My way is the highway, and so it is for most people
In answer to King County Executive Ron Sims, who opposes the roads-and-transit ballot measure: Saving the polar bears is nice, but more highway capacity is an economic imperative, for individuals and businesses alike.
Last week, my former King County Council colleague, Ron Sims, announced his opposition to November's roads-and-transit ballot measure, Proposition 1. It is not my intent to defend the specifics of the Sound Transit and Regional Transportation Investment District's (RTID) plans, or to respond directly to the county executive's guest column in The Seattle Times. Sims, for instance, makes some interesting points regarding financing and the phasing and siting of light rail that I will leave for others to discuss.
What I do want to address is the central argument Sims advances, which is prevalent among those I labeled "Rail Zealots" in an earlier article, namely that the roads-and-transit plan should be rejected because it expands general purpose freeway capacity in the Puget Sound region. The Zealots tie freeway expansion to the emotional issue de jour – global warming – and argue that we should only invest in rail, buses, and HOV lanes. This is a completely unrealistic transportation "strategy" for the Puget Sound region, driven by emotion and politics, not reason. Worse, it grants to government more power over our personal choices than most citizens should be comfortable with.
On the issue of freeway capacity, Sims is oblique, but his meaning is clear:
Tragically, this plan continues the national policy of ignoring our impacts upon global warming. In a region known for our leadership efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, this plan will actually boost harmful carbon emissions.
Translation: no more freeway lanes; no more cars. Instead of adding freeway capacity, Sims calls for measures to reduce the number of cars on the roads:
The package before us does not include solutions like congestion pricing or variable tolls. The goal of congestion pricing is to keep our highways moving efficiently, getting people to work or home in the shortest amount of time. With congestion pricing we would see immediate results.
"Congestion pricing" is a system of taxes on drivers who use certain roads at certain times of the day. Unlike traditional tolls or fuel taxes, congestion pricing is not intended to generate revenue to pay for additional transportation supply, but rather change behavior and suppress transportation demand.
Rail Zealots want to keep the freeways crowded and then tax people into using buses and trains. Is this the right way to approach transportation?
In this most contentious of debates, there are some facts we can all agree on. First, we have a congestion problem. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, the Seattle area has the 15th-worst congestion in the nation. Congestion ("rush hour") now lasts 7.2 hours per day, up from 4.4 hours in 1982, and costs us $1.4 billion annually. Second, there are more people coming. The Puget Sound Regional Council estimates our population will grow by 1.5 million people, a 50 percent increase, by 2030. Imagine Interstate 405 in the afternoon then!
In addition, I hope we can all agree that the new freeway capacity proposed in the RTID plan is modest. Sims himself says it only represents a 4.9 percent increase in freeway capacity. No one is proposing to build new freeways. We will not be voting on whether or not to build Interstate 605, the dream of some road advocates for a whole new corridor east of Lake Sammamish.
What will be on the ballot are a series of projects that maintain existing capacity, widen existing freeways, improve chokepoints, and, in many cases, complete long-planned linkages. One of my favorite projects is finally linking Highway 509 with Interstate 5, a south King County project that has literally been planned for decades. The RTID plan will essentially complete our existing urban road grid in the Puget Sound region. Unlike post-World War II freeway projects, it will not open up vast new areas to development.
Rail Zealots, of course, will argue that any new capacity, no matter how small, will increase our carbon emissions and help melt the polar ice cap. I like polar bears as much as anyone, but there are some very good reasons why we need more good-old-fashioned general purpose freeway lanes in the Puget Sound area.
We are a port city. Our economy largely depends on big ships, big trains, and big trucks being able to move stuff in and out of the ports of Seattle and Tacoma quickly, easily, and predictably. Trucks don't fit on Sounder trains. Our ports are in competition with ports up and down the West Coast. If we do nothing and allow freeway congestion to get worse and worse, we will be irresponsibly forfeiting jobs as our trucks sit in traffic back ups.
Truckers aren't the only people who depend on regular freeway lanes. Some of us just can't use transit. I work out of my home in Auburn. Sometimes I have to meet with clients in Bellingham or Olympia, leaving me no choice but to drive alone through Seattle or Tacoma traffic. I have a friend who lives in Pierce County but works in a small office in King County. There are no transit options which connect his home and his work; no one else in his office lives anywhere near him, and he can't afford a house in King County. He has no choice but to struggle up and down already-gridlocked Highway 167 every day.
Comments:
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 7:35 a.m. inappropriate
Polar bears? How about your children?: Chris Vance loses me when he trivializes global warming, calling it an issue du jour, of interest only to polar bears and the "zealots" who care about them.
