crosscut.com : Metro Transit

Does Seattle work any more?

Crosscut — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:00:01 PDT

A former mayor takes a critical look at Seattle's political culture, its past triumphs, and why it's so much harder today to make good decisions. One problem: We chew but do not swallow.

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.

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.

Give foot ferries the boot

Crosscut — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:57:01 PST

First, a compliment to Bruce Agnew of the Cascadia Center for Regional Development. The guy keeps pushing for new ideas in transportation, even when the rest of us are running away from the Heartbreak House of bold new ideas to solve our congestion. Cascadia wants to grab the Eastside rail line that might otherwise be torn up for a walking trail and make it into a Snohomish-to-Renton commuter rail line. (Cheap, but the line does not really go where the cities are.) The institute wants to solve the Alaskan Way Viaduct problem by boring a tunnel under Second Avenue, deflecting the through traffic so the waterfront only needs a modest surface boulevard. (Expensive, and needing a private partner, which alarms public-sector Democrats.) And now, a network of foot ferries on Puget Sound.

The last train to Hooterville

Crosscut — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:00:01 PST

If you're trying to get from the Cheesecake Factory to South Lake Union, this SLUT's for you.

The road ahead on federal transportation funding

Crosscut — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:51:01 PST

How is the U.S. going to fund surface transportation improvements in the future? Congress created the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission in 2005 to look at just that question and their report to Congress is due out Tuesday, Jan. 15. But Ken Orski, a Washington, D.C.-based transportation consultant, has a sneak preview. He reports that it includes some fairly controversial recommendations regarding tolling, congestion pricing, public private partnerships, and the future of the gas tax, all front-burner issues here in the Great Nearby. Are you bus and rail commuters ready for a "federal ticket tax?" Or how about a tax on every mile you drive?

Fare coverage

Crosscut — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:25:01 PST

Let's say you run a business and your front door opens 310,000 times a day to let customers inside. Many are regulars, going in and out a few times daily. They are mostly strangers to each other, and once inside they spend a lot of time crowded together in small spaces. At any given time, some are running late and very cranky; others are lonely or wasted; buried in a tattered copy of The Da Vinci Code; and/or just plain nuts.

If you had just three reports of people being hurt or harassed each day, people would think you were doing a decent job on the safety front, right? Yes, unless you're a public-transit agency.

Beyond Proposition 1: A new consensus is emerging

Crosscut — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:00:01 PST

A group headed by Norm Rice and John Stanton is gathering allies for a more rational and practical approach to the region's transit needs. Both supporters and opponents of the failed Proposition 1 are part of the effort.

Season's greeting from the â�� 17th century?

Crosscut — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:29:01 PST

Who would have thought that nearly a decade into the 21st century, downtown streetcars and the mosquito fleet would be making comebacks in Seattle? Instead of super-slick mag-lev mass transit, we'd be juicing up the old bus system, adding bike lanes and considering tearing down an elevated highway to replace it with a boulevard? In the holiday retail core, giant nutcracker soldiers stand guard outside of stores like cigar-store Indians of old. I guess they're cheaper than real cops: no overtime.

Has Seattle's dream for rail transit run its course?

Crosscut — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:00:01 PST

All the factors that made such a strong case for rail in 1968 are much weaker now. Jim Ellis, the architect of the dream, recalls how the crusade began and why Seattle seemed the perfect city for an extensive rail system.

Monorail hugger rains on the Streetcar parade

Crosscut — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:49:01 PST

Opening day for the new South Lake Union Streetcar is not a happy moment for Reinhard Krischer, keeper of the old Seattle monorail flame. He's still hoping for an extension of the 1962 Alweg line and still lamenting the failure of the Green Line in 2005. "All the safe, clever, and progressive advantages of elevated transit in the form of space-saving monorail technology were forgotten," Krischer writes in The Alweg Archives.

Sizing up the Proposition 1 vote, precinct by precinct

Crosscut — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:00:01 PST

Voters were resisting a plan that was Seattle-centric and premised on the expectation that most people would become affluent professionals working in dense urban settings. This skeptic of rail transit also suggests how to recraft the proposal.

I'm not a SLUT, I'm not a SLUT, I'm a Streetcar!

Crosscut — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:00:01 PST

I have my own website! I'm very streamlined and clean and good-looking! I am full of enthusiasm! Everywhere!! Is Mike! running for governor again?

Thinking small about transit, after Prop 1's defeat

Crosscut — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:32:01 PST

The transit proposal du jour is for light-weight, single-car diesel trains running from Snohomish to Renton, along the old BNSF Railway's tracks. Those are the tracks the county and the Port want to turn into a trail and bikeway. Price for the small trains route would be somewhere between $125 million and $300 million, according to various estimates. The idea is the latest outbreak of thinking small about transit, in the wake of the rejection of Proposition 1. It's the spirit of Portland, stitching together small opportunities in transit as they come along -- trolleys, streetcars, bus malls, commuter rail on freight lines, and passenger ferries. You might call this TOY, for Transit of Yore, since most of the proposals are for nostalgic modes and tiny solutions.

If the Guardian Angels came to Seattle, would they wear fleece?

Crosscut — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:00:01 PST

A small band of Guardian Angels

It's a miracle! King County finds money for ferries

Crosscut — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:00:01 PST

King County's leap into the ferry business makes sense politically, maintaining a passenger-only service being abandoned by the state. The big winner is King County Councilmember Dow Constantine, whose district includes West Seattle and Vashon Island. But from one perspective, this news is a head slapper.

That regional government we so desperately need is called a county council

Crosscut — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 05:00:01 PST

A brief history of King County government, and a question: Instead of creating a new regional transportation authority, as proposed in the Legislature, why not just empower our existing county councils to jointly convene?

A classic Seattle start-up story: Flexcar

Crosscut — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:00:01 PDT

Neil Peterson, the man who built the downtown Metro bus tunnel, recounts how he got the disruptive idea for urban car-sharing and built a little company, which is now part of a nationwide firm.

The mayor's electric train

Crosscut — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 12:00:01 PDT

The Seattle Streetcar was unveiled with Greg Nickels at the controls. After some weeks of testing, the streetcar named streetcar, and not named SLUT, will begin carrying regular passengers.

So what would be better than the roads-and-transit ballot proposal?

Crosscut — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 05:00:01 PDT

A leading critic of Proposition 1 takes up the challenge and proposes his notion of a better way to address the transportation problems of the Puget Sound region. Some of the solutions are surprisingly modest, like allowing less parking on Seattle arterials.