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...
4 comments:
Hi Tim,
Great idea for a blog - definetly something a lot of people will find interesting.
Am I okay to throw out the first conspiracy theory?
I've noticed Metro and Sound Transit buses running empty continuously in heavy rush hour traffic going to "Eastside base" or "Seattle Base" or some variation of the above. It seems like nearly as many empty buses run as buses on a route. I understand the need to move buses around - but I would think that if Metro is trying to alleviate traffic congestion, they'd schedule them to run outside the peak hours.
Isn't Metro heavily subsidized by King County? And hasn't KingCO made it abundantly clear of the social engineering goals of getting us out of our vehicles and into public transit? I believe there may be a hidden agenda to increasing traffic, and making our commutes worse...
"I'm convinced the snarled traffic is intentional. Follow the money. Compare the gas tax revenue for a stretch of road that is moving slowly to a stretch where traffic is moving quickly. Which creates more gas tax revenue?"
Is that a black helicopter I see outside your window?
Actually, if you do a little research you'll find that during the '80s it was the legislatures intent to allow traffic to get worse and make living conditions less desirable in order to discourage people from moving here and to control growth. Now that philosphy has transitioned in order to encourage mass transit usage and influence people's transportation decisions. They want to get people to live close to where they work, ie high density housing. Too bad, but I can't afford and would never live in Seattle. The suburbs have low crime, no bums, nice neighborhoods, large lots/lawns, better schools and free parking. Ha I ONLY go to Seattle to work, why would anyone shop or go there for recreation when you have to pay to park, circle endless blocks to even find parking, fight congestion, avoid bums, be on the look-out for criminals and the dirty broke down streets. The exact opposite can be found in Bellevue, nice clean wide streets, plenty of parking, very few beggars, plenty of cops, low crime
The conspiracy theory, maybe. But I think its more political impotency.
We need a drug to make politicians potent without the side effect of them going after interns and pages.
I worked as an engineering technical officer for South Australian DOT in the traffic signals section. In my six years there I saw the removal of "dead wood" in the department and a committment to improving traffic corridors, pedestrian safety, cyling safety Bus lanes and signals, red light runner camera installations, freight movement etc etc. It was the best place I ever worked, why did I leave? Still looking for that answer.
How do we improve Seattle traffic? I think we need to know what we want first. And then where do we start? How will we fund improvements. In my work I often did a cost benefit analysis with publicly available traffic accident statistics, looking at the financial cost of hospitalizing an accident victim, the ensuing payouts etc or worst case the death of victims. (The emotional costs to victims, family, errant drivers and the loss of work and contribution to society was not in the equation.) One average serious non fatal injury, cost at least the price of construction of two major 4 approach intersections with all the known safety devices. I would guess those medical costs would be much more here in the USA. Other cost benefits included business costs, fuel savings etc due to traffic delays.
I think the writing is on the wall for personal fuel inefficient vehicles, so lets target improvements toward pedestrian and cyclist safety and MOV's first, commercial access next and personal vehicles last. It isn’t enough to base improvements on accident stats, we need to be pro -active before people are killed or injured. As a side note we could reduce vehicle use by making licenses require more driving skill and ability, making proof of vehicle insurance mandatory when registering vehicles should reduce uninsured driver premiums as well.
Ultimately traffic and pedestrian facilities would benefit by being a State responsibility instead of duplicating traffic engineering in city and county entities. But for now lets restrict the city of seattle to facilities downtown. The City, counties and state working to standardize their facilities.
Whether the funding is from vehicle taxes, state or federal budgets, we all benefit from safety improvements. In consideration of emergency evacuations and service, perhaps Homeland Security could be a source of funding. (Sorry I had to throw that snide remark in.)
Any I have listed a bunch of problems at http://home.comcast.net/~chrispopeusa/Traffic.htm
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