I'm worried about global warming for a lot of reasons that are much closer to home. Rapid warming, caused by industrialization and its impacts on the earth's atmosphere, affects all of us who depend on the natural world for survival. We all breathe, need water, and are impacted by dramatic weather changes.
It boggles the mind that at this late date Vance can hope to be taken seriously when he demonstrates such a lack of awareness of what is rapidly becoming the defining crisis our children's generation will face--and indeed we are already facing.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 8:17 a.m. inappropriate
I knew someone would make this argument: I think climate change is a real issue:
"Where it is effective, transit is a better option for society than single-occupant vehicles, and climate change is a major challenge....There will be lots more cars on our roads in the future. If we're lucky, they will be running on climate-friendly electricity or biofuels, but they will be there."
However, I doubt that increasing our freeway capacity by about 5% is really a major threat to the climate. In addition, I think the liberal inteligentia does have a tendency to grab one issue and make it a "crisis." Today it is global warming. Yesterday it was hunger in Africa. Before that it was "Farm Aid" and the nuclear freeze. We tend to get stampeded by the issue of the day.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 9:12 a.m. inappropriate
No Growth vs Smart Growth vs Texas-Sized Growth: I really agree with this sentiment:
"This is a completely unrealistic transportation "strategy" for the Puget Sound region, driven by emotion and politics, not reason."
Those who would vote against a plan that includes fifty miles of light rail because it also includes some growth to the road infrastructure leave me scratching my head.
I think we all agree here that unrestrained and wild road expansion like what happened in Houston or LA is a Bad Thing™. Blind sprawl creates a host of socio-political, environmental, and logistical issues (uneven distribution of city services, smog/green house gases, gridlock). However, I think that is is clear that nobody is seriously advocating that as a strategy... though it does make a handy straw man.
It is smart to encourage growth within the city of Seattle and avoid the cycle of sprawl. Unlike cities like Detroit, we don't have a run down core surrounded by affluent suburbs.
But if we're going to grow this city in a smart, intentional way--Seattle is going to grow whether we like it or not--we need to have a rational and progressive transportation plan that includes expanding road infrastructure where it makes sense.
Putting emotion and politics aside for a moment, what we have here is a civil engineering problem. How do we use all available technology to most efficiently move people and goods from A to B. Any good system would have to have a smart mix of mass-transit like light-rail, buses, tolls, and roads.
If you look at the situation in these terms, to say the solution is to "take roads off the table", the solution sounds absurd. Given the problem, that is the best solution?
This is akin to saying that because generating electricity contributes to global warming, we shouldn't expand the electrical grid unless 100% of the power comes from wind farms. Saying that is absurd doesn't make me a lobbyist for the coal industry, nor does it mean I don't support alternate sources of energy. It means that taking a 2-10% capacity solution as the _only_ solution is irrational and, frankly, dangerous.
The question isn't whether or not new roads will be built. They have to be built. The question is _how_ do we build these roads, and what _else_ are we doing as part of our transportation plan.
Roads-only isn't a plan. Mass transit advocates beat that drum on a daily basis. And they're 100% right. But Transit-only isn't a plan either. It's as patently absurd as Roads-only.
If we shoot down any plan that doesn't hold to orthodoxy as espoused by "The Zealots", then what we will end up with is no plan. And growth will happen anyway. But it will happen in a piecemeal fashion with no coherent strategy that will hurt us economically as well as environmentally. And then nobody wins. Not even the polar bears.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 9:28 a.m. inappropriate
Transportation Zealots: In general this is the typical Freeway Zealot argument. We must continue to build more roads because we must keep growing and we don't want to scare businesses away. Eventually we get to the part where the Freeway Zealot says public transportation doesn't work for them. Tough.
I have little sympathy for Mr. Vance's friend who "has no choice but to struggle up and down already-gridlocked Highway 167 every day". He has a choice. He chose to live far from his office and face a horrible commute every day so he could live where he wanted. In many cases this argument involves people who really could afford a house near the city but felt they needed a bigger, newer house and so moved to the suburbs. So I'm being asked to support, in addition to business and growth, Mr. Vance and his friend's lifestyle choice. This does little to advance the argument for me.
I was fascinated by what happened when they closed those northbound lanes of I-5. Despite dire predictions, people actually used buses and trains and the backups to Tukwila didn't materialize.
Actually I should have said because of the dire predictions. The fact is that traffic must get worse before more people will move to mass transit. The halo effect of rail (over buses) may help get people out of their cars. Maybe that will make some room for Mr. Vance to get to Bellingham.
