Love the warrior but hate the war, and other weekend ruminations
Also: Whom to blame for gas prices, kudos for the schools supe, Sound Transit's latest audit, and polygamy's free pass.
Here are short takes for a long weekend. They cover, too briefly, matters that I have meaning to deal with at far greater length in recent days.
Memorial Day
I will attend a Memorial Day observance this weekend. No matter one's view of the present Iraq and Afghanistan interventions — or of any present or past military engagement — we owe tribute to the men and women who have died and been wounded to defend the rest of us.
I put in nearly seven years of active and reserve service as an Army enlisted man at a time when military service was obligatory. Before that, I spent two years in a University of Washington ROTC unit before dropping out. I spent not one moment in combat or in a war zone, although I did serve at the Pentagon at a time when nuclear war threatened. As President Kennedy famously said, life is unfair. During war, some are called to die; others never leave home.
With the elimination of a military draft more than 30 years ago, few Americans have served in the military or have even known someone who has done so. This is unhealthy and leads to situations, as in Seattle, where teachers, parents, and ordinary citizens call for banning of military recruiters from high-school and college campuses. Would they similarly ban recruiters seeking young men and women to become doctors, nurses, public-safety officers, teachers, and occupational therapists? The present-day military is performing splendidly, under difficult conditions, and is providing perhaps the best opportunity in our country for poor and minority kids to lift themselves.
Most U.S. interventions in the 20th or 21st centuries could have been avoided with a bit of skill and intelligence by our national leaders. The Spanish-American war was a jingoist, unnecessary venture inspired in part by an irresponsible tabloid press. Our involvement in World War I could have been avoided altogether. We were drawn into it, in part, by skillful British propaganda and outright disinformation. World War II — fought against cruel German and Japanese aggression — was a war that had to be waged. But strong diplomacy and mutual action by Western nations, before the war, might have stopped the aggressions before they began. Our WW II firebombings of German and Japanese civilian targets, and our use of nuclear weapons, would have resulted in war-crimes trials of American leaders had we been losers rather than winners of the war. The Korean War began after Secretary of State Dean Acheson stated publicly that Korea did not lie within the U.S. defense perimeter. We became engaged in Vietnam because of a complete misunderstanding of what was happening there. Our vital interests were never at stake there. Nonetheless, 58,000 American troopers died there and perhaps a million Vietnamese, north and south. Our role in Afghanistan, post-9/11, was unavoidable. But our intervention in Iraq, as that in Vietnam, was based on a faulty assessment of the realities there.
Animus regarding wars should be directed against the leaders who launched them. We owe honor to those who served and died while we lived.
Gas prices
No, folks, those high gasoline prices are not being caused by collusion among evil oil companies. They reflect supply and demand. Oil prices have doubled in the last 12 months. But this is not because of a speculative bubble, as in high-tech or housing, where prices have been bid up irrationally.
A recent International Energy Agency survey confirmed that we face a decade or more in which there will just plain not be enough oil on the market to meet current demand. Yes, OPEC countries could pump more. Yes, Western countries should do more to encourage exploration, development of new fields, and new refining capacity. But when you come down to it, there will remain an oil shortfall, especially as economies such as China's and India's drive toward higher growth rates.
The conclusions are inescapable. We do need to develop alternative energy sources: natural gas, still plentiful; solar; wind power; cleaner coal; and, yes, nuclear, if waste can be recycled as in France's breeder reactors. On the other side of the issue — conservation — market forces already are driving us in the right direction. Sales of trucks and SUVs are plunging; small-car and hybrid sales are rising. Truckers, cruise lines, airlines, and other oil users are taking rational steps to keep themselves viable in a new oil-price environment. Individual citizens will turn to car- and van-pooling and greater use of public transit.
Current noisemaking might shame some senior oil executives into limiting their own personal compensation. But the companies need their profits to bring more oil online. Price controls and rationing, World War II-style, would only make things worse by encouraging black markets and distortions.
Four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline, or something close to it, will be with us for a while. Europe has lived with such prices for a long time. We also will need to get used to the reality that American economic growth and employment, over a several-year period, will be retarded by oil inflation. We will come out the other end. But cursing Big Oil now will do little to help us.
Kudos for the schools supe
We've been accustomed for more than a decade to never-ending reports of financial mismanagement, fractious School Board posturing, low test scores, high dropout and truancy rates, and time-wasting politically correct focus on race in Seattle Public Schools.
Congratulations to Supt. Maria Goodloe-Johnson, and the current School Board, for moving the system beyond these issues to common-sense policies aimed at enhancing teacher and student performance.
Goodloe-Johnson's new strategic plan, released this past Wednesday, May 21, is so sensible you wonder how it happened in Seattle. It stresses math and science teaching. It does not waste time complaining about the WASL but, instead, suggests ways to meet WASL and other academic benchmarks of student achievement. It tells teachers, principals, and administrators they will face more rigorous performance evaluations. It says that current slackness about high-school graduation rates will no longer be tolerated.
The school board will consider Goodloe-Johnson's plan June 4. It appears headed for approval. Right on.
