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Seattle officials are quick to say "road diets" will maintain the car-carrying capacity on the roads in which they are applied. However, these bike-friendly officials are much slower to admit that these diets do not improve the car-carrying capacity. Road diets are essentially exchanging the future capacity needs of the roadway for other uses, in this case, bicycle traffic.
Road diets generally do not cause congestion on corridors that carry fewer than 20,000 vehicles per day. According to this report from the Federal Highway Administration on the effectiveness of adding bike lanes:
Under most average daily traffic (ADT) conditions tested, road diets have minimal effects on vehicle capacity, because left-turning vehicles are moved into a common two-way left-turn lane. However, for road diets with ADTs above approximately 20,000 vehicles, there is a greater likelihood that traffic congestion will increase to the point of diverting traffic to alternate routes.
In other words, as traffic volumes increase above 20,000 cars per day, throughput deteriorates. The traffic volumes on Nickerson were already slightly higher than 20,000 trips per day (20,300) in 2007. So traffic congestion is likely already worse than it was before the road capacity was reduced.
The real concern is the traffic outlook for the future. According to Seattle’s traffic analysis, Nickerson's traffic volumes will grow about 1 percent per year, with an additional 3,680 from a planned development. This means Nickerson will have about 29,456 daily trips by 2030, which is nearly 50 percent more than what the Federal Highway Administration says is the tipping point for the road diet to cause higher traffic congestion.
Because of the significant up-front financial costs, we generally build transportation infrastructure to accommodate future growth. Seattle officials are doing precisely the opposite.
Seattle is already the most congested city in America. Whether you are a parent trying to make your kid’s soccer game on time or a small business trying to deliver manufactured parts, you should be concerned about trading roads for bike lanes.
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Comments:
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 2:50 p.m. Inappropriate
" Seattle officials are doing precisely the opposite. "
No surprise there. These are the same people that banned circus's from downtown. As if one would ever go there. And voted to boycott Arizona, but kept the one business deal that Seattle has with Arizona ( the traffic stop light camera's are based in Phoenix.).
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 2:52 p.m. Inappropriate
The Seattle city council also banned nuclear weapons from downtown. These are people not afraid to tackle the real issues of today.
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 5:23 p.m. Inappropriate
http://www.cityofseattle.net/transportation/tfdmaps.htm
Actually the traffic count on Nickerson was 23,700 in 2008 and the FTA indicates that congestion gets bad enough on roads that carry 20,000 ADT that people elect to take other routes. There is congestion on ADTs of less but not enough to get people to take other routes.
If the WPC wants to do something they should get TomTom to reveal their methodology and present it to SCC.
The irony is that slowing cars and making them sit at idle will cause pollution to increase. One minute added to every car trip, adds thousands of engine running hours every day. The three percent of trips by bike will not make up for the difference.
Bikes need to be moved off arterials and onto side-streets. We need to offer benefits for driving small energy efficient cars. Parking bargains, small car only spots within 60 feet of intersections, access to bus/hov lanes etc.
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 8:03 p.m. Inappropriate
So, one solution does not fit all?
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 8:55 p.m. Inappropriate
Finally, someone writes what everyone in SDOT knows, but nobody will admit: road diets make congestion worse on many streets.
Of course, this is what transit advocates and bicycle enthusiasts want. The car haters want to make congestion worse in Seattle, in their effort to force everyone to walk, ride bikes, take transit or use donkey carts and rickshaws.
This is the "war against the automobile."
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 10:16 p.m. Inappropriate
The road diet on Roosevelt Way N.E. does not seem to have increased congestion. However, it does mean that if you're parking on the left side of the street (Roosevelt, for those not familiar with the area, is one way southbound below N.E. 75th Street), your passengers stand a decent chance of opening their doors into traffic. There's little room for error, and people are still getting used to parking right up against the curb (as they always should have been).
Those who park on the right side of the street are safer, since there are far fewer bikes on Roosevelt than there are cars. But the extremely narrow margins on the left side of the street — those cars are traveling in a narrow lane, too, so unlikely to be giving the parked cars a wide berth — make me very nervous.
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 10:18 p.m. Inappropriate
This author appears to know nothing about traffic demand patterns, or the ability to use information logically. For starters, extrapolating the 1% figure off that far is an odd leap. And presenting one source's idea that Seattle is "most congested" as if it's fact is simple lack of intelligence and/or integrity.
Partisans can support him all they want. But hopefully it won't be because you believe his BS.