I also must mention this quote. "We are a port city. Our economy largely depends on big ships, big trains, and big trucks being able to move stuff in and out of the ports of Seattle and Tacoma quickly, easily, and predictably."
Does our economy "largely depend" on being a port city? I doubt it. It does help cover the perks I suppose.
In general Mr. Vance is correct, this ballot measure is about choice. He thinks we should add more roads and rail and then choose which we want to use. We might find that voters have already chosen, and more freeways aren't the answer.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 9:29 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Polar bears? How about your children?: I'm a child of the 50's and 60's, and I attended college at Western from 68 - 72. During that time, Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" was the cause de jour, cause de month, cause de year, cause de millenium.
Ehrlich and many others of the intelligentsia of the time, in arguments and with vehemance eerily similar to those used by the proponents of a pending global warming catastrophe, predicted death, destruction, and despair were all coming our way because of over population. We were all going to starve to death...by the mid-80's!
The sky didn't fall.
Just this week I read where showings of Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," in British schools must be accompanied by disclaimers warning that it is biased politically and contains factual inaccuracies.
I'd like to see the pro-ST global warming partisans dump as hard on developing nations who increasingly pollute the environment as they build factories and produce products for...OUR consumption.
Of course, economic globalization is one of their bugaboos, but I rarely hear them decry as virulently about a factory in Porbandar, India as they do a soccer mom's SUV. Let's not mention the level of economic advancement the factory brought to India or the freedom and mobility the SUV gives the soccer mom to safely transport the kids from home to game and back again.
From Population Bomb days to this, the mantra remains: people are the problem, the intelligentsia and the political elite alone have the answers, which are to curb the freedom and liberty of the clueless people by taking away their right to be free to choose.
Free to Choose...Didn't Milton and Rose Friedman write a book with that title? How soon we forget...
A lot of the Global Warming rhetoric and "solutions" are really a new way of advocating the re-distribution of income and wealth, only this time it seems it's less from the have's to the have-not's and more from the people at large to elites who know better what's good for us than do we.
Now, if anyone wishes to ride the bus because he or she believes that's a good environmental choice, then more power to that person; we should all be free to choose, and making principled choices consistent with your values is to be applauded.
But that doesn't give the Sierra Club or anyone else any right to insist that my choice mirror theirs.
Transportation policy ought to be about effectively and efficiently moving people from one point to another. Both the points from and to which they move and the means by which they move ought to lie exclusively within free choices made by those people.
At this juncture, based upon what you see every day, those choices overwhelmingly are in favor of roads and individual cars. Yet we're told we're akin to genocidal maniacs unless we support billions for more light rail when not a single light rail mile has been recorded. Go figure.
Transportation policy shouldn't include guilt trips.
The Piper
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 9:51 a.m. inappropriate
_: The global warming debate is like the smoking debate was 20 or 30 years ago -- basically all (non-bought) scientists agreed, but industries put up a smoke screen to cause confusion and delay action. Here's the difference: back then, we took more action. Today, with the health of the entire planet and everything on it at risk, the US leadership is doing virtually nothing.
As for RTID, I'm voting yes, with enthusiasm for the transit, because replacing 520 is necessary, and because I'm holding my nose about 405.
As this city grows and densifies, those rail lines will be increasingly depended on every year. Unlike roads, rail can add substantial additional capacity on the same line simply by adding trains. And yes, those suburban districts are already becoming more urban and will continue to.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 10:01 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Transportation Zealots: This is a great summation of a certain elemental assumption about transportation people make:
"The fact is that traffic must get worse before more people will move to mass transit."
It belies a central assumption that the only way to get people to use mass transit is to attack their mode of transit and make their life miserable.
The "we're going to make it hurt until you submit" mentality really turns me off.
Give people BETTER OPTIONS.
I support mass-transit. I would much rather take a train than drive or take a bus. The key is to make mass-transit the better option because its faster, cheaper, and reliable. This whole mentality of forcing people out of their cars by holding a gun to their head is the weirdest way to approach advocating change I've heard of.
If transit is really the better option, then people will come to it willingly.
There is no reason that we need to attack the way people live or move. Don't tell people they're wrong for living where they live. You can't make assumptions about why people live where they live.
Instead, tell them how much faster their commute will be. Tell them how they can save money and help the environment at the same time. Tell them it is safer. Tell them it is sustainable.
Convince them that your solution is better, not that they're wrong--that just turns people off and makes them defensive and less likely to think about the validity of your position.
I currently rent in Seattle, but I would like to own a home. I've been shopping around, and I've mostly settled on Everett simply because that's the best I can afford. A 700 square foot condo doesn't appeal to me, and a 1200 square foot 1920 craftsman doesn't really fit your "bigger, newer house" image. I'd love to live on Phinney Ridge, but I don't make a gazillion dollars. It's easy to say "I live in Seattle, so why can't you", but it's not really a fair criticism.
