fix seattle's transportation problem

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The 520 hell commute: stop it!

I’m currently stuck on the Eastside because a boat fell off a trailer on I-90 west bound and blocked traffic. That happened two hours ago and it’s still a mess out there. Looks like they are blocking some lanes so as to pull the boat out of the median. This sucks.

So, what have people been doing lately to fix our transportation problems? I don’t think streetcars are going to help the situation out on the freeways. Anyone?

Joni Earl, CEO of Sound Transit, will be available for a small group discussion (first come first serve) with interested folks on Monday, February 13th from 6:30 – 8:30 pm) at the Elliot Bay Bookstore Café (it’s downstairs). Might be an interesting opportunity to talk about transit in Seattle and the greater region.

If you are interested, sign up here.

First, aquire a bicycle. You can find a fine used machine for under $200. Second, aquire a cellphone, install a nice mini web browser (Opera Mini works great) and add this web link to your bookmarks:

http://www.google.com/gwt/n?_gwt_noimg=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftripplanner.metrokc.gov%2Fcgi-bin%2Fitin_page.pl%3Fresptype%3DU

Or go to:

http://www.google.com/gwt/n
type in “tripplanner.metrokc.gov”
click “no images” and select “go”
click on the little link “trip planner” halfway down the page. It goes to the above address.

Now, wherever you are in the city, all you need to do is pop out your cell phone, enter your location and your destination, and that page will tell you what to do. You can no longer feign ignorance of the public transit system.

Use your bicycle when you can. Use the bus when you have to.

Gary Manca’s link to the writer who proposed Bus Rapid Transit is very cogent.

Let’s face it. Seattle can’t build a Skytrain or a MAX for the same amount of money as YVR and PDX, respectively, did (adjusting for inflation) because of our goofy, complex geography.. which creates this side effect of the city being so immediately pretty and quaint that we so love.

We can’t just pave the water with cement. This is my main beef with people who just say “Shuh! just BUILD it.” You try it, then. If we can’t stop people from expressing frustration at a drawbridge going up, how are we going to solve building road-free transit cheaply? Adjacent bodies of water make that a bit difficult. Portland has one river. Vancouver has a “false creek.” Both cities are generally flat in the urban centers. Seattle has many hills everywhere in its urban centers.

“But look what San Francisco did!”

San Francisco’s BART only runs on a sliver of the city itself - the least hill-y parts. Granted, it took a lot of money to make it go underwater, underneath the Oakland/Bay bridge - I won’t deny that feat. But the rest of BART runs throughout the Bay Area to the East Bay and further on, you guessed it, flat areas.

Seattle lacks much flat areas in its urban centers.. in fact, the flattest areas are outside the main urban centers here.

Am I saying that the monorail budget costs were justified? Heck no! On the other hand, it’s naive to think that any large rapid-transit project in Seattle is just a piece of financial cake you can get from K-mart.

However, this was all a bit of a digression to my main point, which is: while there’s always room for improvement, and while there are many projects underway that have temporarily closed certain thoroughfares like the downtown bus tunnel, there has been fixing of the transportation “problem” in town. Between Sound Transit, Community Transit, and King County Metro, there have been a lot of positive changes to the bus system. Buses run more often, and they are running smarter routes than ever before.

I can’t stress enough that America has this fixation on “bus” being a dirty word, and that buses can never be “real” public transit. Having been able to traverse Seattle - to even out-of-the-way places - using the Seattle bus authorities, I have to laugh at the people who forgo buses because they’re not some form of magical public transit that looks really neat.

My other main point is: a monorail would be more a city development rather than a solution to a transportation problem. I supported the Monorail, fully knowing that it wouldn’t have solved any transportation issues—at least right away. However, a well-planned monorail, with hopes of a feasable budget would have made for a great city development that would have improved the morale and economy of the city. So, for those latter reasons alone, it’s too bad the project died.

But as for a monorail fixing any transportation problems? That was just stuff made of dreams.

I was more or less OK with paying the monorail tax back when there was a monorail project, but now it seems cruel. I’m paying an extra $289 for my car tabs this year just to pay down the debt accrued by the monorail project. Of the rest of the total, $62 is going to Sound Transit, and $43.75 is for the vehicle registration (thanks to that miserable wretch, Tim Eyeman.)

Is that screwed up or what?

But I’m not personally that concerned with transportation in Seattle. It works great for me as I walk, bike or take cabs most the time. Rock on, Seattle!

I think we just need some good ol’ fashioned volcano churnin’ to keep the Seattle population at bay!

Rumble, mighty mountain, rumble!

(For the fine folks in Tacoma, Orting, Spanaway, etc., I’m kidding. “LAHAR HAR HAR”? Please put the guns away. I love you guys. Thank you)

...

Well, either that or we need another economic crash.

(KIDDING!... AGAIN!)

I started becoming ambivalent about this goal as I spent time thinking about it and concluded that 1. there aren’t that many bad problems with traffic IN Seattle. Most of them involve suburban commuters coming in and out of the city. And 2. the traffic is really a testimony to the attractions of the city. The real “problem” is the lack of options to getting stuck in traffic at certain times, but to be honest, living and working in Seattle, I rarely have a real problem with traffic.

Finally, with the defeat of the monorail, I feel like the voters have spoken and said, basically, they care more about low taxes than congestion. So who cares. I still love Seattle, but I hate our politics.