Another Sound Transit audit
We received last week another taxpayer-financed mailing from Sound Transit. Titled "Time to Decide on Expanding Mass Transit," it began by stating, "Each year you spend more time stuck in traffic. ..." You know the rest.
The mailing listed public hearings scheduled for discussion to "help shape the Sound Transit Board's decision on the timing of a mass transit expansion measure and whether to move forward with a 12-year or 20-year package." As if those were the only two options. The options, as presently posited by Sound Transit, would give voters and taxpayers a choice between two multibillion-dollar plans, both focused on expansion of the behind-schedule, over-budget, uncompleted Seattle light rail system throughout King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties.
Incredible as it might seem, Sound Transit apparently is leaning toward putting one of the two packages on this fall's ballot — only a year after the similar Proposition 1 was thunderously rejected by voters in the three counties and when they are coping with a slower economy and higher tax burdens than in 2007.
It will come too late to affect any 2008 decision, but State Auditor Brian Sonntag has announced that he plans a second, more comprehensive audit of Sound Transit than the one completed last year.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, May 23, 4:55 p.m. Inappropriate
Oil Bubble: There is evidence of an oil bubble. Many financial institutions, hedging against a weak dollar, are resorting to commodities to park their reserve funds, and oil is a pretty safe bet (unless, or course, you bid it up too high). The Saudi Oil Minister recently commented that supply and demand (for consumption) alone does not explain the current high price, because oil usage has not gone up as fast as the price has. I think we'll see the price of gasoline drop substantially within a year's time. Not below $2, but down to somewhere in the upper$2 / lower $3 range, from which it will rise again but much more slowly. As far as the 1-year time frame goes; well. I was warning acquaintances about the housing bubble 5 years ago, but I was right eventually. :-)
Posted Fri, May 23, 5:04 p.m. Inappropriate
In retrospect it would have been amazing if ST2/RTID passed. No one liked it. Not the left or the right. This time around I have a feeling things will be different. Not only are gas prices high, our economy isn't taking a dive like the rest of the country and young liberals will be out voting in droves.
Posted Fri, May 23, 6:05 p.m. Inappropriate
Thank you for your service to our country.
Many thanks on this Memorial Day.
Posted Fri, May 23, 10:33 p.m. Inappropriate
"Four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline, or something close to it, will be with us for a while. Europe has lived with such prices for a long time."
Think for a moment: how has Europe dealt with high gas taxes and high gas prices? By not driving a lot. But they still get around, and it's not by bus.
Europe has lived with such prices for decades because Europe has continued to invest in mass transit options that people will use such as rail.
"Buses," comes Ted's tired refrain.
Paul Weyrich notes that among bus-based HCT users, more that 60% of US bus riders do not own a car. But of rail-based HCT, nearly 60% of subway, streetcar and lightrail users DO own a car. (Those numbers include Manhattan, where less than 20% of people own a car.)
"Sound Transit continues to campaign for light rail – the most cost-ineffective of all transportation options available to this region"
And yet, if this region had invested in rail decades ago, we would barely even notice the pain at the pump. But we invested in buses (and barely that), and gas will have to be far more dear before Americans will debase themselves by taking the bus to survive the pain at the pump.
People will use rail. The investment will be worth while.
People will not take your buses. It'll be flushing money down the toilet.
Too bad: you could have used this article to tie it all together. But when you add 2 and 2 together, you seem only to manage the answer 2.
Posted Sat, May 24, 6:27 a.m. Inappropriate
First, current high oil prices are due in small part--but only in small part-- to speculators and traders rather than fundamental market forces. We can expect oil prices to fluctuate, rising and falling, but at historically high levels driven by supply and demand. We need to do what is necessary to increase oil supply. But, at the same time, we must undertake the alternative-fuel and conservation measures outlined in my short piece. Muddling through is no longer an option.
Second, despite high oil prices, light rail is not an appropriate transportation technology locally. Its capital and operating costs are higher than those of bus rapid transit or normal bus service. It is far less flexible, taking far fewer people to far fewer destinations, than bus transit. Our topography locally does not suit light rail. Tunneling and water crossings make it a difficult and costly engineering challenge during construction. If light rail were to go forward as Sound Transit proposes, enormous energy and environmental costs would be incurred during the upcoming 10-20 years of its construction. Various studies have shown that, even if fully built out, light rail would not reduce traffic congestion in the three counties. Only its true believers, and those benefitting from its contracts, continue to argue otherwise.
Local roads and highways require repair and upgrading in any case. It is on these roads and highways, by the way, that cost-effective bus transit will operate. Such transit need not be wholly oil-dependent. The ultimate folly would be to build out a grossly inefficient light rail system while, at the same time, letting our road system deteriorate even more dangerously.
Posted Sat, May 24, 12:13 p.m. Inappropriate
Its capital and operating costs are higher than those of bus rapid transit or normal bus service.
This argument a) ignores amortization and b) is misleading when it comes to bus rapid transit.