Tell me why you're position is the better option, not why someone else is a terrible person or deserves to have a painful commute. It is immaterial.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 10:18 a.m. inappropriate
Yes. The ports drive the economy: One in three jobs in Washington State are based on trade. Seattle cannot be allowed to become nothing but a boutique village. We need our ports and our heavy industry, and they need trucks that can actually move around.
www.seattle.gov/tda/talkingpoints.htm
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 10:36 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Transportation Zealots: You look at rail as a "better option" and I agree. I would think that people would prefer to take a train over taking the bus or commuting. But I don't think you can deny that as traffic gets worse, rail looks like a even better option for some. It certainly did when lanes of I-5 were shut down.
I'm not telling people they are wrong for living where they live and I never said they were terrible people. They made a choice. I chose to live in a small house in West Seattle (and I feel very fortunate to have that house) rather than a big one out in the suburbs because I didn't want the big commute. Some people make other choices, just like cwesley would rather live in a house in Everett than a condo in the city. The question is should we support those decisions as a region (for business and growth) or as individuals (maximize freedom of choice). If we choose to support that, should we do it with rail or more freeways.
In the end a mix of both will probably be needed and the question really is one of balance between the two. There is no denying that any choice we make will influence how people get around, even the "do nothing" option. I will most likely vote for the ballot measure, in part to avoid more years and money wasted on the navel gazing that seems to go along with this subject.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 10:43 a.m. inappropriate
Housing costs: Small houses in West Seattle now cost as much, or more, than large houses in second ring suburbs, like Puyallup.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 10:52 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Yes. The ports drive the economy: The thing is one in three jobs is tied to trade, not the port. To quote the link you provided...
"Goods flowing through the ports of Puget Sound lead to tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs."
I'm not saying international trade and the port aren't important. The question is how important should the port itself be in our transportation decisions.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 10:57 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Housing costs: No argument from me. If you have the money you can choose to live West Seattle or Puyallup. Should we as a region do something to help take commute time out of the decision making process?
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 11:07 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Housing costs: If we had mass transit that made Seattle more accessible for those who live more than ten miles from the city center, housing prices across the region would come down. Maybe then I wouldn't _have_ to look to Everett to get my foot in the door (TERRIBLE pun!).
:)
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 11:12 a.m. inappropriate
Whoa, Nellie!: Let's not get carried away...
Careful with extrapolations. Like:
"I was fascinated by what happened when they closed those northbound lanes of I-5. Despite dire predictions, people actually used buses and trains and the backups to Tukwila didn't materialize."
Nearly everyone can withstand temporary pain if it's really temporary. Most everyone weathered last winter's power outages with good cheer because they knew eventually PSE or Seattle City Light would turn the lights back on. My brother, however, who lived out in the boonies of eastern Woodinville was without for over two weeks causing him to sell and move to one of those new communities on the Sammamish Plateau.
Likewise commuters who were willing to TEMPORARILY be inconvenienced by the I-5 work. Had they been told that this was to be there lot in life from now until the Lord returns, I don't think they would have been as cheery.
I have visions of peasents with torches and pitchforks in armed revolt if Peter Steinbrueck's surface street option is implemented over building a new Viaduct. Dilettante thinking worthy of Marie Antoinette.
Next one:
"He chose to live far from his office and face a horrible commute every day so he could live where he wanted. In many cases this argument involves people who really could afford a house near the city but felt they needed a bigger, newer house and so moved to the suburbs. So I'm being asked to support, in addition to business and growth, Mr. Vance and his friend's lifestyle choice. This does little to advance the argument for me. "
Buried in this is an uban elite attitude that says, "Cities good, suburbs bad." Accompanied by judgmental assertions about the moral virtue of house sizes, the "bigger, newer house" rhetoric is a back handed accusation of greed.
Try this on for size: It's greedy for light rail-partisans to demand that generations from here to eternity must pay for 50 MEASLY and very LIMITED miles of light rail.
Did you see the above-the-fold headline in this morning's Times? A $1.5B shortfall in gas tax revenue? Revenue that's probably assumed in the funding projections for Prop. 1? Planners plan, but people live without regard to planner's plans.
Next:
"...halo effect of rail (over buses)."
Huh? Is that an assertion of the moral virtue of light rail? Or that it's somehow divinely inspired? Or is it that light rail is salvation for the masses? Again...how many passengers has ST transported to date via light rail? To paraphrase Rod Tidwell, "Show me the people!"
