I listened to the John Carlson show on KVI Radio on the way home tonight. He had Tim Eyeman as a guest. Mr. Eyeman announced not one but TWO new initiatives. The first the often discussed son of 695, to roll back all of the recent tax increases and require them to be submitted to a vote of the affected people prior to being reinstituted. The second one really caught my notice. It would require transportation funds to be spent (at the 90% level) on roads, which would have the effect of diverting still more transit revenue to roadways, opening up HOV lanes to general traffic, exempt public road building materials and labor from the sales tax (an 8% transfer of road funds to the general fund), etc. Given that 98% of the person-miles are non-transit motor vehicles, a 90%/10% split seems more than equitable. The radio audience was wildly in favor of the plan, although I will concede that the KVI listening audience may not be broadly representative of the Puget Sound voters.

Clearly, the Puget Sound region is in the mess it is because of attempts by the politicians at social engineering. It appeared to have the desired effect. People became so fed up with traffic that they were even willing to vote for a preposterous light rail proposal, despite its limited speed and geographic coverage. But they have again over-reached. The voters have now become susceptible to someone who can stand up and say, "Look, the politicians have failed you." We don't need another study, we don't need another Blue Ribbon panel, we don't need to kiss this special interest groups ring (if you're British, you understand the correct connotation of this expression, if you're not, you probably think it's a reference to the Pope), we can help this situation by doing precisely what we did in the 60s, building roads. And it's got a built-in constituency; everyone who DOESN'T ride transit at all (95%), road building companies, anyone bogged down in traffic, etc.

Now I know that d is going to say,"Where's the money going to come from to replace the revenues lost from the rest of the services?" Largely, it isn't. Transit will wind up being down-sized to the appropriate level, a safety net for those who for whatever reason are unable to drive.

What a great way to keep the

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 15, 1999

Answers

Craig-

Did you finagle this with Eyeman?

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), December 15, 1999.

No-

To the best of ny knowledge, I've never met the man. I like his ideas though.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 15, 1999.

How much do you suppose 30 miles stretch of new highway would cost? Try $150 million a mile. Right on, that's pretty cheap! The only resource we have left is up, the sky. I'm for totally computerized flying cars rather than the idea of more grandpa's who can't drive trying to merge!

Oh, I can't wait to sit in traffic while workers build new roads like the 167 stretch between 15th St and 84th. That was 'lovely'! When they finish the great new road, it'll be time to build another lane. Why don't we destroy everything and build more freeway lanes. Woohooo!

-- John Bails (jdbails@webtv.net), December 15, 1999.

Actually there ARE some lightweight flying cars on the drawing boards. But the cost per mile of freeway lane has already been covered in previous threads. While it varies with locale (and prevailing wage legislation) most places $50 million a mile will suffice, even in a crowded urban area, much less in a rural area. This includes rebuilding overpasses to fit the newer lanes. Arterials are usually much less. Compared to a $100 million a mile (in 1995 dollars) light rail that won't begin to carry the same number of passengers/hour, it's a real bargain.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 16, 1999.

John,

Totally computerized flying cars? I can see it now. Unstable operating system crashes, and you complain about Grandpas that can't drive. I think you play too many video games or something.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), December 16, 1999.

Marsha

The computerized flying plane is really a pretty good concept. I have been following on outfit that has a nice looking design and in fact is in the testing faze with the FAA.

You can read about it here for yourselves http://www.moller.com/

If the computer crashes the plane/car will autograte or deploy a parachute (the type which is being used today on small planes) to land you safely.

Ed - setting my computer to buzz the capitol a few times aday to let them know I'm still here.

-- E (ed_bridges@yahoo.com), December 16, 1999.

Ed,

I'll keep my feet or tires firmly on the road, thanks. I wonder if I should have built a house underground? Hey, flying cars WOULD do away with ferries hmmm....

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), December 16, 1999.

