A cure for congestion that's simple and cheap (and doomed)
Most cures for congestion come in billion-dollar packages, since it's easier for politicians to evade hard choices by instead throwing lots of money at the problem. An example of a simple, cheap (but politically radioactive) cure for congestion is to start replacing curbside parking with lanes for buses, bikes, and pedestrians. A pithy case for doing just that, as New York is trying to do, is "No Parking, Ever'" by Hope Cohen, deputy director of Manahattan Institute's Center for Rethinking Development. It's full of common sense.
First of all, not all parking lanes. Cars get shifted to narrow streets of the residential areas (first political fire alarm); or, you might do as they do in Europe and convert vacant lots into cheap car-parks. Secondly, there's some shared sacrifice, such as banning sidewalk cafes in very congested areas and eliminating some bus bulbs. We'd probably have to allow the parking lot barons to build more ugly garages.
The political objections accumulate from lots of vocal groups, such as merchants or the anti-car crowd (who fear more traffic mobility), but the benefits would be very broad. Bus rapid transit, for instance, the usual preferred solution over light rail, can only really be rapid if buses have exclusive lanes. Take those lanes away from cars and you have a big fight. So take them away from parked cars. Same with bike lanes.
But just try. Mayor Paul Schell, as I recall, got this idea and managed after much arm twisting to get maybe two blocks, on Madison near Boren, freed up. The current battle is along Aurora, which hopes to free up lanes for bus rapid transit and is running into howls from merchants. The next battle will be downtown, where the alternative solution to a new Viaduct is to put more north-south traffic coursing through Western, First, and Second Avenue, gaining that capacity by erasing curbside parking.
It probably won't happen, and we'll all blame the spineless politicians. But the fault lies with us, not having put together a coalition to push for such a simple idea. And one more thing: There are no real economic beneficiary groups for such a simple, low-cost solution, except maybe parking lot operators (whom we must scorn). Compare that to the economic interests in light rail, and you get an idea why good, affordable, commonsensical ideas are so often doomed.
Comments:
Posted Tue, Aug 19, 12:41 p.m. inappropriate
Pedestrian hostile: Ban sidewalk cafes? That suggestion belies the real problem with this approach: parked cars are an important buffer between dangerous (and uncomfortable) street traffic and pedestrians.
I was hoping, based on the the excerpt teaser, you were going to recommend limiting the amount of parking spaces of any sort available, thereby reducing the attractiveness of single-occupant cars as a transportation option.
Posted Tue, Aug 19, 4:52 p.m. inappropriate
As for the sidewalk cafes, the ban would be rare, mostly in places like Times Square where the sidewalk crowding is intolerable and spilling out into the street. We probably already have laws restricting cafes where they create a bottleneck.
Posted Tue, Aug 19, 5:32 p.m. inappropriate
Urbs Are Dead: This is not an issue in Kent...or Redmond...or Issaquah.
It's only the dense inner core of the rotting inner city where all these "problems" occur.
When you think about it, inner cities are money hogs. There's all this effort spent to try and remake them, when you can do the same thing in a suburb (exurb) for much less money.
What we should do is evacuate the inner cities...as in, stop building there, and relocate all businesses and government organizations to the hinterland.
Then, plow down the abandoned buildings and turn Seattle into a suburb of equal design to the ring exurbs.
Posted Wed, Aug 20, 6:32 a.m. inappropriate
Building Coalitions: Bus lanes and the like are a key part of making bus rapid transit work, and solving our transportation problems with a solution that won't both bankrupt us and make us dependent on the providers of the wrongheaded (Sound Transit) choice we made in 2008.
But bus lanes don't have to happen everywhere to start. If they are, in fact, a good idea, those areas that choose them will benefit and others will follow. This is actually most important in the details, IMO - what particular configuration of bus lane and ammenity provides the best value.
The Aurora debate is an important one. Parking in the Aurora strip Business District is important and taking a way that lane would be, in my mind, a taking.
About the time this first came up an amenity addition that might've made bus lanes work on Aurora (I suggested it) was tested in West Seattle's Admiral neighborhood. A long time business was relocating their somewhat industrial use out of that evolving neighborhood and was seeking to build a senior housing project on the site. The idea was to build a park and ride lot on the lower levels of this building. The idea had broad based support, including from Councilmember Richard Conlin, in his early days in office.
Unfortunately there was a faction in the environmental community that thought building a parking garage anywhere was a sin and they were able to kill this small, meaningful project - while downtown 'density' projects just went on ahead.
Building coalitions is important. So too is not giving credibility to activists who can't make a reasonable decision, math wise or otherwise.
Most importantly, you don't throw innovative people with a solid foundation in financial prudence in jail. Arresting people for harrassment when you ask a government employee to control themselves, and their spending, is itself a crime.
We need to hold our government employees accountable to the same standards they hold us.
Practically, this is tough - you need to both make whole those damaged previously and apply the law in a more responsible fashion. Somewhere between saving victims and holding defended perpetrators accountable there is a balance point of law.
But the most difficult part is the legal profession - the folks that should be solving the problem are the root of it - if not of all abuse, including sexual.
We need to rein in the powers of this group - including their ability to 'harass' through very powerful economic means. We also need to remember that these folks don't own the constitution - they lease it, and at a cost of defending it.
