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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.
oh wait, that was the supertrain.
I've heard many arguments that the distances needed to be covered did not lend itself to high speed trains. Especially in California where frequent earthquakes occur, wouldn't it be better to simply work on a new air-based transportation?
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
The monorail is the last thing Seattle should be worrying about. I live there and trust me, the highway system needs attention and FAST. Traffic is terible, and the Metro bus system got funding cut. Yes, I'm glad the monorail is going ahaid but due to the consept of a monorail only few people are going to be able to regularly use it. Work on our roads and mass transit first thank you very much.
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
Seattle Monorail & California High Speed Rail Move Forward
Now if they could just get the damn things to actually stop when they get to a destination...
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
I thought Gov. Gray Davis (www.egray.com) gave all of California's money to Enron.
My other first post is car post.
[Anonymous Coward] I hear those things are awfully loud.
[Article] It glides as softly as a cloud
[Enginerd] Is there a chance the track could bend?
[Article] Not on your life, my Slashdot friend
[Frequent poster] Why Seattle, those braindead slobs?
[Article] There were only so many Starbucks jobs
[Oil Companies] Were you sent here by the devil?
[Article] No, good sir, I'm on the level
[Cowboy Neal] I feel attracted to a man.
[Article] Go outside and get a tan!
I swear it's Seattle's only choice
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!
Monorail!
What's it called?
Monorail!
Once again!
Monorail!
[Poster] But our educational system's all cracked and broken
[re;] Sorry, man, the mob has spoken
[All] Monorail! Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
[Homer] Mono- d'oh!
This terrible parody brought to you by a bored college student.
My Karma is so good, I'm the Dalai Lama...or something.
For really cool monorail tech, check out the Urbanaut. Its inventor is the designer of Seattle's original monorail. Why we in Seattle aren't going with his ideas for this new one, I don't know.
TheMonorailSong.mp3
It goes from point 'a' to point 'b'. If you don't live in point 'a' and want to go to point 'b' then it really doesn't have much purpose. When I say mass-transit, I mean the Metro bus system. It is able to serve more people more efficiantly. Work on that, and once it's stabalized go to the fancy monorails.
Now where did I hear that name before...?
'cause Amtrak sucks. From where I am (Chico, CA), to go to Portland OR using Amtrak, it takes 14 hours and costs $100. In comparison, it takes 12 hours and costs $59 by Greyhound.
I'm not sure if this new plan extends into Oregon, but still, when a bus is faster than a train, you know something's not right (of course, this is in comparison to other areas like Japan and Europe where there's a fairly developed network of high speed trains).
---
Open Source Shirts
A monorail is a waste of money in Seattle, because everybody that is going to use mass-transit is already using mass transit. Those that *should* be using mass transit currently can't, and won't be able to with the monorail, because it won't be going far enough north or south. Mass transit is no good if I have to get in my car to get to the transit station. I should be able to walk out of my home to the platform (ala New York).
It doesn't really put aside $10 billion; it just puts it on the 2004 ballot. And unfortunately, the completion date is somewhere close to 2020.
It'll be really cool, although I'll be well out of college by the time it's ready.
How likely is a monorail to be profitable? Here in Sydney we've had a monorail running through the CBD for well over a decade. It's overpriced and nobody uses it but tourists. There's been talk for a long time about dismantling it, since it's not making any money.
OLPC Australia
Never been to Seattle, but Portland uses 'Dumb Trains' with good success. Our Governor and a group of planners actually went there a couple of years ago to get some ideas.
but I live in Seattle, and I voted against it.
(a) The company is estimating $100 million per mile (light rail would be ~ $14 million / mile)
(b) it's connecting Ballard and West Seattle (like needing a Western Passage so building one from Lake Erie to Superior, ie it goes nowhere)
(c) the company building it is estimating that 80%
of the ridership will be taken off of buses,rather than roads.
(d) WA doesn't have an income tax, so the brunt of payment is falling on non-new car owning citizens (new cars aren't taxed), and disproportionately on the poor.
(e) even if everything was perfect, it would still only connect ballard and west seattle. so what? we're gonna build a light rail system *too* in order to actually get to the frickin' airport?
(f) Why the hell didn't they try to get federal funding? We have the dubious distinction of being the first huge construction project in history without feds backing us, and we didn't even ask for money from them. WTF? I don't think that's a record I want my city to hold...
Hey, monorails are great, technology, ra, but we got lanley'd so bad. It passed by 800 votes. That's a slim majority for 45% of eligible voters for $2 billion in costs, without a federal dime or a state income tax.
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.
Air travel is really expensive, and barring any major improvements in aeronautics or cutthroat competition, it's not going to get that much cheaper.
Especially, you don't want to pay a lot if you have to travel from San Fransisco to Los Angeles every day for work, or home from college every week.
Plus, our airports (especially SFO) are busy enough as it is. Not to mention pollution and fuel consumption. California is growing, and in 18 years (estimated completion) the problem is going to be much much worse.
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?
[quote]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. [/quote] This is great dude; money that could be well spent on fixing our dire freeway situation is wasted on rail systems nobody will use. Anyone else love taking the 91 home to Corona??
Passed by 800 votes, heh.
Huge tax increase to pay for it, 1.75 billion for FOURTEEN MILES OF FRIGGIN TRACK
Whoopitidy do da.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
I'm all for high speed rail in CA. They've been talking for years about linking Anaheim to Las Vegas, etc. And the Amtrak Metrolinks between LA and its suburbs have been extremely popular. They started up after the Northridge earthquake in '92 destroyed many of the freeways. Once people started using taking the train, they were hooked.
But looking at this plan, the obvious, important routes seem to be missing -- particularly LA/OC to the Bay Area. *A lot* of people make this trip every day by plane. High speed rail would do wonders for our airport congestion, and air quality (next to cars, planes going into and out of LAX are the biggest source of smog).
And who goes to Bakersfield, anyway? Sounds to me like a big land owner with some pull in Sacramento is behind this. Fresno would be the logical choice for service in that region -- after all, it's the next biggest metropolis behind the "big three," and probably the fastest growing.
But when I see this happening in my home city it makes me upset. An excerpt from the above link...
The Monorail was opened to the public in 1988 as part of Australia's Bicentennial celebrations though has been somewhat maligned by many as a white elephant and eyesore with some people over the years lobbying for the NSW Government to tear it down.
Sydney fell for the glamour of the monorail (much like Springfield did) because a monorail has that sort of allure associated with it. This is what is now happening.
I hope Seattle and California go through with this and most importantly stick with it...even if it is not profiting hugely. The number of cars it will take off the road will be worth it.
WARNING: This sig does not contain a joke
Make great bike routes!
Don't like to peddle, get an electric bike, 20 miles for ~1cent of e.
& fresh air, yummm.
Seems easier to build a train or monorail station in downtown Seattle or SF (underground?), than it would be to drop another airport nearby. Airports seem to eat up acreage without remorse. The freeways have an empty zone down the middle just waiting for a high-speed train track.
And note that Japan has a very reliable system for controlling bullet trains during earthquakes. Of course, getting 2k passengers off a parked train, in the middle of no where, is another issue...but at least they're alive.
I see. So walking, riding, carpooling to a rail station is out of the question then, sounds pretty damn lazy to me. In terms of energy, rail will always beat out automobiles - yes even busses. There's no question about this, so busses aren't more efficient. Look at the other few hundred cities in the world that uses light rail commuter trains, seems to work just fine. Hell, just look a little north to Vancouver with the Skytrain.
Oh yeah,I saw the documentary on that down in Anaheim. Some guy named walt and his friends? Animated? Pictures of vertical freeways and flying cars? Yes, we definitely need research on this, but you're gonna be able to crowd-surf to work before we'll get a viable mass-transportation solution out of it.
What is it with government agencies and their damn PDFs? Is it so hard to take the text file used to create them, and make HTML pages instead? I'm all for PDF where stuff needs to be printed out, but I'd rather have people read stuff on screen, and save trees. Reading PDFs on screen is a pain.
