Bottom Line is that we need to develope job centers outside of the Seattle urban core. The majority of the people live outside of Seattle and having them work near where they live make far more sense than dealing with the political and social disaster that Seattle has become.

The recent fraud of the Transportation Task force and the upcoming recomendations for reform of Metro by the Executive will be further evidence that the Seattle-centric planning of transit does not recognize the reality that business will not continue to operate in such a punative environment, they will move to areas outside of Seattle proper to communites that will welcome their jobs and revenues.

Cameron - Some kinds of organizations have a harder time in Seattle, mostly if they use a lot of land, which is expensive. Others, generally office/tech/research, often strongly prefer Seattle, and particularly Greater Downtown. I can think of many who have relocated closer in in the past handful of years alone...Russell, Safeco, PATH, Corbis, Institute for Chemical Genomics, Casey Family Foundation, Children's Research, etc. Others, such as Amazon and the Gates Foundation, have built new headquarters while staying at similar radii from the center.

When they move, they usually say why, in the press and/or in the RFPs they send to potential contractors, which end up on my desk. Access to transit is a huge factor. Proximity to restaurants is fairly big. Proximity to collaborators (law firms near courts and other law firms, contractors near architects, engineers, and clients, etc.) is a huge factor.

Those who don't locate in Seattle often locate in Downtown Bellevue, Downtown Tacoma, the U-District, or other places with at least decent transit and services. Even those in Redmond are relatively central if you look at the whole metro, and they're served by at least some transit, as well as Microsoft's internal bus system.

I'll comment on the rest of this topic later.

I thought there was a good deal of "incentivization" involved with moves like Russell. The availability of more affordable office space in the downtown core due to the depressed economy made it more attractive for others. As Seattle moves to higher taxes, higher parking rates and increased congestion aqnd crime the exodus of business will be significant.

Matt Hays -

You are quite right, for the first time in what, 15+ years? ;-)

Seattle is an international class and it attracts exactly that sort of high salaried firm.

The thing is families don't want to live in Seattle and most manufacturing is better located outside of the expensive core.

We need park and ride lots at our neighborhood business districts, something City has unwisely decided NOT to do, citywide.

While we are at it, why not provide space for co-op day care, public markets, etc?

Not really Cameron.

Seattle's "incentive" program is mostly moral support. We don't do subsidies, except related public infrastructure in some cases.

Downtown lease rates are higher on average than anywhere except the Eastside (which is dominated by newer space). Yes, there's some "flight to quality" if that's what you mean, even while vacancy rates have been particularly hard hit by WaMu and a heavy volume of new construction. Due to companies moving in from other local districts, Greater Downtown is doing better than expected in the current leasing market.

Doug, had to happen sometime!

One caution about our efforts to get people to live closer to jobs, so they can walk or bike from home to work: Remember that we are mostly dealing with two-worker housing units, where each partner is usually working at different locations. Asking such households to figure out where both will be close to work is a pretty tall order.

Another factor in this calculation is how often people change jobs.

So the pattern to keep in mind is one where a worker settles in a home that is close to work. Then the spouse finds a new job far away. Then the other partner takes a new job far away. Maybe they move. Then it's rinse, repeat.

You end up, trying to get people to live very close to their jobs, in chasing your own tail.

This is not to say we should give up on the goal. One way to decrease the odds of long commutes is to put more emphasis on locations that work well for job-split families. Two examples are Renton and Bothell, where one could easily commute to jobs in Seattle and the Eastside, with good transit routes. Same is true of Lynnwood, which can readily get over the top of Lake Washington. Mercer Island may be too expensive for much more growth, but the Factoria area is also well situated as an apex location. Readers might suggest other places.

very nice piece.

the "mass" of mass transit is needed in only a few corridors.
there are lessons from the Redmond and Burien TODs: as the transit agency funds are quite scarce, they should not build structured parking unless is used multiple times during the day. single use commuter parking is too costly.

three needed initiatives: sidewalks on transit arterials that lack them; increased zoned capacity inside centers with street and sidewalk grids; and, systemwide variable tolling on the limited access highways.

Developing vertical bedroom communities without making a serious effort to plan to have enough jobs to actually support the purchase of a home in a "sustainable" community looks like it doesn't even give population migration a chance to work for us, and there is way too much of it.
The Bel-Red plan at least looks like is could absorb a fare number of potential commuters into jobs that pay enough to support the community.
When I see a giant cube masquerading as a "walkable community" all I can wonder is where the jobs are. If everybody has to leave to work then we are simply shifting demand from SOV to transit, one expensive set of expensive infrastructure choices exchanged for another.
The Linden Ave complete street project is a fine example of a jobless development (unless a lot more people work at used car lots than I know).

David- Much of the reason behind the "downtown and "nodes" concepts is that even if people change jobs, many of the equivalent jobs are either within the same node, or easily accessible by transit. Particularly if you're close to the CBD, which makes reverse commuting to nearly anyplace by transit easy.

No solution works 100%, but it's way better than pushing growth to where transit is inconvenient to everybody.

Further, even if people end up driving, at least they're driving shorter distances. Commentators often forget that one.

This is just another incredibly stupid article.

1) As the authors allude to, the biggest problem is population growth. So, what is their plan to stop population growth? They have none. They don't even address the major problem. Stupid.

2) Transit is no "greener" than autos. In fact, with the regulations arleady in place to make cars much more energy-efficient in the coming years, cars will be much more energy-efficient than almost every form of transit in a couple of decades. So, building more transit is stupid.

3) The greenhouse gases produced by building the U-Link tunnel, for one example, will likely never be made up by any energy savings from using Link, because within a couple of decades, the auto fleet will be more energy-efficient than Link light rail. Why do the authors ignore the enormous amount of greehhouse gases produced by building transit systems, especially underground? Stupid

4) The very best, and most cost-effective, way to reduce transportation ghg emissions is by encouraging people to telecommute. Telecommuting requires virtually no energy use. Why is telecommuting not even mentioned in this article? Stupid.

