Reduced Parking Not Popular — Duh

The Seattle P-I takes a look at some street-level, real world reactions to the city's plan to reduce the amount of parking downtown.

To owner Steve Shulman — who relies on seven angled spots in front of his small market — a city proposal to reduce or eliminate minimum parking requirements in neighborhood business hubs around the city seems insane.

"It blows me away that they want to cut more parking because it's so precious right now," he said. "It's a huge disconnect — just talk to the people, ask what their shopping habits are, where do they go and why."

The changes would make commercial areas more pedestrian friendly. But some say the city's tough-love approach to parking is likely to create huge frustrations without better transit alternatives.

Bingo. Of course, where "better transit alternatives" would go is the multi-billion dollar question, isn't it. Still though, if they want to ban cars from downtown, why don't they just do it. You know that's what they're trying to work toward.

(Jennifer Langston, Seattle P-I, 04.29.2006)

Reaction To Ron's Bus Plan

Here's an interesting pair of editorials about Ron Sims' buses for everyone plan. On one side of the fence you have a Seattle Times unsigned editorial gushing over the thought:

At a time when the public clamors for leaders willing to stick their necks out and plan for the future, Sims does that. It may make him seem like he loves to raise taxes, but it costs money to operate a truly convenient bus system. Buses have higher operating costs and lower up-front costs compared to fixed-rail transit.

To hear the Times' tell it, all of Seattle's traffic problems can simply be solved by throwing more buses on a few select routes. It's the "bus it, and they will come" strategy. Not everyone is a fan of buses, though. On the other side of the argument, you have Dan Savage of The Stranger working himself into a frenzy of rage against all things bus.

Buses—the public-transportation option favored by people who do not take public transportation. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that no one on the Seattle Times op-ed board commutes to work by bus. And Ron Sims? Like most pols, he only boards a bus for photo-ops. Fact is, people don't like riding buses, which are notoriously slow, noisy, dirty, and unreliable. Putting more slow, crowded, stinky buses on the streets isn't going to do anything to address Seattle's transportation problem or provide a transportation option attractive enough to get people out of their cars.

And that's about the tamest excerpt I could take from Dan's diatribe. He really doesn't like buses. Personally, I find myself in between the anonymous Times editorial author and Mr. Savage. I think buses are a decent transit solution, but I am not impressed with Ron Sims' plan to add more buses to places that are already fairly well served. How about throwing eastside commuters a bone here, Ron? I guess if we want useful bus service on the eastside we're going to have to pay even more. Yippie.

(unsigned editorial, Seattle Times, 04.24.2006)
(Dan Savage, The Stranger, 04.27.2006)

Mountlake Terrace Parking Crack Down

Mountlake Terrace is on a mission to fight blight.

Drive through the older neighborhoods north of Mountlake Terrace City Hall, and they're everywhere.

Boats, modest vacation trailers, huge recreational vehicles, junkers — some on blocks, others sagging on flat tires — plus an assortment of family cars and pickups, presumably in running condition.

Many are parked on grass or patches of loose gravel, making them illegal as of March 15. The city is offering free driveway-construction permits, which cost up to $200, through Sept. 8.

Mayor Jerry Smith estimates that about 10 percent of the city's 6,000 households are in violation of the new parking rules. But he said residents generally support the rules, approved March 6 by the City Council.

I certainly understand the desire to promote tidy and inviting neighborhoods, but how are rules like this not a violation of private property rights? I'm as averse as anyone to living next door to a house with six broken-down cars parked in the front yard, but how does that make it okay to create laws against it? I also don't like living next door to people that smoke out on their porch... can we make that illegal, too?  Where does it stop?

(Diane Brooks, Seattle Times, 04.26.2006)

Council & Mayor Love Their Cars

Stefan Sharkansky over at Sound Politics has been doing some digging into Seattle city officials to find out whether they practice what they preach with regards to commuting and "trip reduction." Unfortunately, the answer for most of them is a resounding no.

The highlights: Nearly all of the Councilmembers drive to work. When they travel around the city on official business they usually take cars, although some occasionally travel by bus or bicycle or walk to nearby appointments. To his credit, Councilmember Richard Conlin practices what he preaches and reports the lowest overall auto usage among his colleagues and that he usually takes the bus, walks or bikes to work. Some of the other members to their credit, at least don't charge the city taxpayers for their automobile use. And the most prolific automobilist on the Council? It appears to be Peter "trip reduction" Steinbrueck himself.