The monorail only barely passed because of how they're paying for it. Virtually everyone in Seattle agrees that we need some system of mass transit (we probably have the worst traffic problem of any city in the United States, except for a very few, like LA), and a monorail is an attractive choice. It only passed by like three hundred votes, though, since how they're paying for it is all screwed up. Rather than having a flat tax or something, they're making it so the amount you pay is tied to the number of cars you own. That is, the less likely you are to use it, the more you have to pay for it.
I only voted for it because I live in West Seattle, so it _directly_ benefits me. My house is only a few miles away from the planned site. I'm actually pretty surprised that it passed; I guess we're really desperate for a system of mass transit. Incidentily, my friend's house is right next to the site of the track, so their land value is going to go down the tube. They're planning on moving before they break ground.
I think high speed in CA is a great idea that will serve that state well... it makes perfect sense to me to prepare for future/present transportation needs.
The monorail project in Seattle is good idea also, but I think the cost per mile is going to be a little steep for taxpayers. As long as they remember to save some money to keep up the roads, keep the buses running, and maintain the bridges I think they'll be OK. Seattle has had some trouble keeping up it's infrastructure...or so I've heard.
"You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 -- 1976." --George W. Bush, to Queen Elizabeth, Wash
On the one hand, this is an absolutely wonderful idea whose time, I have felt for quite some time, has long since come. On the other hand, I remember a bit of my history, and I am a bit afraid that Big Oil and/or the big car companies might throw a spanner into this plan.
If you'll remember, in the past, this nation had a lot more trolley, El, and miscellaneous sorts of commuter train tech infrastructure than it does now. In a sort of ghastly partnership, the big automotive interests convinced local governments to rip out the trolley tracks, the El lines, and the like-- and replace them with (what else) buses. And roads-- more roads for more cars.
Only in the most heavily populated areas, where trains are almost a necessity, do commuter trains still exist. I live just to the West of New York City (in the Newark/Jersey City area), and HERE we DO have commuter trains-- just here in the NYC area, we have the subway, the PATH, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, the Long-Island Railroad, Metro-North, NJ Transit trains, and regular Amtrak service to nearby cities in Connecticut.
But I recognize that my beloved NYC metro area is the exception-- not the rule.
What happens when Ford (or another giant car company-- or an oil company) waves a cool million bucks under the Seattle politicians' collective noses?
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
... Operated remotely via cameras, and the stations are quite nice, at least in the summertime.. I got from downtown to Commercial Dr (to find some used cds and wander around ;) quickly and easily on it.. I think it's technically just an elevated train and not a monorail proper, but it looks all futuristic..
I wonder how much it cost?
The more you contribute to the problem, the more you pay for the solution.
Sounds a lot more rational now doesn't it?
Cheers,
Backov
In the law there is no overlap between theft and copyright infringement whatsoever.
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.
Senator Hollings somehow managed to get all the monorails to converge on the Magic Kingdom where you *won't* be allowed to listen to "It's a Small World After All" and you will have to buy a seat license from Larry Ellingson.
... that it only had like 50.23% of the vote. At one point during the absantee balot counting, it trailed by 3 votes. It wasn't exactly a mandate from the people, or an amazing grassroots landslide of people who thought it would solve all our transportation issues.
I live in Seattle (I even live in West Seattle, so the monorail would benefit me), but I would have much rather had the state-wide transportation bill that failed. That bill would be paid for by a $.09 gas tax, while the monorail benefits only a small number of people and will cost me several hundred dollars a year on my car tabs.
Well, this system combines the advantages of trains with the flexibility of cars.
Seems to be a great idea to me - I'm not related to the inventor, "Jensen" is just a very common name in Denmark.
-- From Denmark
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."
(Mods: the parent is not insightful). Out here in the west, we do not have the density that the east coast has. Most places use busses for mass transit. They are in the same rat maze that your car is in, therefore, they have no advantage. Many ppl will not bother with them. This effect was seen here in denver, co. Each time an LTR segment was built the local republican would fight it and say that it could not be succsussful therefore we should build lanes of traffic or turn the HOV lanes into toll roads. So far, every segment of LTR has been deluged with all sort of ppl. When I have to go into denver, esp in the evening, I take the LTR. It beats driving with a bumch of drunks on the road.
The problem with LTR is that it is also in traffic, has crashes, and can not be automated. Monorail can be automated, never crashes, and literally rides above it all at a cost cheaper than an elevated LTR (Chicago's L) an a fraction of the cost of the east coast subways (which I paid for with my tax money).
go monorail.
The monorail won't work. By the Metro's (our bus system) own estimates, 85% of monorail potential riders already ride the bus. So it's not going to take a whole lot of people off the road.
The monorail is being paid for by vehicle taxes. So the people who don't need to ride the monorail are the ones being taxed for it. That's not grassroots, it's socialist.
people into California and maybe you would have a point. Actually it would be like stuffing 140 million people into a narrow 10 mile band near the pacific coast. (most of japan is mountainous)
As it stands, California, a state that is 10s of billions in the whole already will now start a project similar in stupidity and pork as the THE BIG DIG in boston. Projects that the everyone in the usa will be paying for.
Most progressive legislation like this is doomed to fail in California. I envision a situation similar to an insurance bill that failed to pass two years ago.
In 2004 proponents of the bill will spend a hundred million dollars on getting the bills passed. There will be suprisingly little opposition to the bill, and perhaps support from unlilkly sources such as oil companies, because they want to look like the good guys. The bills will pass by a very narrow margin, because most people hate to pass bills that spend money. The next several years will be spent in commities (chaired and staffed by "transportion experts aka auto and oil execs") at great expence and on studies.
In 2006 lobbying firms from companies who faked support for the bills will put nearly identical bills on the ballot. They will then spend 10 million dollars on a campain to defeat the bill and nullify the previous one. Since the bill has already passed once, there will be no great large support for re-passage of the bills and they will get crushed in the election.
This exact same thing happened in 2000 when insurance lobbyists defeated thier own insurance bill which was identical to one passed by Califorina legisature to curtail abuse by the insurance compainies. They only needed to spend a few bucks (~10 mil) on some commercials talking about ambulance chasers and insurance fraud to get a landlide victory and a windfall for the insurace companies.
(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."
I'm from good ol' Europe (Austria) and I really wonder, what's the big thing about monorails?
I haven't heard or read a word about any projects in Europe and nobody seems to care about the here, but in the US they seem to be "the next big thing" in transportation.
What makes them so appealing?
What are the real advantages?
"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?
I live in West Seattle, and my first reaction to this story was to respond like you did. But I didn't have to because you put the facts so well. Way to go. So let me paint a more subjective picture.
In the 14 years I've lived in West Seattle the traffic has at least tripled. Not just commute traffic -- people do a lot more in their lives than just go to and from work. I'm talking about shopping, going out to eat, etc. within the immediate area. The monorail isn't going to do squat for that. In fact, it will probably bring in more people and make the situation worse. As much as I hate the traffic on the West Seattle bridge, at least it probably discourages some people from moving over here.
This is an area people don't tend to move out of. It has a large number of people who have lived here since WWII and before, have raised their families here and have mostly taken good care of their homes. Those folks are dying off now, and their houses are being bought by people who either subdivide the lots with two skinny townhouse-like structures or put up 4-story apartments and business buildings, depending on whether there is a view. Property prices (and taxes) have therefore soared in the last 10 years. Our house value has quadrupled, which I suppose would be fine if we were real estate speculators, but we just want to live here. A district of longtime homeowners is turning into a district of renters, which we all know will eventually drive the quality of the area down.
The City of Seattle bureaucrats see this as "revitalizing" the area. I see it as "devitalizing". What they get is more tax money, from the residents but more importantly from the businesses, which pay both property tax and business tax. What we residents get is more crime, more graffiti (not the cool artsy kind, the dumbass tag kind), more losers walking around with an attitude, and more cars driven by hurried, over-extended people talking on cellphones, drinking lattes and putting on makeup.
A little rant about Seattle politics...
Schlach mentioned above that the monorail passed by only 800 votes. Seattle is developing a history of big projects that pass by a narrow margin. The new monorail is the most recent. Seahawks Stadium was another one, but at least it too actually passed. The Mariners baseball stadium was defeated by us mere voters, but the state legislature responded by obligingly writing a law authorizing any county with a million or more residents to issue bonds to build athletic complexes. There's only one such county in the state, guess which one. To avoid future complications they even gave the law a 2-year expiration date. The stadium the county commissioners authorized cost 3 times as much as the one the voters rejected.