No incentives? From the Sept 10, 2009 Seattle Times:

Nickels and some Seattle City Council members insisted they did not offer Russell a tax break or other incentives to move, despite their plan to take up legislation that would lower the local business-and-occupation (B&O;) tax rate paid by the company.

Under the proposal, Russell would avoid Seattle's highest B&O; tax of 0.415 percent and instead pay a lower rate of 0.15 percent, saving roughly $450,000 a year. In a June 2 letter to a Russell representative, Nickels estimated the company would pay $250,000 a year in B&O; taxes to the city under the reduced rate.

In the big picture, though, the Seattle tax-code change was more a friendly gesture than real competition with Tacoma, whose wide-ranging incentive package included complete elimination of its B&O; tax for Russell.

Seattle City Council President Richard Conlin said Seattle did not offer any such major incentives and had no plans to do so.

"We didn't go out and solicit them," Conlin said. He said the only other possible city action for Russell would be a change to the restrictive sign ordinance to allow the firm to put a large Russell logo on its new building.

City Councilmember Jean Godden said in a news release that the council's Finance and Budget Committee, which she chairs, will take up the tax-code legislation next Thursday. Eight council members already have signed a letter generally supporting the proposal.

Tice said she knows of no other incentives Seattle has offered Russell.

In response to Lincoln, transit's environmental benefits vs. cars have already been shown via authoritative sources (regarding all factors combined). The frequent readers already know this. Lincoln loves to cherry-pick points out of context rush-limbaugh style. If someone else wants me to dig this stuff up let me know.

Regarding incentives, thanks for the info. Still, if I recall, the tax thing was about a friendlier business type classification (business types are charged at different rates), not a subsidy in the technical sense. Either way, Seattle certainly didn't compete on price in that case.

Yes, we need to provide more transit in the city, but we also need to shift some road funding towards transit.

For example: the tunnel project is more expensive than all the light rail we have so far, the slu streetcar, the first hill streetcar, all the rapidride we are building, and the king county ferry district. Imagine what we could do if we shifted a little bit of road funding towards transit.

One of the reasons that Cascade Bicycle Club is suing is that the PRSC plan ignores the cost benefit analysis of improving the ability to use bicycles as transportation. The PRSC has historically been a tool of the highway lobby, the mantra is more concrete all the time for everybody. That's not going to work for the next 20 years and beyond.

Portland is showing what can be done with paint, a bit of traffic engineering (ie turning stop signs to favor bicycles) and some traffic re-routing. It's way less expensive than LINK, or adding more buses. Plus it's healthy for the riders.

http://www.streetfilms.org/portlands-bike-boulevards-become-neighborhood-greenways/

While I disagree with Lincoln's tone and need to use the word "stupid" I can agree with Lincoln that tele-commuting is probably a much more efficient way to reduce traffic congestion. A great example are the weeks that WSDOT closed most lanes on I-5 leaving people to establish alternate flexible hours or telecommute. When businesses and individuals actually did that the dreaded traffic nightmare didn't occur.

Also, with 1.5 million or 2 million people moving into the Seattle area both traffic congestion reduction and providing enough transit may be difficult to realize. Especially if people stay on the mantra of no new taxes.

Finally, while high density sounds great, Seattle does not feel like a high density family friendly city. I grew up in NYC where the planner Robert Moses had a playground every few blocks and schools and grocery stores were within walking distance. While there are some Seattle schools that are within walking distance of their students, I haven't seen a lot of community playgrounds. Paris is another city that has playgrounds everywhere.

No analysis of the urban land use/transportation conundrum is complete if it ignores the constellation of trips to nonwork locations, which comprise about 80 percent of all personal travel. Co-location of residences, services, and transit nodes may reduce personal vehicle travel for some, but it won’t for a large majority of the population that seeks entertainment, eating pleasures, and recreational activities wherever they are located in the region and beyond. These abundant opportunities, embedded in the existing land use patterns that lead to the choice of personal over public vehicle travel are listed weekly in the Seattle Times (NW Ticket), The Weekly, The Stranger, etc. So it’s hard to believe that “greening” the urban environment will appreciably change the environmental externalities of travel as much as new fuel efficient vehicles now in the pipeline.

http://cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb29/Edition29_Chapter02.pdf

According to the Transportation Energy Data Book, 2010 Edition, in the U.S. autos averaged 3,437 BTU/passenger mile in 2008. This is based on the U.S. passenger car fleet averaging around 24 mpg in 2008.

New regulations mandate that by 2016 new cars sold in the U.S. must average about 39 mpg -- an improvement of about 60%.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/15/autos/cafe_standards/index.htm

That improvement in fuel economy for U.S. cars by 2016 means that the BTU/passenger mile for the average new car in 2016 would be about 2,110 BTU/passenger mile.

The Transportation Energy Data Book gives the BTU/passenger mile for the average light rail system in the U.S. as 6,436 BTU/passenger mile (heading on top of Figure 2.2, page 2-17).

Obviously, autos will very quickly be far more energy-efficient than transit systems. Many cars already are. And, if electric cars become popular and affordable, the energy-efficiency of the U.S. auto fleet will improve even more, since some of the new electric cars already available have mpg ratings of almost 100 mpg!, which would equate to around 860 BTU/passenger mile.

This is where we should be concentrating our efforts -- increasing the energy-efficiency of motor vehicles, and encouraging car- and van-pools. That is far more effective and far less expensive than building insanely expensive light rail systems that will never carry more than a tiny fraction of all trips.

And of course, telecommuting.

But, if the population keeps increasing as projected, transportation will be the least of our worries. Water and food shortages are already becoming a problem in some parts of the world.