Amortization:
Buses and the roads they run on have a useful life of 15-20 years, max. Rail cars have a useful life of 40 years or more. Existing rail mass transit systems can take more than a century before they need additional lane capacity. Bus service--unless it has it's own dedicated right of way--needs additional lane capacity as soon as traffic congestion exceeds the capacity of the roadway, which studies shows is immediate.
Bus Rapid Transit
This class of transit is specific, and the way it is used here is confusing. Real BRT requires dedicated right of way. Because stealing existing general-purpose highway lanes is less politically feasible than instituting an income tax, one of two things must happen: 1) we will have to build dedicated bus right-of-way, which costs as much as building light rail; or 2) we merely use existing HOV lanes, and we already have that today: it's called a Sound Transit express bus. I take one every day, and it does not deliver on the promise of BRT.
Our topography locally does not suit light rail. Tunneling and water crossings make it a difficult and costly engineering challenge during construction.
Our topography locally does not suit highways either. Bridges in this region cost billions to build. Replacing the SR-520 bridge will cost over four times what it will cost to dig a longer tunnel under Capitol Hill.
This argument also ignores historical reality. Prior to 1941, Seattle--like most cities in America--had an extensive surface rail network. Has something changed in our topography since 1941?
Our political topography is the issue. Neighborhood groups tend to oppose any changes to their neighborhood, unless those changes are done in a way that doesn't bother them. Put rail on streets where they share right of way with cars, the neighborhoods will oppose it. Put it underground, at least there is only grumbling about the cost.
Our political topography requires Sound Transit to build a light rail system that more closely adheres to the definition of a subway/elevated train.
If light rail were to go forward as Sound Transit proposes, enormous energy and environmental costs would be incurred during the upcoming 10-20 years of its construction.
The same statement goes for real Bus Rapid Transit, which would require building dedicated right-of-way (unless we steal GP lane miles). Expresses buses, of course, won't incur these costs. But we already have that form of Bus (not-quite) Rapid Transit.
Moreover, our existing transportation infrastructure already dumps so much oil into Puget Sound, it's equivalent to an Exxon Valdez spill every two years. Simply maintaining that infrastructure will impose far greater energy and environmental costs than any high-capacity transit project.
Various studies have shown that, even if fully built out, light rail would not reduce traffic congestion in the three counties.
Neither will buses and/or Bus Rapid Transit. In fact, BRT has even less of an ability to induce people to switch transportation modes than rail. Queue the data points from Paul Weyrich in my original comment.
Traffic congestion is the result of excess demand for a free, normal good. Without a price, demand will always exceed supply at peak hours.
If reducing traffic congestion is the goal, the only effective response is to change the pricing method for roads from time waiting in line to money. Charge a variable toll for all roadways, and we can eliminate traffic congestion tomorrow.
Posted Sat, May 24, 1:55 p.m. Inappropriate
Choosing to run buses over rail signals to the market that the entity providing the transportation service is not necessarily committed to maintaining that service in the long term (because the variable costs of operating that system are far higher than the fixed costs of establishing it). In other words, it is easy to change the level of service, and even eliminate that service, without major political consequences or accusations of gross fiscal mismanagement.
Rail signals the opposite. The fixed cost of rail far outbalances the operating costs, so once the rails are in place, the economy at large assumes that rail service will always be in place (this assumes the entity that built the rail system is not aware of the sunk cost fallacy, but hey, who ever said people are rational).
Why does this matter? Companies and individuals want to protect their financial investments, and because transportation infrastructure directly impacts the value of that most expensive of goods, real estate, they want assurances that the transportation amenities provided at the moment of their investment will not be removed in the future (thus devaluing that investment).
In short, the permance of rail spurs investment close to its corridor. This will increase the taxable base of the properties adjacent to the rail line, increase the tax-paying population within the service area, and most importantly, make a large, positive addition to the economy as a whole.
The apparent ephemeral nature of buses does not spur investment, and provides a negligible benefit to the economy as a whole. Buses will not expand the population of tax-payers investing in mass transit and/or roads, nor will they increase the taxable base of properties adjacent to the rail line. Buses will simply act like new roads, which guarantee that new real estate ratables will lie outside the existing transit tax area, along with the new taxpayers and businesses who will ultimately locate in those ratables.
In short, rail will become cheaper for YOU over time, while buses and roads will be a freebie that you provide to those who end up living in as-yet undeveloped communities adjacent to you.
The only people who argue for express bus service over rail are those who do not understand how economics and transportation intertwine.
Posted Sat, May 24, 3:09 p.m. Inappropriate
The only thing that keeps me from driving those six miles is the $20 parking at the other end.
If rail was serving Roosevelt, as planned, this trip would be a breeze. And I bet it would be a lot more comfortable.
So how does bus service improve in the city? I just don't see that happening except on a few routes, such as the 358.
Posted Sat, May 24, 5:19 p.m. Inappropriate
I have no doubt, Chuck, that rail service might take you on your particular trip more rapidly than current bus service does. But an entire region cannot make multibillion-dollar spending decisions, about various transportation options, on the basis of any particular person's daily trip.