Mayor Nickels seems to quite like his cars, too:

I've been curious about Mayor Nickels own automobile usage, so I recently submitted a records request for all of his city-paid auto expenses for 2005-2006. The city responded late yesterday: Nickels has been driving enough in the last 16 months to fill 168 pages of expense records.

In Seattle, what's good for the goose is apparently quite beneath the gander.

(Stefan Sharkansky, Sound Politics , 04.24.2006)
(Stefan Sharkansky, Sound Politics, 04.25.2006)

Upcoming Seattle Road Improvements

While improvements to Mercer Street may only be in the "planning" phase, real constructions is moving forward this summer to improve the embarrassing condition of some of the city's worst streets.

The plans include nearly 80 miles of road repaving, installing or upgrading a dozen traffic signals, and improving 60 street crossings.

The biggest project is the $22.8 million repair of the Fremont Bridge.

Nickels said the city faces a $500 million backlog in transportation projects.

He said he plans to release a funding package soon to put on the November ballot to pay for more road repairs.

Of course, it would be too much to expect real progress to be made with existing funds. But hey, at least we get this nifty map of all the projects. I wonder which of those dots won't get done without increased taxes.

(KIRO, 04.19.2006)

Seattle & Expensive Gasoline

Let's talk about gas prices. A few weeks ago a study was released that placed Seattle as the 8th "most prepared" for a sustained oil crisis among large cities in the US.

With gas prices on the rise and $3 or $4 a gallon gas on the horizon, SustainLane.com took a close look at the 50 largest U.S. cities to see which are most prepared and which are most vulnerable to an extended gas price shock in the $3 to $8 dollar a gallon range. Those cities that can reduce or stabilize their spending on gasoline will keep substantially more money in their state's economy, rather than siphoning it overseas.

Huzzah for us, I guess. Although I think Seattle would still be in a pretty tight spot if gas started costing $8 a gallon. There aren't that many people that carpool or take the bus. But if $3 per gallon is a "crisis," then yeah, Seattle's not likely to hurt much. According to the Seattle Times, rising prices isn't really likely to affect Seattle much at all:

From the federal Energy Department to your neighborhood cashier, experts think the price will continue to rise as summer approaches — and they say we'll take it in stride.

"I hate to say people are comfortable, because that would seem a stretch, but they're resigned. We see the demand staying relatively consistent," said Janet Ray, communications director for AAA Washington.

Jason Toews, co-founder of the national GasBuddy.com Web site, which tracks gas prices nationally, said he expects Seattle prices to hit $3, "possibly as high as $3.25."

Well I speak for one family whose demand is going down, thanks to my new wheels. And I'm anything but "resigned" to paying out my ears for gasoline. I've been dreaming of ditching the ol' internal combustion engine for years. I don't like being completely dependent on a substance whose cost could double overnight. It just doesn't sit well with me. Personally I think electric will be the wave of the future, especially if gas prices do reach $8 per gallon for any extended period of time.

(SustainLane, 03.24.2006)
(Mike Lindblom, Seattle Times, 04.15.2006)

City Plans Mercer Improvements

During my time in college at SPU, there were two convenient ways to get to the freeway. To go north on I-5, you would wind around along the canal through Fremont to the 45th Street onramp. To head south, it was Westlake to Mercer Street, which was always fun since that last stretch of Mercer before the onramp feels like it's been the victim of a sustained air campaign. Every time I drove that stretch, I wasn't thinking "man, this traffic is horrible," but rather "why don't they fix this road?" Now, almost ten years later, they're finally drawing up plans to do just that.

The plan for fixing the Mercer Mess continues to chug along, even though more analysis by the city of Seattle is showing it won't do much to get people around faster.

The city's latest analysis of travel times under Mayor Greg Nickels' $100 million plan to widen Mercer Street and turn it into a two-way road will be unveiled at a community meeting this afternoon. That analysis, completed this week, shows that commuters could save a few minutes heading west on Mercer from Interstate 5, but they actually could spend more time in traffic going east toward the interstate.

Seriously, I wouldn't mind spending a few more minutes in traffic through there if the road was at least pretending to be smooth and non-bombed. My main beef is that they didn't do this a decade ago.

