Posted Wed, Jul 28, 4:40 p.m.

•Selection. Present one side of the picture only. Don't talk about successful tunnels such as San Francisco's Bart, the Third Avenue Transit Tunnel, or the 100-year-old railway tunnel under Seattle's downtown. Jean picked some FABULOUS examples. * Third Avenue Transit Tunnel cost 56% more than early estimates. * The cost ...

Posted Mon, May 26, 9:16 a.m.

RE: ULI Report: Correct. The PI didn't do a particularly good job of reporting on this, e.g. it's $800 per person per year in as yet unsecured funding, not just $800 per person. The study is here, page 35. The ULI is firmly behind the first-class mass transit options to ...

Posted Sun, May 25, 2:23 p.m.

The alias...: Carless in Seattle is the name of my sad, rarely-read little blog. It's not a particularly clever name, nor is it a particularly great blog, nor does it imply any particular recommendation for how my fellow Seattleites and Washingtonians should live. In fact, it doesn't even relate to ...

Posted Sun, May 25, 2:47 a.m.

Pardon me.: Apparently, I fail because I do not include statistics to back up my points. 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 ...

Posted Sat, May 24, 1:55 p.m.

I neglected a critical point: Bus supporters always tout the "flexibilty" of buses, but this is only a benefit when one views a transportation system in a vacuum; as a system that is disconnected from the larger economy in which it participates. Choosing to run buses over rail signals to ...

Posted Sat, May 24, 12:13 p.m.

Regarding the second point...: I'll take each of these arguments in turn. 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 ...

Posted Fri, May 23, 10:33 p.m.

Europe and high gas prices: You need to put 2 and 2 together here, Ted, and you almost have in this article. "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: ...

Posted Tue, May 6, 9:15 a.m.

Deep Economy?: I can't resist: I've been reading the two books you recommended in your New Year's post, and... Considering McKibben's description of the international nature of the food economy in Deep Economy, how much of Eastern Washington's food do you think is actually eaten in Western Washington? I'm guessing ...

Posted Fri, Apr 18, 8:33 a.m.

LOL:

Posted Mon, Apr 14, 9:02 a.m.

All income groups use HOT lanes: If you have the time, read the Washington post piece linked from this article. It's great background on HOT lanes, and who uses them. That article doesn't get into all the details of the study that Southern California ran on HOT lane usage a ...

Posted Mon, Apr 14, 8:51 a.m.

RE: Hot Lane not so hot!: Your concern about the HOT lane getting too crowded is valid, assuming that we can't change the price of driving in the lane. Increase the price, you reduce the number of SOVs in the lane.

Posted Fri, Jan 25, 9:18 a.m.

Are you saying the NYT should keep mum on local elections and primaries: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut all hold presidential primaries on 5 February, less than two weeks from today. While people nationwide read The New York Times, it is, oddly enough, a local paper that covers lots ...

Posted Wed, Jan 23, 12:52 p.m.

RE: Cars are King: Animalal, you're exactly the kind of extremist Morrill's talking about. Read this again, specifically the statement that "the region needs to recognize that construction alone cannot meet future demand or relieve congestion and that we must implement demand management and other constraints on the unfettered growth ...

Posted Tue, Jan 15, 2:50 p.m.

The Hong Kong model...: ...is actually the US streetcar model from the 1900s to the 1930s. Private companies would buy land outside the city core (very quietly), then announce they were going to build a transit line, which would make the real estate they just purchased shoot up in value, ...

Posted Thu, Nov 8, 3:29 p.m.

RE: HOT lanes will price out like houses: Usage of dynamically priced HOT lanes in southern California has shown that wealth is only one of many factors in why people choose to pay to take an HOT lane. Poorer drivers use the so-called Lexus Lanes quite regularly, while those who ...

Posted Sun, Nov 4, 3:20 p.m.

Wrong on Roads/Congestion, but dead-on about ballot initiatives: Ted's absolutely right about ballot initiatives. They are a shield for politicians to avoid responsibility, and they place critical decisions in the hands of us, people who won't think about them for more than a minute or two. As to Prop 1, ...

Posted Mon, Oct 8, 9:09 a.m.

I'm with Patricia @1: Nice piece, great analysis, right down to the odd reaction that voters have when faced with a united political front and asymmetric information.

Posted Thu, Aug 2, 10:03 p.m.

RE: Back it up, please: I think what we're trying to say is that, while Vance is claiming to present a fair analysis, his choice of language and the tone he uses when describing the various arguments makes this another in Crosscut's long line of anti-transit columns. Three final thoughts: ...

Posted Thu, Aug 2, 2:55 p.m.

RE: Analysis, not advocacy: Yes, on the surface, that works out, and your analysis of the groupings is spot on. Bravo. And it's obvious you're not trying to advocate. But you are. The language you chose belies that purported lack of advocacy. Zealot, for example, is defined as "an uncompromising ...

Posted Thu, Jul 26, 12:44 p.m.

RE: You need help out with these today?: Piper, you are absolutely right: you should be able to choose the lifestyle you prefer. You're also right about special interests paying for their fare share. But the majority--car owners--is also a special interest that should have to pay for the full ...

Posted Thu, Jul 26, 6:27 a.m.

RE: Crosscut establishing it's rightwing bonifides?: Pointing out your right-wing bonafides isn't about whether you are willing to publish a pro-transit article. It's about whether you print every poorly researched anti-transit piece sent to you. Passivity is just as effective at establishing a deep political bias as actively trying to ...

Posted Thu, Jul 26, 6:20 a.m.

RE: You need help out with these today?: When I need to haul construction materials or cases of wine or whatever, I rent a FlexCar for the trip. For my commute, unlike Emory Bundy, I take the bus.

Posted Wed, Jul 25, 9:52 a.m.

Apples to oranges: what about the carbon cost of building all those cars and roads: This is really weak analysis, Emory. You are comparing the carbon cost of building and operating light rail to the carbon cost of operating automobiles. This completely ignores the carbon costs of constructing roadways that ...

Posted Tue, Jun 12, 12:13 a.m.

RE: The "No Action" Alternative: David, 1. A valid call: sometimes it's easy to jump to conclusions. 2. Only problem is determining the appropriate cost level. When it's free, we'll settle on horrible highway congestion--a free resource will always be overconsumed. 3. Yeah. *sigh* And... 4. I haven't seen you ...

Posted Mon, Jun 11, 3:54 p.m.

RE: Get those excess people off the roads: Getting the poor of the roads and force them onto mass transit? The poor already ARE taking mass transit. A couple of bucks per day is the cost of taking a bus round trip in Seattle. A car costs way more, when ...

Posted Mon, Jun 11, 9:46 a.m.

Tolls are here to stay: Arguing that people will start taking local arterials to avoid tolls misses the point. People are already taking local arterials to avoid traffic, they will do so to avoid tolls too. Population growth will only make the problem worse. Considering the amount of money we ...