Finally:
"We might find that voters have already chosen, and more freeways aren't the answer."
Did I miss something? When did we who are supposed to be Free to Choose...choose? People have conflicting views and feelings about all this that encompass a recognition that some type of transit is necessary, but also that what road capacity we have is in need of upgrading and new capacity added that recognizes the reality of how people who are Free to Choose behave despite the dictates of their betters.
Want proof? Stand on a freeway overpass and count the cars.
Crosscut has led the way in discussing this issue with articles advocating all POV's, and that's not just good, but a definite public service. As much as anything it contributes to what Mossback recently called "the commonweal," or a sense of community and common interest.
We'll all pay the taxes and we'll all need to go from Point A to Point B. In that, then, snide dismissals of both the POV of road's people and the people themselves is not only not useful but it also fosters some pretty steep resentment against landed-gentry-act-alike's and Inquisition-level-light-rail-zealots.
The Piper
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 11:58 a.m. inappropriate
So let's make it work...: I think Vance's interpretation of Sim's positions is a bit extreme, though I've no doubt that Sims supports rail more than he.
I, for one, do agree with Vance that we need to put greater priority on highways - AND I think we can do that in a way that advances technology and transit.
In 10-20 years we are going to start seeing something called IVHS, intelligent vehicle and highway systems. At their simplest they are nothing but very redundant and effective expansions of a vehicle's ABS function - but they allow a much greater capacity removing the typical slow down once capacity reaches a certain level.
The road to that destination starts with HOT lanes - oh, and BTW, Mr. Vance, Congestion pricing has another name, it's called supply and demand.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 12:03 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Polar bears? How about your children?: Although I share the concerns of many right wingers about global warming hyperbole and what it will be used to justify it is a fact that we have changed the atmosphere and that those changes have an unknown risk of climate change.
The thing we do know is that the maximum damage is called extinction, and proceeding on a prudent course is wise. It is time to drastically reduce global emissions and see how things play out for what we have already done.
And this need not be a negative - it is an opportunity to rebuild our entire industrial infrastructure and regain our lead on this global field. Sure, some folks will go out of business.
C'est la vie, or are you opposed to moving things forward?
-Douglas Tooley
Lincoln District, Tacoma
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 12:14 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Whoa, Nellie!: You're right, the temporary closing of lanes on I-5 was an inconvenience. As soon as it was over, most decided to get back into their cars. I just found it interesting that for the most part everyone seemed to adapt. I bet for the real transportation geeks it was an exciting experiment with plenty of good data.
Suburbs are what they are, outside of the city. People make a choice to live there for many reasons. The "bigger, newer" reason seems to be the one I've heard the most from people who live outside the city. Schools, safety and just more space are also mentioned. I'm not sure what greed has to do with it. As Mr. Vance reminded me elsewhere, my little house in West Seattle costs as much as a big one in the suburbs. The question is how we are going to support commuters that choose to live in the suburbs.
My reference to the "halo effect" has to do with the belief that people who are not now taking the bus, even express buses, would take the train because it's felt to be cleaner, safer, more civilized, etc. Not sure what impact this really has but transportation people bring it up.
Regarding the final vote, if this measure is rejected I confess I think it will most likely be the large rail portion that kills it and not the roads portion, if it's not just too much money overall. As I said elsewhere we do need some of both and I will likely vote for the measure. Some of us will be voting for the roads, some for the rail and some for both.
Finally I apoligize for any "snideness". Sometimes I get a little too riled up. This is a debate I find very interesting I do enjoy hearing all points of view.
sully (aka Nellie)
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 12:18 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Polar bears? How about your children?: If you want to talk about it on a reasonable basis, like you just did, then I think reasonable people will talk. They may say things with which you disagree or might even cause you to pull what hair Tacoma allows you to have (I used to live there...South L Street and 48th...so I can say these things), but the discussion can be had.
It's when the door is slammed in your face by those, like Paul Ehrlich did in the late-60's, who claim to have truth by the tail on a downhill grade...Well, then the discussion becomes...interesting.
The Piper
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 12:56 p.m. inappropriate
How to "Support" Suburban Transportation Infrastructure: Vance dismisses congestion pricing but I think that it should be strongly considered as a way to properly price the option of living in a suburb. Suburbs are cheaper (and these days not that much cheaper unless you go far out! :)because the state (all taxpayers) subsidizes the extra transporation infrastructure required to bring those citizens to their jobs. (In addition to other infrastructure).
If every driver paid by the mile, people would have the proper incentives to make decisions about the where to live at least as it pertains to transportation costs.
If you want to live 30 miles from work, pay 30x the amount in transport costs that a person who chooses to live one mile from work.
