Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, July 26, 2011
City Surface/Transit Causes What, Alex?
Posted by Dominic Holden on Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 4:05 PM
As if telling the "complete lie" that the tunnel project would also magically fund buses was not enough, pro-tunnel campaign Let's Move Forward is now harping that a surface/transit/I-5 replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct would cause "surface-street gridlock."
Using pro-tunnel messages crafted by spokesman Alex Fryer, the group says surface/transit/I-5 would "transform the waterfront into a choked boulevard and lock downtown in traffic." Fryer is trying to link surface/transit/I-5 to the unpopular mayor by running ads all over websites that say, "McGinn's surface-gridlock option is not an option."
What is an option? The tunnel, of course. Gridlock woes be gone!
There's one problem: Alex Fryer's campaign is lying to you—again.
Dan Bertolet at CityTank has built on past reporting on the tunnel (here, here, and here) that compares congestion of various construction proposals using the state's data. He begins, "If we assume for the moment that the only thing that matters in the world is traffic congestion, then the key metric is vehicle hours of delay (VHD). The table below shows the FEIS’s projected VHD in 2030 for the tolled tunnel, the tolled elevated, the I5-surface-transit option (ST5), and closing the viaduct." Here's Bertolet's graphic:
- CityTank
- Vehicle hours of delay (VHD) in 2030 for various options; source: WSDOT
A few things pop out. First, ST5 is the clear winner when it comes to mitigating congestion in Seattle’s city center. Note that ST5 is the very plan that the pro-tunnel “Let’s Move Forward” campaign has disparaged as “McGinn’s surface gridlock.” Also, given the numbers showing that ST5 is a better performing solution for downtown Seattle than the State’s preferred tunnel option, it’s ironic that the Downtown Seattle Association is the largest single contributor so far to Let’s Move Forward.
Read the whole Alex-Fryer-debunking thing.
1
One thing to note is the missing piece of this whole puzzle: transit. LMF ignores what we have and need downtown. What we do have, and are getting more of, is transit.
By 2016, tens of thousands more people will be using Link. And many more by 2022. Add to this the expansions of RapidRide, the streetcar network and (hopefully) more local buses and you see that the project area of the AWV replacement program will be offering a transit capacity increase that is far greater than the amount of capacity offered by the tunnel.
Why is this important?
Well, the argument is about how the core interferes with regional circulation. And since the core is increasing its use of transit and we're offering much more of it, we'll start to see the core less tangled and less of an obstruction to cars than WSDOT is proposing. In fact, nowadays less than half of all downtown workers actually drive to work. And so many more tourists are taking Link from the airport to get there.
The gloomy picture of gridlocked doom that LMF is painting is a faithless and wrongheaded indictment of Seattle, a city that built itself on innovation. They don't trust us to do anything but business as usual, which is probably why they're mostly funded by business.
LMF is advocating obstruction of innovation.
By 2016, tens of thousands more people will be using Link. And many more by 2022. Add to this the expansions of RapidRide, the streetcar network and (hopefully) more local buses and you see that the project area of the AWV replacement program will be offering a transit capacity increase that is far greater than the amount of capacity offered by the tunnel.
Why is this important?
Well, the argument is about how the core interferes with regional circulation. And since the core is increasing its use of transit and we're offering much more of it, we'll start to see the core less tangled and less of an obstruction to cars than WSDOT is proposing. In fact, nowadays less than half of all downtown workers actually drive to work. And so many more tourists are taking Link from the airport to get there.
The gloomy picture of gridlocked doom that LMF is painting is a faithless and wrongheaded indictment of Seattle, a city that built itself on innovation. They don't trust us to do anything but business as usual, which is probably why they're mostly funded by business.
LMF is advocating obstruction of innovation.
2
And now Alex Fryer has $60,000 from the Seattle Tunnel Partners with which to spread those lies.
He could put his lies on dollar bills and hand them out to Seattle voters, with a little "<3 Tutor Perini" or "xoxo Dragados" written on each one.
Don't like this? www.protectseattlenow.org/donate
No money? Volunteer! protectseattlenow@gmail.com
He could put his lies on dollar bills and hand them out to Seattle voters, with a little "<3 Tutor Perini" or "xoxo Dragados" written on each one.
Don't like this? www.protectseattlenow.org/donate
No money? Volunteer! protectseattlenow@gmail.com
3
And because we've talked about this elsewhere, climb aboard the debunk train ('cuz Seattle loves transit, get it?):
So here's the arguments you're about to hear from pro-tunnelers:
"Bertolet misinterprets things" with a highly distorted quote that Bertolet DID in fact address as part of his broader argument, proving that the person didn't actually read his piece
"ST5 is impossible because you don't want it bad enough" even though numbers show that it's a pretty damn good option that saves the city and state hundreds of millions of dollars WITHOUT tolling people unnecessarily... why save money and better serve necessary trips when people just don't want it badly enough?
"But it DOES cause gridlock!" even though, of course, the numbers disagree.
"Social engineering" which is also evident in tolling as proposed by WSDOT. But that, like, totally doesn't count.
4
Any clarification on why different groups like Downtown Seattle et. al. have come down the way they have? If they are endorsing against their own traffic interest, what is the motivation? Increased property value with bettter views? More foot traffic? What?