Makes me proud to live in a democracy.
I find it ironic that your anti-MS apparel store runs on IIS with ASP.NET. Whatever's best for the job, I guess.
word.
I moved from LA to Tokyo and, in my opinion, a good public transportation system ROCKS! I havent even been in a car in almost a year. Geography aside, if LA (or the entire SoCal area) had something that was 1)safe 2)convenient and 3)reliable, I think it might work. But it'll never happen *sigh*
I've been to Sydney and seen the monorail. It only goes in a loop around a relatively small area, which is filled with tourist attraction type stuff. It doesn't seem to be intended for wide city use.
What I did see getting widespread use in Sydney was the subway system. Takes you most anywhere in town. Very handy, useful, and relatively cheap. Clean too, unlike a lot of other subways I've been in.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You "liked the Simpsons better before it was popular and had a large following". What does that give you, about a YEAR?! Ay Caramba, couldn't be much more than that before the t-shirts started.
The funny thing about the monorail quotes is, IT'S TRUE! The only useful monorail I've been on went between the Luxor and the Mirage.
Except when you don't.
Remember the current administration's relationship with the oil industry. Things do trickle down to the local level, at least to some degree.
All it would take would be for Bush to send a high-level diplomat to Seattle to convince them to stop the whole thing. It probably wouldn't take much doing either.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Even though this bond won't be voted on until Nov 2004 in California, it's about time we work on some decent public transit in this state. Outside of BART and maybe Caltrain, public transportation is horrible out here. Los Angeles is the second biggest city in the country, and it is quite possibly the worst public transit system (or lack thereof) I have ever seen for a big city.
New York has their subway, Boston has the T, and Chicago has the L. I haven't tried Chicago, but in Boston and New York their systems work great. You don't need a car because you can hop on a train and get pretty much anywhere you need to go with no more than a couple blocks of walking.
But unlike these cities, out here we have hardly anything at best. BART is great to get around in the East Bay and to get you to San Francisco, but once you are in the city you are walking pretty much anywhere. Caltrains is a decent option for people in the south bay who want to go to the city, but it is pretty slow and only goes to 4th street, once again leaving you a hefty walk if you are going anywhere other than Pac Bell Park.
However, as bad as it is up north, down south it is an utter joke. The pathetic excuse for a subway system in Los Angeles serves so little of the city that it's practically useless. Other than that, you have an unreliable bus system that couldn't follow a time schedule to save someone's life. I don't know about anything in San Diego, but as far as I know they don't have anything special.
While it won't be put into place for a long time even if the bond gets passed, I'm hoping this is a step in the right direction. Even though this system is state-wide rather than city-wide, I have a feeling that if we can get a really successful model to follow, cities will jump on the bandwagon and start making changes for the better.
That's when Paul Allen decides he really wants a monorail and waves even more under their nose. I mean, cmon, wouldn't you want to have a monorail go right by your office?
(Paul Allen is a microsoft exec who owns a part of Seahawks Stadium, a big office complex across the street where I work, Experience Music Project in Seattle Center, and Allen Island out by the San Juans. In other words, a lot of big public landmarks)
That's Ms. rebel, thanks.
:)
And the shirt would be a bit more explicit if these guys, whose services I use, didn't explicitly ban the mention of any copyrighted names, or photos of any famous people, etc. etc. etc.
I really wanted to put this picture on a shirt.. but that would have broken CafePress's rules on several counts.
BTW: It's a fucking shirt. I could easily fill ten or twenty pages with why you should "resist Redmond", but that wouldn't be too effective on a shirt. Can you picture it: "Hey! Is your shirt printed in microfilm!? I can't read it!"
P.S. Nice troll.
P.P.S. Nice to see SlashDotters coming to defense of Microsoft again.
P.P.P.S. Nice to see them lacking the nerve to do it as anyone but 'Anonymous Coward'.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
I find this walkthrough extremely thought-provoking. A lot of interesting reading elsewhere on their site too.
"The problem with LTR is that it is also in traffic, has crashes, and can not be automated. Monorail can be automated, never crashes, and literally rides above it all"
...and the problem with monorail is that you get only a handful of places to board and exit (vs. every stop for light rail), when monorail breaks down, people have to get down from 30 feet above the ground somehow, it's an inescapable blight on the landscape (remember: once an LTR train has gone by, you don't see it anymore), and because there are exactly four monorail manufacturers, you're basically locked into whatever company built the line for all future maintenance costs.
*sigh*
By the by...how many times a year do light rail trains really get into accidents? (answer: not many). Oh...and how big a problem is the light rail/traffic jam problem? (answer: in a well-designed system, not that big a problem).
I swear, Monorail should just be declared a religion in this country. At least that way the zealots can get tax breaks....
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Well, perhaps compared to what you're used to, Seattle's bus system sucks. BUT, compared to what I (or a lot of people) are used to, Seattle's bus system is awesome, unfortunately. You mention the 73: the 73 is a fucking godsend to me, seeing as my usual communte involves Bremerton-ferry to 73 to the UD, and the 73 works great. BTW, busses in downtown stop every 2 blocks, not every block. But I grok your idea; I'd like a stop every 4 blocks instead of 2. I mean, hell. Who can't walk 2 fucking blocks?
And, I know most of the traffic is east-side to downtown, but if I got a job on the east side I'd still live downtown. Eastside is suburban stripmall wasteland. Fuckthat; I want lunch at Mai Phim and sunday nights at the Irish Emigrant.
Their site mentions that in Japan the average deviation from schedule is 24 seconds. Last night at 1am I saw a train that was over an hour late! (I think it came from Scotland). We have highly advanced display systems just to tell you how late each train or bus is :-). Mind you, the displays at local bus-stops giving estimates of which busses will arrive and when aren't 100% accurate.
The price of a daily travel card has gone up from £1.30 in 1990 to £5.00 now, which must be well above inflation (monthlies are better value though). Note that in theory you cannot buy a ticket on trains now (especially since all the ticket barriers went up).
Actually the capacity of a road is independent of the speed of driving. There needs to be a certain distance between cars that increases with the speed in order to avoid accidents. If everybody sticks to the 3 second rule, each lane will have a capacity of 1200 cars per hour, independent of speed.
It's funny you mention the Emigrant, my normal haunt is the Galway just across the street... They have trivia on Monday night at the Emigrant, maybe we could do a "team slashdot" thing :)
I prefer the Knarr myself....but that's just because I live across the street.
The Knarr? That place has always seemed scary to me.
not that I'm not in there on the odd night playing shuffleboard, but...
Well, there are two kinds of bars in Washington State. Those that have pull tabs and those without. The knarr is on the cusp, if you ask me. Actually, that probably gives it a lot of character. "Character" like the big trough urinal that seats 2 or 3 and the open-air drug market in the back parking lot.
Mainly, the Knarr seems smokier than any of the other places, and that keeps me out. They had pinball last time I was there, though, which is a big plus.
I am very suprised a city the size of seattle has taken that long to get proper rapid transit. Look to your north to vancouver and have a look at a system that has been in place since 1986. it is about time for seattle. just curious, why wouldnt you use a higher speed system than a monorail (maybe something similar to the skytrain in vancouver?) better than nothing though
wise up fuck face
a war for oil is EXACTLY what it is, and it's GONNA happen whether Saddam complies with the UN or not. Why the fuck do you think Bitiain is supporting it? BP perhaps?
That was classic intercourse!
I sent in a submission yesterday to slashdot about how to purposefully get on spam lists for the purpose of testing spamassassin - I will allow myself to be deluded into thinking I am responsible for this article.
Styrofoam IS biodegradable, you're just impatient!
This concludes our six week course.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
In Europe, the primary goal of the rail system is moving people. In the US, the primary goal is moving freight.
