The case for more rail transit
The region has tried a largely bus solution for 40 years, and by now the capacity flaws are apparent. If we are really serious about building density, we need to lay more rails.
On a February day 40 years ago, just over 50 percent of metro-Seattle voters approved of Proposition 1. That was a plan to build 47 miles of electric rapid transit, with fast trains as often as every four minutes connecting every major hub in our region. Thanks to U.S. Sen. Warren Magnuson, D-Wash., a two-thirds federal contribution was secured and the region would only have paid $385 million, about $2.4 billion in 2008 dollars. The system would have opened in 1985 and been paid off last year.
At the time, though, a bond issue required 60 percent of the vote, so even with a majority, nothing could be built. The money earmarked for Seattle went instead to Atlanta. The long wait for rail began, and the case against it continues to be urged, more strongly than ever.
The anti-rail camp has all along used fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Detractors in 1968 called rail "inflexible" and labeled San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) plan "controversial." State Sen. Sam Guess, R-Spokane, promised a transit study committee for a bus alternative, but since a bus alternative would have meant giving up already full highway lanes, the bus plan floundered. With federal incentives spurring explosive suburban growth, the new American dream was in full swing, and those lanes were for Fords and Chevys.
The flexibility argument — that buses could follow shifting concentrations of passengers, unlike fixed rail — was always a straw man. (In practice, flexibility turns out to mean politically alterable, resulting mostly in slow, winding bus routes.) But nobody really thought our urban centers would pack up and move, requiring bus routes to follow them. Seattle's 1989 CAP initiative, limiting the height of Seattle office towers, did push some new construction to Bellevue. But even the iconic Smith Tower, completed in 1914 and long dwarfed by its Seattle neighbors, still has more stories than any of Bellevue's office towers. As highway money has dried up and oil prices have skyrocketed, development has shifted back to the city core.
Cities follow transportation. The ability to trade, in goods and ideas, is the primary driver of human development. Paris and London sit on rivers, Chicago on a lakeshore, Seattle alongside a storm-protected harbor. Fundamentally, cities develop to take in raw materials of every kind, then to add value by combining them into more specialized goods. Originally this meant iron ore, coal, and wood shaped into products and buildings. Now it also means software, genetic sequences, and circuitry.
These businesses and ideas don't occur in a vacuum. These ideas are brewed by discussions with the friend you run into at the coffee stand down the street. Every urban area's success is reliant upon its ability to foment face-to-face crossings between inventors and implementers, and these crossings happen proportionally to how dense and walkable our urban centers are.
Federal highway investment and other factors have long worked to shift these businesses from accessible but expensive downtown office buildings to widely spaced office parks. The diversity of experience in life and work was put in jeopardy and with it the United States' dominant role in innovation. Our urban vitality has been choked out by a lack of concentration.
We need to reverse this trend.
One key answer is rail transit. Forty years later, BART isn't so "controversial" after all, nor is Portland's MAX. Even here at home, our fledgling Sounder commuter rail will pull in well over 2 million passenger boardings in 2008. Rail isn't subject to the unreliability of highway congestion. People use it and people who want it demand new space to live and work near stations. Sound Transit's Link light rail is spurring thousands of new condos atop retail for the Rainier Valley, replacing vacant lots with dense development that offers a sure commute. The Sounder, with only commuter service during rush hours, is spurring development in Kent, where local government embraced it. Bellevue is already gearing up to develop near light rail a decade from now.
Buses have a key role as feeder services and in linking many smaller nodes. But they don't have the same concentrating effects, and so they alone cannot help us out of the pit we've dug with years of dispersed growth. We've proven that right here. While bus advocates won their battle in 1968, Seattle has created a system that may have saved some money but suffers from the unreliability of sharing lanes with traffic. We've had 40 years of trying to build a reliable bus-only transit system, only to bump into the political realities that prevent transit-only lanes or downtown roadways reserved for buses. Our transit system has fallen far behind our peers.
Crosscut recently ran three closely argued articles (1, 2, 3) by Doug MacDonald, the state's former transportation chief, making the case for only a modest component of rail, instead shifting much of the proposed money to bus rapid transit. Let me counter by pointing to two fundamental problems with his analysis.
Comments:
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 9:43 a.m. inappropriate
Sound Transit - an Example of the Corruption of Corporate America under Boomer Leadership: It isn't for me to say whether the Puget Sound should've invested in Light Rail 40 years ago. The fact is that the public expressed its will and the decision was made, period.
That 40 year period has also marked the zenith of the profitability, and usefulness, of the U.S. Corporate model. Sound Transit, and its two corporate counsel law firms, Preston Gates and Ellis/Foster Pepper Sheffelman illustrate those ills - as well as make a very strong case for the overreaching unprofitable Sound Transit organization.
PGE was lead counsel in the days leading up to the successful passage of the first funding package still in place (supported by this author, with the note that full promises have not been delivered). That firm no longer exists, probably thanks to the Abramoff scandal, though the matter has never been properly adjudicated.
Foster Pepper Sheffelman was selected as co-counsel in the early operating days and now rules that roost. Though different they are merely a reinvention of the same cycle of abuse practiced by PGE and its associates. The post monorail Prop 1 submittal is proof of that - and there is certainly more.
And unfortunately, so is the monopolistic Microsoft Corporation, irregardless of how much 'legal' justification they can muster.
Yet still the corrupt Bill Gates Sr brings in buco bucks for the UW - certainly respect for business in academia is an important subject, but using corporate welfare generated proceeds is NOT the same thing. A better measure than the defense of those who once made profits is the defense of those who have that potential in the future.
And, that, mon frere, is no different than academic freedom, no?
There is much to be done in America these days, including the paying off of the U.S. Debt from pockets of those that have put those funds in their pockets.
A good place to start though might well be the insistence that the Sound Transit Team, including management employees, counsel, and contracting companies, finish off the project as originally voted on AT THEIR EXPENSE.
Douglas Tooley
My Blog
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 9:51 a.m. inappropriate
Regardless, I just want to point out that the majority of voters approved of Forward Thrust. We just had a rule that was later disposed of - as people have access to more and more information, they are paralyzed by indecision and tend to vote nearly at random.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 10:24 a.m. inappropriate
Great Piece.: Ben,
Thanks for this insight into the principles that made adding more transit rail such a great idea 40 years ago, when the price of gas was 35 cents/gallon, and an absolute necessity today. Keep up the great work!
-KG
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 10:34 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Sound Transit - an Example of the Corruption of Corporate America under Boomer Leadership: Doug Tooley: tilting at baby boomer and corporation windmills. I thought the subject was transportation? You're right, Doug. You've correctly identified the societal nitch responsible for all of your perceived problems. Now is your chance to convince 300 million people of your fringe views.
Crosscut should keep a permanent thread going for every disgruntled axe-grinder out in Internet Land. Mr. Tooley can host it.
This notion that ST should stop expanding its express bus, commuter rail and light rail expansion plans so we can all sit around and wait for another guilty subset to finish a public project he's already not paying for.