As technology improves, we will inevitably see better market-pricing for resource utilization of all types. As pricing improves, people can make better-informed decisions and understand the true natural resource impact of their choices.
Congestion pricing should not be dismissed.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 2:17 p.m. inappropriate
Costs and Prices: A big problem is: the costs of roads and rail are driven by different factors than the income that's paying for those costs. We see that with the gas tax: gas prices go up, people drive fewer miles, reducing the projected income -and also at the same time income is down, the cost of what we're trying to build goes up because oil is used in the construction process. This is called a contradiction.
The way to resolve the contradiction is to have the price vary directly with the costs. If the costs of building go up, so do the costs of using.
A big problem is underfunded maintenance. I think congestion pricing or usage fees or user fees or whatever other label you want to use will allow us to have better transparency about maintenance costs and costs of building additional infrastructure.
Just trying to pay with roads and rail via a sales tax and via a motor vehicle property tax is likely to result in many more missed promises about what we're actually going to get for our money.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 3:34 p.m. inappropriate
Being realistic: Personally, I support smart highway investments in combination with aggressive spending on transit. Both have a important roll to play in keeping our economy chugging along.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 4:40 p.m. inappropriate
Yes, what about the children?: I don't get the impression that Prop 1 will increase overall total miles driven in any significant way, leading to greater total emissions from the (SOV) fleet of personal vehicles. I do get the impression that certain restricted areas will be eased in a way that allows traffic to flow.
I won't google on this, but I know that when I can keep my car moving at an average of say 35 MPH versus maybe 20 MPH, and in consideration of the braking and accelerating involved in travelling in heavy traffic, my car, which certainly isn't heavy on the scale of personal vehicles, gets much much better mileage. I can go from around 25 MPG to better than 32 MPG simply by not getting caught in situations where I have to brake a lot. Better mileage means less CO2 emissions.
Sometimes building some more freeways is greener than not doing so.
-->Aaron
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 5:11 p.m. inappropriate
RE: _: mhays comment features the same close minded superficial response of
most of the ecco facists of this region.
Mhays, the science on climate change is NOT over, you evidently are
making the choice to ignore the very real science associated with our
suns 11 year cycle of sun spots and their VERY REAL impact on this
planet - as opposed to the hysteria over C02.
The next gen of personal vehicles will be zero polluting, a fact that all
the 'light rail' promoters want to keep quiet. Oh, and by the way, just
how is it that light rail will 'add capicity' ?
Why don't you venture south and see if TriMet has added capicity to the
light rail farce in Portland, as you simply suggest ?
The expansion of existing freeways and NEW roads and freeways are
the answer - sadly, in your wish to dictate my life style, you will never
'get it' !
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 7:45 p.m. inappropriate
Objectivity: In the interest of full disclosure:
Some have asked my editor if I am doing any consulting work for the proponents of Prop. 1, the roads and transit measure. The answer is no.
Last year, when I was with the Gallatin Group, a public affairs consulting firm, we were hired by the Cascadia Center to try and build a regional consensus on transportation issues. This effort, headed by former Governor Gary Locke, and John Carlson, never went very far, and I am no longer with the Gallatin Group.
I will continue to keep my consulting work seperate from the writing I do here at Crosscut.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 9:01 p.m. inappropriate
RE: _: I think I'll take the scientific community's opinion over some guy's on the internet. Of course the science isn't "over", but scientists have come to a broad consensus on this issue...as they did about smoking a few decades ago.
Zero polluting? When? And based on what advances that haven't happened yet? Also, air and water pollution are just two of several massive environmental problems caused by overdependence on cars -- use of materials and energy to produce them, the amount of infrastructure they require, and the sprawl they encourage are arguably the three biggest.
Capacity can be added by making the trains run more frequently. Around the world, lines get down to about 90 second headways. (Honestly, do you look for softballs to lob my way?) New trains can be added with remarkably little infrastructure compared to, say, new lanes on a highway.
Dictate your lifestyle? Am I taking your car away? Or your roads? No. In fact I'm voting to give you more roadway even though I don't like the idea.
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 11:39 p.m. inappropriate
Goldlilocks Planning -- Getting it "just right" is impossible: I am surprised to hear a Republican advocating such dramatic government intervention in the marketplace as does Chris Vance. Spend! Spend! Spend!
But that's a sidepoint.
My real disagreement is with the conventional wisdom that "we can all agree...we have a congestion problem." It's crowded here but congestion is a by-product of many people competing to be in the same desirable spot. There is no solution for congestion and the sooner we get that idea through our noggins the sooner we won't billions on transportation programs with the idea that they will "limit congestion."