Oh yeah, that 167 construction that went on for oh, about 100 years? What was the purpose of the extry lane? HOV lane. That's right. Now that HOV lane takes the carpooling construction workers, on their way to build more hov lanes.

-- Paul Oss (jnaut@earthlink.net), December 16, 1999.

$150 million a mile? Time to eliminate prevailing wage laws.

-- Paul Oss (jnaut@earthlink.net), December 16, 1999.

So, if we were to add 2 lanes (N/S) to all of I-405,(30 miles long), at $50m per lane mile (Hmmm, isn't that $100 million per mile?). Let's see, (my little autopartsman brain is calculating, here, be patient), that comes to $3 BILLION Dollars, doesn't it? PLUS, to use this new congestion improvement device, YOU supply the transport vehicle! I get to pay twice! Once to the government, and even more to my beloved auto salesman/dealership owner/finance manager. GOD I feel so lucky!! :-)

-- Jim Cusick (jccusick@att.net), December 16, 1999.

"So, if we were to add 2 lanes (N/S) to all of I-405,(30 miles long), at $50m per lane mile (Hmmm, isn't that $100 million per mile?). Let's see, (my little autopartsman brain is calculating, here, be patient), that comes to $3 BILLION Dollars, doesn't it? PLUS, to use this new congestion improvement device, YOU supply the transport vehicle! I get to pay twice! Once to the government, and even more to my beloved auto salesman/dealership owner/finance manager. GOD I feel so lucky!! :-)"

Well Jim, let
fs suppose that we did spend that, what would we get? Significant increase in capacity at an, albeit, significant expense. So what are we gonna get for LINK? That $2 billion was in 1995 dollars, close to two and a half billion today dollars. That gives us (if everything goes on time and on budget, the Rainier Valley loses their lawsuit, and Tukwila loses theirs too) 20 stations, terminating at the U-DUB and at Sea-Tac.

Any number of USDOT studies have demonstrated that people won
ft walk over 1/4 mile to get to a transit stop, and that in GOOD weather (which Seattle is NOT blessed with a surplus of) and even then only if they are carrying no more than a briefcase or backpack. Now before you go telling me that you would gladly bicycle 20 miles, rappel down a ravine, etc. etc., I would like to point out that these are AVERAGE figures. For everyone person willing to jog long distances there are groups of couch potatoes who wouldn
ft seriously consider walking the quarter mile. This gives a total CATCHMENT AREA for LINK of 20*pi*(1/4 mile)^2 or approximately 4 square miles. Current Seattle metro area is 84 square miles (http://www.pan.ci.seattle.wa.us/tda/DSloca.htm) and all of King County has 2128 square miles (http://www.wa.gov/esd/lmea/pubs/profiles/kinggeo.htm) so you now have a system that serves either less than 4% of the city or less than 0.2% of the county, depending on how you want to look at it. Currently this area is served by buses. If it can be operated as economically as predicted by it
fs advocates, it will cost 4% less per passenger mile than the AVERAGE bus route. Except, of course, it
fs being built in the most populous area, so the buses here are already operating at a lower passenger mile cost than the rest of the system, so there really won
ft be an advantage. In fact, overall efficiency of the bus system will go down, since it now loses it
fs most efficient route, and other buses are diverted from their most efficient routes to act as feeders to the light rail. A few (damn few, Seattle population density is only 6000/mile^2) people in the catchment area may be able to forego buying cars, but the studies indicate that very few will, because of other demographic problems. For those people living in the catchment area, LINK is only really valuable if their place of employment and every other place they might want to go is ALSO in the catchment area. Failing that, they
fre going to buy a car anyway. If they have young children going to daycare, or otherwise have linked trips, they are poor candidates to use transit. This subject has been studied EXHAUSTIVELY by the national transit administration and the USDOT and I
fd again refer people to the previous threads that have cited all these arguments and the appropriate USDOT studies and references in detail.