Same ol' same ol' from Lincoln.

He fails to mention that he's only counting fuel efficiency. Much of the environmental and cost advantages of public transit are related to the dramatically smaller amount of manufacturing needed for one bus (for example) vs. hundreds of cars. Or the large percentage of ground and buildings that are devoted to parking and roads, which transit/bikes/pedestrians would use a small fraction of even at much higher eventual usage levels.

Even if the topic is energy alone, cars use far more once manufacturing et al are included. When you add land use, the comparison is off the charts.

Lincoln knows all of this but ignores it. I don't know whether he's a lobbyist or a misc. blowhard, but he's certainly dishonest.

Seconding the comment above by Dick Nelson, I'm thinking society will find it easier to improve the environmental impact of cars and highways than to change the human behavior and spatial characteristics that cars have spawned over the past century, now manifesting worldwide.

As for public transportation, the year over year rising public revenue requirement per passenger boarding that transit systems exhibit collectively over the State of Washington indicate non-sustainability of expanding them except in very targeted ways, as "eddiew" suggests.

Get the FHA rules changed to allow the best loan rates for mixed commercial/residential housing, and you'll see more people living above their stores and shops. This will increase urban density and cut down on transportation needs.

Until transportation strategies are cleansed of the influence of special interests that historically marginalize giant projects with hidden agendas, the majority of citizens of Seattle will continue to pay more and receive less. Our two current mega-projects (AWV & 520 Bridge) actually reduce capacities and increase congestion for the sake of providing amenities for a few influential neighborhoods.

I agree with Dick Nelson and Lincoln and jniles about the rapid evolution of personal transport. People prefer this mode over mass transportation by a huge margin (demand) and the result will be the rapid introduction of more environmentally friendly vehicles (supply). Personal preference and the desire to be self-directed is something that seems to always be missing from these debates. I think that most people prefer to commute in personal vehicles, and not live in high-density areas.

I’ll just wait here quietly for my knuckle rapping from –m (Dr. Density) hays

Transit = my car. As close to door to door as possible, thank you.

mhays keeps trotting out the same old misinformation. Actually, when manufacturing is included, autos look even better than trains from a ghg emissions standpoint.

Who do you work for, mhays? Sound transit?

And, mhays, what do you have against telecommuting as compared to transit, both as they relate to ghg emissions and cost to the public? Care to give us your data on that?

@Lincoln: Where are the cars going to drive? We already have a huge traffic problem and massive local opposition any time road expansion is mentioned. Even if it were politically feasible, what would be the financial and environmental costs of the greatly expanded road system needed to accomodate expected growth in the Puget Sound area?

I am unable to find the original publication date of this piece, but the way I read this, the former Seattle office-holder supports the environmental organizations' law suit and ballot measure(s) and the current mayor's take on auto-centric "solutions," including his independent votes at PSRC, but excluding undiplomatic remarks to which he is prone—sometimes he is too abundantly clear as to his thinking—shocking.

In addition to being more diplomatic, this piece also provide a much needed history of recent events with commenters, as usual, supplying missing pieces. That being said, this is the SECOND time around for the impact of public transit on cities. Therefore, I remain most puzzled by all the endless chicken or egging and counting of angels on pins, e.g., mhays:"...the frequent readers already know this.... if someone else wants me to dig this stuff up let me know."

What I suggest instead is setting aside "obvious" conclusions and exploring the rich history of the decongestion of cities enabled first by public transit. There are many angles, but this book covers most of them well enough: "Tunneling To The Future, The Story of the Great Subway Expansion that Saved New York, Peter Derrick, 2001. Read the SPL copy or order a $2 copy plus shipping. Online reviews contain complaints by non-junkies about too much nuts and bolt as to the endless politics, the swiftly changing technology, and the resulting built forms. They should be so lucky, but if that scares you off, get your feet wet here: http://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2565690030_secret_subway

One of the most environmentally friendly vehicles already exists, and you probably already have one in your garage: A bicycle.

Near zero emissions. (It's not 0% because the manufacture of the bicycle itself, the tires, chain, oil for the chain, rubber tubes, batteries for lights etc all use fossil fuels.)

Door to door transport, and for distances less than two miles it's comparable in time to driving and finding parking. For distances less than 15 miles, it's comparable to bus rides when you factor in the stop/go nature of a bus.

As for percentage of total miles, I used to think that bicycling was just a healthy hobby that I got to do while also commuting, but then I added up the miles I was riding vs driving and it turns out that 2/3 of my weekly miles including all those side trips are done on my bicycle.

Bicycling, it's not just for kids anymore.

For I think the 5th time a with a new argument, here's a new one adding to the argument that Mike is right, whether you agree with him or my arguments or neither, Surface-Transit is the Right/correct choice option, as he may only simply imput legal argument first, then/now environmental statements such as:
"The DEIS for some reason noone can explain still finds the DBT exceptable after severe criticism from professionals of architectural/engineering fields" Why? Mike is Right. They're Wrong. Who's side are yuon?

Here's the ugly arithmetic of transit's financial non-sustainability: for the combined five public transit systems in the Sound Transit taxing district, the ratio of expenditures to boardings has doubled from $4.30 per passenger trip in 1998 to $9.43 in 2009. This comes from the data reported by the agencies to the Federal Transit Administration.

I'm a fan of telecommuting too.

Lincoln, my identity is clear on this board. I even have a bio on the Seattlescape blog. If any topic even remotely approaches what my employer does, I say so. How about you do likewise: exactly who are you, so we can understand any potential biases?

As for sustainability, let's just say the Crosscut regulars have seen your BS before, and people like me have refuted it before. Based on a quick google search, here are the first good descriptions of total energy use by mode (http://www.ptua.org.au/myths/energy.shtml) and emissions by mode (http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/PublicTransportationsRoleInRespondingToClimateChange2010.pdf).