Which is a little weird.
If we had followed similar bizzarro advice for incredibly-overbudget and decades - delayed freeway projects, that huge I-5 upgrade in Doug's back yard never would have happened. But since the grudge experts could care less about progress (intellectual gridlock results in actual gridlock) it could be Mr. Tooley prefers the old dangerous and gridlocked version.
Great thing about the internets: you can be stuck-in-the-mud, and STILL share your stunted 'vision' with the rest of the world.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 11:58 a.m. inappropriate
Car Bus: The ultimate dream transit system is the Car Bus, transporting 32 (occupied)electric microcars at 80-mph on a dedicated HVO (former HOV) lane; eventually updating to smooth, silent 125-mph maglev. Stations are located above the freeway every 5-miles.
Within ~10 years, the 8-foot long microcar (like Smart) will become the most popular commuting vehicle in the world.
Such a silver-bullet cure for freeway congestion was first studied under the New Transportation System Research Act, passed by the US Congress in 1968.
Its time has finally come, forced by congestion, dependence on foreign oil, and global warming.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 12:01 p.m. inappropriate
Buses can't meet the need: Thank God we are finally getting an actual debate at Crosscut instead of just the unrebutted delusional and tendentious arguments by Ted VanDyk and Doug MacDonald.
Ben Schiendelman is absolutely right: Buses work only if you create new right-of-way, either by imposing tolling or use restrictions on existing lanes or by building new corridors. Otherwise, you have buses mired in congestion.
As David Brewster illustrated recently in his description of what is going on in Berkeley, it is nigh impossible politically to create free-flowing conditions for buses using existing roadways. You're either displacing cars or parking spaces and upsetting local businesses and residents. You will be hearing from Tim Eyman.
To create new and protected right-of-way is expensive, which is why light rail is expensive. If you're going to spend that money, then it only makes sense to put rail rather than buses in the right-of-way, because its operational costs are less and its capacity higher. If you don't spend the money for new right-of-way, you end up with congestion.
Buses are great and we need more of them, but they alone cannot meet the future transportation needs of Puget Sound.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 12:14 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Buses can't meet the need: Buses are most assuredly not the sole solution to our transportation problems. But regarding rights-of-way, I seem to remember proposals for running light rail literally down the I-5 corridor. Weren't our interstates designed to be able to accommodate rail? That's a lot of already-acquired, very expensive land. Much as I like the I-5 Colonnade off Lakeview Boulevard, I wouldn't have cried if it had turned into a transit station instead.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 12:18 p.m. inappropriate
Thanks, Crosscut, for finally including a pro-transit writer: I really have nothing to add to Ben Schiendelmann's article, except to say that I'm appreciative to read a pro-transit, pro-rail perspective here.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 12:26 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Buses can't meet the need: Where would you put I-5 rail through downtown? The entire right-of-way is in use and there's no room to expand. Also, most of the population in the city and elsewhere isn't right on the freeway, so you lose ridership with that aligngment as well as opportunities for transit-oriented development.
Furthermore, we already have a Central Link under construction, with University Link planning well underway. The proposed plans for Sound Transit rail north of Northgate, as I understand it, do use the I-5 right-of-way. South of downtown the proposed route parallels I-5, but again for solid ridership reasons. Where it is a good idea, I-5 right-of-way is being used.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 12:54 p.m. inappropriate
Freeway stations kill transit oriented development with noise and with elimination of the closest locations. Small vehicles hamstring capacity lower than even streetcars. The right of way costs the same as a bullet train, but carries a tenth the passengers. Stations have to have turnouts that scale with the number of users, dramatically increasing right of way costs - every car needs space to slow down and stop somewhat separately than others, meaning station footprints are huge for any high density destination - right where your real estate costs are highest. Maintenance is vastly higher, because you have far, far more motors per unit ridership.
Pod transit is ridiculous at best. When you start doing cost per passenger estimates, you quickly find out that it'd be cheaper to buy everyone flying cars.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 12:58 p.m. inappropriate
Sound Transit has been planning to have stations mostly a block or two off the highway, but angling back toward highway right of way to be most cost efficient between stops. It's okay as long as you're not right in the center, which they aren't doing.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1 p.m. inappropriate
It does look like you're right--North Link does follow I-5 north of Lake City Way.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:12 p.m. inappropriate
RE: You make no sense...: Ben Shiendelman writes: "the majority of voters approved of Forward Thrust. We just had a rule that was later disposed of "
I presume you're referring to the super-majority voter approval requirement the two Forward Thrust proposals failed to achieve. (Also, please note that the second forward Thrust vote even failed to achieve a majority. By the time that second vote came around in May 1970, the region's economic outlook had turned bleak with cancellation of the U.S.'s supersonic transport development program. Signs famously asked the "last person leaving Seattle to turn out the lights".)
Well Ben, you're mistaken that the super-majority rule was "disposed of". Indeed, the super-majority requirement still exists for bond measures, which is what Forward Thrust was.
What distinguishes ST's rail financing from that of Forward Thrust is 1) ST uses sales and MVET taxes as their funding base (Forward Thrust was a property tax-backed bond measure); and 2) on the ST ballot, voters were not asked to approve *bonds* (which would have required a supermajority), but instead were asked simply to provide the authority for higher sales and MVET taxes. (ST would then use this revenue stream to pledge toward repayment of bonds ST's Board would later issue.)
Authorizing these new taxes for ST only required a simple majority vote (which ST obtained their second time around in 1996.) No "rule" was "disposed of". ST's legal advisors simply crafted a way to tap taxpayer's pockets for a big rail plan that didn't face the higher super-majority hurdle bond approvals needed.
----
Ben Shiendelman also writes: "the [Forward Thrust] system would have opened in 1985 and been paid off last year."
"Paid off last year" is also incorrect. If you researched the Forward Thrust ballot measures (e.g. Feb 13, 1968's Proposition 1, Metro Public Transportation Bonds), you will find that it authorized bonds of forty-year maturities to be issued for a seventeen year period.
Here's that ballot title: "Shall Metro perform the function of metropolitan public transportation, adopt & carry out the Comprehensive Transportation Plan and issue, over 17 years, General Obligation bonds maturing within 40 years of issue, payable from annual property tax levies?"
This means the Forward Thrust rail project would have issued bonds through 1985 -- and those bonds wouldn't be paid off until 2025. That's some seventeen years still in the future, not last year.
----
Ben Shiendelman writes more: "One key answer is rail transit. Forty years later, BART isn't so "controversial" after all"
Yet even rail-friendly Berkeley urban planning professor Robert Cervero acknowledges that more that thirty years of careful studies of BART's performance reveals that, with the lone exception of SF's downtown business district (to which BART feeds most of its riders), BART displayed no significant influence in changing the pattern of development in the Bay Area.
So that's at odds with your claim that BART isn't so 'controversial' after all. BART's not controversial only if you choose to ignore the work of the researchers most familiar with BART.