(Kery Murakami, Seattle P-I, 04.20.2006)

Bus Rapid Transit Feasible For Seattle

Here's a story from last week's P-I about what I think is the most promising method of public transit: bus rapid transit.

[Jaime Lerner,] former mayor of the Brazilian city of Curitiba — and an architect and international sustainability guru — is a champion of public transit systems that use buses in a different way.
...
Visiting Seattle this week, Lerner shared his impressions about how to tackle this city's traffic:

What is the difference between the way our buses in Seattle operate and your city's system?

"A system of bus rapid transit is not only dedicated lanes. You have to have really good boarding conditions — that means paying before entering the bus and boarding at the same level. And at the same time having a good schedule and frequency. We have a system where you don't have to wait more than one minute. That defines the quality."

Is there a way to create dedicated bus lanes in a cramped city like Seattle?

"There are many ways, many corridors where you can have a really good system. ... Sometimes you think, 'Aaah we don't have enough space.' ... There's always a good solution."

Bus rapid transit is fast, it's flexible (relative to fixed rail), and it's way stinking cheaper than light rails or monorails. The main problem with bus rapid transit—the reason it will most certainly never get off the ground in Seattle—is that it isn't romantic enough. It wouldn't look good enough on aspiring politicians' résumés. Perhaps from the ashes of the Seattle Monorail Project, we should raise up the Seattle BRT Project.

I'm an open-minded kind of guy though, so I'm willing to listen to you if you have a convincing argument about how useless BRT is and how much better trains are. So let's hear it.

(Jennifer Langston, Seattle P-I, 04.12.2006)

Buses For Everyone!

Yesterday there was an announcement that Ron Sims would be making a big announcement today about transit. And today he made that announcement— higher taxes for more buses.

King County Executive Ron Sims is proposing a sales-tax increase for the November ballot in hopes of buying so many buses that riders won't even need a schedule.

The plan, nicknamed "Transit Now," promises Metro Transit runs between downtown Seattle and West Seattle, Ballard and Aurora Avenue North every 10 minutes, with equally frequent trips from Bellevue to Redmond and along Pacific Highway South.

Sims' office calls it the largest expansion of service in two decades.

And in the P-I:

King County Executive Ron Sims today will propose raising the county's sales tax to pay for sweeping upgrades in Metro bus service, speeding up buses on about three dozen routes and adding service in a corridor that would have been served by the canceled Seattle monorail.

If voters approve, the increase would raise the tax countywide by one-tenth of 1 percentage point. In urban areas of King County, that would result in a jump from 8.8 percent to 8.9 percent. The difference would amount to one penny on a $10 purchase, and Sims' spokesman, Sandeep Kaushik, said it would total about $25 annually for an average household.

Granted, I'm probably not going to notice a penny on every ten dollars, but I question the usefulness of simply increasing the capacity of existing routes. Is the number of buses really the factor that is limiting more people from taking the bus? When I started my new job in Redmond I thought about taking the bus. Just to get from my house to my work—a drive that takes twenty-five minutes—I would have to take one bus all the way down to Bellevue, transfer, then take a second bus from Bellevue to Redmond, over a span of an hour and twenty minutes. Then I have to wait for the ten minute shuttle from the park & ride to my work. When I was commuting from the Northshore area to Monroe I understood why there weren't any bus routes that I could take. But from Northshore to Redmond? What the heck? And Ron Sims wants to jack up my taxes so that people going downtown (where service is already ten times better than the eastside) don't have to have a bus schedule.

Job growth alone in the county is expected to increase 25 percent over the next 10 years and "our transit service growth is not keeping up with that at our current level," said Victor Obeso, Metro's service development director.

So is all this projected job growth going to be people working downtown and living in Ballard or Northgate? I'm no transportation planner, but it seems like I could think of more effective ways to spend $50 million a year.

(Mike Lindblom, Seattle Times, 04.18.2006)
(Larry Lange, Seattle P-I, 04.18.2006)

Remember Toll Roads?

When you think of toll roads, what do you think of? The 50's, 60's or 70's? Privileged access to express lanes? Coin slots in older cars? Well, what you should be thinking of is paying tolls on many Washington roads—soon. Did you know that the Washington State Transportation Commission has been seriously researching how they can implement tolls as an additional source of revenue, and that some form of tolls is likely to be rolled out soon? It's true. Apparently the ever-increasing gas tax and the still-not-$30 tabs just aren't bringing in enough money. Check out some of the points from the Tolling Study Summary (pdf) ("pricing" is code for tolls):

• Pricing can manage traffic to make the system flow more efficiently and reliably.
• Pricing saves people time, and time is money.
• Pricing generates revenue.