You're actually arguing that cars are more sustainable than transit. Next you'll talk about cigarettes being a great tool for health. It's always 1950 in Lincoln-land!

jniles, that'll be an interesting statistic in 2016, when ridership skyrockets due to finally going to dense neighborhoods outside of Downtown.

Currently we have a route that doesn't hit much density except in Downtown, doesn't link to other rail lines, and has only one park-n-ride...in other words, has none of the typical drivers of high ridership. Even so it's reasonably close to projections given the economy. Original projections had it going from, if I recall, about 26,000/weekday this year (it's been in the 22,000-23,000 range) to 96,000/weekday after U-Link is done. Even if they're way off and it's 80,000, your cost per passenger will go down. In additional to the U-District extension itself, the extension will make the existing stretch more popular.

Currently, lack of capacity is holding the system back, because it can only run so often in the transit tunnel, and construction at Convention Place is limiting the length of trains to two cars at peak times. Some rush hours you can hardly board it's so full. At nights and weekends, budget cutbacks have led to having just one car, capacity 150(?) or so, during evenings and weekends. I rode Saturday and there were probably 20 people standing.

None of the car apologists have discussed the impact of parking. No effect you say?

I keep reminding myself that this is just a news bulletin board. The general public is WAY more transit friendly than you talk radio listeners.

No known transit plan will get me from my remote outpost in North Seattle to work someplace other than downtown. Telecommuting is about the only transit option that I could benefit from.

Unless transit does more than pump people into downtown cubicles it will suffer. You have to hope that a large majority of people living in the density of tomorrow (TOC) will have lifetime careers working downtown.

Good luck with that, and don't ask me to pay more for it. The people that benefit from the infrastructure should help pay for it. If it is so much cheaper to live without a car then some of that "savings" can go toward paying a greater proportion of the infrastructure cost. The TBD's should not extend beyond the "walk" distance from the transit funnel.

mhays, I have really bad news for you, talk radio listeners have no idea that Crosscut exists, you can tell, people are using facts in their arguments.

Public dollars go to lots of stuff that I don't personally benefit from. But I'm not so monumentally unpatriotic that I apply that standard.

As big local majorities agree, transit is extremely beneficial and in many ways necessary to this city/metro.

You know very well that newspaper bulletin boards don't represent a true cross section. Certainly not if you count by posts. Otherwise this would be 60-70% pro transit.

Unpatriotic?
That there is nutty.

You might want to get outside of your local bubble and see that even car-loving people are not even interested in paying for their own roads.
http://news.opb.org/article/40398-poll-northwest-residents-dont-want-pay-more-roads/

I'll guess that there is a profound lack of "patriotism" right now.

Not only do I expect what the governor's desire to push state roads, transit, and ferries to the local level, I expect people at the local level to take a really close look at who pays and who benefits.
Tom Rasmussen broadening the tax and benefit conversation is about the only context that McGinn could reasonably propose the idea of west side light rail. Attempting something like that as a solo act is not likely to attract enough patriots.

It's not 2007 anymore.

mhays, you are a joke. I looked at the first article you linked to. It is from "Public Transport Users Association" from Victoria, Australia. No agenda by that group, right? lol

My data comes from the Transportation Energy Data Book, from the U.S. Department of Energy.

You really expect anyone to take you seriously, when you cite a source like "Public Transport Users Association" from Victoria, Australia? Really?

Cars are becoming more energy-efficient than transit, in the U.S., absolutely.

"Some rush hours you can hardly board it's so full."
Well when I board my 550 bus to the Eastside sometimes I can't get on. However while waiting for my bus at the International Station I get to watch the LINK trains go by. I have yet to see one that is close to the packing density of my bus.

" At nights and weekends, budget cutbacks have led to having just one car, capacity 150(?) or so, during evenings and weekends."
You have to cut back because transit doesn't pay for itself. More riders is more loss.

" I rode Saturday and there were probably 20 people standing."
That's in part because there are fewer seats than an equivalent bus configuration. And if you were talking about two weeks ago Saturday, there was a SeaHawks game downtown which would have filled any transit.

Lincoln, until you post something that covers more than fuel economy, go sit at the kids' table.

And were you going to post your identity? Still hiding? Not a man?

GaryP, thanks for the inadvertent endorsement of Bellevue light rail. As for the Saturday, it was just a misc. cold rainy afternoon with no game. Game day I was in front of a TV.

Ok, mhays, since you seem to be admitting that by 2016 the average new car in the U.S. will be more energy-efficient than any of the transit in our area, unless you consider van pools to be "transit" (van pools are the most energy-efficient form of transportation right now), I will give you another argument for fuel-efficient cars over transit.

From where I live on Queen Anne, most trips are shorter, in miles traveled, by car than by transit. I will give you two examples.

Queen Anne Hill to Northgate shopping center. By car, I head north on Queen Anne Ave, cut over to Aurora, over the Aurora Bridge, then up north to 105th and east to Northgate shopping center. Using transit, according to Metro's trip planner, I have to first go south to 3rd and Pike downtown, then transfer to a different bus to head back north to get to Northgate. By car, this trip is about 6.5 miles. By bus, it is about 9.5 miles, because I have to go south to downtown to catch a bus heading north to northgate. That trip by bus is almost 1.5 times as many miles traveled as by car.

Or, even going south from Queen Anne to the airport. In my car I just head south on Queen Anne Ave to Elliott, and onto the viaduct and continue on 99 and 509 to the airport. Using transit, I have to take a bus downtown, transfer to Link, which heads east through the BEacon Hill tunnel, the south, then back west over I-5 before eventually getting to the airport. Using transit adds about 2 miles to this trip compared to driving, meaning I have to travel more than 10% more miles by transit than by car on that trip.