Professional transportation and public-finance analysts---not cheerleaders for one technology or another---will begin with the threshold question: What technologies would carry the most people and goods to the places they need to go for the least public cost? Cost, by the way, need not be just monetary but can also calculate energy, environmental and other costs---also "opportunity costs" which calculate how much money is diverted from other priority purposes by the system in question.
There is no basis on which light rail is more cost-effective than bus rapid transit or ordinary bus service. Contrary to one commenter's thrust, light rail's capital costs indeed are higher than those of alternatives and bus rapid transit does not require the same infrastructure as light rail or encounter the same engineering complications.
Light rail is a system which goes from a limited number of fixed stations to a limited number of other fixed stations. Our commuting and other transportation patterns here are not those of a Chicago or New York, where
people both live and work in high-density corridors serviced by such stations.
Chuck's daily commute might be facilitated by the mulltibillion-dollar, 20-year investment necessary to put a light rail system in place here. But most other citizens' would not be.
Now, since light rail began here a huge subculture of supporters has grown up around it. It includes the contractors, subcontractors, engineers, public relations and law firms, unions, financial institutions and others who derive financial benefit from it. It also includes a huge Sound Transit bureacracy and a host of politicians who receive political money and support from the light rail
stakeholders listed above. It does not include professional, disinterested national analysts who know transportation technologies.
Posted Sat, May 24, 10:33 p.m. Inappropriate
There is no doubt for people who already live within walking distance of where a light rail station will be built, or who can afford to buy some of the new places built nearby, or who can't afford the market rate housing but through whatever means get the non market rate housing, that light rail will be a sweet deal. The interesting question is how many people is this? And how much of an impact will this actually have on air quality, vehicle miles traveled etc? There are a lot of unknowns.
When we look at numbers, we then get into an interesting question about what should be included. For example, if a person is going from say Laurelhurst to downtown, and at some point they take the bus from Laurelhurst to one of the UW stations, and then they transfer, should the cost be calculated per total trip (bus + rail), or just cost per rail trip?
When we look at rail investments, we also get some interesting questions of who should pay. As noted above, living near a rail station is a significant amenity. So, why not have a local improvement district the way SLUT is being funded in part?
There are a number of ways we can look at oil prices. Higher prices do increase demand for transportation alternatives to solo car trips. But it also increases the interest in solutions that can be put in place in the short term, like a year or two, not 20 years.
There are lots of people who will make arguments about trains along the lines of "they spur investment" or "they attract people who won't ride buses" or "the costs of building a fully separate bus lane is the same as building a rail line."
Well, we see investment all over. The main obstacle against investment seems to be zoning. Examples: the controvery in Wedgewood and the one in Magnolia at a surplus school site over some higher density housing. Look at all the high density in Bellevue. It is happening regardless of whether there's a rail station there or not.
Re people who will ride trains but not a bus: So, what is the "latent" demand for bus service? In other words, if we did something (more park and rides, more frequent service, more seats and less standing space at peak times etc) what would the demand be?
Also what lessons can we learn from Microsoft's wi-fi enabled bus service, where people are able to reserve a seat, get a ride that fits with their work schedule (not have to catch the last fast service at a certain time or face a much slower time on another bus), etc. Service level does matter. Has anyone ever been able to ask the question "how much demand would there be for a paying service that has wi-fi, a reserved seat, etc." Maybe the costs could be 100% covered. But we don't know because our political structure is shaping certain questions that can be asked, and others that can not.
In 2000, I went to a Sound Transit open house at Union Station. I asked Dave Earling, then the chairman of Sound Transit, where anyone had costed out what it would be like to build a separate corridor, like the rail line, but run buses on it instead. He said no.
I have a hunch a bus tunnel extension would be cheaper than the rail tunnel. Buses don't have the same level of vibration impacting Physics experiments at the UW. This would probably mean a shorter route.
To close, there are lots of points people will throw out. "40 year trains" or " a need for fully separated bus lanes in order to do an apple to apple comparison." Or "the costs are cheaper on a fully amortized basis." Numbers to back these are up are rarely presented and they may be from very different contexts, for example, using cost figures from places that run their rail on existing tracks, not new right of ways.
Posted Sat, May 24, 10:35 p.m. Inappropriate
What plan could we implement that would have a significant, say 20%, impact in the next five years on vehicle miles traveled or on greenhouse gas emissions?
And as a coda: what plan would result in a 50% reduction in 10 or 20 years?
Somehow, we need to move beyond arguing about modes and focus about goals and ways of getting to those outcomes. What I don't see from the rail supporters is lots of "features" - 50 miles of track, 50,000 daily boardings, whatever they are - but nothing about the "benefits" of actual reductions in greenhouse gases, about actual vehicle miles reduced, of a whopping big increase transit's share of commuters or of total trips.
We need to look at the outcomes we want, then put together a plan that will actually get us there. Then we need to do a reality check of just how much disposable income there is floating around to pay for a plan, and make some cost - benefit tradeoffs. If we can get 80% of the benefits for 20% of the costs, that is worth considering.
One final point: "buses get stuck in traffic. Trains don't. Therefore trains are able to operate independently and can operate better." This depends on whether it is just one track or several. It appears light rail is not an option for crossing 520 because of the problems with train headways and merging the tracks. I don't understand this all, but the point seems to be making rail work across 520 would be really, really hard and costly.