5
If you hate Seattle, hate Transit, and don't live in Seattle, you'll love the Deeply Borrowed Tunnel.
Mind you, you don't get to vote on it, cause only Seattle Citizens get to vote on it.
My guess is it's so bad they're looking at a 2:1 No:Yes vote and it will go down for the count as the voters pop the air out of the Boondoggle Balloon.
Mind you, you don't get to vote on it, cause only Seattle Citizens get to vote on it.
My guess is it's so bad they're looking at a 2:1 No:Yes vote and it will go down for the count as the voters pop the air out of the Boondoggle Balloon.
8
Aww, Baconcat, you know that virtually everything that I ever said was bad about the Tunnel of Terrible Tragedy has been proven somewhere in the Final EIS draft ...
I just boil it down to a sound bite.
And then the Billionaires and Millionaires try to pretend it isn't there, even though it is.
I just boil it down to a sound bite.
And then the Billionaires and Millionaires try to pretend it isn't there, even though it is.
9
The predictions of downtown gridlockalypse (that one's free) seem to employ the Yogi Berra-ish logic of "it's going to be bumper-to-bumper for miles, no one's going to come down here anymore."
10
<3 U WILL!!!!!
@9: Oh my god, Gridlockalypse! We fucking love having snarky ocalypse names here for overblown nonevents!
@9: Oh my god, Gridlockalypse! We fucking love having snarky ocalypse names here for overblown nonevents!
11
Does S/T still pave over the waterfront with 6 lanes of stop and go traffic?
It does?
Ok, thanks, doesn't look like anything new has happened since I last checked in.
It does?
Ok, thanks, doesn't look like anything new has happened since I last checked in.
12
@10 - I can only hope—like the carved wooden canoe in Paddle to the Sea—Gridlockalypse will complete its journey from the Slog estuary where I'm placing it, to the wide-open ocean of shitty journalistic colloquialisms.
13
I don't live in Seattle, and I don't know how your city is laid out, so feel free to ignore me and label me troll. I live in Houston, and work among some of the biggest oil and oilfield service companies in the world. And... the oil is running out. World crude and world net exports both peaked in 2005ish, so we're more than half a decade past peak.
Higher prices for oil means fewer drivers, and very likely a scramble for fuel efficient transit options like buses, electrified rail, jeepney, what have you. This tunnel thing sounds like a bad idea in any case, but a truly staggering misallocation of resources in the future we are staggering into. Peace out, all 'a ya'll pot smoking gay art students.
Higher prices for oil means fewer drivers, and very likely a scramble for fuel efficient transit options like buses, electrified rail, jeepney, what have you. This tunnel thing sounds like a bad idea in any case, but a truly staggering misallocation of resources in the future we are staggering into. Peace out, all 'a ya'll pot smoking gay art students.
14
@11 - the tunnel and surface/transit do exactly the same thing on the waterfront. Exactly. The. Same. Same amount of traffic, same amount of lanes. So isn't the sane thing to do to pick the one that's nearly a billion dollars cheaper?
15
@14: When I last check the S/T plan a few months ago, it paved over the waterfront with a 6 lane arterial. If that's changed, please link to the new plan. Otherwise, please stop lying.
And, given the remote possibility that there's anyone here who cares about actual facts as opposed to cherry picked ones, Bertolet forgot to mention that the very slight decrease in downtown congestion from S/T comes at the cost of increasing regional congestion. When you look outside the downtown core, S/T results in a net increase in VHD. Oops.
I'm sure Dan made an honest mistake. Otherwise, we'd have to conclude his report is yet another ridiculously transparent piece of S/T propaganda.
And, given the remote possibility that there's anyone here who cares about actual facts as opposed to cherry picked ones, Bertolet forgot to mention that the very slight decrease in downtown congestion from S/T comes at the cost of increasing regional congestion. When you look outside the downtown core, S/T results in a net increase in VHD. Oops.
I'm sure Dan made an honest mistake. Otherwise, we'd have to conclude his report is yet another ridiculously transparent piece of S/T propaganda.
16
@16: Clarification regarding VHD - what Dan's analysis shows is that more people will circumvent the downtown core, resulting in longer travel times, even though the relative delay on those longer routes might be lower than going through the downtown core.
As an example - let's say it's 12 noon, and I want to go from Montlake to Medina, and there's a backup on the 520 bridge because a car stalled. If I take the bridge, I'll get there in 20 minutes, although my VHD will be very high. If I go around the north end of the lake, my trip is 45 minutes, but my VHD would be comparatively low due to less traffic.
Dan's report merely demonstrates that S/T compels more people to take longer trips around the downtown core - or by analogy, to go around the north end of the lake.
As an example - let's say it's 12 noon, and I want to go from Montlake to Medina, and there's a backup on the 520 bridge because a car stalled. If I take the bridge, I'll get there in 20 minutes, although my VHD will be very high. If I go around the north end of the lake, my trip is 45 minutes, but my VHD would be comparatively low due to less traffic.
Dan's report merely demonstrates that S/T compels more people to take longer trips around the downtown core - or by analogy, to go around the north end of the lake.
17
@15 and a 6-lane arterial is different from a four lane plus 2 lane arterial how?
It isn't.
It's pretty much the same thing.
But with fewer stop lights for whiny car people.
It isn't.
It's pretty much the same thing.
But with fewer stop lights for whiny car people.
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