I was just curious how these initiatives are supposed to help our children when they see the fruits of our actions today?

From what I see today, there is no more room for new roads and the new roads were designed and built in the '60s-70s and, from what my civil engineering friend has told me, the current roads are at the end of their lifespan. Our community is growing at a dramatic rate and I'm sure we can all agree that the area is growing more and more congested.

I'm just trying to understand how I-695 and the new initiative will solve these problems? From what I can see, they only serve us now but what's left for our children. Will they see the same beautiful area that we are privleged to see today or will they just see a sea of roads with even worse congestion?

Comments?

-- Fei Yen (feiyen_srv14a@yahoo.com), December 20, 1999

Answers

Fei Yen-

[I was just curious how these initiatives are supposed to help our children when they see the fruits of our actions today?] Curiosity is good. From curiosity comes the motivation to examine things. Examining things logically will hopefully allow you to plot rational courses of action.

[From what I see today, there is no more room for new roads and the new roads were designed and built in the '60s-70s and, from what my civil engineering friend has told me, the current roads are at the end of their lifespan.] You are partially correct. The roads have been poorly maintained, and subsequent to the last serious road building that occurred in King County in the 60s and the 70s, capital funds for transportation have largely been diverted to progressively less efficient transit issues. The proposed $29,000 a stall underground parking garage in Mercer Island is such a proposal. There is of course as much room for new roads as there is for new transit development, as Im sure your civil engineering friend will also tell you. Anything from double-decking current roads to tunneling to just declaring eminent domain and moving people out (like the light rail intends to do in Rainier Valley) is possible.

[Our community is growing at a dramatic rate and I'm sure we can all agree that the area is growing more and more congested.] Indeed it is. This is in large part a consequence of the program with the rather Orwellian name of SmartGrowth. The desire of this policy is to increase the population density of the metropolitan area. The consequences of increased population density include increased congestion.

[I'm just trying to understand how I-695 and the new initiative will solve these problems?] I-695 really wont solve those problems. I- 695 didnt cause those problems, either. Those problems existed because of decades of poor transportation decisions by WA DOT and King County. Until the policies leading to inappropriate allocation of capital resources that currently funds such transit related issues as this Mercer Island underground parking garage at THREE TIMES the rate that it funds capacity increases in the roads are changed, these problems will only get worse. Right now, transit is getting 75% of the capital funding to carry about 5% of the commuter traffic (and about 2% of the total traffic). Roads for transit, for the trucks that deliver needed goods, and for the autos that carry 98% of the traffic, share the other 25%. The traffic improvement initiative will address this, and start building the kind of transportation infrastructure that will meet your kids needs in the next century.

[From what I can see, they only serve us now but what's left for our children.] You are right. We are not maintaining the legacy that the people in the 60s and 70s left us very well, and we are not building infrastructure for the future. Transit is the biggest line item in the King County budget, a third of a Billion dollars annually. $200 million goes for operating costs, mainly driver salaries. $100 million goes for such things as replacing worn out buses and the Mercer Island Park n Ride garage. Nothing that will provide future transportation capacity for our children. In the meantime, these 30-ton buses (oftentimes with only a handful of passengers) continue to tear up the roads left to us by our predecessors.

[Will they see the same beautiful area that we are privleged to see today or will they just see a sea of roads with even worse congestion?] It all depends. If we can get the funding appropriately allocated with regard to transit, giving transit no more than TWICE the capital investment warranted by the quantity of service provided (10%), and if we can stop the SmartGrowth plans that will otherwise just pile more and more bodies into the metro area, I think there is a good chance to leave your children (and my grandchildren) a beautiful legacy. If we continue to toss money after politically correct philosophy, despite the cruel accounting facts that show it isnt working, then we will indeed leave our descendants a poor legacy. If you want to help, support the transportation improvement initiative.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 20, 1999.

"How do we plan for our children?"

See: http://www.ppww.org/

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

-- Fei Yen The answer to your question..

Your children will be packed, standing room only, into beautifully designed, slow moving cattle cars that will shuttle them to their designated cubicles where they will perform their designated jobs and then returned to theri designated living cubicles at the end of each day.

They will be happy with their lot in life, having never experienced anything different than total government control.

They will believe that true beauty is whatever the government tells them it is. They will eat whatever soy nutrient the government say is good for them. And when the government tells them that they may have a child also....they will obey immediately...