So, not only will a fuel-efficient car use less energy per mile than a bus or train, I can also travel shorter distances on my trips by taking more direct routes.

Does this help at all?

Mhays, I'm not anti transit. I'm anti Mass transit, pro Rapid Transit. Just because a lot of people use it doesn't make it good, it needs to be fast, that requires a dedicated right-of-way. But I recognize the need for local transit that feeds Rapid Transit.

I'm also a fiscal conservative, so I want to see that my tax dollars are well spent and that the system that we build doesn't make it worse.

As for Bellevue Light Rail, I'm still wondering how well the bridge crossings are going to work. Yes I know ST loaded up a bunch of trucks and tried to bend the bridge but it's not the same as trying to run at speed across a series of floating pontoons. Nor is a truck tire crossing the pontoon joints the same as the trains wheels trying the same trick.

Also for Eastside rail, it will displace the Southern ST & Metro bus system from the center of the bridge and the tunnel. Issaquah, Factoria, New Castle, North Bend all get worse service while Bellevue gets better service while at great expense.

Also your ridership observations don't mesh with ST's own numbers. LINK to the airport ridership is down, not up. Yes it will increase once it makes it to the UW, but that's because at least 4 bus runs will be discontinued, (the 70's).

It takes me 10-15 minutes to drive to work from where I live in North Seattle to First Hill. It would take me close to an hour by transit. The new light rail line that will eventually connect the Northgate P & R will actually increase travel time from there to downtown Seattle - the 41 leaves every few minutes during commute hours and has no stops between Northgate and the tunnel. A train that wanders though Montlake and under Broadway will never be faster than that (except when it's snowing).

These plans are very expensive and require and ongoing and eternal taxpayer subsidy to operate.

Mass transit is as fundamental a travel mode as walking. Where travel is dominated by the personal car, no travel mode, including travel by car, can function optimally. The energy efficient electric car alone is not a solution. An ideal multi-modal travel/transport system also requires adherance to elementary rules of land-use and development whereby more routine trips from home can be made without having to drive. Personally, I'd like to see the US achieve the higher standards of living common in Europe where transit is efficient, walking more amenible and local economies more determined by Main Street rather than Wall Street.

I hope Steinbrueck means what he says about reducing VMT. It places him in the camp of opponents to the deep bore tunnel.

Lincoln, I haven't entered the fuel economy discussion at all. Except I'll mention that your federal source is using car occupancy numbers that are far higher than some other public agencies assume, and bus occupancy numbers that are far lower than the typical Seattle inner-city route even factoring in off-hours and out-of-service, which both skew things dramatically in favor of buses. As for vanpools, they certainly have their place.

You continue to avoid saying who you are. Why are you so afraid to come clean? Maybe because you're a paid stooge of some kind?

Man up, or you'll never have credibility here Lincoln.

GaryP, I'm using numbers from ST, including their current ridership. The current line has reflected seasonal trends, peaking in the summer due to factors like tourism and baseball games. Last I heard it was in the 22,000 range on weekdays, as I said reasonably close to the 26,000 projection given that jobs are both in a deep hole right now and tourism is still shaky.

Regarding reducing VMT, I don't have much hope. Even if per capita VMT went down by 1% per year, this region's population is growing fast enough to make it a wash. If peak oil reduces US consumption by 20-30%, the real reductions might be more about fuel efficiency.

(Since I'm not a lobbyist, I'll give on a point here! Fuel efficiency on cars can improve dramatically, and hopefully will. The caveat of course is that fuel efficiency is just one of several elements of energy use and sustainability for cars.)

"District level: The city of Bellevue devoted over four years to plan a new vision for the Bel-Red corridor, resulting in the most comprehensive station area planning to date in the State of Washington. The sub-area plan, which includes two future light rail station areas, emphasizes bicycle and pedestrian connectivity, plus open space and green infrastructure, while also providing zoning capacities to absorb substantial residential and employment growth"

What's really ridiculous is that currently the Bell-Red corridor is not residential at all. In fact the density via apartment complexes are along 140th just South of Bel-Red. But the LINK plan has rail along 520 at this point, meaning it's nearly useless for these folks.

And if you ask anyone, "would you like to live in a light industrial park with no parks or amenities, or a neighborhood", the answer would be no thanks to the industrial site. Not that land can't be re-purposed but until there is a critical mass, no one development will pencil out so none will be built.

In addition, where the future Eastside LINK is planned to run near a neighborhood (Surey Downs) the residents are fighting tooth and nail to get it re-routed away from them. Evidently the benefits of light rail are not obvious to people who will have to live next to it.

VS Portland which is working hard to convert it's bicycle sharrowed roads to bicycle blvds by lowering the speed limits and redirecting auto traffic off those roads such that 80% of the residents will live within one mile of a bicycle blvd.

Mhays, here's the link to Sound Transit's 3rd Quarter data:

http://www.soundtransit.org/Documents/pdf/newsroom/Ridership_Q3_2010.pdf

Notice that on page 2, LINK boardings average apprx 88 people. That's less than one bus load given that everyone who ever gets on stays on until the bus is full.

That's a pretty poor investment given that we have spent 3.3 Billion to replace the Metro 154.

No wonder they cut back to just one car in the evenings. No one was even in the second car.

Even today that's the equivalent of several bus lines put together. As the city grows up around rail, and as more segments/lines are added starting in 2016, the existing line can handle several times as many riders per given time period. The 88 counts off-hours times when buses would have a fraction of that, even with much less frequency per route.

I certainly support HOV lanes too, despite my acceptance of the 90 tradeoff. But even without HOV on 90, buses can still run in regular lanes, and they can still have stops along the way either along the freeway when the geometries work, or by exiting as needed.

mhays: This comment from you is a perfect illustration of why you are such a laughing stock on this site:

"Since I'm not a lobbyist, I'll give on a point here! Fuel efficiency on cars can improve dramatically, and hopefully will."