Do you believe that tolls save people time and money? Last Wednesday a public forum on tolls (pdf) was held in Seattle. It will be broadcast this Wednesday, April 19 from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. on your local TVW affiliate . At this point there might not be much we can do to stop tolls from making a comeback in Washington. Or maybe you think that tolls are long overdue for a return. If we're not informed, there's definitely nothing we can do about tolls, one way or the other.

(Thanks to reader Bill Wright for tipping me off to this important issue.)

Seattle Not Very Cycle Friendly

Let's take a look at another form of alternative transportation—one that I have some personal experience in—cycling. We're all supposed to do our part to reduce traffic, and although Seattle's weather isn't the most ideal for it (to put it lightly), cycling is generally an attractive option for relatively short commutes. Unfortunately, for all the green talk, Seattle isn't a very cycle-friendly city.

"The Burke-Gilman Trail is fabulous," said Severtson, 51, a programmer who often bikes from his Ballard home to Microsoft in Redmond. "But other than that, the network isn't as well-connected."

It's not easy navigating the streets of the Puget Sound region on a bike, according to the Cascade Bicycle Club, which recently mapped out a 1,521-mile bicycle network and found that 27 percent of the area's roads and trails aren't suitable for cycling.

There were "missing links" in the network with no alternative routes, the club found. There weren't enough signs, and busy bike trails and connections were closed at night.

Limited bike storage space on buses crossing the Evergreen Point Bridge forced cyclists to keep waiting at bus stops.

The region should make major improvements to its bicycle trails and facilities, especially filling in gaps between areas that draw large cycling populations, the report recommends.

Fortunately my bicycle commute is 90% Burke-Gilman/Sammamish River trail, where the only real complaint is tree roots pushing up the pavement in a few places. However, you would think that with all the anti-car sentiment around here, there would be more effort put into improving conditions for bicycles. I mean, the bureaucrats in government that go out of their way to socially engineer us out of our cars, but it takes a private cycle club to push for better roads and trails for bicycles? That's rather messed up.

(Phuong Cat Le & Larry Lange, Seattle P-I, 04.14.2006)

Car-Free in Ballard

So lots of the leadership and publicity hounds in Seattle like to talk about things like trip reduction and public transit, but how useful is that for your average person? Can normal people really do much to reduce the amount that they drive? Well, that's a pretty silly question, because of course they can, most just aren't willing to. However, one family in Ballard has taken the plunge and is finding out what it is like to live without owning a car at all.

Happenstance thus made us car free. But we decided to stay that way ... at least for a little while. OK, actually, it's more of an experiment, to see whether a middle-class family of five can live a contented life in Cascadia's largest city without owning their own car.

And from the source blog post:

Why are we doing this? Cost, conscience, and capability.

Cost: Owning a car is expensive. Replacing our car with another old Volvo would cost us, well, several thousand dollars up front plus at least $400 a month in fuel, taxes, insurance, and depreciation. Buying a new Prius would cost about $650 a month, including the same things (and more than $1,000 a month during the first year!).

I quote only the "cost" rational here because that one seems the most likely to really matter to most people. Granted, not everyone lives in a neighborhood like Ballard with 151 restaurants within two miles of their front door, and many people have lengthy commutes to work. However, much of our dependence on our automobiles is the direct result of where we choose to live. If more people thought like—and more importantly, made choices like—Mr. Durning, I wouldn't be writing a Seattle Traffic blog.

(Alan Durning, Tidepool via Cascadia Scorecard Weblog, 03.29.2006)

Light-Rail to Somewhere

Good news if you happen to be someone who often travels from downtown Seattle to the airport:

The deal to build a 1.7-mile light-rail link between Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Tukwila was approved by the Sound Transit board April 13. A light-rail link between downtown Seattle and the airport is expected to be completed by December 2009.

The deal between Sound Transit and the Port of Seattle, which operates the airport, will allow a light-rail station next to the fourth level of the airport's parking garage, with a pedestrian bridge linking the station and airline ticket counters.