Posted Sun, May 25, 2:47 a.m. Inappropriate
I was curious, so I searched for "Van Dyk rail" on the PI's website. 94 articles were returned, about 2/3rds of them columns written by Mr. Van Dyk.
Excluding raw price tags--often in apples to oranges comparisons such as Sound Transit and the Big Dig, but otherwise contextless--I found only two statistics of interest, neither of them sourced.
Example 1: But light rail's capital costs make it, on average, 30 percent more expensive than bus rapid transit.
Example 2: Some 80 percent of its prospective passengers already ride public transit.
Far more common were the kind of unsupported assertions Mr. Van Dyk makes in his current column.
Example 3: If you parachuted 100 serious, objective national policy analysts into the region, you'd be hard pressed to find more than two or three who regarded the light-rail starter project in its present form as anything but a cost-ineffective public-works boondoggle. If you don't have the money at hand to build a full system, they would say, it is irresponsible to build a lightly traveled part of it and then expect local taxpayers or the federal government will bail you out later.
Example 4: Buses are not glamorous. But all over the country they have proved over time to be the least costly, most flexible way to move the greatest number of people to the largest number of destinations.
Two statistics over nearly a decade of columns.
Posted Sun, May 25, 8:46 a.m. Inappropriate
I do not sprinkle my columns with statistics because most people are bored by them, although I have used them more frequently than Carless cites. I do, however, build my columns around facts. None of the facts stated, you can be sure, is invented. Enough data and statistics on local transportation options have been issued and published to last a lifetime. I have reviewed them. Carless also should do so. Those with credibility---i.e., those not issued by Sound Transit or its contractors---all have pointed over the past 15 years to the same conclusion: Light rail would carry fewer passengers to fewer places for much more money than alternative transit options. Moreover, it would take 10-20 years to put in place whereas alternatives could be in service much more quickly.
There is another fact that light rail advocates conveniently overlook.
Most people in the region would not live within walking distance of its limited number of fixed stations. They would have to get to those stations either by bus or automobile. If by automobile, adequate parking facilities and rebuilt road nets would have to be constructed to accommodate the cars. A light rail system would not make us carless. It could not operate without car and/or bus feeder systems.
Posted Sun, May 25, 9:38 a.m. Inappropriate
In any case, the problem I have with your anti-rail argument is that it's inconsistent with reality. Cities all over the world have invested in rail systems, and in almost all cases these systems they are considered by everyone to be a resounding success. Are there any cities that regret having a comprehensive commuter rail system? If so, they are the exception, not the rule.
I suspect that if we were in turn of the century New York City, you'd be making these same arguments against the subways, and as history has shown, you would have been wrong then as well.
Posted Sun, May 25, 12:24 p.m. Inappropriate
Light rail is used happily and successfully by medium- and large-sized cities around the world. The light rail line between the UW and downtown has been given the highest rating in the country as to its effectiveness. The ridership numbers are astounding.
Professionals have come to the city and studied it and pronounced light rail a good transportation solution for connecting the densest employment centers of the region.
Light rail creates new corridors, which this region needs. The region also needs more buses, including bus rapid transit, which both Metro and Sound Transit are providing. This is not an either-or situation. We need both buses and light rail.
We have few and constrained corridors in our region, and we must provide alternatives to those corridors. Light rail is the most efficient way to do that. It uses steel wheels rather than rubber tires; when ridership grows it adds cars without adding drivers. Yes it's expensive to build the new corridor, but when you get to the situation the Puget Sound region is in with the growth that is coming and the need to get more people riding tarnsit, you must pony up and get a reasonable transit system.
Posted Sun, May 25, 1:20 p.m. Inappropriate
That's a theoretically sound generalization for high growth corridors, and especially growing corridors with limited capacity, such as the Lake Washington barrier that divides our region, crossed by only two bridges.
Van Dyk's point about light rail not reducing congestion, however, is important to make because of the widespread popular belief that building light rail is a key to reducing road congestion by removing cars from the road as people switch from driving to riding trains. Sound Transit stresses road congestion in its marketing for higher taxes.
Removing cars happens only to a limited degree, but it does happen. With the temporary I-5 closures last summer, many people switched to Sounder commuter trains, even overloading its capacity for a time. Congestion continued on the reduced I-5.
But in the everyday general urban case where both driving and transit riding is available, no amount of transit of any kind pulls down driving far enough to eliminate traffic jams. One general reason is that driving provides a "better" trip for many people than riding on a bus or train. "Better" means faster door-to-door, and more comfortable.
The balance between driving and riding transit is of course impacted by the economics of fuel prices and parking prices, as illustrated in Chuck Taylor's comment about his commuting choice, and as illustrated by crowded buses as gas prices rise. Choice is also impacted by driving restrictions -- everybody who wants to get on an airliner at SeaTac's North or South Satellite terminals rides the little rubber-tire subway.