Amtrak does not own the railbeds - the various freight companies (like Burlington Northern/Santa Fe) do. This has several negative effects on Amtrak:
In addition, the first time a high-speed train Darwin'ed a moron trying to beat it across the tracks, and derailed and killed a bunch of passengers, Amtrak would be sued into obilivion. You would need to have over/underpasses at every road intersection, as well as fences along the rail to prevent stupid people from walking along the rails ("Look! I am gunna put a penny on the tracks. This will be co-" <Brraaaak! Ding Ding Ding... >)
Now, were the US to invest enough money to build a seperate, passenger only rail system, then it MIGHT become reasonable to take the train - a train that averaged 150 MPH would be able to make the run from Kansas to California in 12 hours, rather than 26. Given the delays involved in flying, this becomes competitive, especially if they set up the Autotrain cars so that I can have my car when I get where I am going. It would still be faster to fly from New York to LA, but from the middle of the US out it would become reasonable to take the train, unless you are on a high-priority business trip.
Now, how to achive this spending of money without it becoming Pure Pork? If I had a certain answer I wouldn't be typing on Slashdot, but what I would recommend is a modification of what worked in the past: a Rural Rail act, similar to the Rural Electrification Act of yore. Make Amtrak a private company, have the government loan them the money to build/improve the rails, and make them pay it back. If they fail to pay it back, forclose on the lines.
If you look at the history of the REA, it made the government far more than it cost - most of the REA loan recipents paid their loans off in full. In addition, the improvement in the infrastructure of the country ALSO paid for the system.
I'd love to see the rails improve - the train is MUCH nicer for a 6'4" person like me than a plane, seeing the scenary along the way is great, having a 110VAC outlet in your sleeper car is great for mobile hacking, and trains can stop more places than a plane can. But until it either costs less than a plane or takes about the same time as a plane, it is a luxury, not a viable competitor.
(however, I do recommend taking either the Southwest Chief or the California Zypher at least once - get a sleeper car, and treat the trip as the vacation.)
www.eFax.com are spammers
big trough urinal that seats 2 or 3
Now there is a mental image that I didn't need early in the morning!
Better than Peter Pan/Greyhound are the Chinatown buses that run from Chinatown Boston to Chinatown NY (and on to DC, but I don't know where). They cost about $40 round trip compared to the PP/G $80, and they leave on the half-hour instead of the hour. There's no difference in time or comfort of ride (the Chinatown buses don't have VCRs to play horrid old movies, so that's a plus). As far as safety, I have no idea; there are good reasons to fear both kinds of carriers. I did see a Chinatown bus broken down on the side of the road once while going to Boston on another Chinatown bus.
There are at least three different services: Fung-Wa and Sunshine are two, I can't remember the name of the third. There are posters plastered all of Chinatown advertising them, you can find the bus adverts right next to the ones hawking calling cards.
Oh, the other fun thing with the Chinatown buses is buying the tickets. For Fung-Wa, you buy from a little hole in the wall next to a temple (NY) or go into a certain coffee shop/bakery and talk to a woman permanently set up at one of the tables (Bos).
Make sure hat the conductors have passed the MCATS (Monorail Conductors Aptitude Test):
Q: True or false? You can get mono from riding the monorail.
And make sure the trains aren't from the 1969 Worlds Fair...
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
This would have helped with traffic. The monorail extention they are doing won't help nearly as much and will look like shite. Oh well.
From an IEEE Spectrum article:
The rest can be found here:
http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-ieee.htm
If the same ammount of money was spent on building new highways instead of new rail systems the results could carry 16 times as many people and really help to solve traffic congestion problems. Instead people throw money down the black hole that is trains. Highways are just simply more efficient.
To illustrate why go find a train track and look at it. Odds are, there isn't a train in sight. Now go find a highway...
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
How about the feasibility of the Seattle monorail? In California you're at least talking about rail, and rail transportation's been around forever. Even urban rail has been there for many (100+?) years since the London Underground. But when you consider Seattle you have the problem that monorails aren't terribly popular or tried-and-tested for mass transportation, to add to every other argument you can have against mass or rail transit. I guess a monorail probably looks less cluttered than 2 steel rails, but I can't think how it can be safer, faster, more reliable, or cheaper than steel rail. For example, once you're done laying track, you can buy somewhat standard diesel multiple units from Siemens or Bombardier who have been making them for decades; and start making revenue. OTOH, who makes monorail cars for off the shelf purchase? Do we have mature monorail track switching? Do we have experience maintaining them under heavy loads? Can we get experienced manpower from iwthin the country? I'm sure these issues have been debated in Seattle, but has anyone heard any answers?
where are the natural gas companies that put mass transportation on the west coast to death 50 years ago?
well BART got through eventualy, so i suppose theyve realized not everyone is goiing to drive a gas burning car in a couple decades, Or is the market for internal combustion engines in the west finaly saturated?
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
Monorails will never be an efficient means of mass transit. The fact that the infustructure is so intrusive, the fact that "switches" are overly complicated and involve moving large slabs of concrete. Monorails belong in theme parks.
If Seattle wanted a real transit system they'd look at light rail, which can be elevated if so desired.
Using a rail system just opens up so many more doors, besides being a lot cheaper to build.
First Las Vegas, now Seattle, sigh, will these snake oil salesmen never go away?
I live right on (.1 mi from door to trail) an old railroad track->bike trail in Connecticut, it is wonderful (I recently did my first marathon, almost all of my training was on this trail). If they had a shower anywhere within 2 miles of where I work, I would bike to work whenever there is no snow.
The sad part is, I know lots of people in this situation (would bike to work, but...), most of them who don't work with me, and do have access to a shower, are terrified (rightly so) of the damn drivers. I think it would help most if they built small gravel or asphalt trails that mirrored all major commuter corridors, throughout the country, and more bike lanes on secondary roads. This would not only get people off the roads, but it would reduce heart disease and many other nasty things associated with being fat and lazy.
Lets face it, most people are so stubborn that they will not schedule their commute so that they can use mass transit that leaves the station less frequently than once every 5 minutes. The only way to get people off the roads is to provide easier non-mass-transit ways to get around.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Arrrrr...ya call that an anchor?!
Well yes. That's because the word "public" has been a misnomer for "government" for most of the disastrous 20th century, and now remains a misnomer in the 21st. Government transportation systems will always be a mistake, and here are the reasons why:
It's about time we got government out of the transportation business. Look at how the Internet took off when the ARPA and DARPA controls were removed and the free market took over. The same would happen if government transportation controls were removed.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
As anyone can see by following the link, California does not yet have funding for the bullet train system. What's been approved is to put a bond measure on the Nov. 2004 ballot.
Are we sure it's going forward? I mean, the back end looks exactly the same as the front, so maybe it's going backwards. Perhaps if the monorail was going backwards fast enough, I could actually get to work before I woke up!
Seattle monorail, on the other hand, doesn't go from anywhere to anywhere. It's cute, but, as I understand the proposed alignment, it doesn't really serve anyone's needs! It's just going to be a living monorail joke. This doesn't just suck for the people of Seattle - it will be used by morons to argue against investment in public transit in general and against innovative transit technology in specific. I was involved in the development of a prototype Personal Rapid Transit system that would have well served the needs of more dense inner-ring suburbs, but the political will wasn't there from the state government to fund construction. When Seatle builds the extension and there are very few riders, it will be used to bash all sorts of actually good systems.
...if you've ever been to Seattle, the "subway muggers" have that opportunity already in the bus tunnel stations.
If you've ever been to Chicago and Seattle, the sound levels between the El and the existing Monorail are completely different. The El sounds like a 727 at takeoff when it goes by. The Monorail is significantly quieter.
More importantly, as highway speed decreases towards ~35mph , people react by stepping on the brake which interferes with the flow of traffic that would otherwise occur with the 2 second rule.
rd
It's called a bluff. Ever played poker?
It's the only way to get Saddam to do what we need him to do. For the same reason that "mutually assured destruction" never actually led to mutual destruction, our hammering on the drums of war, will not lead to actual war with Iraq. The only way to get him to do what we tell him to is if we are 100% willing to go to war if he does not. Therefore he will do what we tell him to and we will not go to war.
The thing about you west coast liberals (am I inaccurate in this assumption?) is that you have this strange crazy unrealistic view of the world. you say things like "the president is an oil baron." Think about things a bit, my friend, the world is not all black and white, good guys and bad guys, and republicans aren't all self-righteous right-wingers who have sold their souls to big oil and big business.