You can improve transportation but you can't get rid of congestion and it's misleading to suggest that we can as does Mr. Vance. Yes we should improve our systems and reasonable people can disagree whether this RTID proposal is a wise choice or not. But to suggest that transportation investment will decrease congestion frames the discussion incorrectly as every transportation improvement encourages mobility. Activity rises so that all new capacity is absorbed and we are right back where we started.
The improvements may be wise but they will not "limit congestion" as Chris Vance suggests..
Posted Fri, Oct 5, 12:33 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Yes. The ports drive the economy: You might recall that there are other ports in Washington, and that not all trade goes out through a port before assuming that 'based on trade' is inextricably linked with Seattle.
BTW, in B.C, a port is under development which will focus on rail as it's primary mover, so perhaps the link between a port and freeway construction isn't quite as clear as you seem to feel it is.
Posted Fri, Oct 5, 1:29 p.m. inappropriate
Reject the RTID as a basic tax fairness issue.: As a resident of Seattle and a driver, I already pay for the port with a property tax, the highways with my gas taxes and Sound Transit with my car tabs. Why should I be asked to pay more for the ports and highways?
If these resources have a statewide impact, then come up with a payment plan that leverages the entire state. I see no reason why Seattle should become less affordable in support of tourism related jobs in the okanagan or wheat related jobs in the palouse.
Posted Fri, Oct 5, 3:38 p.m. inappropriate
RE: _Some guy on the internet ?: For a starter, try reading:
'Read the sunspots'
By R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON. R. Timothy Patterson is professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Canada
It disturbs you greatly that current auto tech is producing engines or hybrid
combos that are the cleanest in history of the technology. Sadly, you are unwilling
to look at where the future of the auto is going. See any of the following, toyota,
GM, Honda or Ford.
If there were any 'demand' for excess capacity why wouldn't existing systems such as MAX in Portland be running the trains at your phantom frequency. It is
so telling that all the light rail facists can only argue in vague ( around the world ?)
rather than sight specifics.
I'll pitch you something faster when I see evidence that your capable of handling
it !
Posted Fri, Oct 5, 7:53 p.m. inappropriate
RE: I knew someone would make this argument: If you realy want to expose the greenies arguments about global warming,Just suggest high speed rail and watch them run.
To the greenies creating gridlocke,and extra emissions to cause a frustration to coerce a fill in of the Seattle inner city is visonary.
Moving people where they already live now with high speed rail,ends the frustration, does not create the fill in,or any of the hidden economic desires of the greenies. so they then flip flop to say Light Rail is too slow , too expensive,and a bad investment....
Sims and the Sierra club object to RTID because it creates competition for Downtown developers
Another clue to the Greenies real desires is written on Cary Moon's peoples waterfront coalition website. "Seattle could create 6-8 blocks of retail sales and sales taxes".
Yet another clue is the greenies interest in spuring development.
There is nothing at all green about retail sales and sales taxes or spuring development,yet Greenies can't help but promote these economic advantages to the global warming mantra.
The greenies want gridlocke,so we get frustrated,so we move into the downtown corridors,so the City of Seattle can get economic advantages,not to save a whale,salmon,or frog.
High speed rail,or Any rail outside the city of Seattle tips over their Global warming/economic advantages apple cart that they are trying to set up in Seattle.
Lexus lanes are yet another cop out that is good for Lovie and Thurston but bad for Sanford and Son.
We don't need a brother can you spare a road policy.
We need high speed rail on the original corridors.
We need LEVX on the original corridor taking people from city center to city center with express 120 mph service..
That will get 20-25 percent of the commuters off the roads and free up the interstates for by pass traffic.
That will reduce emissions,save fuel, strengthen commercial traffic,and save a whale,salmon and frog..
That will tip over the Seattle centrics formula of gentrification
+ congestion=economic advantages.
That wont get the greenies a check in the mail from Greg Smith
or Martin Selig.
Posted Sun, Oct 7, 9:49 a.m. inappropriate
Seattle Denial: What continues to be a major problem in Seattle is the fact that Seattle is a major metropolitan city that still likes to pretend it isn't. The city of Seattle (vs. the greater Seattle area) exists on what amounts to an island, with very limited access from every direction. Apart from ferry access from the sound itself, they are all densely populated and within a small footprint, and any road expansion would mean displacing a vast number of homes and businesses and lowering property values to the surrounding areas (no one wants to live next to a freeway). Right there we're facing years of litigation.
Unlike Dallas or Los Angeles, Seattle is akin to a major city such as Manhattan, with its own limited access - and we already have half of Manhattan's population.