As a result of rail focusing its impact principally on downtown, the end result is an implicit subsidy to downtown property owners, whose land and (new) office buildings gain added accessibility to the region's employment base, from which they can obtain higher streams of rental income. The added revenue stream enjoyed by those properties is immediately capitalized into higher property values. Those enhanced property values flow directly onto the private owner's balance sheet, as a (significantly) more valuable asset.
{cont
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:12 p.m. inappropriate
RE: You make no sense...: {continued}
The only cost, to the property owner, associated with the benefit bestowed upon them is a slightly higher (~1.2% of the added value) annual property tax. That's a pretty low cost of capital, eh? (That's even better that what the Federal Reserve is granting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.)
This implicit subsidy to owners of new downtown office buildings approximates $100,000 or more per workspace cubicle. Nice subsidy, eh?
(P.S. That subsidy figure reflects application of the region's standard GMA-based impact fee formula. But the trouble is, the City of Seattle -in its infinite wisdom- doesn't levy impact fees on new downtown development that requires the provision of added taxpayer-financed transportation capacity. Hmmm.....)
----
Finally, Ben Shiendelman writes "Sound Transit's Link light rail is spurring thousands of new condos atop retail for the Rainier Valley, replacing vacant lots with dense development"
But you overlook a key inducement for that development, Ben. You didn't mention the 10-year property tax exemption provided by the City of Seattle for new multi-family residential construction, subject to affordability conditions, in eleven "targeted" Seattle neighborhoods most of which, like the Rainier Valley, are located along the proposed light rail line.
So it's an open question just how much this development reflects "demand" factors (i.e. people really clamoring to live in a transit village) or reflects "supply" factors (i.e. developers constructing housing that enjoys significant tax forgiveness, tax savings that don't have to be passed along to buyers.)
I'll let you muse on the answer to that one.
----
In closing, I'm reminded of that apocryphal line re: Lincoln's assassination. "Other than these errors, Ben, how'd you enjoy the play?"
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:14 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Buses can't meet the need: blukoff: the idea of running rail in the median of the interstate goes back to the 1950's.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:15 p.m. inappropriate
Urban myths abound: Ben Schiendelman says:
"Fundamentally, cities develop to take in raw materials of every kind, then to add value by combining them into more specialized goods. Originally this meant iron ore, coal, and wood shaped into products and buildings. Now it also means software, genetic sequences, and circuitry.
These businesses and ideas don't occur in a vacuum. These ideas are brewed by discussions with the friend you run into at the coffee stand down the street. Every urban area's success is reliant upon its ability to foment face-to-face crossings between inventors and implementers, and these crossings happen proportionally to how dense and walkable our urban centers are."
Comment:
It's a little hard to believe that our economic future really depends on random encounters between people with ideas and those with the capital to bring ideas to the marketplace. Is this the way Mr. Schiendelman's software industry conducts it's business? Or do people use business connections (which could be facilitated by any number of online networks) to make the deals involving "software, genetic sequences, and circuitry"?
There may be reasons for density and "walkable" urban centers, but it's hard to believe that land use patterns play more than a minor role in the "success" of a modern urban region.
Let's have a rational public debate on the relative merits (costs vs. benefits) of alternative transportation plans, and leave the mythology to the academicians to sort through and perhaps discover their origins and why they persist.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:33 p.m. inappropriate
Online interaction has a fundamental anonymity, even in business interactions, that filters ideas that don't already conform with the readers' prior opinions. That's a lot of why we see trolling - something that doesn't typically happen in face to face situations, especially in public. As social animals, much of our interaction relies on empathy - our reactions to ideas in person are largely dependent on our physical reaction to the person we're talking to.
There are great books on these subjects that could help you learn about the work that's been done in this area. Because I'm telling you on the internet, it's extremely unlikely that you'll attach any value to my opinion (which, ironically, helps prove my point), but other people reading might gain some insights.
I recommend, for understanding innovation, Jane Jacobs' "The Economy of Cities". And for the cognitive linguistics behind how we portray ideas to each other, George Lakoff's "The Political Mind", which is about politics, but also explains some of the brain function behind face to face interaction that doesn't occur here.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:37 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Buses can't meet the need: Indeed, and you'll note that it's fallen prey to the fallacy of believing that as we haven't done it, it must "still need to be tried" - when even in the 1950s, basic ridership estimates showed that even tunneling everywhere is more cost effective per rider.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:37 p.m. inappropriate
Manhattanization: Ben Schiendelman's review of history reminds me that the word "Manhattanization" was used in the campaign against the King County Forward Thrust subway plan of 1968.
Some people don't want Seattle to densify to the levels found in Manhattan and Hong Kong, densities that would justify subway lines, costing a BART-level $500 million per mile in present day Seattle. Others do.
The choice between station-oriented high-density with trains, and a lower corridor-oriented densification served by frequently running buses throughout the entire region is a genuine political choice, highlighted in Doug MacDonald's three part series. Saying we need both ignores the reality that laying subway and elevated RR track sucks up too much money to expand the bus system.
For example, building the Initial Segment of light rail southward from Seattle CBD was revealed by the alternatives analysis to be the rejection of buying over 200 more hybrid-electric tunnel buses instead of 31 rail cars, in case you've wondered why so few buses are running in the downtown Seattle bus tunnel, and why buses are so crowded now.
(Saying trains cost less to operate in the long-run because they have fewer drivers than buses is a myth that ignores the totality of contributing cost factors, including capital depreciation and replacement, not to mention the cost of exclusive right-of-way maintenance to which non-transit makes no contribution.)
The choice we face in the next big regional transit tax vote (2008 or 2010) is somewhat constrained by the fact that Sound Transit, City of Seattle, and University of Washington have already decided to spend the existing tax rate to open up construction sites of three to five acres for cut and cover subway stations and tunnel muck removal starting next autumn. One will be next to Husky Stadium on University property, and one on top of Capitol Hill at Broadway and Denny.
Detail: When complete in about 8 years, there will be no parking for train customers at either station.
Detail: Neither of our next two subway stations is being designed as a major transit hub where train riders will arrive by bus. These train stations are for people coming from or going to the neighborhood of the station.
Same with the next two stations northward from Husky Stadium in the U District and the Roosevelt neighborhood.
Northgate station area will have parking for train users, but the Seattle Times has reported that Northgate is not planned to be a transit hub for the majority of buses coming southward from Snohomish County.
Why? Load balancing. The trains aren't expected to hold enough people boarding down the line to allow that. Nor will the trains be big enough to let bus riders coming across the Lake on SR 520 get on them at Husky Stadium.
Manhattanization?
No, of course not. More like fouled up beyond all recognition. We are getting NYC-priced subway but not Manhattan densities and not the long NYC-style subway trains.
Link Light Rail is more a status symbol of urban greatness, which we are now seeing leaders in Snohomish County, Bellevue, South King County, and Tacoma want to be part of as they ponder how much of a tax hike Sound Transit can get away with this fall.