We are in the process around greater Seattle-Tacoma of having learning experiences gained by the introduction of urban trains -- first we saw the Sounder commuter trains for peak periods, then the Link trolley car in Tacoma, then the Metro trolley car for South Lake Union, and next to operate, supposedly in 2009, will be the Link light rail from Westlake Center to the Airport. Then there are big time gaps for introducing train service beyond 2009 ... 2016 for subway light rail service to Husky Stadium.
It's good to pause to think about what we are doing ... first pause, Prop 1, "No" by 56% to 44%. Sound Transit is now trying to avoid a pause in the progress of University Link by seeking more taxes to get the train to a logical northern terminus at Northgate.
University Link is just the first phase of the North Link subway to Northgate.
Back to congestion. Carless makes the point, "Existing rail mass transit systems can take more than a century before they need additional lane capacity." I'll bet he's thinking that would be true of the North Link subway.
I don't really know how the ridership versus capacity will work on North Link. I've requested that PSRC model its operational impact under the assumption of the trains running full to capacity, so we all know what the best case means.
The official Sound Transit forecasts show plenty of capacity through 2030, the first 22 years of the 100 year assumed life span. But I think that despite the massive expense and disruption, there is some risk that this "light" rail subway could be under sized to have the "transformative" effects that some enthusiasts have for it. It's not BART, it's not DC MetroRail. It's much smaller. Compare the Bus Tunnel stations to the subway stops you have seen nationwide.
To be continued ...
Posted Sun, May 25, 1:37 p.m. Inappropriate
With Link light rail limited to four-car trains by design, 800 people per train, we already have learned that the rail-tunnel capacity under Capitol Hill would not absorb merging trains from Northgate with additional future trains coming across the Lake on SR 520. No trains on the SR 520 bridge is a committed decision. There are now ongoing uncertainties about how to let people transfer in the Montlake area between express buses serving cross-Lake and trains on the Seattle subway spine. U of W leaders don't like the idea of a big transit center next to Husky Stadium for travelers just passing through the campus area.
Aside from being expensive, rail concentrates mobility flows. It is part of a strategy that creates a hierarchy of transit services, where lighter weight bus services feed into heavy weight train services. A bus-based approach with many sizes of vehicles spreads the load around more, and makes explicit the necessary battle between cars and transit for road space, a fight worth having.
What if our future multi-billion dollar Sound Transit rail spine overconcentrates human traffic beyond the light rail's generic capacity?
Would a more dispersed and flexible suite of bus services spread the load across more regional geography at more tolerable densities?
More use of buses does bring us to road pricing to manage ever increasing flows in a healthy economic region, which along with "Carless," I support.
By the way, I am now in the process of reconsidering BRT as a "train on rubber tires." I'm looking at the notion of disaggregating the many BRT features that make bus service better, and applying them across the entire transit network with the explicit goal of increasing transit performance broadly. This is an approach that contrasts with gold-plating a few corridors with buses trying to be light rail, which has been the trend with BRT so far.
Posted Sun, May 25, 2:23 p.m. Inappropriate
Not that anyone would care, but I don't own a car primarily for economic reasons. I estimated I could afford only two of three options: own a home, save for retirement, or own a car. I chose owning a home and saving for retirement. When last I owned a car, I barely used it anyway. And the side benefits are great: now I can qualify as a holier-than-thou, pocket-mulching environmentalist. Joy.
Frankly, I can live without light rail. But only if drivers pay a user fee every time they get on the road, and only if that fee is variable and set high enough to keep traffic--and thus my 545 express bus--moving at the speed limit.
Thanks for reading my comments. I hope I ruffled some feathers (I wasn't expecting to change a mind that is just as firmly set as mine). I think I'm going to leave this thread alone now, and spend more time on what remains of my short vacation/business trip to Stockholm.
Posted Mon, May 26, 5:12 a.m. Inappropriate
It is true, as Ted Van Dyk says, that the per-passenger cost of light rail is higher than buses, though much of that advantage is lost if you want to build real, grade-separated bus rapid transit. It is most certainly not true that it carries "fewer" passengers; a light rail line will carry far more passengers than any comparable bus route. The question is whether the additional expense makes the additional ridership worth it. For my part, I have to think that if we expect the demand of oil to continue to rise faster than supply then we have to consider an investment in decent transit well worth it.
Finally, the point that Seattle isn't well suited to transit seems to me to be a chimera. Seattle is less dense than Chicago, but it is still a city with (and a broader metropolitan region) with fairly dense employment and population centers. In fact, despite the manifold limitations of bus transit, we squeeze a pretty impressive amount of ridership out of Metro; as of the 2000 census, 17% of commutes in Seattle were by public transit (I believe the number for King County as a whole is more like 10%). No other city in the US gets so much without a rail system. This, to me, suggests that Seattle is an ideal location for increased investment in ridership-intensive transit such as light rail.
As a final note, there's an idea implicit in Van Dyk's writing that a bus-based system is much more expandable than a rail system. There's some truth in that, but only to the limits imposed by street capacity. In Downtown Seattle, the central node of our system, I would argue that this capacity has been reached; I think most people who have to catch a bus at rush hour on 3rd Avenue would agree. I would further argue that the only way to increase capacity in any meaningful way is through a more complete grade-separated system, and I think the relative ridership intensity of light rail makes it the best choice in that regard.