I guess having at least some transit options is better than having none at all, but I can think of only two people I know (a married couple) that would be served by a line running from downtown to the airport, and they're not even going to still be in Seattle in 2010. I'd be a lot more excited about the whole thing if:

• I thought there was even a slight chance it would be useful to me.
• It wasn't costing the region an arm and a leg (with much of that going to wasteful bureaucracy like paying people $20/hr to board up windows—no joke).

Hey at least the people living in those new extra-tall condos downtown will have easy access to the airport though.

(Puget Sound Business Journal, 04.14.2006)

That Other Viaduct Option

One option I failed to mention in yesterday's post about our favorite local elevated highway was the "just fix it" option. Today the Times ran a piece on Victor Gray, the man with the mission to convince the city to do just that.

Gray, a retired structural and civil engineer, took his campaign Thursday to the Seattle Marine Business Coalition, asserting that the viaduct could be braced to withstand a 500-year earthquake at a cost of about $800 million, including replacing the Alaskan Way Seawall. That's a fraction of the $2.5 billion to $4.5 billion the state said replacing the viaduct, or putting it in a tunnel, would cost.

"I can't believe the state is pursuing [replacement] without considering a bracing system," Gray said.

That's because you don't understand just how much people in government love spending money, Victor.

(Susan Gilmore, Seattle Times via Sound Politics, 04.14.2006)

To Viaduct, Or Not To Viaduct

Let's talk a little bit about the Viaduct. Everybody knows that it's falling apart and could basically come crashing down at any moment—at least that's the scary story we were told last year when I-912 was on the ballot. Since that election the terrified shrieks have toned town a bit and the story has been revised from "could fall any time" to "will fall in the next earthquake." That story would sound a lot more reasonable, but if it's really that dangerous, why is it still open? Furthermore, why haven't the powers that be even made a decision on how to replace it yet? These are pretty sensible questions, I think.

As far as replacement goes, the Mayor certainly has the prettiest option , and he's definitely the loudest one in the discussion, but one group, the People's Waterfront Coalition, wants people to ask the question: what if we just tear down the Viaduct—and don't replace it ?

This approach is gaining currency because it has been successful in cities both around the world and as close to home as Portland. Research into actual cases where highway capacity was reduced in a city finds an average decrease of 25% in the number of car trips, while road planners' computer predictions of mass gridlock have not been borne out in the real world. At the end of an era dominated by abundant, cheap energy, city planners worldwide are shifting away from urban highways designed for the personal automobile to models of dense, walkable and well connected communities with effective transit.

Given all the other anti-car activity going on in our city, I'm actually surprised that the Mayor isn't pushing for this option himself. Personally the best option to me is the one that strikes the best balance of simplicity, low-cost, and moving automobiles. A tunnel would be neither simple nor low-cost, and would move fewer cars than the current structure. The no-replacement option would certainly be the most simple and lowest cost, but simply move automobiles onto other already stressed roadways. Direct replacement would however be simple, reasonable cost, and move at least as many cars as the current roadway. It just makes the most sense to me. If I-5 were to see some major improvements (including having more than 2 stinking lanes through the center of towntown) then a "highway-free shore" would sound pretty good. But as it is, I just don't think I can get behind something that actually reduces the miles of roads in Seattle.

(Dan Gonsiorowski, Seattleest, 03.13.2006)
(Susan Gilmore, Seattle Times , 03.26.2006)
(Larry Lange, Seattle P-I, 03.29.2006)

City's New Drug: Electronic Parking Meters

So Mayor Nickels wants to reduce the number of parking spots downtown, and thanks to the Seattle Weekly, we learn that the city is also systematically converting free street parking into $1.50/hour e-parking—and making bank on the deal.

The program to replace parking meters on city streets with a pay-station system is a financial success no one at City Hall wants to brag about. New figures show the ubiquitous curbside kiosks, which issue time-stamped parking stickers that can be affixed to a car window, are already earning about $3 more a day per parking space—at $6.50, they're bringing in almost twice as much as the clunky electronic coin meters they replaced. The wireless, solar-powered kiosks will collect $16 million in coin and credit- or debit-card revenue this year, officials say. That's an impressive $6 million jump since 2003, when the system was launched and parking meters collected $9.9 million.

Being a government program, there's a catch, of course, which might be why politicos and bureaucrats don't seem to be talking up the big score. A great deal of the added revenue is coming from hundreds of pay stations that have been or will be installed at once-free downtown and neighborhood parking spaces. The target is the citywide conversion of 2,000 free or time-limited parking spaces (30-minute and two-hour spots, for example) to paid kiosk spaces.