(I'm disappointed in Crosscut. It's great to have a right wing counterpoint, but this guy is a joke.)
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 10:20 p.m. Inappropriate
"... we generally build transportation infrastructure to accommodate future growth. Seattle officials are doing precisely the opposite."
You are assuming incorrectly that a road diet somehow permanently alters the structure of a road. It doesn't. It's mostly a paint job that can be very easily undone should your predicted future ever materialize.
Thanks, Crosscut, for wasting everyone's time with this misinformed, pointless article.
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 11:29 p.m. Inappropriate
The 1% figure has some basis. The link takes you to a study that assumes 1% growth to 2027. I see no mention of the 2030 date the author uses. The author would have been more respectable if he had said the 1% figure was a projection rather than a fact, noted that the projection was a few years old, and used the 2027 figure.
The 1% figure is seriously outdated of course. In the past three years, there's been a lot of rethinking about demand due to the economy (short term, but long-term repercussions), the increasing likelihood that oil will get costlier, and the growing evidence that people will change their transportation modes and trip frequency when cost becomes a driver.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 7:24 a.m. Inappropriate
In the past three years, there's been a lot of rethinking about demand due to the economy (short term, but long-term repercussions), the increasing likelihood that oil will get costlier, and the growing evidence that people will change their transportation modes and trip frequency when cost becomes a driver..
You criticize Ennis for only having one study, yet you give none. In the last three years there has also been a lot of rethinking of how we can provide the level of transit service we had become accustomed to. The same metrics that will theoretically reduce demand for individual vehicle travel will also reduce revenue for transit service and increase operating revenue.
BTW a study done by a company with no agenda vis-a-vis Seattle is much more likely to be valid than any commissioned by SDOT or any local group with an agenda.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 7:28 a.m. Inappropriate
The personal automobile isn't going anywhere. How they will be powered is likely to change in the next ten to twenty years, but the idea of personal transportation is here to stay. Public transportation becomes more convenient for riders when it is faster and easier than driving, and that is only the case in highly congested areas like New York or London. And then you have to put your transit off the road grade rather than running it with cars. (The Broadway streetcar proposal that puts streetcars and car traffic in the same lane in order to create a separate bike lane is not the way to make public transportation more attractive to SOV drivers.)
125th isn't a major pedestrian corridor. There should be a signaled crosswalk on 20th, just like the one that is already in place at 25th. That would help to slow traffic. But anyone who has tried to drive up 125th behind a bus or a truck knows that having two lanes is helpful to maintaining traffic flow.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 8:21 a.m. Inappropriate
I agree that traffic isn't going anywhere. It might go down on a per capita basis (as many predict) but local population growth seems likely to offset much or all of that, with gas mileage also handling a lot of the peak oil issue. That's why I support the 99 tunnel vs. capacity reduction for example. However, this discussion is about whether traffic will increase and whether we should focus our ROWs and dollars on accommodating an increase.
jas, if you want a source, any transportation agency will do. PSRC, WSDOT, USDOT, etc., all have numbers that show what the gas price spike did to demand, usually with numbers about total miles and per capita miles. I work for a living, and will skip the bing search for an example or two.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 8:25 a.m. Inappropriate
"the increasing likelihood that oil will get costlier,". This is not true.
What is true is that petroleum-powered vehicles will get increasingly more fuel-efficient, thus using less gas. And that more and more motor vehicles will run on energy other than oil -- such as electricity -- which will further dampen the demand for oil.
mhays has no idea what the cost of oil will be in the near or distant future. He is just guessing. You can find people who, just a few years ago, predicted that oil right now would be at twice the price it actually is. mhays couldn't even predict what the price of oil will be 12 months from now, let alone 12 years from now.
The real cost of driving a car might be far less in the coming decades than it is today, now that there is concerted effort to make cars far more energy-efficient.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 8:41 a.m. Inappropriate
jas, if you want a source, any transportation agency will do. PSRC, WSDOT, USDOT, etc., all have numbers that show what the gas price spike did to demand, usually with numbers about total miles and per capita miles. I work for a living, and will skip the bing search for an example or two..