The subway system of 1968-70 didn't happen. But we'll soon have a train to the airport for those who want a scenic, art-enhanced train ride to the airport slower than the existing well used Route 194 Metrobus. Our workhorse bus system is already one of the most well-used in the nation. There are all sorts of ways to make it run better and carry more people, if we curtail Sound Transit's limited rail network and focus transit spending on a constantly-improving bus network that goes everywhere people want to go.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:45 p.m. inappropriate
2) The editor here added "paid off last year", it was not in the draft I submitted, and I regret having not caught that when I reviewed the piece. As inflation today is far higher than the bond rate would have been in 1985, we actually would be receiving a discount. Cool!
3) Your benchmarks for BART are only valid if you compare them to a no-build alternative. You can make whatever statements you want if you don't look at the costs and benefits of the alternatives. You do understand that those trips could not take place on existing SF highways, and that the SF highways necessary for those extra 300,000+ weekday trips would cost an order of magnitude more than BART did? Of course rail focuses its impact primarily on downtown, that's the most efficient place to put jobs. The efficiency gain of a dense job center is proportional to the increase in value - that's where the value comes from! Pretty basic microeconomics here.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:48 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Urban myths abound: Myth? I think the concept of cities as engines for economic development and their relation to interoffice communication is well-documented and so widely understood as to be common sense. Let's go right to Wikipedia, if you're looking for sources (for example, see the Glaeser reference for benefits of proximity).
From a real-world perspective, at my previous job I drove to Seattle from Bellevue about twice a week to meet with clients and associates. Now that I work in Seattle I'm constantly coordinating with clients and associates, since it's a quick walk down the street. I don't know about most jobs, but in mine a sit-down meeting can replace days of phone calls and e-mails.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:50 p.m. inappropriate
light rail, trolleys, and buses, Oh my!: Excellent article. I just wanted to say I love light rail, trolleys, AND buses! Maybe we could fund with an initiative for really high car licensing fees.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:50 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Urban myths abound: Speaking of Lakoff, I highly recommend two of his earlier books, Metaphors We Live By and Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. And of course I second your recommendation of Jacobs.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:51 p.m. inappropriate
This piece is about political realities. Just like trying to get buses their own right of way, there's been nothing we could do to get zoned density increased in Seattle until we started building rail.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 2:13 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Urban myths abound: Ben is quite right that face-to-face interaction is important to economic and social health. I'm famililar with some of the literature on this point, and I respect Ben's observations on this topic even though we have never interacted face to face.
However, Central Puget Sound region doesn't need Sound Transit's contemplated urban passenger rail network and the associated sales tax rates to foster face-to-face interaction among citizens doing great things.
Can anybody show otherwise?
Here I would invoke the dead weight of higher taxes on economic productivity caused by mobility systems that cost too much and deliver too little compared to available alternatives, which supports dn's point.
Further, a minor point, when it comes to face-to-face social interaction aboard transit, my experience worldwide riding buses and trains since high school in many locations, is that there is more serendipitous social interaction on urban buses than on urban trains. I can't explain this.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 2:21 p.m. inappropriate
You must not have read the piece, though. When you talk about buses being a political choice, you're conveniently missing the fact that 40 years of work has not gotten us those frequently running buses. The reality of the situation is that they cannot be done - you're presenting a false choice.
What's especially interesting here is that you move right from advocating "fast" buses (which can only happen, as we've seen for the last four decades, in their own right of way), and then you claim that rail has right of way costs that buses don't. I'm afraid you can't have your cake and eat it too on this one - if you have fast buses, you have to replace asphalt.
And that's where that capital depreciation comes into play! Asphalt and concrete are more expensive to maintain and require complete closure for replacement. Rail can be replaced in segments overnight during normal hours of closure, and at much lower cost, especially as the steel is often more expensive when you take it out of service as when you originally installed it! As rail vehicles can last fifty or seventy years to buses' ten to fifteen, buses also have much faster depreciation.
The rest of your argument is riddled with misleading information - like your 200 buses instead of 31 light rail cars? Our 31 light rail cars will serve more people, because they spend more of their time full and don't have to go out of service to be refueled (one train can work from morning until night, instead of two or more buses for the same daily job).
You seem very mixed up - on one hand, you're arguing that you don't want us to "Manhattanize", and on the other, you're arguing that we aren't building subway with the capacity of a Manhattan line! It must be difficult to argue against something from both sides - it seems almost designed to make it impossible to serve your desires. Perhaps it is!
In reality, our line has 120 meter platforms - longer than the Paris metro's 70-80 meter platforms on most lines, but not as long as the platforms of the NYC subway (which come in at least three varieties, ranging from 170 to 220 meters).
It's hard to make cost comparisons. Don't be fooled by simple comparisons of dollar values, as they are rarely even remotely close to accurate. The newest system in the country, just due to inflation (which is different in labor, administration, materials, disposal, fuel...), will always appear the most expensive. What's most useful, really, is to compare the cost to the equivalent service in another system. Our roads are well over capacity, with serious service degradation on our major highways - so the comparisons are between no-build, highway expansion, mass transit of different types. We've done those comparisons, and mass transit costs the least (by far) for each trip it serves, and has the shortest payback time in the economic growth it allows.
Or were you against economic growth? It's hard to tell, when your position changes during the argument...
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 2:24 p.m. inappropriate
Prove it: Mr. Schiendelman:
If random encounters (say at the corner Tulley's) between innovators and investers are significant drivers of urban economic success, then someone should have documented this amazing way to build our economy. And we should use the evidence to design our land use code and transportation plans. So beyond rhetoric, where is your proof? Give me data, quotations, a page number or at least a chapter, not a whole book. If you can't deliver, you're simply blowing smoke, which we have too much of already.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 2:45 p.m. inappropriate
Right at the end there, he claims that it can carry more people without Sound Transit. In actuality, building ST2 will make Link and Sounder together carry more passenger miles than every one of the three counties' bus systems combined - for about the same total tax rate.
Metro, currently, collects .9% sales tax in King County - almost all of which is used for operating and maintenance costs. Sound Transit would collect the same with ST2 - but as most of it would be for capital projects, not for operating costs, we'd be able to use those same dollars to expand the system again - only .2% or .3% are necessary to operate the system in the long run. Metro just raised bus fares, and they're about to again, just to keep the same service running! Their taxes are paying for less every year. With light rail, as our local energy costs aren't dependent on the cost of oil, our cost to operate will be flat - and better yet, it will go to local workers, rather than to other countries!
So no, we can't do better with buses. Would you rather pay more per passenger mile for unreliable service? I'd rather pay less for permanent, on time service in our core corridors where our buses, as Mr. Niles already points out, are "well used" (meaning packed beyond capacity). It seems like a no-brainer to me.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 3:02 p.m. inappropriate
As for your current demand, page 122, chapter four, "How Cities Start Growing".