Fuel efficiency of cars "hopefully will" improve dramatically? In the U.S. it has to, by law! Don't you ever read the news?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-National-Fuel-Efficiency-Policy/

"WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama today – for the first time in history – set in motion a new national policy aimed at both increasing fuel economy and reducing greenhouse gas pollution for all new cars and trucks sold in the United States. The new standards, covering model years 2012-2016, and ultimately requiring an average fuel economy standard of 35.5 mpg in 2016, are projected to save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the life of the program with a fuel economy gain averaging more than 5 percent per year and a reduction of approximately 900 million metric tons in greenhouse gas emissions. This would surpass the CAFE law passed by Congress in 2007 required an average fuel economy of 35 mpg in 2020."

By law, the fuel efficiency of new cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. must increase by 5% per year over the 5 model years 2012-2016. For new passenger cars alone, that will mean they must average 39 mpg in 2016. That is 40% less fuel consumption than passenger cars averaged in 2008 (about 23 mpg for the average U.S. car in 2008).

This has got nothing to do with "hope." It is federal law!

Still hiding Lincoln? Who's the joke?

And lots of stuff is federal law that we still hope actually happens.

Mr. Hays, if that is your real name.. calling someone out on their handle doesn't change the strength of their arguments. We all know that paid lobbyists hang out on public forums to try and create the usual FUD. "Lincoln" may be a lobbyist for autos but when you try to argue a point, say about sustainability you don't use data, instead you try for a personal shot. It just makes you look like you've lost the argument and are also another paid lobbyist only in this case for transit.

Anyway I had access to a diesel VW Rabbit back in the 70's and it got 50mpg. There isn't any big secret to improved fuel efficiency. Smaller engines, light weight cars and basic aerodynamics.

Mass transit is as fundamental a travel mode as walking. Where travel is dominated by the personal car, no travel mode, including travel by car, can function optimally. The energy efficient electric car alone is not a solution. An ideal multi-modal travel/transport system also requires adherance to elementary rules of land-use and development whereby more routine trips from home can be made without having to drive. Who wouldn't like to see the US achieve the higher standards of living common in Europe where transit is efficient, walking more amenible and local economies more determined by Main Street rather than Wall Street?(sorry about the cliche)

Mike is so Right.
Surf/Trans Option,
BEST like Mike says,
dumAss's WsDOT,
shakeup past due.

Wow.

Lincoln, I believe MHays works for a developer, he might have even mentioned the one before...maybe not. I have seen many on this forum suggest that since you don't leave a full name, your information or opinion don't matter and will not engage. The most disturbing of those is DEBO, Deb Eddie an elected representative who occasionally posts.

Your name might enhance transparency but doesn't legitimize your opinion or change the facts.

My posts speak for themselves. The people I am putting out information on this forum for, are not the lightweights like mhays, believe me. I just like to shoot down his nonsense and give others links to pertinent information. I could not care less who mhays might actually be. He is not smart enough to matter.

Those who are intelligent enough to understand will understand. Those who aren't, won't.

Here’s a gem from this piece:

“The state must provide additional funding authority for local and regional transit agencies.”

That’s Steinbrueck’s clarion call for more delegations of taxing authority to Metro and Sound Transit. Is he trolling for contributions in advance of a campaign for mayor? Looks like he may be pandering to the Greg Nickels constituency.

Steinbrueck is way off base calling for more delegations of taxing powers to Metro and ST. First, he has no data to support such a call. Metro doesn’t even put out documents that can be used to compare the various revenue sources it has relied on for capital and operations expenses of the Transit Division in the past. Steinbrueck was a city councilman three years ago, he doesn’t know what’s up at Metro in terms of financing issues. Also, the most recent SAO report covering a sliver of what ST is up to says the tax revenues through just 2023 will be far in excess of what Res. 2008-10 says will be needed (that’s the official name for the ST2 ordinance).

Second, Steinbrueck is burying his head in the sand and acting oblivious to how ST and Metro confiscate FAR more tax revenue already than their peers. The last thing those two need is more taxing powers!

Anybody want to try setting out a justification for Sound Transit's plans to haul in about $85,000,000,000 of regressive taxes from people and families through 2052 to secure its long-term bonds? That’s abusive – nobody pays for buses and trains like that. ST should be building out a light rail line functionally equivalent to the one the people and businesses in Portland now have that did not cost them ANY general taxes.

The average family of four here pays $455 dollars every year in ST and Metro taxes. That amount will increase every year for decades. In the greater Portland area there is NO direct taxing of individuals and families for the bus and train services they receive. Steinbrueck is coming off as an oblivious twit by calling for more taxing for the King Co. Transit Division and the RTA.

Metro, Sound Transit, and the transit governments in Pierce and Snohomish counties expect to haul in something on the order of $1.3 billion in local tax revenue this year, the vast majority of which will be sales tax revenue. All their peers do a great job providing good bus service and expanding train systems for their people and businesses with far less annual local tax revenue:

- TriMet (Portland) - $233 million;

- DART (Dallas/Fort Worth) - $385 million;

- San Diego Metropolitan Transit System - $100 million; and

- RTID (Denver) - $241 million.

There is no good reason for this discrepancy, and it is growing every year. The large, excessive transit taxing and spending programs here in comparison to peer regions are a big problem. They cause financial harm to people and the local economy.

So who thinks they can explain why the taxing for transit is so much worse here than elsewhere?

What is described in this part of the piece is the opposite of what Metro and ST are doing:

“In addition, local and regional system alignment and station siting decisions should optimize the potential for high-performing TOC. This means favoring transit investments in mixed-use centers and neighborhoods over areas with limited access, such as freeway corridors.”

