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Seattle Monorail & California High Speed Rail Move Forward
bscottid writes "Woo-hoo! The monorail passed in Seattle!. And, it was driven by an amazing grass-roots effort of people who saw a way to use technology to get us moving again here in The Emerald City. Everyone mark your calendars, because in 2007 you're invited up here to take a quick, scenic ride around the beautiful city of Seattle! (Begin Simpsons references now)" It's also worth pointing out that in the recent california election, a pair of bills were passed which put aside approximately $10b for the construction of California's high speed rail project.
The Monorail, which from the very start was a viable and practical proposal to help deal with Seattle's critical-mass transportation problem, has been largely ignored by politicians for reasons unknown. The Monorail focus has been on solving transportation problems, and thus far seems to have been devoid of any lobbying or tampering by outfits that just want a contract. Every initiative, every election, was a result of a grassroots effort to make it happen. That it has made it as far as it has is a testament to the regular people that have labored so hard on it.
It ain't over yet though. You can bet that the rail forces will be back to create pain for the Monorail wherever they can. Stay tuned for the Sound Transit versus the Monorail shenanigans in Seattle over the next few years.
So those in Seattle owning a $25,000 car get to pay $350 per car per year to pay for one line of the monorail. If you have two $25K cars you get to pay $3,500 over 5 years waiting for this thing to open.
That's a lot of jack just to make it easier to get to the ball game.
I wonder how they are going to pay for the other 4 lines?
Fellow citizen of seattle:
The metro bus system sucks. (every bus system sucks, except for the Peter Pan from DC to NYC to Boston.) Living in Seattle, I used to take that pile of crap that is Sound Transit all the time. One problem is the "ride free zone" downtown. The idea is great--speed buses through the busy downtown corridor by not having to wait for people to pay. The effect has been to turn the bus system into a rolling homeless shelter. Also, there are way too many bus stops. Walk a block, people. We don't need a bus stop on EVERY BLOCK you could skip a block and the bus would get you there much faster. (Try riding the 71/72/73 downtown from the U-district some morning and you will see what I'm talking about.)
Ultimately, the reason buses suck is because they don't have a right-of-way. They get stuck in traffic jams just like all those freakin' Subaru Foresters and Outbacks do.
The problem with building more roads is that it will lead to more sprawl, and then you're back to square one.
Before I was in Seattle, I lived in Washington DC. They have a subway system and it works great. I took it whenever I could. Actually, the metro is about 25 years old now and unfortunately it's pretty much at max capacity. But if you want to see the example of why NOT to just build more roads, look at Northern Virginia. Roads/interchanges the size of the I-5/I-405 split in Tukwila are EVERYWHERE. And it can still take 45 minutes to go ten miles during rush hour. Becuase developers are still building subdivisions like crazy out there, so the roads fill up.
People who think Seattle has a bad traffic problem clearly haven't seen traffic in a place like DC. We still kinda have nice fresh air out here; doubling the number of roads (hence cars) will break that. Also, the way people drive in Seattle, you could get another 10% usage out of the roads by simply getting people to drive AT the speed limit, not BELOW it, on the major interstates. Frankly, I don't think Seattle drivers have the bandwidth to handle a 16-lane collector-distributor system like where I-270 meets the DC beltway.
Also, I encourage everyone to do what I did: Move to the city and work in the city. You get a few hours of your day back, and you're not supporting Evil (be it oil-funded terrorists or oil-funded economic destruction off the coast of Spain or oil-funded politicians in the Oval Office) as much. Or, if you work on the East Side, live there too. If you're not willilng to do that, stop bitching about traffic. No job is holding a gun to your head.
Just my two cents. And please don't take this as a personal attack; I'm just like that.
There are very few successful transit systems in the US. They just turn into big leeches on tax payers wallets.
And I suppose you think the roads are free?
I use mass transit 'out west' all the time (I used to commute daily on BART). It works great. It's faster then driving. I get to read my book. And it requires less federal subsidies then the roads.
I'd love to have a train that goes down to LA.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
(b) And downtown.
(c) People like their cars, so I have to believe almost any new mass transit system here will get most of its riders from buses, not from cars, initially. My hope is that this is just the first phase of many, and that ultimately a larger system (and one not subject to traffic jams because it doesn't run at grade level) *would* ultimately get people out of their cars.