We all know that the spike in gas prices and the loss of jobs combined to reduce travel. The part of your assertion I wanted cites for was that "there's been a lot of rethinking about demand due to the economy (short term, but long-term repercussions)"
I'm with Sean and Lincoln and think the best way to get to lower emissions, lower costs and retain mobility is to make higher efficiency cars. One mile of streetcar could buy 1500 electric cars. Streetcars will take very few people off the road. I'd rather subsidize electric cars and expand the trolley bus fleet than building streetcars. This to me is much bigger issue than roadway reductions, though buses need roads.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 9:36 a.m. Inappropriate
Lincoln, none of us can predict oil prices, including you. But peak oil theory seems pretty mainstream (I don't need to convince many readers of that), and big oil companies are clearly preparing for it, or at least hedging their bets.
The current economy seems to be the only thing keeping us back from another oil spike. Who'd have thought oil would range around $70-80 during a major global downturn?
I already made the point about fuel efficiency. Thanks for agreeing.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 9:41 a.m. Inappropriate
jas, those electric cars still need to be parked at each end, still need tons of road space, still encourage sprawl, and still need to be manufactured. Electric cars are nearly as inefficient and dysfunctional as regular cars.
Lowering emissions is way more complicated than highway planners tend to admit. They forget about induced demand, or the tendency to spread out. And they certainly forget about parking infrastructure. We contractors love to build parking garages and even surface lots, but let's not pretend that the millions of parking spaces in this city were free in any sense of the word.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 9:55 a.m. Inappropriate
mhays: actually, investors using oil as an investment tool in this economy is the only thing keeping the current price as high as it is. If people stop using oil as an investment instrument, the price could collapse. One analyst recently said the fundamentals of supply and demand would have oil around $10 to $15 per barrel right now, instead of $75.
Peak oil is a non-event. In fact, the world is producing less oil now than is possible, by a large margin. OPEC is intentionally keep production artificially low to keep prices artificially high.
Very high oil prices is a prediction that people have been making for decades, and it has not happened yet. And there is no reason to believe that it will happen any time soon. Every once in a while, there is a spike in oil prices, but the price always comes back down.
Mostly, very high oil prices in the near future is just a wish by people who hate cars.
And, even if gasoline does get a lot more expensive, cars will use a lot less gas per mile in the very near future, so the price of gas won't be as big a part of the cost of driving as it is today. The price of oil is becoming less and less important all the time.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 9:57 a.m. Inappropriate
Seattle the most congested city? Michael Ennis clearly doesn't get out much.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 2:53 p.m. Inappropriate
mhays
So you profit off building private parking and wish to curtail public parking?
Electric cars are at least twice as efficient as ICE cars and even more energy efficient than bicyclists.
It makes far more sense to leverage existing infrastructure than to destroy it and build a brand new system. The light rail that you undoubtedly support is designed to enhance sprawl not provide transit within a densely populated urban setting.
Lowering emissions is way more complicated than new urbanist car haters admit. Actually it is clear that switching to very efficient cars is the fastest way to lower emissions. The US will regret letting China and other countries dominate the electric car industry.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 4:48 p.m. Inappropriate
Poster lincoln says Peak Oil is a "non-event".
Poster jaz would rather subsidize electric cars than build streetcar lines.
Streetcar lines do work admirably in many locations. However, The Waterfront Streetcar route is just better than 1st Ave. With a bridge over the RR tracks at Broad, two track could run Elliott to 3rd then Harrison (or?) to turn east to SCenter and Stop with sidetracks. From Elliott north to Ballard on least elevation, design new areas for lost nature, people, and getting 'them' there instead of their cars.
I'm impressed with the new streetcar crewwork so far. good work guys, do some before/after bad-to-better artist renderings at worse intersections. UNO im rIght the Dee BT is going down by years end. DBT has less than 120 days left to live its lye. Thanks mike,sorry about the tude, its unintentional mostly,bark not bite. CRC hung up too, so what a surprise! Concept#1 is eLegant-(not mispelled).
Automobiles are a constitutional inequity!
Their severe impediment upon 'other' modes of urb/burb travel --walking/bicycling and mass transit, in that order. Transit users are first of all walkers. Safe walking slows traffic aiding bicyclists. Sidewalks lead to park and plazaspace Seattle needs more than electric car roads. Besides, PHEV is technically most practical, but you guys haven't figured that out yet. How about twice as many PHEVs are possible compared to BEVs. oh yeah wut?
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 4:52 p.m. Inappropriate
That would make sense if I wasn't also advocating for reducing parking required in new buildings. Which, BTW, is a big factor in the cost of those buildings, and a waste of money in the cases where parking usage is lower than what the City requires.