The vast majority of the siting for ST and Metro transit facilities is right alongside freeway corridors, right? Union Station is right next to I-5, as is the rest of the light rail line from the Convention Center to the airport. The ST2 plans call for new light rail tracks and stations right along I-5, I-405, and I-90. The Sounder trail runs parallel to I-5 from Everett to Tacoma. There are new transit park & rides right on I-5, I-405, and I-90.

Is Steinbrueck saying all that “ST2” and other siting of transit facilities was wrongheaded?

I don't expect to convince transit opponents. But the fact remains that Lincoln has posted nothing substantive except fuel mileage, and made broad non-backed claims about which mode is more sustainable.

Cameron, you know I work for a contractor, not a developer. Surely you know the difference. My bio, as I said, is up there on those internets. How many times do we need to cover this?

If Lincoln or others want to go incognito, fine, unless you start making accusations, in which case be a grownup and do it with your real name as I do.

Grownups own up to what they say. Pretty simple. Nobody said anything about physical confrontation, which I would never suggest.

Anonymity has its positives if it gets more ideas out. But when it's used as a shield for accusations, that's where it becomes a cowardly act.

MHays, let me help you out a bit here.

What's wrong with Lincoln's thesis that fuel economy for VMT of autos vs Buses & Light rail is that it ignores that cars spend most of their life parked. That parking takes up valuable real-estate. Owners of autos except in cities like NYC don't see this cost, because there are so many "free" places to park.

Smaller cars do help, and there are many on the way, and some in production, example, "Smart Cars" from BMW. But the majority of the population doesn't own these because, my thesis, we buy a car that meets the near maximum load we intend to carry. That is to say, my family owned two cars which carry at a minimum 4 people, not because there are eight of us, there are only 4, but that each driver at some point in the day needs to have room for 3 passengers. An example is a single friend of my kids can't come with me and my kids unless I have room for them. Or to move the after school babysitter home, I also have to transport the kids and the sitter home. Yet if you look in my car while I'm commuting, it looks like I'm wasting space as now it's only me in it.

Here the article addresses this land use issue, which is if the kids lived close enough to school to walk, or the roads were safe enough for them to ride, I could ride a bicycle to work and so could they. And therefore we'd need only one car.

Rapid transit helps here because if it goes close enough to my work place and my home, I can use either my feet or my bicycle to go the last mile.

So even if car fuel efficiency doubles, I've quadrupled my person fuel efficiency by not driving at all. (and replacing the lower efficiency fuel car with a high efficiency one.)

The current problem with the everyone lives in the suburbs and commutes to the city is that transit runs nearly empty for 1/2 the distance which plays havoc with the gallons/passenger mile. The solution is of course to let businesses expand into the suburbs creating little mini-cities at a human scale. With lots of parks & housing between them. That way the transit system is always running full in both directions. (at peak times at least.) The second is to give businesses incentives to stagger shifts so that peak loading is spread out during the day. Thirdly is to stop the use of private transportation systems like high school buses and Microsoft's connect, and let them instead "buy" service hours and routes which are also open to the public.

But all of this requires a lot more thinking than "cars = bad" "transit = good".

Your nuanced approach certainly has more common ground. I'm a moderate on the issue as well, hence my support for the 99 plan, the current 520 plan, general skepticism about reduced VMT, etc.

As I've said, the federal source being quoted has car-occupancy assumptions far higher than other agencies assume (1.5 vs. commonly 1.2 if I recall), and bus ridership numbers at a national average rather than a Seattle average, and certainly not representative of many higher-ridership in-city routes.

It also says nothing about embodied energy for manufacture, or the astonishing volumes of parking we have in this country. Rehashing what we already discussed.

Putting jobs in the suburbs makes sense sometimes (and it's not something anybody except the firms themselves controls). But moving outward guarantees that there will be dramatically less transit, and puts those jobs farther from the other side of the metro. People who buy houses nearby anticipating shorter commutes put themselves at much higher risk of losing that proximity, because fewer replacement jobs are nearby. So rather than people commuting from Lynnwood to Seattle and having a decent transit option, they end up commuting from Lynnwood to Kent and mostly driving. Transit is one reason why many businesses strongly prefer to locate centrally (also due to proximity to other firms), and happily pay higher lease rates to do it, hence the steady flow of companies moving closer in.

I think that there is this false mythology being broadly sold related to density, transit and energy. Many have drank the Kool-Aid, and with sweeping generalizations, and despite empirical data to the contrary, make pronouncements of what our future should be.

While the suburbs and large swaths of the U.S. are a real problem, we need a realistic discussion of how denser areas (e.g. large parts of Seattle) need to be transformed, and SEPARATELY how the Puget Sound region needs to be transformed.

The tact that Seattle is on now fails to address our real root problems. As we all agree (I hope) there is currently PLENTY of development, transit and density opportunities and need throughout the city today. But somehow building dense "TOC" - which, as far as I can tell, means more residential units per acre through 65, 85 or more foot tall apartment blocks, some obligatory bike lanes (or most likely "sharrows"), and wider sidewalks with street trees.

This has put Seattle into a frenzy of tower height up zoning in South Lake Union, South Downtown and at the Link station areas . These projects do not seem to be destined to create strong communities/neighborhoods but instead are aimed at misplaced goals – like boosting light rail ridership, propping up downtown property values, wealth creation for property owners, and other grand growth gestures.

These moves are contrary to infill plans promised to Seattle citizens a decade ago. Within Seattle's current zoning envelope and with our new DADU legislation we can add tens of thousands of affordable housing units in our urban villages and out.