With free parking going the way of the free lunch, another sly parking revenue–maker is lurking: a rollback of after-hours free parking. City Hall is mulling plans to extend paid-parking hours to nights and weekends in some areas.

I enjoy going downtown, I really do. But it's almost as if city officials are combining forces to keep people like me away. Seriously, what's the deal? How about first fix the bus system—you know, so it actually serves people outside the downtown core with useful routes—then implement your step-by-step banishment of cars. Either that or just come right out with your true agenda and ban cars from downtown all together, right now. Oh but wait, I guess then you would miss that cool $16 million.

(Rick Anderson, Seattle Weekly, 04.12.2006)

Eastside Bus Changes Make Headlines

King County Metro has come up with an ingenious, groundbreaking plan: adjust bus routes as the transportation needs of the people change. Revolutionary.

With more jobs, more shops, more restaurants and more entertainment on the Eastside these days, King County Metro says it wants to overhaul its bus routes to better serve those residents whose travels rarely take them into Seattle anymore.

Over the next few years Metro hopes to better connect Eastside cities, increase the frequency of buses along popular routes, improve evening and weekend service and make the most of new park-and-rides and transit centers.

More capacity along popular routes? Eliminating unpopular routes? Who would have thought of such a plan! Seriously though, if this is uncommon enough as to be deemed newsworthy when it happens, isn't something a little messed up? Wouldn't a bus system running at peak efficiency be frequently trying out new routes, adjusting capacity on existing routes, and eliminating unused routes? Of course, that assumes that Metro is concerned with efficiency...

Surely if this is news it's only because it's long overdue, right? Here's the reaction from the ever-anonymous "editorial" author at the Seattle Times.

King County Metro's idea to readjust bus routes on the Eastside is a good one. This needs to be done deliberately, because bus service needs to be predictable. But every decade or so, it does need to be done because the mix of people and their destinations constantly changes.
...
Whatever Metro does will cause complaints. People resist change, but this is the sort of change that, done right, will be appreciated.

It also demonstrates the advantage of the bus over the train. Rail is fixed. The idea with rail is that people will move to the rail stations. Sometimes people cooperate with these ideas and sometimes not.

Buses are built for a world in which people change plans for their own reasons, and the buses follow.

Buses are flexible, I'm with you there, but adjusting schedules only "every decade or so"? Yikes. What possible reason could there be to react that slowly to shifting commuter demand?

(Karen Gaudette, Seattle Times, 04.11.2006)
(Editorial, Seattle Times, 04.12.2006)

Mayor Nickels Proposes Less Parking

Could someone explain to me just how Seattle's Mayor got re-elected using transportation as one of his major platforms? First he's hell-bent on Big Dig West, and now he wants less parking downtown.

Think about the last time you tried to find parking on the street in Seattle. Unless you had a day of great parking karma, it wasn't very easy was it?

But now, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is proposing even fewer parking spaces in the future and as you might imagine, there are a lot not too happy with that plan.
...
Nickels says he wants to make our city more livable. When new condos go up anyplace out of the downtown core, they won't have to build as many parking spaces for residents.

So, many worry those extra cars will wind up on the street, creating a terrible crunch.

To discourage that, the plan proposes less free street parking and more meters with a maximum two hour limit.

Sounds pretty half-baked to me. Difficulty finding parking (that's a candidate for understatement of the year) is already one of the main reasons that I don't go downtown very often. Sure, my wife & I could take the 522 Express bus and get downtown in a little more than a half an hour, if we wanted to spend $10 to do it. Or, we could go somewhere closer instead, get there quicker, easily find a free parking spot, and pay pennies quarters for the gas to do it. I guess if Mayor Nickels wants downtown to become more and more of a closed-off social club, then this is the way to go.

(KOMO Staff, KOMO News, 04.11.2006)

Choosing Convenient Commuting

Richard Seven wrote an excellent piece called Getting Nowhere last month that explores the personal side of traffic that I touched on in my about the blogger post. The subtitle really sums it up well: Diehard singles, we commute, clog, stall, rage and refuse to change. Here are some choice quotes:

Convenience is the drug that salves commuting guilt.