As for your other statements....how odd. The idea that light rail enhances sprawl is a new one. So is the bit about energy usage. In both cases, since those haven't been plastered all over the publishing world, maybe you could educate us with your sources.
In particular, I'd be curious to see how the national electric production capacity and grid could handle, say, 20% of car trips being by electric car. And I hope your comparisons aren't all based on hydro power, which most places don't use, or use much.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 5:25 p.m. Inappropriate
ENJOY...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m692Tqbnbxo
Somewhere in this is a gud argewmint4 PHEVs&peds.; Its the beck onion ointment fake tears makeup and rehearsal, too weird.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 6:08 p.m. Inappropriate
mhays - it is obvious that you're hatred for cars can't be reasoned with, but I will try to satisfy your command for sites even though when you were asked you dismissed the request opting to point out the power of Bing.
We are discussing what to do in Seattle where we do have have hydro power and that's the power I would be using, but I'll play by your rules.
http://www.groovygreen.com/groove/?p=1782
The link shows that we currently have the excess capacity to charge electric cars - 73% of the current ICE fleet. We need to convert or replace much of these plants with NG or truly alternative sources - wind, solar, geo thermal, hot rock, etc. - NG converts at about 60%. But even using the current system we would still reduce GHG immensely.
Combined cycle gas turbine plants are driven by both steam and natural gas. They generate power by burning natural gas in a gas turbine and use residual heat to generate additional electricity from steam. These plants offer efficiencies of up to 60%..
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml
Only about 15% of the energy from the fuel you put in your tank gets used to move your car down the road or run useful accessories, such as air conditioning. The rest of the energy is lost to engine and driveline inefficiencies and idling. Therefore, the potential to improve fuel efficiency with advanced technologies is enormous..
Electric generation with NG could be located in built-up areas using the post steam generation heat for space heating even increasing the energy extraction. Even with the generation in range of the city the pollution would be dramatically reduced.
Even using the same fuels as are used in cars today for electric generation would result in a huge reduction the use of those fuels.
Our light rail enhances sprawl - not the technology per se. Our light rail is designed to move people in or out of Seattle to such urban centers as Fife, South Redondo Beach, Redmond, etc. The system will make it easier to live further from true urban centers and yet commute to them. The line from Everett to Tacoma is about the distance from the tip of Manhattan to mid-state Connecticut - would that be the first line you'd build in NYC or would you consider it a sprawl inducing system?
http://www.lafn.org/~dave/trans/energy/bicycle-energy.html#s2
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 8:06 p.m. Inappropriate
Crosscut is making a mistake by giving Michael Ennis and the Washington Policy Center a forum for their far-right ideas and propaganda. The WPC refuses to disclose its funders because they are likely ultra-conservative millionaires similar to those who fund these "think tanks" across the country. But their board of directors reads like a who's who of Republican funders starting with none other than the roadmaster, Kemper Freeman.
Ennis has long opposed light rail or investment in transit. His only support for transit is to tout vanpools--a limited market we already do better than any other region. His real game is to support the automobile above all. I believe the auto must be accommodated as well, but that the design of any street should reflect its uses.
In the first place, these road diets are not just cars vs bike lanes. The three lane alignment moves just as many cars and much safer but it does not allow for as much speeding. Secondly, they offer a much safer environment for pedestrians to try to get across traffic due to the less traveled center lane which accommodates all turns. And finally, as someone points out, there is little capital cost--it is just paint on a street.
Ennis is the master of misdirection and false straw men. Watch him carefully and always check your premises. He and the Washington Policy Center are nothing more than right-wing political hacks.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 8:54 p.m. Inappropriate
jas -- Your link about energy grid capacity is interesting, but your source is an advocacy group. A somewhat more nuanced version quoting the same study as well as newer work by ORNL is here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9893320-54.html. This quotes the same 73% figure from PNNL, but notes that the current grid would only be enough if people wait until late night to charge their cars (which they predict is against human nature), which they don't expect is likely, there's risk about stressing the grid, plug-in hybrids are very expensive and will remain so until they're produced in the many millions (the ORNL guy calls this sort of car "irrelevant" until that happens)....in other words, there's skepticism.
Long story short, it's apparently believed that some drivers would charge their cars during the day. If we can make that leap, the cars would be a draw on the grid, including during peak times.