I believe the root of our problem is in Seattle's zoning that reinforces a minimal mix of uses, and enables uses that are not local serving:

• We have zoning that enables ‘regional’ uses in our neighborhood shopping districts (unlimited store size in NC3, 25K sq ft stores in NC2). Retail uses of that magnitude require consumer catchments of several miles, thereby defeating the promise of walkable communities.
• We have removed the public plaza and park as a center piece of a community and replaced it with an arterial intersection surrounded by 65 ft or more buildings.
• We prohibit local small business uses in our residential and multifamily neighborhoods forcing people to leave them to find everyday necessities, jobs, or that third place.
• We have an open space problem – not enough (e.g. pocket parks, home gardens, tree canopy, unpaved areas for storm water retention) and too much (woefully underfunded parks maintenance) – that is preventing the city from sitting gently on the land that it occupies or making our neighborhoods as pleasant as they should be.
• We seek transit solutions that are major infrastructure projects (SLUT, First Hill street car) rather than finding more pragmatic solutions (lowering arterial and residential speed limits, allowing local jitney service, using electric trolley bus rather than rail, enabling more car sharing)
• And of course we have that transit mode prioritization and infrastructure problem that often makes the SOV the preferred solution because its the most practical. Meanwhile, our long needed Urban Village Transportation Network is getting yet another planning effort by SDOT?

But the region has bigger problems leading to our ever increasing daily commute woes and transit infrastructure funding nightmares:
• Seattle's suburbs continue to serve as housing for an overbuilt Seattle downtown (our daytime population is hundreds of thousands greater than our nighttime population)
• Seattle provides an active home base for those that work in the sterile, less dense suburbs (hence the frenzy over light rail on 520 – a.k.a. the MSFT Express)
• The PSRC has opted to focus further growth and density into Seattle and Bellevue, and has moved away from a more balanced regional growth strategy.

Where the transit/density pundits are wrong is that only 10% of their effort needs to be focused on Seattle and 90% needs to be focused elsewhere. The problems and solutions here in Seattle are local and should be more tactical – based (in my opinion) on rigorous neighborhood planning (rather than shallow ‘Status Checks’) – and augmented by surgical corrections to our land use code and more enlightened capital expenditures (rather than, for example, the feeding frenzy of the Opportunity Fund or Bridging the Gap).

Seattle needs to reassert the vision of our Urban Villages in order to make them more ‘complete neighborhoods’. And we need to let the suburbs practice 'New Urbanism' and stop using it as an excuse to continually upzone in Seattle.

The notion often floated - and that essays such as this reinforce - that we need to rebuild Seattle with TOC nodes is misguided. The idea of an instant neighborhood in towers is ill-advised and only serves a particular class of developer and their investors. I see no one demanding that these future TOC residences have no parking. Why? Because Seattle is not Manhattan. Nor should it be.

The voice of moderation— it will never fly— ;-)

Nonetheless, thanks for this grand wrap-up for a thread about to roll off the screen. You should run for office!

-south_downtown knocks one out of the park. Definitely deserves an "Editor's Pick."

south-downtown hasn't been to South Lake Union in a while. It's the natural extension of the core from the retail region and the high rises of Belltown. It's a great alternative to the corporate campus that Microsoft built in Redmond. Amazon is locating down there, and with Fred Hutch there are a number of other Bio-Tech companies eying the space. It as most of the amenities of downtown Seattle and a more human scale buildings. (6 & 8 story)

Want to see a reduced VMT? watch the count of vehicles across both 520 & I90 once the tolls kick in. Day one, I-90 becomes a parking lot, day two, the buses are packed both bridges, day three 30% of the traffic just disappears as people decide that they don't need to a) sit in traffic on I-90 or b) pay $7 to cross 520. Oh and bicycle riding triples as people try that as an alternative to packed buses or sitting in traffic.

Oh and a month later the legislature decides to tax I-90 as well because the revenue from 520 is not meeting projections (which are based on everyone continuing to use 520 and pay for it.)

More like a foul ball than one out of the park.

Back in the 1960's, my neighbors tell me they rode the bus everywhere for their weekday needs. These were stay-at-home moms, living in Seattle, and their hubbies had the car for work.

The buses ran all day long, and were nice, small buses. They went in circular routes north,east, west, south and the ladies took the kids to the dentist, to the doctor, to the grocery, to the fish place, to the park and more.

Prior to that, before most anyone had a car, they had neighborhood trolleys.

The modern bus transit system spends like a drunken sailor, but has no actual economy. Same with light rail.

@ Douglas Tooley, you say "We need park and ride lots at our neighborhood business districts, something City has unwisely decided NOT to do, citywide. While we are at it, why not provide space for co-op day care, public markets, etc?"

I say, heck ya. We need park and ride lots at our neighborhood business districts, that are 3 or 4 stories tall, and go up, not wide, and have roof-top day care / garden spaces and are surrounded by neighborhood amenities, so when ma and pa or me or you come back to our car in the afternoon or evening, we can pick up the kids, get the dry cleaning, stop and pick up some fresh produce on the top of the building at the farmers market, and/or jot over to the library, the post office or the grocery store before we move our car to head home.

You raise an interesting aspect, GaryP. When not pontificating on "global issues" legislative bodies sometimes actually take a local action or two based on the widely held convictions and that subjects themselves to what in other spheres is known as learning from first hand experience. We will all learn from the biteback of high bridge tolling and high downtown on-street parking. The combination of the two is a case unto its own--Northgate here we come?

Freight goes unmentioned, again. Here's a thought, stop kicking small shortlines like Ballard Terminal and the proposed Redmond operation in the teeth. One freightcar carries the same tonnage of 4 semi's and takes them off the road, with a bonus of much less emissions end-to-end.

"It may surprise you to know that, on average, people drive more in the Seattle metropolitan area than they do in Los Angeles."

Is this in terms of mileage driven, or mileage per trip?

Was the difference in weather figured into the research? Ie, in November in LA I will walk a quarter mile to my neighborhood shops, but I will not do so in Seattle.

I have always walked more in LA. It's warm, it is flat, it is easy. Seattle is weather and geographically challenged.

I am tired of being told my car is the problem.