And this is an improvement that will benefit everyone - consider for example the recent debate about publically paid representation of divorce and child matters. I think this idea has merit, but if we were to also hold Lawyers accountable for the violation of constitutional rights of the unrepresented then that cost would be much less...
Face the facts, 'authority' in this state is rife with the cancer of unconstitutional harrassment, including in the workplace. Like with a gansta packing an Uzi you don't back down from these violations you step up - even if it means a large 'nationalization' of the legal profession.
It's a simple choice. Maybe even the bus people will be in support - drivers and riders.
-Douglas Tooley
My Blog
Posted Wed, Aug 20, 4:01 p.m. inappropriate
Almost, but not quite: The first poster's suggestion exacerbates the problem.
Make bus service more attractive and riders will come. Riders will NOT come when you make it more difficult to park your car. The only thing you accomplish by doing that is creating a vocal, entrenched, and very powerful opposition movement against transit-dedicated lanes.
The solution is to require adequate off-street parking for all new development that is not served by excellent bus service. Pass this tomorrow and you see two impacts:
(1) Developers will skew development to areas already well-served by transit. This is something officials have been trying to do and failing for some time.
(2) Developers (Kemper Freeman are you listening?) will quit opposing transit service proposals. Without them, their costs of building go up and their profit goes down.
I admit the initial thought that more parking leads to better bus service seem contradictory, but when you think it through (especially when you think about where the opposition comes from to things like the Aurora BRT and monorail proposals) it becomes obvious.
Posted Mon, Sep 1, 10:52 a.m. inappropriate
Brewster's nugget: Seattle should reconsider parallel parking to make transit, freight, and bicycles flow better. Its comp plan calls for more bicycle riding AND transit riding. To date, it has created bike lanes through road diets: shifing four-lane arterials to three-lane arterials. The last big fight was over Stone Way North.
The commenters are correct: parallel parking is important as a buffer for pedestrians from traffic and for business access. There are alternative ways to buffer. In Europe, bollards are common. Bike lanes could buffer as well. Bike lanes do not interact well with either car doors or bus stops.
Freight and transit must use arterials with wide turning radii. Cars and bikes have more flexibilitiy in routing.
Mayor Schell got more from Madision Street than Brewster said. Parallel parking is restricted for much of the north side on First Hill. Small businesses on the south side are more dependent on parallel parking, as they do not have off street lots. The 1994 restriping of the arterial to add two-way left turn lanes slowed it for transit.
Seattle has installed many three-lane profiles and always maintained the car storage of parallel parking. Brewster is correct to call for a braver approach. Consider the major arterials put on road diets: Broadway, Madison Street, North 45th Street, California Avenue SW, Delridge Way SW, Phinney-Greenwood avenues North, 24th Avenue NW, Eastlake Avenue East, Stone Way North, Dexter Avenue North.
How many three-lane profiles do you find in Vancouver BC? almost none. In general, on transit arterials, Seattle is devoting too much lane space to turning and too much curb space to car storage. Admittedly, the three-lane profile is good for left turners and for pedestrian crossing safety. There are difficult tradeoffs.
Each arterial should be considered independently. The optimal striping depends upon the right of way width, business community, transit use, pedestrian volume, and traffic.
The change need not be as stark as suggested. Suppose parallel parking was retained on one side with bus bulbs and eliminated on the other side. Bike lanes are more important uphill, where the speed differential is greater between modes. Bus bulbs are more important on the inbound side, where larger numbers of passengers wait.
Consider a few examples: Madison Street on First Hill, Broadway, Eastlake Avenue East, and Stone Way North. On each, there could be a four-lane profile, a bike lane in one direction and sharrow in the other, and parallel parking and bus bulbs in the direction without the bike lane. On Stone Way North, the bike lane could be northbound on the east or uphill side. On Eastlake Avenue East, the alignment could shift at East Lynn Street, with the bike lane provided uphill on the east side south of East Lynn Street and uphill on the west side north of East Lynn Street. Broadway is a key transit arterial and business district. The two-way left turn lane makes all the bus stops into bus traps with traffic blocking the bus re-entry into flow.
SDOT has restricted parallel parking on Aurora Avenue North north of North 80th Street. Only the business district between Winona Avenue North and North 80th Street depends on parallel parking for short term access.
Where parallel parking is restricted, could side streets be converted to one-way with diagonal short term parking to mitigate the loss of arterial parking?
Posted Thu, Oct 9, 9:40 a.m. inappropriate
Someone finally suggested banning curbside parking!: As a lifelong pedestrian and bus rider, it has become very clear to me over the past couple of years that banning curbside parking would really help with many traffic problems. I've been talking it up in my own way ever since, and it's really great to see this subject discussed more widely.
One of the situations that got me started thinking about this was the extensive work done on the Fremont Bridge approaches. During much of that time, curbside parking was banned on the block of Fremont that's just north of the bridge. I walk or ride the bus by there every weekday. It was so clear that every aspect of traffic flowed a lot smoother with no curbside parking. Then I started to look at some of the other streets I'm familiar with. I noticed how much better traffic was on those occasions when curbside parking was banned temporarily.
I'm not talking about banning curbside parking on every street, 24 hours a day. I'm just saying that it could be a great part of traffic improvement if used wisely.