To create better congestion flow, you're really talking about expanding access into Seattle itself, which (perversely) has fewer lanes into the downtown area than lanes into the greater city. If expansion were to start tomorrow, it still won't be complete in most of our lifetimes - and to those politicians who are genuinely concerned with the future residents of the city, think again about how big Seattle will be in 20 years. You're still talking about a finite amount of space with a growing population.
All major cities in Europe provide perfect study: they faced the same problems years ago and the results are clear. There can only be a finite amount of road expansion within central metropolitan areas. Public transportation is the only successful long-term solution. A congestion charge that serves to "change behavior and suppress transportation demand" may not set well with our locals, but it is practiced in almost all major cities. London, for example, now charges a $16 daily fee just for entrance into the major city *specifically* as a deterrent to driving. Those congestion charges are then put back into public transportation.
Surely, says Mr. Vance, expanding the freeways won't make that much difference to global warming (a very odd - and childish - argument), but look at cities like Athens, that have to limit and even ban automobile use during summer because of pollution problems. Consider the booming rate of asthma cases in Seattle and the long-term picture should be clear.
Public transportation faces two major difficulties if it is to be a successful, viable alternative. First, public transportation should not involve long periods of waiting, which means that buses and rail services should be frequent and fast. What could have been a solution in a monorail was, characteristically, voted on until city powers pushed it aside as too expensive or impractical. Expense at this point is a given. How and upon what it's expended is the question. If buses are to be successful, then car use of existing roads has to be discouraged at the same time that bus routes are expanded. If rail is to be successful, it cannot operate on the same roads that are used for vehicles.
The second, and far more difficult, problem is the class system that no one is addressing. The rich will always be able to afford alternatives to public transportation, and that is the crux upon which all this sways. The comfort of the American middle-class is that they can pretend that they're richer than they really are. Affluent white people don't want to sit in dirty surroundings next to smelly poor people. They don't want to risk abuse or harassment by the "have-nots". Seattle is an extremely segregated city, and most of the white population have very little exposure to racial minorities unless they live at the same median-level, or work as salespeople at retail and grocery stores. If public transportation is to work, it needs to be clean and safe. Until then, middle-class use of public transportation will be an admission of poverty and defeat.
Posted Sun, Oct 7, 7:56 p.m. inappropriate
law of demand: Mr. Vance mischaracterizes the purpose of congestion pricing. For a Republican, who usually trumpet market-based solutions, this is troubling. It is not just to shift highway users to other modes, but also to shift them to other times of the day. If flow can be maintained at 45 mph, the vehicle throughput actually increases significantly over congested conditions. All modes would be better off. Transit, freight, and general purpose traffic would all flow faster and more reliably and in higher volume. Former Transportation Secretary MacDonald had a nice illustration of this with rice in a funnel. WSDOT flow diagrams show to be the case on SR-520 daily.
We price valuable lane space at zero; this is parallel to the Soviets pricing bread too low. We have the same result: queueing or traffic congestion.
Dynamic tolling is a demand management tool to shift enough traffic to other times of the day or to other modes to keep the flow at 45 mph.
It is good if some of the revenue can be spent to improve transit service frequency and capacity. This results in a second best solution to the equity concern expressed as Lexus lanes.
Mr. Vance shares the right-wing populist concerns that we have already paid for the highways and the tolls would be a second tax and that government is attempting social engineering. Of course, any governmental action is that. The 50 years after WWII were spent in social engineering by building limited access highways and practicing monoculture zoning.
Instead of a second tax, we should consdier tolling parallel to our utility bills. The capital costs of the dams and transmission lines are as paid for as the highways, but we still are charged for electricity and at variable rates too. The capital costs of dams and pipes used for water supply are already paid for, but we still are charged for water at variable rates. Same with solid waste. The law of demand cannot be repealed. Roadway pricing is just good economics and should be supported by the left and the right of the political sprectrum.
There are several notable flaws in Propositin 1, mentioned by Vance. First, it uses the sales tax for about 40 percent of the RTID revenue. This is unfair and inefficient. Second, there are several mega highway expansions or extensions where tolling should have been used in their design. For example, the I-405 lanes should begin as tolled lanes. The SR-509 and SR-167 extensions, if they are freight movement, should begin as tolled lanes. In fact, tolling revenue could be a substitute for some of the sales tax revenue in the RTID package. Instead, the proposal is to bond against that regressive tax for 30 years.
Posted Mon, Oct 8, 4:50 p.m. inappropriate
Vote down all public transportation options: None of them make any sense!
Posted Fri, Oct 12, 1:31 a.m. inappropriate
RE: law of demand: I agree with you totally here.