Posted Mon, May 26, 5:15 a.m. Inappropriate
ULI Report: My understanding is that the ULI report discussed in the article you linked to deals with transportation infrastructure in a general sense, including transit. I haven't read the report, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression from the PI article.
Posted Mon, May 26, 9:16 a.m. Inappropriate
The study is here, page 35.
The ULI is firmly behind the first-class mass transit options to which Van Dyk is morally opposed.
Posted Mon, May 26, 3:04 p.m. Inappropriate
Both right of way and budget constraints are important in selecting transit sytems. Our modal wars are distracting us from sound decision making. Both LRT and BRT can provide a continuum of capacity and transit characteristics depending upon how much priority and frequency they are provided. There is no true BRT or LRT. BRT is a continuum from the LA Rapid line or Vancouver B lines that have no priority through the Curritiba or Ottawa systems that have complete grade separation. Likewise, LRT systems are a continuum. The ST line along MLK Jr. Way South is in the middle of the continuum. Link LRT between South McClellan Street and Northgate will be at the high end with complete grade separation: Metro-lite. Streetcars in Portland and SLU have little priority and are at the bottom of the LRT sprectrum. Streetcars in Toronto and Tacoma have more priority. Most modern LRT systems in North America use abandoned freight rail lines are rights of way. This is cost-effective. See Sacremento, San Jose, St. Louis, Denver. ST is building its own rights of way; that is very costly. They are building the least effective half of their system first, rather than the higer ridership north line.
The Curritiba and Ottawa BRT systems are analogous to Metro heavy rail; the Vancouver and Metro Transit BRT systems are analogous to LRT with less priority.
The available budget and rights of way should govern what transit modes are chosen.
In some cases, the trade off is between one line with complete grade separation v. several lines with less. The choice ought to depend upon the area's priorities and ridership objectives. How much priority are governments willing to grant to transit? If the transit agency has to build new rights of way, they cannot afford much of it.
Posted Mon, May 26, 3:09 p.m. Inappropriate
gas: Would gas price increases look less dramatic if measured in another currency aside from the weakening dollar?
Posted Mon, May 26, 7:39 p.m. Inappropriate
Today is Memorial Day, a day set aside to honor those who've fallen to secure and defend our freedoms. Yet nobody cares to comment upon that? Say "thanks" to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coasties who gave what Lincoln called, "the last full measure of devotion" so that so many in Seattle could be dilettantes?
Ted's comment about the paucity of veterans in the community these days is well taken. But some exceptions...
"The present-day military is...providing perhaps the best opportunity in our country for poor and minority kids to lift themselves." Except, that the men and women who enlist in the military today more accurately reflect the demographics of the American people than perhaps at any time in the past.
See this report from The Heritage Foundation that shows that the old canard, "rich man's war, poor man's fight" is as false now as it has been in the past. In terms of education, income, and race, today's military isn't comprised of the poor and minorities.
Hindsight being 20-20, it's easy to say that wars of the past 110 or so years could have been avoided. While that might be the case, it didn't turn out that way. You have to deal with "what is," not "what could've been," especially when you're talking about lives sacrificed to the cause. That a war is avoidable doesn't necessarily mean that it shouldn't be fought - historians will play ping-pong with this notion for generations in regards to Iraq.
At the time, the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo and the use of the atomic bomb on Japan were seen as absolutely necessary to prosecute the war and minimize Allied casualties. Abstract discussions of "war crimes" never seem to be leavened by a discussion of the numbers of casualties that were avoided because the ability of the Axis to wage war was hindered by the complained-of bombing.
All you need do is study the horrific fighting that went on in Okinawa combined with contemporaneous Kamikaze attacks on American naval vessels to understand that the use of the A-bomb was seen as a humanitarian, war-ending necessity. Hindsight again is 20-20 and too quick to judge, especially from a perspective where, as Ted says, "...few Americans have served in the military or have even known someone who has done so."
Faulty, but good-faith, assessments should be judged not after the fact, but from the perspective of the moment in which they were made. The history of WW II is replete with strategies developed from less-than-perfect intelligence that time's passage alone proved to be faulty. Again, too many arm-chair generals with Ivory Tower basic training or boot camp.
Let's just say I'd hate to have to be the one to make some of these decisions on the spot and with what they knew at the time. For all who think differently, did you invest in Microsoft when it went public in 1986? If you did, what are you doing wasting your time around here? You must be a gazillionaire!
Memorial Day is to honor the fallen, not engage in speculative "what if's" or grind political axes. Tomorrow will come, and we can go back to being snarky then. In the meantime, as Lincoln said:
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."
Please, God, make it so.
The Piper
Posted Tue, May 27, 1:36 a.m. Inappropriate
This is a classic chicken and egg problem. In Seattle, we are encouraged to sprawl and commute by car because there isn't really another option. (It takes twice as long to get anywhere by bus.)