Here's the New York Times review of the book, which touches on Jacobs' basic points about old work and new work, and how new work (innovation) occurs:
NYTimes review (PDF)
There are more recent studies on innovation and its relation to density:
Creative Class: "Urban Density: Creativity and Innovation (PDF)"
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 3:16 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Urban myths abound: Since when is there a question that rails can support more density than buses? Proof is in the pudding, my friend - the political realities are clear. South Lake Union development is happening post-streetcar. The changes that are allowing that development came hand in hand with a rail line. If you want to try to disconnect those things, show me where that kind of quick growth has occurred without transit.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 3:30 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Urban myths abound: Thanks, I own Metaphors We Live By (and several other Jacobs books). My fiancee is a linguist - she studies polysemy and category shifts, and may have the other title.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 3:34 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Buses can't meet the need: .
hoohah exclaims: "Buses work only if you create new right-of-way"
Well, I guess that depends on what the meaning of 'work' is. Care to share that with the rest of us? Or is that simply a bumper sticker slogan?
Don't ST's buses carry ~90% or more of ST's daily ridership? What new right-of-way do they use?
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 3:38 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Sound Transit - an Example of the Corruption of Corporate America under Boomer Leadership: The law is the law, for everybody, no?
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 3:42 p.m. inappropriate
RE: You make no sense...: .
Huh? 1989's CAP and 30-65 foot height limits were the reason for lack of development in the Rainier Valley? Ri-i-i-ght, uh-huh. I'll give you two more guesses.
Your reply nonetheless serves to illustrate what your advocacy of rail aims at: increased density. (Which you may achieve now that the price of the alternative, single-family housing, has gotten so high.) But is increased density what people prefer? I'd suggest the escalation of single-family homes indicates otherwise.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 3:44 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Buses can't meet the need: Right of way is important for bus transit to succeed - that's why Bob White successfully argued for HOV exit ramps - a very expensive section of ROW, but one that makes the ENTIRE network more efficient.
One crucial difference between buses and light rail is that buses don't need dedicated right of way everywhere they operate. As such busways can connect high density areas and lower density areas can be served by regular roads - all with a single, incremental, technology.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 3:49 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Sound Transit - an Example of the Corruption of Corporate America under Boomer Leadership: What a ridiculous statement. Is the local bonding law now the same as it was in 1968? Yes. Did we need 60% for Sound Transit? For Transit Now? For the monorail votes? No. So why are you having such trouble with this? Forward Thrust was preferred by voters. Had an RTA existed at the time to administer the project, rather than being put on the same ballot (Proposition 2), we'd have mass transit right now.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 3:59 p.m. inappropriate
Did you actually read the article? Of course I advocate higher density - but only in the core, where it makes sense because it stimulates economic growth. The point is to channel our new development into the downtown core - so that suburban homeowners don't have to fight developers. Right now we have parking lots covering whole blocks in downtown Seattle, and in order to support building on them, we need better transportation.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 4:04 p.m. inappropriate
The only places where one can't give buses dedicated right of way are the places where it's most needed. HOV lanes are great, but they make up a small portion of the total time of a trip. I take the 545 to work every day, for instance, and it takes as little as 15 minutes to get from work to downtown, but often 30 minutes just to get through the city - where there's no chance for dedicated right of way.
The crucial difference is not a matter of need - both systems see exactly the same benefit from dedicated right of way - but buses simply can't get it. That's what we've now seen for forty years - and we now need that dedicated right of way, so we are turning to rail, where we can obviously get it.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 4:06 p.m. inappropriate
RE: You make no sense...: .
1) 60% *is* a super-majority. A majority is 50% +1. Any higher hurdle constitutes a super-majority.
2) Jim Ellis last year made the unsupported claim in the press that the Forward Thrust bonds would have been paid off last year. His memory likely was flagging and maybe your editor remembered that factoid. Unfortunately it wasn't true.
3) No, the BART studies found, among other things, that the pattern of development along their rail corridors was not appreciably different (no more dense, etc.) than that found along the Bay Area's other transportation corridors (which is to say its interstate corridors). But SF's downtown *was* a big winner.
Ooooh -- you say downtown is "the most efficient place to put jobs". Now that's juicy. Will you please elaborate? Efficient for whom? The worker, the employer, the building owner, the government, the taxpayer/society? Is there /should there be only one 'downtown' in any region? Does it hold that it is always efficient to pump people into any and all jobs downtown, regardless of the distance needed to travel?
These are the *big* important questions looming over/behind the transportation issue. (And perhaps I should ask you to define efficiency, because that proved a pretty elusive concept in ST's EA for Initial Segment.)
If "the efficiency gain of a dense job center is proportional to the increase in values", then should we or should we not ask those who receive that gain to finance the improvement enabling that efficiency? Or might they not go for that idea because those efficiencies -however proportional to the increase in value they may be- are insufficient to justify investment of their own dollars?
P.S. You say "South Lake Union development is happening post-streetcar", I say it would have happened without the streetcar. I believe you are asking us to fall for the 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc' fallacy of logic.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 4:08 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Buses can't meet the need: Sound Transit's daily ridership is currently about 40,000 for ST Express, and 10,000 for Sounder. In the first few years of Link operation, we'll see 30,000 daily, making rail ridership half of daily riders. When University Link opens, rail ridership will be more than double ST bus ridership.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 4:41 p.m. inappropriate
2) I guess you didn't read my response - I didn't write that originally, and while I take responsibility for not noticing it in the piece returned to me with edits, it is certainly untrue. However, $385 million in bonds for infrastructure now worth several billion is pretty clearly, in hindsight, the best infrastructure deal this city would ever have had.
3) You completely ignored the pertinent issue. How much would it have cost to move the people using BART today with highways? $50 billion? Remember that just expanding I-405 on the eastside is an $11 billion project to add some 50,000 people per day in capacity. How much would it cost in SF to add 300,000 in daily capacity?
So, what BART study are you talking about? Was it "BART at 20", the 1995 study showing that BART station walkable radii had increased in density by 30% with trend lines showing another 30% in the next 20 years? Or was it MTA's 2006 study showing that where density increased, as many as 50% of walkable radius residents used BART for daily commute trips (downtown excluded)? You also missed the 87c per trip the city of San Francisco pays to BART, offsetting the "benefit to the city" that you seem to have such a problem with.
There are no big questions about density and efficiency. If two people live next door to each other, they use less power line, water line, sewer line, and road as if they live a block apart. Unless you have magical infrastructure that doesn't scale in cost as it scales in size, that holds true.
What model would you propose we use to distribute costs to those who gain? That sounds like the same model as tolling every road. Answer your own question - why don't we do that? Hint: It's the same reason buses haven't gotten their own right of way. Individual car users like the subsidy they get, and don't want to vote to give it up.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 4:47 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Buses can't meet the need: Also, if you're unaware, Sound Transit has paid for HOV lanes and transit direct access ramps in a few dozen locations around the district. Have a look at the ramps at Bellevue Transit Center, or Eastgate, or up in Lynnwood or Everett.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 5:16 p.m. inappropriate
Good try: Tom Heller: "BART studies found, among other things, that the pattern of development along their rail corridors was not appreciably different (no more dense, etc.) than that found along the Bay Area's other transportation corridors (which is to say its interstate corridors)."