Shalom

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

Ever see Soylent Green?

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

From what I see today, there is no more room for new roads and the new roads were designed and built in the '60s-70s and, from what my civil engineering friend has told me, the current roads are at the end of their lifespan.] You are partially correct. The roads have been poorly maintained, and subsequent to the last serious road building that occurred in King County in the 60s and the 70s, capital funds for transportation have largely been diverted to progressively less efficient transit issues. The proposed $29,000 a stall underground parking garage in Mercer Island is such a proposal. There is of course as much room for new roads as there is for new transit development, as Im sure your civil engineering friend will also tell you. Anything from double-decking current roads to tunneling to just declaring eminent domain and moving people out (like the light rail intends to do in Rainier Valley) is possible.

This logic is so full of holes. There is hardly the room for new roads as there is for transit. Transit will be taking up transport spaces (existing roads) that are already in place and moving very few people. The Rainier Valley displacement of people is very very few and miniscule compared to the number of people new road lanes would take. Lanes that will eventually be as congested and non productive as the rest.....leading to needing more roads and the cycle starts over again.

-- (laughing@eyman.com), December 21, 1999.

This logic is so full of holes. There is hardly the room for new roads as there is for transit. Transit will be taking up transport spaces (existing roads) that are already in place and moving very few people. The Rainier Valley displacement of people is very very few and miniscule compared to the number of people new road lanes would take. Lanes that will eventually be as congested and non productive as the rest.....leading to needing more roads and the cycle starts over again.

Oh and this is BRILLIANT logic. To pay $100 million a mile to move people who are currently riding buses to light rail, with the loss of two lanes down MLK and building a great wall of China in the community, as well as down 99 toward Sea Tac.

Why doesn't Seattle just have a going out of business sale and tell all the new industry and jobs to go elsewhere. If you aren't going to build increased capacity, that's what will happen. If your a member of Lesser Seattle Incorporated (for the few surviving Tempus Puget fans), you'll find that perfectly agreeable.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), December 21, 1999.

has any one seen THX1138. i think it was directed by speilberg. starred peter falk? good movie and a good representation of where the NO ON 695ers are hoping to go.

resist socialism, richard

-- richard (ragman88@yahoo.com), December 22, 1999.

I posted this in a couple of other places and have added to it. Any comments?

Warning: Don't get too riled, since this is just speculation, but ISN'T THIS WHAT THE ANTI-TRANSIT PEOPLE WANT?

With Eyman's latest initiative aimed at directing funds to solve traffic problems...

Most of the people posting messages here seem to prefer reducing ferry and transit subsidies and prefer more funding be directed to highway construction to relieve congestion. So adding additional highways and bridges to link the Puget Sound area sounds like the preferred solution.

So, to improve the link to and from the Olympic Peninsula, there be an additional 8 lanes be added with a bridge built from Gig Harbor-to-Vashon and another bridge from Vashon-to-Seattle. And maybe another bridge across the sound connecting Bainbridge-to-Mukilteo to take care of the North end commuters. Now those people can commute like the rest of us.

To handle the North-South commuters, doubling the capacity of I-5 through the Seattle area should take care of things. Additional roadway could be built on to of the existing roadway in some areas. In other areas, it would probably need to be built along side displacing existing homes and businesses. Of course, you could dig down and build under the existing roadway, which is a more expensive option, but it looks much nicer.

There are also some North-South commuters that need to by-pass Seattle completely. So some similar projects need to happen with I-405 and Highway 167 all along the eastern side of Lake Washington and down through Tacoma. Maybe highway 167 could be extended to by-pass downtown Tacoma.

Of course, to handle the East-West commute, the 520 bridge really needs another 4 lanes each way. And I-90 could use a couple more lanes. In these cases, it doesn't seem reasonable to build on top of the existing floating bridges, so we probably will have to displace some homes and businesses to build along side the existing roadway.

And while we are at it, we need to make a 6-lane highway to by-pass King County to the East, starting from Olympia to I-90 and North up to Marysville.

That should solve the traffic problems in Western Washington. And Western Washington residents should thank Eastern Washington residents who will help foot the bill.

-- Gene (gene@gene.com), December 22, 1999.

and this was ANSWERED in all the other places, Gene. Aren't you aware that Washington has an anti-spamming law?

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999.

Actually, Zowie is the only one to provide a response indicating what he/she would like. What about you? Is this what you want?