As for light rail, you aren't even aware of where our lines goes or will go. Everett, Tacoma, and Fife? That would be great, but obviously the planned lines go to Lynnwood, Redmond, and Federal Way...all in the middle of existing developed areas. Further, transit reduces one of the "push" factors of sprawl, the need for more parking per capita at home, the store, work, etc.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 10:16 p.m. Inappropriate
The idea is that charging will occur by timer in the wee hours. Germany already allows the selling of power back to the utility and with variable rates people will be able to sell some of their stored car electricity in peak hours and then buy back at lower rates in the wee hours. The article I linked made the point that the capacity was at night. That was the point.
Light rail here will aid people in reaching further out. If you wish to describe Lynnwood, Redmond and Federal Way as dense urban centers, then you will, but really they aren't. People will ride out to the end of line and then drive from there to their home on the range. The planned line goes from Everett to Tacoma, the funded line is what you are talking about.
Further, transit reduces one of the "push" factors of sprawl, the need for more parking per capita at home, the store, work, etc..
The push factor for sprawl is people's desire for a free standing house and a yard. You actually think it would be harder to convince people to charge their cars at night than to live in apartments in the city?
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 10:28 p.m. Inappropriate
Regarding the road diets being in paint and therefore changeable: do not believe that something that starts out as paint cannot and/or will not be made into something with a vertical edge. The desire is there.
Posted Wed, Sep 1, 7:09 a.m. Inappropriate
Lizard, I agree. Has a road diet ever been undone?
mhays - I gave you a cite that referred to an Energy Department study -why would you diminish the site because they may like electric cars? Why can't you just admit that the excess electric power is available to power 73% of all cars with electricity? And that capacity is available now at night.
According to a recent U.S. Department of Energy study, there is so much excess energy on the U.S. grid nightly that if every light-duty car and truck in America today used plug-in hybrid technology, 73 percent of them could be plugged in and “fueled” without constructing a single new power plant. .
As for sprawl from light rail, think of this way, if we added a lane to Redmond it would abet sprawl. I'm sure you agree. Moving people to Redmond on a train will add capacity to Redmond. I'm sure you agree. Unless people that ride the train are verboten from using a car or bus to get further out, they will. Redmond is towards the edge of the urban growth boundary and the train will put pressure for development there.
Posted Wed, Sep 1, 8:24 a.m. Inappropriate
Redmond, Federal Way, and Lynnwood are all trying to turn their centers into dense urban districts around where the rail lines will terminate. Downtown Redmond is farther along in a midrise format. Federal Way and Lynnwood want to be the next downtown Bellevues.
On whether transit WITHIN developed areas causes sprawl, that's an unusual idea you have. Standard wisdom is that ability to travel within developed areas is what makes higher densities possible, and reduces the reasons many people are drawn farther out. I don't have numbers for people who take trains to the end of the line and then commute to new sprawl, but based on transit usage stats for outer suburbs and exurbs (particularly commute mode splits on Census ACS, using other regions as examples where rail existed a few years ago), it's a minor factor, i.e. very small numbers of people in outer suburbs commuted by transit. Locally, the same thing is shown by the moderate volume of park-n-ride users vs. total transit boardings (around 10% based on my vague recollections).
Posted Wed, Sep 1, 10:36 a.m. Inappropriate
The park and rides are basically full. ST is building new ones because of the demand. I don't consider LA's density of 8200 urban density. Redmond has a density of 2900, while Seattle is at about 7500. Building little islands of 5000 or 7500 is not creating the kind of density necessary for energy efficiencies.
Drive the proposed Link system and tell me that those are developed areas in an urban density sense. If you are saying that 10% of all transit trips use park and rides that would be about 50,000 riders or more.
Btw, people don't need to use park and rides to get out to sprawl territory. They can be picked up (kiss and ride, a term I hate), they can use bus service or car pool.
Look at the map and tell me that having a train to Redmond won't make it easier to sprawl.
http://your.kingcounty.gov/annex/
Posted Wed, Sep 1, 11:38 a.m. Inappropriate
Those "little islands" would be job centers as well as residential centers.
Regarding the 10% figure, a figure of 25,000 (or in that magnitude) is what I was pointing at. We have 500,000 transit trips per day locally, and generally commuters are counted twice at least.
I'm familar with Redmond, biking around the lake sometimes. The route would have one stop (second to last) that would be close to the urban edge. But the points I've already made still stand.
Posted Wed, Sep 1, 12:15 p.m. Inappropriate
Okay 25,000 I'll accept that - but with the second to last stop on the urban edge I don't see how you can maintain it will not encourage sprawl.