In any event, after the expenditure of all the capital in the case of the light rail, you have a slow (14 mph average speed) people mover with high capital costs and operating costs little improved over what you have now. After building the freeway, you have high speed high capacity serving a much greater catchment area for the cost of the maintenance fees(and these financed by the users through gas taxes). Unlike the light rail, it also increases hauling capacity for trucks as well, which deliver the majority of goods to market today, particularly to retail stores.

So yes, we all will be real lucky if this initiative passes and ashcans Sound Transit in favor of something that provi

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 17, 1999.

Actually Craig, as far as I'm concerned, the transit agencies couldn't cut bus service quick enough for me. However, I'm also not interested in paying a subsidy for other driver's problems, and if prices for goods go up because the delivery companies have a problem with inefficient transportation modes, then the free market will find a more effecient way to deliver the goods. By the way, I only appear to 'vent my spleen', as it was put so eloquently, because I don't have the time to spend on this forum, arguing the minutiae, WITH YOU, as many others do. (I'm not old enough to retire, yet!). I ask questions to generate discussion, or even get an opinion, since I consider people with opposing views to be a valuable asset to good final solutions, even if the opinions are subjectively based. I also happen to agree that Link isn't the optimum solution, it's a compromise, but it's a start, and you can't call it a boondoggle YET. You have to build it, then if it fails, then you can call it a boondoggle. The billions spent on the highway mass transportation system can be argued to be a boondoggle, since it appears that, even from your side of the argument, it isn't working, and we should spend even more. Since it appears by the numbers that the decision is really subjective then our argument has only become 'my subsidy is better than your subsidy'.

-- Jim Cusick (jccusick@att.net), December 18, 1999.

" I also happen to agree that Link isn't the optimum solution, it's a compromise, but it's a start, and you can't call it a boondoggle YET."

Sure I can. $2.5 billion to convert people from being bus riders to being light-rail riders isn't a boondoggle? I don't have to shoot myself in the foot to know that playing ith loaded guns is not a bright idea.

I invite you to take the shallora challenge. It's listed on an adjoining thread. The Tacoma version of Link is a $65 million dollar investment that has the effect of replaceing one (1) 1.6 mile bus line. It is over 20 miles from the south end of the Seattle Link.

Justify to our audience here the expenditure of $65 million dollars to replace a bus that circulates along this 1.6 mile route every 15 minutes with a light-rail that circulates along this six mile route every 15 minu

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 19, 1999.

Jim-

" I also happen to agree that Link isn't the optimum solution, it's a compromise, but it's a start, and you can't call it a boondoggle YET."

This is the logical equivalent of being in an operating room and seeing that the orthopedic surgeon is about to amputate the wrong leg (don't laugh, it's been done more than once) and saying, "Oh well, it isn't really malpractice until the damage is done. I think I will just watch the interesting events that are about to ensue."

A part of the responsibility for any disaster goes to the last person who saw it coming, could have intervened, but decided for whatever reason that it wasn't worth the effort to avoid.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), December 19, 1999.

Well Jim (jccusick)For someone who is so vitrioliclly opposed to a road being widened anywhere near your home then you (ESPECIALLY) should understand the even the concept of LINK is a boondoggle.

Well maybe you won't realize that it is a boondoggle AND a personal assault unless they stick the tracks in YOUR neighborhood so YOUR family will feel the brunt of the danger and the increased crime, pollution, litter and congestion.

Now where I live, the tracks and the garbage will destroy the quality of life.

And I must bow my head in thanks to self-centered, boorish and stupid people like yourself who wish to trash my neighborhood.

It was a nice and peaceful neighborhood before people like you decided that the hundreds of buses that drive on the orads d not disturb things enough already. You believe that all the bus riders should be taken off of the buses and put on slow moving trains so more people can be killed and the already chocking traffic should be brought to a standstill.

The poor people fall at your feet and worship your wisdom..

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), December 20, 1999.