Read the CA HST literature - it actually requires $25B. They've past a bill to provide $10B of it.
The answer is that these days you can't just "hop on a plane". You wait, for at least an hour, while they determine whether any of the passengers are terrorists, and whether any of the luggage is a bomb. And you've got to get to the airport. And back from the airport on the other side.
As long as the terminals are in resonable locations (compare Union Station and LAX for example) it makes more sense to use a HST than a plane.
I've traveled by train in London, Switzerland, Central Europe (Hungary, Slovakia, Poland), France (Eurostar via the Chunnel), Japan, and the US.
Japan's rail network is pretty damned excellent. Same with Switzerland (and Switzerland's pretty cheap, too, for such an expensive country). Eurostar is pretty good, but the UK side makes such a production of checking in and boarding the train that its almost as inconvenient as taking a plane (except that Waterloo station is a lot easier to get to than Heathrow, and it puts you out in the Metro network when you get to Paris, rather than way the hell out at DeGaul).
The one time I've used inter-city rail in the US - the Silver Meteor from South Carolina to Florida - it took as long as a car trip, cost more, and was no more comfortable.
One thing that no one mentions when discussing rail traffic is other countries' use of rail freight. There's typically a lot of discussion of 'In Japan or in Europe, X percentage of all passenger traffic is carried by rail, but in the US, only a tiny fraction of that number use rail.' While this is true, and to some extent lamentable, no one ever factors in the relative percentages of freight-by-rail.
In the US, the freight rail network is actually fairly advanced. I know from discussions with an English co-worker, who admits to being a bona fide trainspotter, that the UK rail networks carry a fraction of the freight that the US network carries. A much larger percentage of British freight is carried by lorry. Trucking in the US is also well developed, but still faces very stiff competition from rail.
So to claim that the US ignores rail at the behest of Big Oil or Big Airlines - or what ever other Big Corporate Boogie-Man is meant to be greasing the palms of our Elected Officials - is Big Hooey. Rail is important in the US. We just use it differently.
There are some areas where high-speed rail would make a difference. The North-East Corridor is already getting it, but it will be some time before its really up-to-snuff, especially with the cost-overruns and mainanence problems the Acela line's been facing. California (where commuter rail is already in use in the Bay Area, and maybe elsewhere) is another good app. Farthest 'Out There' is my idea for a high-speed rail diamond in Texas. There's a lot of traffic, passenger and otherwise, on I-35, I-45, and I-10 between Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. I go from Dallas to Austin several times a year, and I friggin HATE that stretch of I-35. I'd pay good money for a rail solution. Air travel (Southwest flies that route cheaply) would be a good option, but the hassle of airports on either end means I don't want to mess with it. But rail would be OK. I could catch a bus to the DART light-rail line, down to Union Station, pick up the high-speed rail from there to Austin (it could also serve Waco and Temple/Fort Hood).
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
I'm a daily commuter on the Orange County to LA Metrolink rail service, and without it I wouldn't even consider working in downtown. It's a 50~60 mile ride, with 10 stops 2 minute stops, lasting 90 minutes. During which, I get to relax and read the paper. Once in LA, the majority of us hop on the subway to get to our destinations, the rest take the city busses.
Ever looked into traveling to San Francisco from LA? Yeah, you could fly, take a bus, or drive, but if you want to take a train, Amtrak goes once a day and takes all day. If a HSR system can compete with the airlines, that would be great.
Say it can't be done? There was a recent program on TLC the other night. France has a high speed rail that gets people around faster than planes. Also, the train can take passengers into downtown, while passengers have to disembark planes many miles from the civic center.
The fewer roads trains have to cross, the safer and faster they can be. With our suburban sprawl, bridges have to be built over or under roadways. This all adds to the cost of laying track, as well as aquiring land to lay it, locomotives and rolling stock.
No form of transport in the US is unsubsidized. Airports are owned by governments, roadways are owned by governments. They all receive money from tax revenue.
This will probably get modded flamebait, but here goes . . .
This is a sad day for Seattle. The monorail, like the Link light rail, is a train to nowhere. This is yet another Seattle pipedream that's going to turn into a multi-billion-dollar boondoggle. And it will all be paid for with other people's money.
Don't believe me? Originally, Sound Transit was going to spend ~$2B for a line from the U district to the airport. They've already spent more than $2B and now it's from downtown to one mile from Sea-Tac Airport (i.e., nowhere.) They have not turned a spade of dirt to build this thing. And the monorail buffs think they can build one for what Sound Transit has already blown? Puh-leeeze!
Prediction: When the monorail is several years late and several billion over budget, its route will be shortened from Interbay to Harbor Island, again, from nowhere to nowhere.
City planners want to put a Monorail in Pittsburgh too, but I am totally against it. Why? Because frankly, it's a waste of tax dollars. It doesn't solve much problem in proportion to its enormous cost. We're talking many billions of dollars. How much research on alternative energy and fuel cell vehicles could be accomplished with that much money?! This would quite certainly do more to reduce polution and improve the city. Heck, if the money was truly managed wisely with minimal bureaucracy--say by a non-profit group with a couple overseers--we could probably become the Detroit of environmentally-friendly alternative vehicles and put ourselves on the map as a technology leader. But that would actually make sense, and the Democrats who run this town have an extreme aversion to logic and intelligence, so it'd never fly.
I agree this is a Sad Day for Seattle, jhylkema.
However, the press of the Seattle area kept out some of the important issues that voters were not aware of
Sound Transit (A light rail system that goes from Tacoma to Seattle with a few stops in between) uses Burlington Northern Rail lines. Burlington Northern dictates the Sound Transit schedule on the frequency of the trains. In short, Sound Transit goes when long ines of Freight Trains are not using the rail lines.
Sound Transit did a very poor job of geological research in the proposed light rail lines. There are many sections of the original proposed lines that can't be dug or light rail can't be used. This is why the Monorail was proposed.
The Eastside of Lake Washington (basically all parts East of the Seattle area) wants no part of the paying of a light rail-monorail. Even though the traffic infrastructure on the Eastside of Lake Washington reached it's maximum capacity 15 years ago.
In short, this whole idea is not going to be beneficial to the Seattle/Tacoma Area as was originally was the goal but to a small number of people who live along the proposed route.
Chalk another assbackwards move for the State of Washington!!!
I want my 'L' damnit!!!!
Dolemite
LEGAL NOTICE: Spamming my account will subject the offender(s) to liability of $1,000 per message (RCW 19.190.030).
Save the World! Use a Quote!
I had actually been part of grassroots organizations over the years that had attempted to force the City Council to actually include it in the budget. It might also be noted that the original legislation attempted to have a clause that if the Council doesn't budget for the monorail appropriately, they don't get paid. This was a big trend-setter in grassroots proposed legislation.
The Anaheim-Vegas link won't happen now that the Vegas casino companies have built casinos throughout California (on Indian reservations). Why should the Vegas interests spend the billions to build (or many millions to lobby to use tax $ to build) the fast rail when they can suck wallets locally?
" Actally it will go to points a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j, and k."
Actually, no it won't. Read up on it a little. It will go from West Seattle to downtown. And back. A few miles.
If you don't live in West Seattle and need to go downtown (or the other way), it's useless.
It's NOT a train. There is a regional light-rail/train system in it's infancy, but this isn't even slightly related.
By getting an electric motor for my bike-since I moved to the flats and my work is on the hill, I can't come in all sweaty, and so stopped riding for a while.
But the electric motor (Currie Pro Drive) solved that, I peddle along with it, but don't have to break a sweat to climb the hill.
It helps some with the cars since I can accelerate pretty quickly. Anyway, I don't think electric bikes are THE alternative, OTOH I drive my car like once a week now:-).
" I see. So walking, riding, carpooling to a rail station is out of the question then, sounds pretty damn lazy to me."
You obviously know nothing about the monorail that was approved. It goes from West Seattle to downtown, and back. Period. If you live in West Seattle, that kinda rocks. If you are in downtown, and need to go to West Seattle, that rocks too.
Otherwise, you are SOL.
If you are coming from outside of downtown and need to go to downtown, it does nothing for you. It would take LONGER to fight your way to West Seattle
(Going *Through* Seattle to get there...)and take the monorail.