I wonder if Tom has even looked at a map of BART. Go ahead, take a look.
Of course the areas around most BART stations are no different than that of the Bay Area's highway corridors...where do you think the BART is?
The area in which you mention the exception for BART impacting densities, downtown SF, is the only area where BART does not run along a highway corridor. Good try though. What was your internet search: "BART+'no impact'+densities"?
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 7:49 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Manhattanization: John Niles and Tom Heller - both long-time mass transit critics - provide the prime example for why BRT is a joke. Both proclaim their support for Bus Rapid Transit, but their commitment is a mile wide and an inch deep. Discovery Institute and Washington Policy Center Think Tanker Niles has stated he opposed construction of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. Heller has stated his opposition to HOV lanes or bus-only lanes for a re-built 520 bridge.
You can tell both of these guys are dedicated to getting those buses un-stuck from traffic.
Furthermore, Libertarian Heller opposes density in urban areas. Which explains why he's always fighting shadows. Niles is also dubious of urban densities - but he may wish to check in with spritual leader Kemper Freeman, who is busy building the next Miracle Mile. At least Heller put his money where his mouth is, and shipped off to Indiana five years ago. Niles has decided to stick around, and keep rolling that boulder up the hill.
Hey, John: rather than hosting yet another hybrid automobile conference, how's about producing a real BRT plan, and pitching it the same way the Discovery Institute has been selling foot ferries, monorail and other weird ideas. Walk the talk for once.
If BRT is so cheap, easy and fast, how is it we never see an actual plan produced?
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 8:01 p.m. inappropriate
Round 3: Mr. Schiendelman:
Thanks for the references. I reviewed the last reference first, all 40 pages, since it was the most recent (2007) and it summarizes previous studies and hypotheses, including those of Jane Jacobs, who you also cited.
You need to carefully read this reference and compare it to what you wrote above: "...ideas are brewed by discussions with the friend you run into at the coffee stand down the street. Every urban area's success is reliant upon its ability to foment face-to-face crossings between inventors and implementers, and these crossings happen proportionally to how dense and walkable our urban centers are."
The problem with your reference is that it finds a statistical correlation between the density of creative workers in an urban region and their market productivity (measured by the number of patents). It extols face-to-face meetings and suggests they occur more frequently at higher urban densities. However, it provides no data or analysis to support this contention. And nowhere in the reference does it refer to meetings that result from "running" into someone at a coffee stand. It also doesn't provide any correlation with walkability, however you choose to define it.
But let's assume for sake of argument that face-to-face meetings for entrepreneurial purposes do occur more frequently when there is a greater density of creative people. Some might say this is a no-brainer. Face-to-face meetings can be easily arranged at the convenience of one or more innovators and investors (e.g. the creative denizens at Microsoft could discuss merger with their counterparts at Yahoo on their turf or neutral turf). This result is obviously achievable without attention to the patterns of land use and transportation.
My guess is that most meetings between innovators, other innovators, and investors are arranged, and do not result from the right people simply crossing paths as they walk about their neighborhood work environment (which would be hard to do in the cloistered Microsoft environment). They occur at venues and times agreed to by the participants. And to get to the meeting the participants may drive, carpool, ride public transit, bike, or walk. Can I prove it? No. But the proof is clearly within the realm of empirical analysis.
So I repeat, where is your proof that density and walkability create urban success? If you can't provide it, then you need to revise your premise. Tell people that you are also guessing. Why? Too much public policy is built on tenuous extrapolation of expert analysis that some people cherry-pick to suit their biases.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 8:03 p.m. inappropriate
RE: You make no sense...: I read your response. And you remain incorrect asserting "that vote [1968's 51%] would have approved a system." The super-majority would STILL apply today for the financing method proposed (bonds).
You seem to be suffering from some fundamental misunderstanding/ misperception on this point. You wrote: "Because of changes in the FTA grant process, we'd only require 50% today, as Forward Thrust would have been created as a transit agency."
No, the "50% today" hurdle has NOTHING to do with any change in the FTA grant process. It has simply to do with the ballot measures not asking voters to directly approve the sale of bonds. Period. End of sentence. End of paragraph. End of story.
Super-majority votes come into play only when voters are asked to *directly* approve bonds, traditionally property-tax backed bonds like those of Forward Thrust. The RTA folks side-stepped this requirement (they had learned a lesson from Forward Thrust that they needed a lower hurdle if they were going to succeed) when they set up an RTA simply by asking voters to approve the local taxes -- the subsequent power to sell bonds was embedded in the RTA's enabling act. Thus, ST's bond issues do not require voter approval of any kind, especially not a super-majority vote.
----
The BART studies are voluminous -and I'm far from an expert in them- but even Robert Cervero (and other well-regarded University of California transportation researchers) has acknowledged BART's impact on the spatial distribution of activity in the Bay Area over the past 30+ years was insignificant.
You can pose the question, well what would those BART riders do if BART didn't exist? Could highways handle the trips they make?
I don't know. It's a hypothetical. Whatever answer you or I would give would be immaterial. BART exists. It is what it is. To speculate what the Bay Area would be without it is beyond my expertise -- and way beyond my interest.
Besides, a 30% increase in density within "walkable radii" from a station sure doesn't say much. I remember watching a slide presentation at a People for Modern Transit gathering in Bellevue back a few years. Ron Sheck (now at WSDOT) showed his collection of pictures of urban rail systems he'd visited.
Sheck's slide of a BART station area was laughable. Yes, you could see ~5 story office buildings from the station platform, but you'd have to wade through acres upon acres of cars to get there!! (It was 'walkable' like hiking to Husky Stadium for a Saturday football game. It's not something you'd want to do every workday. I'm confident the vast majority of the employees in those buildings drove to the office. Maybe a small handful who traveled out from SF took BART.)
Was this "concentrated density" at the station? A big flat NO. A 30% increase from NOTHING is still pretty close to NOTHING. I'm confident Bob Cervero would concur.
----
The big questions about density and efficiency are not merely whether the public will personally buy into it (i.e. clamoring to live above or near a transit station), although that's a big enough question to be sure. But a big question is also who should pay for the public infrastructure needed to support that density? Should a quite sizable outlay of public dollars bestow -at no cost- significant increased value on a small handful of property owners, while serving (i.e. transporting) a similarly thin slice of all those whose taxes pay into it? And, perhaps the most metaphysical question of all, who should be empowered to decide what is the proper balance & spatial distribution of your desired goals, efficiency and density, on the land we occupy?
{cont}
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 8:04 p.m. inappropriate
RE: You make no sense...: {cont}
Your illustration that with density, there may be a lower per capita demand for infrastructure is not sufficient reason to require al l members of society be subjected to your preferred levels of "efficiency" and "density". You should put that question to the people and see how they allocate their own dollars in a free market.
