The fact that riding public transportation to work makes me waste hours of my life at other peoples bus stops discourages me from riding the bus.