If you are coming from outside of West Seattle and need to go to West Seattle, it would take you LONGER to fight your way to downtown and take the monorail.
Oh, if you're a tourist, It'll rock, too.
The problem that cities such as Seattle have is the attitude displayed in this posting. Government IS the agent of the community. There are times when it is appropriate for the community to act in its interests, and Mass Transit is absolutely one such area. "Competition" is a silly concept when it comes to Mass Transit. Take a look at Seattle and you see there are very few places where the geography provides for the needs lines, be they roads or Mass Transit. It is very much in the community interest to maximize the efficient use of those lines. Thus, it is in the community interest to build a comprehensive Mass Transit system.
Why has it not been built?
Because no one has the courage to invest in the future. Instead we measure success by the pennies in the short term. Everyone agrees that NYC, and Manhattan in particular, could not exist without its Mass Transit... in fact, since 9/11 there have been strict limits on who can drive into the city... yet, by the measures imposed on new projects, today the Mass Transit system in NYC would never be built.
What we need is to have the courage to invest in our future. To recognize that sometimes investment is about building the things needed by our communities. Over the long run, such investment forever change our communities for the better. And they frequently do not stand up to today's financial-only cost-benefit analysis. Not all benefits are financial, nor are reflected in these formulas.
Qrlx, you obviously haven't used the public transportation in LA. Try it some time. You'll think twice about Metro. Also, try riding the busses that say 'Express' on them. You can bypass local stops and head straight into the Buss Tunnel.
I agree Metro's Ride-Free Zone is a Rolling homeless shelter.
The problem with Seattle's traffic is the following:
1) The original road that became I-5 today was originally a road that was designed to have Seattle be a destination and not a stopping point for cities North/South of Seattle. This is the main reason why I-5 can't and probably will never be expanded.
2)Most of the traffic infrastructure in the Seattle area reached it's Maximum Capacity 15 years Ago. Ever Drive through Downtown Redmond? Case in Point.
3) The State Legislature Keeps Dragging it's feet on the topic of Transportation improvments state wide (Read: 520, 405/167 interchange, I-5/I-90 interchange, and 405 in general.) Last year Gov. Locke made the Legislature stay 90 extra days past their normal session for them to work on a Transportation bill.
Of course, you'll never read this in the Seattle area papers.
Voters in Washington need to send a message to the elected officials that if they don't solve this issue now, they will vote people who will!
Save the World! Use a Quote!
By 2007, I bet not even 1/4 mile of track will be laid for this thing. Look at the Big Dig in Boston.
The bill that passed means that the California voters will be voting on building the High Speed Rail System in November 2004 Send me an email at patrick > hsrail > org if you want to help out.
Actually, Amtrak gets top priority over freight trains:
Amtrak was created as a for-profit government corporation that was granted the right of access to the tracks owned by the freight railroads at incremental cost and with operating priority over freight trains.(Amtrak Reform Council)
Despite this, it looks like Amtrak trains are sometimes late due to freight traffic. The primary reason they're always so late, though, is apparently due to an undersized and/or an incompetent labor force. If you are interested in a detailed account of Amtrak's woes written by someone who is truly fond of trains, check this article out. Unfortunately, since it was written back in June, you'll have to pay 3USD to read it.Hmm...Point (a) can be easily refuted by looking up the numbers for light rail, but I really take issue with the apparently deliberate misleadingness of point (b). The proposed route does not directly connect Ballard and West Seattle. For people not familiar with Seattle and/or the monorail proposal, let me explain the route. The route runs from Ballard (a primarily residential area of Seattle) to downtown Seattle to West Seattle (another residential neighborhood which, I might add, is severely underserved by busses). Additionally, this line is the first in a proposed citywide monorail system, and as a first line, it's about as good as you'll get. Ballard to Downtown and West Seattle to downtown are both routes that are high traffic and a monorail line would likely be well used and helpful.
Just remember Seattle is know for its exceedingly poor city planning. For example,
1. Seattle used to have a trolley system, not unlike the street cars in san francisco. After a moment of genius urban planning it was removed. Click here for pictures.
2. Seattle couldn't agree on how to build a subway system, so they built a bus *tunnel* through downtown. Just to make it seem like they could intelligently plan for the future, they added tracks for a street car like metro system. They are still unused. (Last year they decided not to make the tunnel exclusive to light rail)
3. Seattle used to have another hill near downtown. They didn't like it so in 1897 they actually leveled half of it. It wasn't until the 1930's that they actually decided to remove it all. Here is an informative link with pictures.
4. Seattle's history of poor public planning also took place downtown. After fires and horrible sewage problems, they decided to put the sewage at street level and move the entire street up on story! For an entire neighborhood!
So Seattle, the town that actually raised its street level, lowered its hills, removed its light rail system only to have it cost in the *billions* to replace it, and when they try to replace it, it is only a bunch of unused tracks, is now spending 1.4 billion on a monorail. No one rides the monorail now, and they think that making it longer is going to change that? Hmm, did anyone tell them monorails are ugly?
-Sean
-Sean
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
The great thing about the monorail is that it's elevated and so completely out of traffic - something that makes a huge difference for both speed and reliability. Elevated services are usually opposed by NIMBYs who want to keep their views - since Seattle seems not to have that problem, this has a much greater chance of success.
sulli
RTFJ.
Seattle is also a big city with high population density. More rail transportation would work great there.
Many people use BART in less dense areas like Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, Fremont, etc.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
The most dualistic view in the whole debate is by W. himself.
"For us or against us"
"Protect freedom" vs. "hate freedom"
"Evil-doers"
"Axis of Evil"
"Protecting our national security" vs. "Unconcerned about national security"
For me, that's the discouraging thing about this administration. Every policy pronouncement they make contains an absurdity:
"Economic stimulus for the current downturn requires tax cuts in 2011"
"Osama bin Laden attacks the U.S. because he hates freedom." Hates freedom? No, he hates Western civilization! Never mind that bin Laden is presumably in favor of prayer in schools, against abortion, against gay marriage, in favor of "under Allah" in a Pledge of Allegiance, etc., as all "freedom lovers" must, right? Does Vladimir Putin love freedom? Do the Saudi princes?
"Iraq's WMD are a threat to the U.S." Not even close--a threat to Israel, Iran, Gulf States, most certainly. No attention paid, by the way, to what effect U.S. intervention will have on moderate forces in Iran, where moderates have to defend themselves against the charge that they are friends of the Great Satan. Doesn't matter because Iran is "evil," right?
Colorado, for instance, takes in $1.70 in Federal highway construction funds for every dollar it pays in Federal taxes.
What "everyone in the U.S. pays for" is the highways systems for empty states. The rail systems for high-density population states, which do pay more taxes than they get back, are a bargain.
Same analysis applies to the city/suburb split in rail and road building costs. The per capita boondoggle is in building highways and roads for areas that don't pay for them.
Curiously, the areas getting massive taxpayer gravy, the low-population areas, are the biggest complainers about taxes.
Entertainment tours (coachne.com) might beat Fung Wah. Modern bus (some of Fung Wah are just jitneys, with no luggage space), $40 round-trip, and it stops at Penn Station in NY (not Chinatown).
As a resident of Seattle, I'm overly pleased with the outcome of the monorail vote. There are basically no empty places in the city to build new housing. Old single home neighborhoods are being torn down and replaced with medium and high density apartment buildings. This inevitably leads to increased density -> increased local population -> increased traffic. This type of environment is perfect for non-grade level mass transit.
Although the project is expensive, it is still cheaper than light rail, the only other non-grade level option. And the project would become more expensive and difficult to implement should we sit by idle and watch as density and traffic continue to increase.
I look forward to riding the completed monorail and hope it succeeds in creating a viable, rapid trasportation alternative to being stuck in traffic in a car or bus.
Voters in Washington need to send a message to the elected officials that if they don't solve this issue now, they will vote people who will!
Voters here in Washington(or rather, voters outside King County) have repeatedly cried out that they want their transportation problems to be fixed by the government, be it new roads, mass transits, whatever.
Unfortunately, they've also repeatedly said they're unwilling to actually *pay* for any of it. The most hilarious part is that they're unwilling to spend money to fix a "Puget Sound Problem." Given that Puget Sound has been paying the bills for the rest of the f*cking state's transportation for years, it comes off as a "I've got mine" attitude.
ten BILLION dollars to build a train??