Maybe they would prefer a little more elbow-room than you would be willing to allocate to them, even though it may require a bit longer power line, water line, sewer line, etc. If they want it, can afford it, and are willing to pay for it, what's wrong with letting them have that extra elbow-room? Or do you find repulsive the prospect of people in a free society choosing their own living styles?
To your question, one model I would propose to distribute costs to those who gain is that established in the Growth Management Act: impact fees on new development that requires added public infrastructure to serve. Just like new suburban subdivisions require new school capacity and are subjected to impact fees, new downtown office buildings that require new transportation capacity should also have impact fees applied to them. Impact fees are a simple method of recognizing the economics of serving new development and apportioning the costs to those who benefit. What's wrong with that?
P.S. Exactly what is the subsidy you claim individual car users get? I'm baffled by this urban myth. Please explain.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 8:15 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Manhattanization: .
I'm not a critic, Mr. MadisonAve -- just someone who applies a different standard than do you.
If you wish to prove that there is an inescapable need for bus-only or HOV lanes on a new, expanded 520, then I'll listen to you. But please present some proof. Assertions just don't fly.
I'm not against density, but I want the economics of land use to be visible, not hidden. Or might you have a problem with that? Do you own property downtown?
Like I said above, I'm just someone who applies a different standard than you (assuming you have any standards at all.)
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 8:17 p.m. inappropriate
Energy stability and reliability: One of many good points, Ben.
Soon Metro's fares will be higher than Sound Transit's bus service. If they don't raise fares, it'll eat into the Transit Now money that was supposed to be used to expand bus service.
If something like an oil shock does happen again, the few services that would be left running would be the electrified transit system running on mostly locally produced clean energy. Even if oil does go down in price, which I think would not, the market for it has become highly volatile such that it would make it difficult to forecast costs used to justify a sustainable expansion of our bus system.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 8:18 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Good try: .
I don't need to do an internet search, Wes. I've got over thirty years of accumulated experience and study in this and related areas. And I've talked in person with Bob Cervero a couple of times in the past four years. How 'bout you?
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 8:23 p.m. inappropriate
RE: ound 3: .
"Too much public policy is built on tenuous extrapolation of expert analysis that some people cherry-pick to suit their biases."
Beautifully said, dn!!
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 8:37 p.m. inappropriate
RE: You make no sense...: .
Ben Sheidelman writes: "just expanding I-405 on the eastside is an $11 billion project to add some 50,000 people per day in capacity"
I guess you didn't read my rejoinder to this erroneous interpretation the other day when you posted this same misinformation in the PI Soundoff the other day. Perhaps you should pay a visit to http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff /comment.asp?articleID=370371 and learn something.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 9:29 p.m. inappropriate
WA Subsidies: Puget Sound Regional Gov - Estimates $400 Billion in costs of Water,power,sewer,transit, roads, education etc
Government Subsidies in WA - $56 Billion in tax subsidies to WA business !
Population growth - 1 million new immigrants to WA the past 20 years 1.7 million new immigrants by 2040
Bill new growth to new immigrants - We do not charge developers and new imigrants the cost of new schools, water, power, etc. other states charge impact fees
Income tax - Billionaires move to WA because we have no income tax on investment income. WA has 10% less taxes than CA.
Life Cycle Costs - We do not calculate Life Cycle costs for job creation ...capital costs and maint and operation (M&A;)
Local Neighborhood jobs - If corporations in our region transfered employees to the office nearest there home we could cut commute costs and impacts by 25% according to the U of W.
Impact fees - charge developers and employers total impact fees and eliminate tax subsides in urban areas, Corporations would relocate to regional cities like aberdeen, bellingham, moses lake, yakima, tri cites ...without additional impact fees we have within 1 hour drive of seattle. Same jobs, less taxes and less impact costs of $400 Billion on WA taxpayers..
The only cost, to the property owner, associated with the benefit bestowed upon them is a slightly higher (~1.2% of the added value) annual property tax. That's a pretty low cost of capital, eh? (That's even better that what the Federal Reserve is granting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.)
This implicit subsidy to owners of new downtown office buildings approximates $100,000 or more per workspace cubicle. Nice subsidy, eh?
(P.S. That subsidy figure reflects application of the region's standard GMA-based impact fee formula. But the trouble is, the City of Seattle -in its infinite wisdom- doesn't levy impact fees on new downtown development that requires the provision of added taxpayer-financed transportation capacity. Hmmm.....)
Move 50,000 jobs to eastside.... Bill Gates built his own BRT system last year... at no cost to the taxpayer... The discounted cost we give employers for monthly bus passes increases the 25% cost to the average rider.
Remember that just expanding I-405 on the eastside is an $11 billion project to add some 50,000 people per day in capacity.
so what is the life cycle cost of BRT? sounder Train, Metro Buses = cost per passenger per year based upon capital coast and M & A????
Employer Impact Fees - The $100,000 subsidy is only for Transit lets calculate the total Employer impact fee and subsidy = $56 Billion in tax cuts, transportation etc.
Developer Impact fees - Land cost in King County has gone up 500% to 5,000% in the last 25 years depending on location and density zoning...
Bio tech corporations get tax subsidies for real estate development and job creation then reorganize and eliminate the jobs create a tax lien upon the corporation with exemption from bankrupsy. The state legislature refuses to audit tax subsidy give aways...
native people of WA managed our enviroment in a balanced ecology for 10,000 years... the last 150 years have created huge impacts our grandchildren will have to pay ... thanks to Chamber of Commerce, BIAW and speculators... give power back to the people to balance growth and cut tax impacts as well as rebalace them to all taxpayers not an exemption for millionairs and billionairs...
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 10:46 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Good try: Ooh, an argument from authority! Keep the fallacies coming, they're not convincing anyone.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 10:48 p.m. inappropriate
Innovation doesn't happen when Microsoft brings people together. It happens in garages, on napkins, across kitchen tables - Microsoft just buys the companies later, at this point. This is covered in urban planning texts across the board - it's telling that you haven't got any inkling of these concepts.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 10:53 p.m. inappropriate
I really don't care what someone on an internet forum has as a "standard". I care about the standards we're already meeting that are paying for our construction. It's up to you whether you want to get on board, but don't pretend for a moment that you have a plan.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 10:56 p.m. inappropriate
You seriously argue that adding 2 lanes each way to 405 is cost effective compared to light rail?
Look, I'm not interested in responding again to your twisted arguments. Simply the fact that you cling to this idea that Forward Thrust improvements couldn't possibly be presented the same way as Sound Transit 2 makes the rest of your argument appear uninformed and baseless.
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 10:58 p.m. inappropriate
RE: WA Subsidies: Quinault Bob, I don't understand you at all. I think perhaps you might want to stick with one argument so you can appear more rational?
Posted Tue, Jul 15, 11:02 p.m. inappropriate
Your creds: Tom: I'm glad we have such experienced folks running about.
What of your discussion of BART? Did you look at the map? Have you gotten off the BART at Fruitvale station? Any station? Have your creds even been on the BART?