Transportation planners study volume and flows and bridging the blobs where people live and work. What does not fit so easily into their matrix is the human behavior of the lone commuter who, one by one, determines congestion.
...
I'm not a road-clogger, I tell myself. My commute is only five miles each way. I often work from home and on weekends just to run counter to the grain. And I need my car. No good reporter hangs around the office; nothing happens there.

Still, my morning choice strikes me as a wimpy one. I look around and see everyone else is driving alone, too. I wonder why they can't rideshare and if their excuses are valid or, like me, they just don't want to get wet. The question is not why can't they rideshare, but why won't they?

As director of the Washington State Transportation Center, Mark Hallenbeck says congestion is not just a function of too many cars in too small a passage in too tight a window. It is also the sum of choices.

"Flexibility and convenience still far outweigh the costs of driving alone," he says. "People don't really feel the pain — even though they complain about it. It isn't so bad that they are really, actively looking for an alternative. And since they aren't looking, they don't know what the alternatives are." And he hastens to add, there aren't many good transit alternatives for suburb-to-suburb commutes.
...
So we drive alone and pine for relief as we idle. We spew outrage at the price of gas while we burn it into fumes. We whine about clogged roads as we help clog them. We grumble about Sound Transit yet we throw Monorail Hail Marys. We're addicted to flexibility but completely inflexible about what commuting options we will accept. Some experts say it boils down to control.

Indeed. In a perfect world, we would all be able to live wherever we want, work wherever we want, and magically get to and from anywhere we need to be in the blink of an eye. The problem is that in the real world, transportation channels have a limited capacity, and too many people make choices that don't take that under consideration.

People want big city amenities and conveniences with rural freedom and individuality, and that's just not reality. As I've said, I hate traffic, but every time I find myself sitting in an idling car, surrounded by others in the same predicament, I'm keenly aware that I'm part of the problem. At least on a subconscious level, I think most other people realize this about themselves too, but until it becomes inconvenient enough, they're not going to change. What will it take to breech that threshold? $5/gallon gasoline? $10/gallon? 3 hour commutes from Lynnwood to Seattle? Who knows. But until we reach that point, the majority of people will continue to contribute to the problem and all the while complain about it.

Me—I'll be enjoying the fresh air while I zip along on the trail, where the only traffic I have to worry about has feathers and webbed feet.

(Richard Seven, Seattle Times, 03.12.2006)

Seattle to Pay Billions for RTID

Let's kick things off with a story from the Seattle P-I about the Regional Transportation Investment District.

So what is the Regional Transportation Investment District and why should you care about it?

Because the RTID will have a huge say in how and even if the Alaskan Way Viaduct is replaced.

It will also help decide whether drivers will soon see tolls again on the Lake Washington bridges.

And it will soon be asking people in Seattle and throughout the Puget Sound area to pay billions of dollars in new taxes to fix the viaduct and other major transportation projects.

They are the biggest of the big-ticket items: Paying part of the cost of replacing the viaduct and the 520 bridge; widening Interstate 405 and state Route 167; and helping connect state Route 509 to Interstate 5.

So in order to get some maintenance and a few improvements, we in the Seattle area are going to be on the hook for billions more in taxes. Are you aware how much money the State currently collects in transportation taxes? According to documents on Joint Transportation Committee website, $1.4 billion flows into State coffers each year in transportation taxes. And what does 1.4 billion per year buy? Apparently not a whole lot. Hence the RTID.

I find myself somewhat conflicted about the RTID. I'm not inherently against the idea, but I am somewhat suspicious as to whether involving yet another government agency will somehow lead to my money being better spent. Consider these "guiding principles" taken from the RTID's Blueprint for Progress:

• Any proposal must significantly improve traffic flow and mobility in major corridors in all three counties.
• The roads portion of a regional transportation package should be fully integrated with the potential transit package currently under review by Sound Transit as part of its proposed Phase 2 investments (Sound Transit 2).

See, I'm totally on board with that first one. We need to make significant improvements to traffic flow and mobility. But, what's the deal with road improvements being "fully integrated" into Sound Transit? Sound Transit has yet to demonstrate any ability to "significantly improve traffic flow and mobility." Those two principles seems to be at odds with each other.

So what do you think about the RTID? Is it really necessary? How much deeper into your pockets are you willing to reach to fund these projects?

