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Proposition 1, the light rail bill, passed here on Tuesday. This bill promises to spend at least $7 billion on 34 miles of rail. In all likelihood it will cost more and will take longer than projected, just as the current rail they are building has. The passage of this bill ensures us that we will face at least 25 more years of gridlock on the roads.
The past two days I have travelled into Seattle from Snohomish county. Both days the trip took me about and hour, and that was in the carpool lane. The passage of Prop. 1 ensures that nothing will be done to fix the current transportation problems, because it will not be feasible to spend money on solutions that will have an effect in the near to intermediate term. Instead we passed a long term "solution" that may or may not reduce traffic.
Chances are that the light rail will not reduce traffic from current levels. In the next 25 years the amount of traffic will definitely grow and delays will get worse. People will waste time, gas and money sitting in traffic and our best solution is a rail plan that doesn't serve half of the residents being taxed and doesn't open for 25 years and won't reduce traffic.
There needs to be a better solution proposed. People say we can't build our way out of the problem, but then that is what they try to do by building rail. There are two ways to deal with the traffic issue, either reduce the number of cars on the road or increase the supply of road space. I have proposed ways to do both of these in previous posts and I will outline them again in the next couple of days in hopes of getting others to realize what we must do.
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5 comments:
You might want to check with WSDOT before making the statement that the passage of Prop. 1 ensures that nothing will be done about roads. Besides the viaduct and 520 (which voter rejection of I-985 has kept possible), WSDOT is formulating plans to add at least one lane the whole length of 405 and pay for it by instituting high occupancy/toll lanes. Plans for a major reconstruction of I-5 are also underway, although I'm not sure what kind of funding scheme is attached to that. I'm sure WSDOT has many more plans for state roadways; those are simply the only two that I have been involved in so far. It's always good to check with some sources before you make sweeping generalizations about things that aren't in your area of expertise.
If you want to speak intelligently about costs, compare the per person per hour cost of light rail versus highways. How much would it cost to add lanes on I-5 through Seattle?
You don't like the progress being made in Washington, then move to Alaska. We won't miss you.
How much would an extra lane through Seattle cost? Former DOT Secretary Doug McDonald pegged it at about $25,000,000,000. I-5 is wall-to-wall within the city limits. To add a lane, we will have to rebuild the ship canal, every overpass in Seattle, and buy up a block of houses from the canal to Northgate to accommodate another lane.
Light rail is expensive but so are roads. When we talk about added people-moving capacity, light rail is the better bang for the buck in Seattle.
WSDOT is formulating plans to add at least one lane the whole length of 405 and pay for it by instituting high occupancy/toll lanes. Plans for a major reconstruction of I-5 are also underway, although I'm not sure what kind of funding scheme is attached to that. I'm sure WSDOT has many more plans for state roadways; those are simply the only two that I have been involved in so far. It's always good to check with some sources before you make sweeping generalizations about things that aren't in your area of expertise.
These are not covered by Prop. 1, they will cost even more, in the form of taxes.
Secondly, I am not opposed to light rail just the way they are paying for it here.
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