Posted Wed, Jul 16, 12:13 a.m. inappropriate
Tired old car warriors: John Niles and Tom Heller are two gentlemen wed to the automobile age. Each typically tries to throw up a smokescreen with a fake promise of BRT, misleading statistics and their own "experts", and then a healthy dose of conspiracy theories about Sound Transit controlling the debate.
But they never offer a real plan. Because they can't. Reality suggests we can't build our way out of congestion--especially with another two million people moving here in the next 20-30 years. Cars are big, an average of 15 feet long and 5 feet wide. You must build parking lots and garages, new freeway lanes at costs similar to the $11 BILLION cost of 405 which will deliver NO long term congestion relief, new engorged arterials, and so much more. It is a given that a car-centric system will result is sprawl simply because of the physical space needed for the auto infrastructure.
Unmentioned on this comment string is the effect on our environment. Running an equivalent bus system on diesel instead of rail's electricity and rail's far greater carrying capacity is both bad for our planet and for our pocketbook.
We need to build rail to both move people and to influence where we want density to occur. Here is the way it works, Mr. Heller...Government (the people) decides to invest in rail and picks a corridor. Developers take note that a permanent transportation corridor is being built. Being the smart and rich guys that they are they quickly figure out thousands of people will get off at each station and that they might be hungry or need household goods or want to live nearby. Each of the 39 cities in King County is suffering from declining tax revenues from both the economy and the effects of multiple initiatives from Heller/Niles buddy Tim Eyman. So cities rezone around station areas to increase revenue. Developers build to match zoning. Despite Tom Heller's barrage of hooey, this is not rocket science. Developers don't build around bus lines because there is little capital investment so there is little permanence.
It is fine with me if you two car lovers choose to live an auto livestyle and hop in the Chrysler to get where you need to go. But as we move forward we need to choose between investing in an automobile culture or beginning to become a transit culture. Mature cities do this. European cities are far denser and more transit dependant because they needed to be. New York and the East Coast are 100 years ahead of West Coast cities and they have gravitated towards density and mass transit. Our state spends pennies on transit and billions on roads each year. We need to change the balance of what we spend on roads versus transit.
Mr. Niles and Mr. Heller may not ride transit or even like it, but the point is that many of us do. And many of us would love to live near a light rail station in a walkable, compact neighborhood. These crazy car-loving guys remind me of the gentleman who fought the municipal pool for ten years in this classic Onion article:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39453
It is long past time to build serious mass transit in this region. Don't be fooled by the selfish arguments of road warriors like John Niles and Tom Heller.
Posted Wed, Jul 16, 1:04 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Prove it: DN: not that you care for an honest answer to your dishonest question. But,
just in case: check in with Dallas.
You need to leave your basement more than once per decade.
Really.
Posted Wed, Jul 16, 1:16 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Good try: Tom Heller talks a good game, but he's stuck in the year 2001. Obsessive axe-grinders always get stuck in the same old mud. Year after year.
So, even tho the Same Old Tom Heller moved to Indiana years ago, his grudge is still firmly implanted here. Lucky us.
PS- Heller's tenure at WSDOT wasn't too impressive. The years after his fabulous Republican Party lost control were even worse. Why do you think he's still chasing all these ghosts?
Never trust the word of a braggart. That's what my grandfather always told me.
Posted Wed, Jul 16, 1:29 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Tired old car warriors: TiptoeTommy: here's how to get Intelligently Designed John Niles to shut his yapper: ask him (or his right wing friends at Kempet Development Co) to design a BRT plan. The've wasted the better part of $10 million on all kinds of stupid, redundant ineffectual stuff. This should be a no-brainer, right??
Wrong. The number one rule of BRT Club: don't talk about BRT Club.
False prophets always do their best to hide the fact they're lying to you.
That counts for something, right? A preferred talent at the end if the "W" era.
Posted Wed, Jul 16, 1:36 a.m. inappropriate
Choice: I'd be happy to have the additional transportation option.
Some people prefer to live in suburbs and drive to work. Environmental concerns aside, I can't fault anyone for doing so, if that's their wish.
However, auto-centric transportation policies lead to development patterns that all but require car ownership. If you elect to take the bus, count on spending three times as long to get where you're going--assuming the bus even goes where you want at the time you want. Buses are only an attractive option for the people who don't use them. (I know very few people who take the bus to work, and we're right downtown.)
I'd like the option of being able to get around reasonably efficiently without having to own a car. A good rail rapid transit system is a step in the right direction.
Density is, of course, closely related to viability of mass transit, so I can make a similar argument there. It's a huge country--there will always be room for more suburbs. But for those of us who prefer to live close to downtown, the only way to grow is up. If the city can't scale to hold more people, the law of supply and demand dictates that rents and real estate prices will rise to levels that only the most wealthy can afford. (We've certainly seen that trend in Seattle recently, with rents rising faster than the overall rate of inflation.)
I'd like the option of being able to live reasonably close to downtown without a six-figure salary. Since efficient mass transit supports the development of more housing (you can only fit so many vehicles downtown), rail may provide a benefit there as well.
I'm definitely in favor of more light rail. If anything, it should go further (and there should be a second downtown line), but you have to start somewhere.
Posted Wed, Jul 16, 5:28 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Your creds: .
No, you've got experienced folks who have fled from the lunacy. And still-wet-behind-the-ear-children running the asylum. Not a good prospect at all.
And no, I haven't been to Fruitvale (and I'll admit it's been quite awhile since I visited BART). But Wiki tells me it took BART/MCTD over thirty years to convert its large surrounding parking lot into a "transit village". And apparently that this conversion is serving as a model by which to make similar changes in other BART station areas.
If BART went without Transit-Oriented Development for its first three decades of existence, wouldn't that support the BART studies that concluded the system had no significant influence on the spatial distribution of growth nor the nature of the Bay Area's development? I don't see how the transformation of Fruitvale in the past four years undermines my credibility.
BTW, do you know the first TOD project in Seattle? It was the Target/Best Buy store on Northgate Way. Exactly how it qualified as TOD is beyond me, since the Northgate Transit Center (and the planned light rail station) is SEVEN BLOCKS to the south and FOUR BLOCKS to the west --oh, that's right, I guess that's hikable). The only transit serving that building's immediate vicinity is a bus stop for ONE Metro route out of the SIXTEEN that run to the Transit Center.
Have you examined similar transit realities on the ground? Or do you simply mouth platitudes? If the latter, you'd qualify for the Research & Policy Analyst position with the WA State Senate Democratic Caucus being listed in the right column of this page. Might want to put your name in.
Posted Wed, Jul 16, 5:44 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Tired old car warriors: .
tiptoe: before you continue your prattle about Niles and myself, why don't you back up your allegations with actual evidence -- words one or both of us have offered? Where have we said anything that suggests we're anti-transit and exclusively in favor of more automobiles? Until you find some incriminating evidence to support your hypothesis, your credibility is nil.
Besides, your argument that developers don't build around bus lines doe