(Larry Lange, Seattle P-I, 03.10.2006)

Thoughts On Posting

I'd like to take a few moments to share about the posting frequency here. Much like my Seattle Bubble blog, the topic that I have chosen to dedicate this blog to is of a relatively specific nature. As such, there is a rather limited supply of new information available at any given time that is worthy of posting. There are plenty of news stories every day about the traffic, cars, or parking in general, and you can easily find them with a Google News search. Repeating and re-hashing every traffic story under the sun is not something that I am interested in doing. In fact, before I started this blog I actually performed some internet searches to make sure that a similar blog did not already exist.

Rather than adding yet another voice to the discussion on the more general topics, as I have stated before, I intend to keep this blog's focus centered on the specific topic of "news and discussion about traffic, roads, parking, and other related issues in the Seattle area." As such, if there is no news about Seattle area traffic issues on a given day, there probably won't be any posts (unless I think of a good discussion topic). Other days, there might be five or six posts. There will be busy surges and boring lulls. I expect it to be quite random, and I just wanted to make sure that anyone reading this doesn't come on a five-post day and expect it to be like that every day.

About the Blogger

I'd like to use some space to tell you a little bit about myself so you can best understand where I'm coming from, what my purpose is in writing this blog, and to share some of my feelings regarding traffic in Seattle.

I'm 25 years old and live in a small house (actually a converted garage) in the Seattle area (North King County) with my wife, dog, four ferrets, and an aquarium full of water critters. For a living I design control systems for a large construction equipment manufacturer in Redmond. I earned my Bachelor's degree in EE from Seattle Pacific University in 2002.

To get right down to it, sitting in traffic is one of the few things that really frustrates me. I'd sooner take a route that is 50% longer but allows me to keep moving than spend half the drive motionless on the freeway. Unfortunately here in Seattle it seems that traffic is bad and only getting worse. Granted, we're no Los Angeles, but even so, consider our four major freeways:

• I-5 is slammed for hours every morning and evening, even with the express lanes, and just forget about trying to get downtown on a weekend afternoon.
• I-405 gets hosed throughout rush hour to the point that it's little more than a parking lot.
• I-90 crawls across the lake, with the express lanes offering little relief.
• SR-520 maxes out even earlier, and seems like it could sink any time we get a little rain and wind.

...and there are hardly any alternate routes worth considering:

• SR-522 around the lake? Slammed.
• Alaskan Way Viaduct? Too short and falling apart.

So how is the government spending our ever-increasing tax dollars to address these issues? In short—they're not. They claim that they only have the money to repair existing roadways and build "mass" transit. Actually they claim that they need more money for those, too. But now I'm just ranting.

Of course, the government only carries part of the blame for our region's traffic woes. You are also responsible. Every time you find yourself sitting motionless on the freeway, you are part of the problem. Traffic is really the result of the choices that we have all collectively made regarding where we live, work, and play. Of course, there are many good reasons that people live and work where they do, not the least of which is the issue of housing affordability, but it is still your choice. Nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to live in Everett even though you work downtown.

Until recently I worked in Monroe. My commute was 18 miles each way, mostly on SR-522, but took me only about 25 minutes since all the traffic was going the opposite direction. Since starting my new job in Redmond traffic has become more of an issue for me, so I recently began riding an electrically-assisted bicycle to work. Not only does this free me from so-called "fossil fuel," but it also allows me to breeze along almost the entire way on the Burke-Gilman / Sammamish River Trail. By car in moderate traffic the drive takes around 45 minutes—on bicycle: about 50 minutes. Five extra minutes each way plus a little exercise, and never worrying about traffic is well worth it to me.

To sum up, even though I am not often personally affected by Seattle's nasty traffic, I still see it as an increasing problem with no easy solutions. I offer this blog as a forum where we can vent about the problem, discuss related news, and work together to find a way out.

Welcome to Seattle Traffic

Welcome, planetoids to another new blog, "Seattle Traffic." This blog was created to post news stories and generate discussion about traffic, roads, parking, and other related issues in the Seattle area. Questions we will explore:

• Why does Seattle have such horrible traffic?
• What realistic solutions exist?
• How does public/mass transit figure in?
• What will transportation look like in Seattle in the future?
• etc...

Many local blogs and news outlets frequently discuss traffic-related issues. I highly recommend you educate yourself through the links in the sidebar. I am starting this blog to collect traffic-related stories for my own interest, as well as to provide others with a forum to discuss issues that affect almost all of us that live in the Seattle area. I hope you find this to be a useful resource.