And in your mind, I suppose you think the roads are free because you rarely see the direct costs.
Actually it's more like 20 billion, and it's spread over a 10 year period. In contrast, the new San Francisco Bay Bridge will cost $5 billion for 10 years, and the Interchange (MacArthor Maze) cost $2 billion. That's 20 miles of very expensive road.
Have you guys EVER been sane out there?
Listen, we prefer to think outside of the box. America is addicted to it's road system and oil economy, and is almost incapable of seeing anything different. We need progress, not the same old roads.
Why would I EVER take the train from LA to Sactown?
There are tens-of-millions of people who drive between LA and Sacramento every year. Why don't you ask them. Sacramento, Fresno, & Bakersfield will each have over a million people by 2020. We need to plan for those transit needs NOW, not after-the-fact.
I could drive 15 min to LAX and hop a plane...or I could drive 1 hr to downtown LA, and hop a train that takes longer than the plane.
You are hallucinating. There is no 'hop'. To drive to LA, there's the hour driving in traffic, the 1-2 hours getting a ticket and going through security, the average delay on the SFO & LAX runway is 20 minutes, the flight is 1.5 hours, you spend an average of 20 minute taxi-ing on the LAX runway, takes 30 minutes to get your luggage, and then you need to find a taxi or rent a car.
It's not a 'hop' by any means.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I guess a monorail probably looks less cluttered than 2 steel rails, but I can't think how it can be safer, faster, more reliable, or cheaper than steel rail.
Safer: doesn't run at grade, thus no chance of collision with cars/pedestrians. Also has rubber tires, so stops more quickly. Also does not derail.
Faster: doesn't run at grade, so nothing gets in the way. Monorail has the capability to be on time, every time, without delaying anything else. It can also presumably accelerate to speed faster, given the rubber tires.
Reliability: in the forty years that the existing short-line Seattle Monorail has been operating, there have been something like four train-stopping failures. Two were in the last six months. That's a great record. Additionally, since the monorail doesn't interact with cars or pedestrians, it can be automated.
Cheaper: the beams can largely be fabricated offsite and then simply stuck on posts, which is cheaper and less disruptive to businesses along the path than laying rail. Automation will also reduce labor costs.
you can buy somewhat standard diesel multiple units from Siemens or Bombardier who have been making them for decades; and start making revenue. OTOH, who makes monorail cars for off the shelf purchase?
Well, Bombardier makes them, for one. Bombardier has been consulting with Seattle on this very initiative. Hitachi and Alweg are a couple others I could name. There are more, that's all I can think of off the top of my head.
Monkeytreats
Also, I encourage everyone to do what I did: Move to the city and work in the city.
I recently moved to Bellevue and work in Redmond. 10 minute commute each way. 15 minutes if traffic is bad in the evening.
I used to live in Kenmore and my commute was 35-50 minutes each way. It's given back one hour of my life a day at least. I don't think I could ever go back to anything longer than that.
No, *you* obviously know nothing about the monorail that was approved. It goes from West Seattle to SoDo to the stadiums to downtown to Belltown to Seattle Center to Queen Anne to Ballard. With numerous stations along the way. Anybody who's along that route can get use out of it.
This is an in-city transportation solution. Paid for and approved by the citizens of Seattle. There's no question that we need regional transit too, but that doesn't invalidate this plan.
Monkeytreats
We've got BART here in the bay area which is an abject failure, and the Cal train which loses billions every year. Mass transit only works in very tight city area's. People in spread out urban areas will not put up with the enormous delays and the added time on their day, nor is it cheaper anymore to ride bart to SF vs paying for Gas and parking. I just love paying for idiot politicians' pipe dreams.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Not true. It'll run West Seattle to downtown and all the way north to Ballard. If you live in Queen Anne, the ID, Belltown, Ballard, West Seattle or Greenwood you will get use out of this.
Monkeytreats
The monorail might be great for the people in the Sea-Tac area, but why should someone from Spokane, Yakima, Vancouver, etc want their taxes raised for a regoinal Seattle transit?
It reminds me of the project to build Safeco field. It was great for Seattle, but why did the rest of the state have to pay?
Is that the Irish pub with the Scottish guy doing trivia on the West side of I-5 near the U-District? If so my roommate goes regularly and I go with him occasionally.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
It seems that people are pretty strongly divided over this issue, and rightfully so: billions of dollars funded entirely by a city on a monorail system is unprecedented. Is it really necessary? Will it be (from an engineering standpoint) structurally sound? Is it cost-effective? Who knows. But at least it's a willingness to try something new. Progress is never made without change.
I apologize for posting this without being a resident of the city of Seattle. This automatically makes me flamebait for all those who are paying out of their own pockets for the project. I respect your (citizens of Seattle) opinions because they come from the frontlines of the battle.
However, as was brought up earlier, is there no reason to build a skyscraper without building the top floor first? Or starting a space program without knowing exactly how to get a man to the moon? I think not.
I personally like the example of the space program. I think that it is an excellent thing to have scientific minds devoted to getting human beings off of this rock we call Earth. Are the costs exorbitant? Of course. When the Apollo program was first begun, what was our motivation? "Beat those damn Russians to the moon." What kind of a reason was that? And yet if we had never started thinking about moving beyond this planet we may never have developed satellites (as a practical application) or be on our way to exploring further. The path of stagnation leads nowhere.
Another topic for /.ers: quantum computing. Can we build a useful one now? No. Does that mean that we shouldn't spend money on it? Of course not!
I know that the monorail system may seem to many people to not be very practical at all now, but if at some point in the future all of America's major cities develop mass-transit systems (possibly mono-rail), Seattle would be remembered as the catalyst. There is no way that people can see so far into the future to know that a project is doomed to failure: some of mankind's greatest discoveries were made purely by accident! ("Eureka!" he shouted in joy and ran down the streets naked) Perhaps the monorail project will fail. Okay. But if it succeeds, aren't the possible benefits worth current risks?
The UnRedmond Store: Show your true colors.
It should be noted that the UnRedmond Store runs on the Microsoft.NET Framework.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
There are a lot of Monorail commuters- I used it every day for a few months, morning and evening. The thing is to use it Mon-Fri mornings and evenings; then you'll see the regulars.
I recently moved to the east coast from Seattle, and the posting of this article brings up an important point. Hasn't the area already spent some millions of dollars on planning this monorail? And didn't we cut the transportation budget by billions of dollars with the $30 tabs? Why are we spending the rest of our transportaion budget for the next 10000 years on a monarail around downtown? Just wondering
First off, I also live in Seattle, and I regularly use the monorail when I need to get downtown quickly. I don't own a car. I haven't had one since 1996, and I don't want one. There are two important issues regarding transportation that hardly get mentioned at all: Safety and Acessibility. How many people have been killed while riding the monorail? In terms of personal safety, the monorails must be safer than even airplaines. What about people who are not capable of driving? I think that people in wheelchairs will appeciate their increased mobility provided by an expanded monorail system. Does riding the monorail require a vision test? Do you need to memorise a truckload of driving laws? Also, I believe that it's safe for monorail passengers to talk on a cell phone or eat a sandwich while riding the monorail. I don't like to see car drivers doing anything other than driving their car.
Would the Interstate Highway System have been built if the federal government hadn't gone and done it? No -- there would have been little motivation (not to mention vastly insufficient resources) for any private corporation to ever build such a thing.
The free market is a good thing, but it is not a magic-bullet solution to all problems -- so-called "market failures" are where the free market will not work, and public transportation is one of them. Corporations have only one incentive: make as much money as possible. Public transportation lends itself to a natural monopoly; competition makes it vastly inefficient (imagine if you had five or ten times as many bus stops, train stations, lines of rail, etc. because each company refuses to share the use of its transport resources).