-- Gene (gene@gene.com), December 22, 1999.

Craig, thank you for supplying the answers.

"Indeed it is. This is in large part a consequence of the program with the rather Orwellian name of 'SmartGrowth'. The desire of this policy is to increase the population density of the metropolitan area. The consequences of increased population density include increased congestion."

So when does the 'SmartGrowth' program slow down? How do we let our officials know that we think we have enough people already? ^_^; Is it just as simple as writing to them?

"Right now, transit is getting 75% of the capital funding to carry about 5% of the commuter traffic (and about 2% of the total traffic). Roads for transit, for the trucks that deliver needed goods, and for the autos that carry 98% of the traffic, share the other 25%. The traffic improvement initiative will address this, and start building the kind of transportation infrastructure that will meet your kids needs in the next century."

I'm curious where those numbers you quoted come from? Could you point me to the study/report? Thanks.

So if I understand this correctly, using the numbers you provided, the new initiative will hamper transit as opposed to helping. Why such a drastic cut? Why not just do 25% for transit. I'm just curious why only 10%. How does that let transit grow with such a small amount? Some of my friends are dependant on transit to get around. My friend's son is in school at the UW and he relies on transit to visit his parents on the weekends, but now I wonder what he'll do now that CT will terminate weekend routes next year. The traffic on I-5 is horrible on the weekends. Another friend of mine uses transit to go to work on the Eastside from Seattle. She likes it. It gets her home faster than being stuck in traffic for hours.

From their perspective, transit does work for them.

I just wonder since the elected officials aren't doing that well, why are they still there? Isn't someone going to step up to the plate and get them out of office?

So, in sum, how do we slow down the SmartGrowth plans while keeping roads and transit alive to move the current populace to where they need to go? It's just me, mostly because I don't have hard numbers to work with (see above), but the current initiative still looks a little too drastic. But I will still research this so that my decision will benefit the children the most.

Fei Yen

-- Fei Yen (feiyen_srv14a@yahoo.com), December 23, 1999.

"I'm curious where those numbers you quoted come from? Could you point me to the study/report? Thanks. "

Go to the Metro KC six year capital improvement budget on the MetroKC site: http://www.metrokc.gov/budget/budget99/adopted/04capita.pdf

You're welcome.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 23, 1999.

"So if I understand this correctly, using the numbers you provided, the new initiative will hamper transit as opposed to helping." No- what it shoes is that 98% of the miles are non-transit, while transit eats most of the capital funding. The proposal would give Transit, which produces 2% of the passenger miles, 10% of the funding, and roads, which support cars, transit, and freight delivery and provide 98% of the passenger miles, 90% of the funding. Transit would still receive 5 times the capital support per mile that roads do.

"Why such a drastic cut? Why not just do 25% for transit." Because Transit isn't providing a whole lot of value, relative to the capital expenditures it has been getting.

"I'm just curious why only 10%. How does that let transit grow with such a small amount?" Transit hasn't been growing, despite vast subsidies. This trend is present worldwide. It is driven by demographics. See the thread which discusses this for references.

"Some of my friends are dependant on transit to get around. My friend's son is in school at the UW and he relies on transit to visit his parents on the weekends, but now I wonder what he'll do now that CT will terminate weekend routes next year." Probably get a ride with someone else. The USDOT studies show that transit is not the mode of choice, even for people without cars. Most prefer to hitch rides with friends.

"The traffic on I-5 is horrible on the weekends." Not great DURING the week,either. But if we stop wasting money on excess subsidies for transit, we'll have more available to start to do something about adding capacity to the roads.

"Another friend of mine uses transit to go to work on the Eastside from Seattle. She likes it. It gets her home faster than being stuck in traffic for hours. " Doesn't transit go on the same bridge as the rest of the traffic. You know, if we didn't waste money on excess transit capital expenses, we could do something about that bridge capacity problem.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 23, 1999.

There are other places to live than Seattle or Tacoma. And yes it may be true that the roads need some upgrading. But just like fixed income, senior citizens have to do, priorities have to be set, and the most important ones need to be implemented. If you west siders keep spending your tax money on things they have no business in, (like tearing down the kingdome, and replacing it with a building that can only be used 3/4 of the year) then I'm sorry, but you guy's deserve what you get, and us east sider's shouldn't have to subsidize it. (from a former west sider)

-- Sig Landoe (slandoe@bentonrea.com), December 31, 1999.