If there were a high-density transit corridor in place, the areas around those stations would become more attractive to businesses, housing developers, and potential residents. Over the long term, you would see higher population density along those corridors, and commuting patterns more like what you see in other cities that have mass transit.
Posted Tue, May 27, 7:27 a.m. Inappropriate
Part of the problem: I am always bemused by people who complain about a problem at the same time that they contribute to it. Prime example: people in their cars in traffic who complain about traffic.
Posted Tue, May 27, 10:58 a.m. Inappropriate
The $800 per person per year funding gap for Seattle area includes the complete Sound Transit high capacity transportation build out to 125 miles, and in particular includes a conservative, understated measurement of the tax money that was rejected in the defeat of Roads & Transit Prop 1 last November.
Posted Tue, May 27, 11:12 a.m. Inappropriate
Issues like the amount of walking at each end of the transit ride, the amount of waiting for the bus/train, and the comfort/safety of the ride itself show up as more important in the decision to use or not use public transit.
This finding is why some of us on the pro-transit side want more buses in more places running more often -- TRANSIT NOW not TRANSIT 2011 not TRANSIT 2016 -- instead of pouring money into a few gold-plated passenger RR lines for train buffs and "world class city" promoters who want to Manhattanize Capitol Hill with a subway but without a lot of skyscrapers.
Posted Tue, May 27, 11:30 a.m. Inappropriate
But we are through with them. That was 2007, and this is 2008. It is a new dawn, the beginning of a thousand-year reign for our region. Those who say "no" have had their time, and now it is our time.
We will draw our strength from the common people. Again I commend bgtothen, for passionately explaining how the flower of our youth will show us the true path, and guide us toward the shimmering dawn of a new transit millenium ("young liberals will be out voting in droves").
The words of that (now-deceased) politician again come back to me - he also had no patience for complainers who would give false arguments to the people, destroying their hopes:
The broad masses of the people have a primitive and incorruptible ability to believe that everything is possible and reachable if one devotes one's full energies and fights with a strong and courageous heart.
This ability to believe is rather weak in some circles, above all in those with money and education. They may trust more in pure cold reason than a glowing idealistic heart. Our so-called intellectuals do not like to hear this, but it is true anyway. They know so much that in the end they do not know what to do with their wisdom. They can see the past, but not much of the present, and nothing at all of the future.
. . .
That is why their carping criticisms generally focus on laughable trivialities. Whenever some unavoidable difficulty pops up, the kind of thing that always happens, they are immediately inclined to doubt everything and to throw the baby out with the bath water. To them difficulties are not there to be mastered, but rather to be surrendered to.
They focus all their energies on the small problems that always are there, complain about the cost and believe that crises and unavoidable tensions are on the way. . . . Today, they only have a few backward intellectual Philistines in their camp.
The people want nothing to do with them. These Philistines are the 8/10 of one percent of the [region's] people who have always said "no", who always say "no" now, and who will always say "no" in the future. We cannot win them over, and do not even want to.
The above are excerpts from a radio speech by Joseph Goebbels on 31 Dec. 1938.
Enough with those who would say "no." The youth will say "yes" in November. Sound Transit forever!
Posted Tue, May 27, 11:51 a.m. Inappropriate
A few reactions.
I, too, agree that there were too few comments about Memorial Day, and the respect due our veterans and current serving troops, as there were too few comments about the other weekend piece on the same subject. I mentioned that it had been more than 30 years since the end of a military draft. Actually, it has been nearly 40 years since that happened (1969). Too few Americans
have had first-hand experience with military service.
Also surprised a bit that there were no comments about either the Seattle schools or the scandalous polygamy, victimizing women and children, plaguing Southwest and Mountain states. We do appear to have both a superintendent and school board prepared to bring accountability and performance to the local system.
Not surprised at the many comments re Sound Transit and light rail. Sound Transit and its allies have a regular goon squad which generate op-eds and online comments whenever light rail is questioned. Contrary to one commenter's assertion, I have no "moral" objection to light rail. When I returned home to Seattle more than seven years ago, I was prepared to love light rail---if it made economic and transportation sense for the region. Unfortunately, anyone applying the most elemental cost-benefit analysis to various transportation alternatives here must conclude that light rail produces less for more money than bus, bus rapid transit and other options.
This is the people's money we are talking about. There are many pressing needs for use of tax dollars. Those dollars should be spent efficiently and for proper purposes. They should not be sunk into a huge public-works project which, in the end, will benefit a few contractors and others at the expense of the general public interest. I have been stunned at the complacency of public officials, civic leaders and media who have chosen to give Sound Transit an easy ride on this count. That is why I keep returning to the subject and why I welcome the state auditor's new audit of Sound Transit.
Posted Wed, May 28, 9:58 a.m. Inappropriate
RE: gas: Yes. A barrel of oil is about 80 - 85 euros. A few years ago the dollar and euro were at parity. Now a euro costs about $1.50. Still, the price of gas in Europe is at an all time high as well. The equivalent of about $8/gallon for diesel in Germany when I was there a few weeks ago, (Diesel, BTW, is cheaper than regular gas in Germany.)
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