Your facts aren't even right; there are numerous highly successful urban rail systems all over the world, most of which are government-run. Last month I was in D.C. and got to use their excellent rail system. Trains run often, on time, aren't overcrowded, and are cheaper than owning a car... and the whole thing is run by the government.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Let's take this disastrous sentence apart:
Let's have the courage to get rid of "public" (read: government) solutions to problems cause by government overregulation.The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Sure, we may not go from Ballard to Alki, but I used to go from Ballard to downtown, and people go from West Seattle to downtown. Not to mention, nothing big was ever built in a day, that's why there is more proposed than the Green Line, eventually serving the whole city. If I had to go across the lake everyday, I would move back over there. (When I worked in Redmond, I lived in Kirkland) The 520 is a joke, but this is a plan for Seattle, not the 'burbs.
As for Seattle drivers == dead latte-wielding yakking grannies, 100% true. That's why I take the bus (16 minutes from 120th to Westlake mall) now.
Just follow the day, and reach fo
Uhh if you live in the ID? Yeah you can walk 10 blocks to the monorail station at the stadiums then catch the monorail up to...west seattle or downtown or ballard.
I didn't know it hit queen anne, i thought the route went up 15th, so it went between magnolia and queen anne up to ballard. Also it doesn't make it as far as greenwood or greenlake last i checked.
The real problems in seattle are: traffic on I5, traffic on I90, and traffic on the barely alive alaskan way viaduct (99). The monorail, as proposed, does nothing for people who live in the U district (maybe they could take a bus over to ballard then hop on the monorail? FUN), capitol hill, beacon hill, fremont, most of queen anne, wallingford, blah blah blah. It does very little for people who live in belltown or downtown (what, i'm going to hop on the monorail to go to a mariners game twice a year? well, that was worth $150). It also uses a 30 year tax to fund one single line; how are the other proposed expanded lines going to be funded? additional 30 year taxes of 1.4% annually on cars?
Having "a" monorail might be a good idea, but having _this_ monorail is a bad one.
-- Patience is a virtue, but impatience is an art.
Consider the fact that the Washington, DC government is actually the Congress of these formerly free United States and things begin to make more sense. For example, have you investigated how much operating subsidy, coerced from taxpayers, is built into your "cheaper than owning a car" ticket on the DC Metro? My wild guess would be at least a 100% subsidy, but that's probably too low. And my other wild guess is that the subsidy is most likely a Federal subsidy, considering the Federal clientele that normally rides the DC Metro.
And I never said that government transportation systems were uniformly horrible to ride. They're often pleasant (although also often very slow). The burden to the taxpayer is the horrible part.
If a transportation project makes sense, and will provide benefits to people, everybody will pay the price in the cost of tickets, not the cost of taxes.
We're on the verge of subsidizing the formerly profitable airline business in this country, mostly because political meddlers have determined that the only way to make airline travel safe is to strip-search 70-year-old grandmas on the way to visiting their grandchildren.
Why not strip-search every person who enters a New York City subway entrance? After all, many subway stations are adjacent to (if not directly under) many of the city's remaining skyscrapers. Ludicrous, you say? Well, so is strip-searching grandmas with one-way tickets on the airlines.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Dude - the 71/72/73 are some of the best buses here if you catch the express buses. You get out of the tunnel, and next stop is the UW. Did you actually walk into the tunnel and catch those?
You know full well living in the suburbs means having to drive for anything besides your morning jog. It's the nature of the beast. The reality is that it is too expensive to have good mass transit service where there is no mass. The density is in the city, that's where the majority of transit should go.
Park and Ride is the best bet for suburbanites who want to use mass transit. There is no way you can expect decent bus/rail service through all those spaced out communities it would cost too much money. A light rail system of park and ride lots throughout the region would be the service I'd ask for.
And the word is "Antipathy". While the literal definition holds words like "distaste" and "enmity" as synonyms (see Merriam-Websters online for a nice impartial dictionary) the common usage I have heard all my life is "extreme apathy".
To quote the old joke...
Teacher: "Are you ignorant? or just plain apathetic?"
Student: "I don't know... and I don't care!"
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
See
Friends4Expo - A Rail line from Santa Monica to Downtown
Friends of the Red Line - 3rd busiest subway per passanger mile in the US
Friends of the Green Line
In short get involved and help out so we can get good public transportation in LA.
Dude - try taking them **downtown** from the top of the ave. if you're above 55th you might get a seat. you spend **forever*** getting thru the u-district -- making a stop at each block where like 20 more people get on. that part takes 20 minutes on a bad day. Once you get to the highway, it's great. Before then, it 5uxXx0rZ.
They are nice in reverse--once they stop being exprsses. I used to get off at that first stop and just walk the mile because I coudljn't stand the horrible inefficiency of the stop-at-every-block lameness.
I just got back from Comdex, and Vegas is adding a monorail from the convention center to the strip. During past comdexes you could wait hours in cab lines and traffic wouldn't move for days. Of course now that the show is so small, it was easy to get around -- but I'll still ride the monorail over some being toted along by some washed up gambler just jonesing to put more nickels into the slot machines. jim
we approved high speed rail a year ago and no one wants to actually touch it or start on it. in the recent mayorial race they wouldnt even mention it or how it will be funded.
http://www.hou-metro.harris.tx.us/motion/lrt/railq s.asp
I used to think this, too. Specifically in regards to the old Pacific Electric urban train system in Los Angeles, which was at one time the largest interurban train system in the world.
The "urban legend" was that the auto and tire manufacturers got rid of it all. Totally wrong. The reason it failed is because it was privately run and it did not make money. In other words, people didn't ride it. Now that may not be the case now if it was re-built -- things have changed quite a bit. But if you're going to say automotive interests got trolleys and trains ripped out, at least provide a link that expands upon this, because it's wrong.
If you'd like my link to back it up, just go here.
Carl
Vote Libertarian
Imagine there's no traffic, It's easy if you try, No smog around us, Above us only sky, Imagine a Beowulf cluster of monorails too... Imagine there's no Mazdas, It isnt hard to do, Nothing to speed or drive for, No pollution too, Imagine all the people living life in peace... Imagine no SUVs, I wonder if you can, No need for size or power, A mass transit for humans. Imagine a Beowulf cluster Of monorails too... You may say Im a dreamer, but Im not the only one, I hope some day you'll join us, And the world will live as one.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Imagine there's no traffic,
It's easy if you try,
No smog around us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine a Beowulf cluster
of monorails too...
Imagine there's no Mazdas,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to speed or drive for,
No pollution too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
Imagine no SUVs,
I wonder if you can,
No need for size or power,
A mass transit for humans.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster
Of monorails too...
You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
There are people who travel from SF to LA every day for work? HOLY SHIT!
-----
Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
The route structure leaves the automobile king and the result will be a public monies black hole that benefits only the contractors.
As a comparison an automobile can beat a small, general aviation aircraft from airport ramp to airport ramp if the distance between airports is less than 60 nautical miles.
We live up by Northgate, because that's where bus commuting is at least tolerable yet we can afford a decent apartment. In my ten-year career I've worked at seven companies in ten different offices, ranging from Fremont to the eastside to Rainier Beach. A manager at one company thought he was being clever by buying a house on Mercer Island just up the hill from the office--so they promptly moved the dev team to Bellevue, then Seattle, and now Issaquah.
Living where you work is a nice theory, but since even viable employers can't offer job security and still aren't comfortable with telecommuting, unless you're going to break your lease or sell your home every few quarters it's not going to happen except by chance.
Did anyone else think it was just a bit suspicious that the Seattle Center/Westlake monorail (which had been running flawlessly for years) broke down twice in a row just a couple of months before the citywide vote?
The monorail is gonna rock... I have to commute there a lot and that will make it a lot more... interesting? But with all the nice sights you also get the smelly bums. :-/
The Stranger, a local weekly, has some great coverage of the monorail issue.
That is, if you were pro-monorail. Lots of dish on the anti-monorail campaigners, too.
I don't know what your actual age or station are, but you write like someone who just discovered these "ideals" and hasn't had much practice applying them to real life. Basically, you sound like a first-year college student who's just taken his first couple of econ and philosophy classes... so for your sake, I really hope that you *are* (everyone goes through that phase in college).
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they forgot ...
to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll just think
the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail. And if *fifty*
pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty* pieces of mail get
lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken! And if 1Gb of mail gets
lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa [ucbarpa.berkeley.edu] is down and
think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to receive
Net Mail
-- Casey Leedom
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