(d) I don't follow. The monorail tax is based on the current value of your car, so if you're driving an old clunker you pay very little, and if you're driving a new SUV/Lexus/whatever you'll pay quite a bit more.
(e) Light rail won't go to the airport either (at least not in the first phase), you know.
(f) Heaven forbid cities and regions should take the initiative and spend the money to try to fix problems themselves instead of relying on the generosity of the Feds (or more precisely, the other 250 million-plus U.S. citizens who DON'T live in or near Seattle).
So it passed by 800 votes. Last time I checked, the state constitution didn't say anything about initiatives being any less valid because they got voted in with a slim majority. If I-776 (reducing license tabs, etc.) had only passed by an 800-vote majority, would you be as eager to decry it?
As for the fact that only 45% of people voted, as far as I'm concerned, the other 55% have no right to complain about the results.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
"It was too obvious even to the corrupt, however, that the rail system absolutely couldn't be done for any reasonable amount of money, and it's been in a perpetual state of falling over dead and being resurrected for the past 8 years or so."
You're being disingenuous. Sound Transit has had lots of trouble in Seattle for the same reason that any major public construction initiative has trouble in Seattle: the town is too politically correct for it's own good. Whereas many (most) other cities of Seattle's population have city managers with the power/authority to make decisions based upon engineering and technical criteria without putting issues to a vote, Seattle is hamstrung with a ridiculously political design/build process. Furthermore, the number of NIMBYs, owl-lovers and salmon saviors here attack any project that even looks sidelong at a stream or a standing puddle. It's a nightmare proposition for actually getting things done. The only reason the monorail people haven't hit this particular wall yet is because their line is only about five percent planned. And any engineer worth his sliderule will tell you that the true costs of a project don't become apparent until around the 30% mark.
You're right about one thing, though: Monorail has always been a populist initiative here in Seattle. Unfortunately, that doesn't make it a smart initiative. No matter how many intelligent, well-spoken engineers have pointed out the technical deficiencies of monorail for the Seattle landscape (and there have been many over the years), the populist beatniks have continued to mindlessly beat on the monorail drum. There's a reason that the Seattle Monorail has been called a technical solution waiting for a problem.
It's really sad, actually. Seattle is almost the textbook definition of the word "tragedy": a city with unbelievable potential, that is comepletely and utterly hamstrung by its political characteristics.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
In the US, land is cheap (land outside of major developed areas, that is.) Laws and taxes are such that building housing developments, and selling the idea of owning your own home is quite profitable, environmental impact be damned. As a result, sprawling residential developments spring up all over the place, overloading existing infrastructure (power, roads, telecommunications, sewer, water, hospital/school/police/fire.)
As more and more people move out into the boonies (and enduring 1-2hr commute times to and back from work), they demand improvements, like highway widening, more roads, etc. The growing tax base, and larger residential population now justify development of commercial properties, such as shopping malls - and guess who owns the land? Yep, the original developers, or attached arms thereof. Soon the area incorporates, and the politicans of that burblet start clamoring for state and federal funds to fix the mess that the developers created.
In the meantime, everyone who lives between the newly spawned burblet and where most of the residents work has to share increased commute times due to vehicle congestion, and greater pollution. Mass transit using buses fails miserably in this kind of situation, as buses have to share the roads with the worsening traffic, trapping mass transit riders in a commuter's nightmare. Solutions using rail, be it subway, commuter light rail, or a monorail/peoplemover, where the mass transit solution has right of way, are far superior, as you can cut commute times in half and thereby offer a reasonable and useful alternative to driving your own car.
Realistically though, unless all the burblets are in a straight line, leading to the commercial/industrial section of the city (hehe, simcity - a great urban planning tool), retrofitting any area with rail transit is an expensive and questionable pursuit. The key thing is right of way - and high density development around that right of way. Current development is low density, and unless you want to force people to rezone the properties along the proposed rail line, there won't be enough people riding mass transit to make it viable for the short to mid-term. In the long term, the idea is that having a rail line will convince people to re-orient their lives around it - but without a critical mass of transit options (a train that goes 3 miles is not useful), nobody's gonna ride it.