crosscut.com : 520 Bridge

Sausage Links, transit migraine edition

Crosscut — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:00:01 PDT

Ready to pay $6.85 round-trip to drive across the 520 bridge? Me neither. That's the proposed toll that would raise money to help pay for improvements to the floating fossil. But the idea of a toll begs another question, something I've been dying to get reader input about: Do you think having a toll on local bridges like 520 will sway voters to vote for the proposed light rail measure this November? Thoughts?

Fixing our big flat tire

Crosscut — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:00:01 PDT

Sound Transit, the Viaduct, 520, the Mercer Mess — everywhere you turn, there's a Puget Sound transportation problem awaiting solution. It's time for citizens to demand leadership from leaders and to push for reform of agencies and even government.

Seven premonitions you can take to the bank

Crosscut — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:00:01 PDT

Predictions at mid-year regarding sweet deals for developers, a Sonics boon, the precarious viaduct, a Boeing handout, Sound Transit, Pat Davis, and cleaning up Puget Sound.

Transit train wreck: Here's how to do buses right

Crosscut — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:01 PDT

They aren't the only solution, but they are the most flexible and potentially most attractive solution if they are used well. Bus lines are flexible, scalable, and can touch more people than rail, and they don't have to be a pain to use. Part 3 of 3

Transit train wreck: Revealing bus-route ridership

Crosscut — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:00:01 PDT

We've got buses going everywhere, and guess which routes are logging the biggest increases in ridership? Not the route that would become light rail to the Eastside suburbs. Part 2 of 3

Transit train wreck: The case against more light rail

Crosscut — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:00:01 PDT

The recent former state secretary of transportation has been riding buses a lot lately and crunching numbers, and he's convinced light rail to the Eastside and more Sounder service has no place in a big new transit plan. He thinks an advanced bus rapid transit system is the best way to serve millions of people and smartly manage urban growth. Part 1 of 3

The Rossi contributor behind that traffic survey

Crosscut — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:53:01 PDT

It's an election year and my political antennae are up. So when I saw this story in The Seattle Times, my first thought was: This is a gift to Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi.

Getting ready for the Big One

Crosscut — Mon, 19 May 2008 05:00:01 PDT

The images of the quake aftermath in China raise the question: What would the wake of a major quake look like in Seattle? Fortunately, we have the answer. Or at least a pretty good guess.

Psst! Wanna see the Viaduct disappear?

Crosscut — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:58:01 PDT

The debate about Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct used to be a very public, contact sport, but as many local politicians were carted off the field, the controversy moved to a 30-person stakeholders group, who meet very quietly. Meanwhile, the politicians edge back onto the playing field and hint at solutions.

Sound Transit did not hear us

Crosscut — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:00:01 PDT

Prop. 1 was soundly defeated, but the leadership of Sound Transit plans to deliver Son of Prop. 1 to the voters this fall. The agency better get used to rejection.

Is Dino Rossi a moderate?

Crosscut — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:00:01 PDT

I wouldn't call him that, but the Republican candidate for governor has no need to run to the right to beat Christine Gregoire. Just as he did in the election cliffhanger of 2004, he can present himself as a comparatively moderate candidate, one in touch with the state's mainstream aspirations. He's starting to do that.

Cordon blues: New York is no indicator of tolling's future

Cascadia Center — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:00:01 PDT

The sort of tolling under consideration here and elsewhere in the U.S. is completely different from that proposed for Manhattan. That was "cordon" pricing, and it fell flat in the Big Apple. True congestion pricing makes a lot of sense in metro Puget Sound, contends the author. He explains the difference.

Congestion pricing: Even New York's got a problem with that

Crosscut — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:00:01 PDT

The failure of an ambitious tolling plan there holds lessons for metro Puget Sound.

More evidence that Washington infrastructure collapse is over-hyped

Crosscut — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:05:01 PDT

Okay, classify this as a pet peeve, but it bugs me when politicians, including Christine Gregoire, wave the bloody shirt of the Minnesota bridge collapse as an all-purpose rationale to boost infrastructure spending. Gregoire has done this often. She raised the specter of the Minnesota disaster as an argument in favor of Proposition 1 last fall; she raised it again to argue for a new toll bridge across the Columbia River, and yet again at a national governor's meeting in February. I have no quarrel with repairing or inspecting roads and bridges--please, let's do that. But the fact is, we still don't have the final word on what happened in Minnesota, so the lesson there is unclear.

Sound Transit version 2.1

Crosscut — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:19:01 PDT

Imagine this scenario. Sound Transit comes back to ballot this fall with a shortened light rail plan and all three county executives within the voting district oppose it. Wouldn't that make for an interesting campaign season?

It might just happen. Right now, Ron Sims (King), John Ladenburg (Pierce), and Aaron Reardon (Snohomish) have grave reservations about Sound Transit's scaled-back proposal, which would extend the line up to Northgate and across the Interstate 90 floating bridge to the Eastside suburbs.

Politics not as usual

Crosscut — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:00:01 PDT

A seminal campaign speech and a crisis on Wall Street mark a turning point in the national conversation, with implications far and near.

Traffic's so bad, we might actually be willing to pay a toll

Crosscut — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:00:01 PST

Puget Sound policy-makers have been taking the public pulse. Their surveys reveal that people are generally pessimistic about the future, frustrated with traffic, and willing to pay to cross Lake Washington in a car — as long as it's really cheap.

New cure for collapsing bridges: state and union pension funds?

Crosscut — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:00:01 PST

With Washington facing mounting costs for roads, transit, and bridges, might the answer lie in tapping union pension funds? It certainly doesn't look like taxpayers are going to do much more. The Legislature is getting more tax averse and Eyman-minded. Bucking the costs down to a regional level, as in the defeated Proposition 1, doesn't seem to work either, as the local politicians load up any proposals with Christmas tree goodies. So if self-discipline won't tame the problem of too many claimants on too little money, maybe an infusion of money will do the trick? Enter America's second-biggest union federation, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), as well as an idea from super-dense Hong Kong.

National perspective: Shifting campaign pledges, cold local transpo politics

Crosscut — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:53:01 PST

Back from a cold and snowy week in Minnesota, still hustling my new book, Seattle seems downright tropical. My first act on return was to turn down my thermostat; it seemed unseasonably warm here.

Several weeks in other towns have given me a chance to observe other places and, also, to see my home place in better perspective. Here are observations for this long weekend.

Transportation: Can't we all just get along?

Crosscut — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:00:01 PST

An opponent of Proposition 1 opens the bidding, in hopes of finding a middle ground in the transportation wars. The peace treaty: a little more rail, no new highways, some highway fixes, unclogging arterials, tolls, and no more cute trolleys.