Today the PI has an opinion piece about Seattle’s green cred is a mirage without better public transportation:
Seattleites tout a good green game, but fall a little short.Aside from Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and pizza by the slice, what I miss most about New York City is the efficient and reliable subway system, capable of transporting millions of people to work every day. At night, it would take me less than 15 minutes to travel north from 14th Street to my apartment in the low 80s with a subway transfer in between. In fact, subways were such a pervasive part of my life that in nine-plus years I never drove, not even once.
My pharmacist husband, meanwhile, has relied on subways his entire life. Raised in Queens, he attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science, graduated from Long Island University in Brooklyn and owned a pharmacy in Greenwich Village. A devotee of the N Train, at 43 years old, he just got his driver’s license in anticipation of our big move west.
Well, 20% of Seattlites do bus to work, but the point remains that we need better public transportation to coax more people out of their cars.
I too am a NYC transplant to Seattle (thanks for the job, Microsoft!). I too hate the lack of public transit here.
It’s not just the commute: the lack of reliable, 24/7 public transit cuts into the social scene here. Since EVERYONE has to drive after dinner or after a night out, almost everyone really holds back their drinking … you might say that’s great (if you’re a liver docter), but I think it completely changes the tenor of outings. It’s lame when a group of four can’t finish two bottles of wine with dinner because they’re worried about driving home. Just lame!
Of course I don’t expect people to start drink-driving, but they wouldn’t have to make these tradeoffs with proper transit.
Eesh, if there’s one thing that bothers me more than the lack of effective transit, it’s the abundance of ex-New Yorkers. If you love New York so much, why not go back?
hi anonymous! i’m anonymous, too! if there’s one thing that bothers me more than a lack of transit, it’s xenophobic seattleites who resent people who move here! maybe we can build a border fence!
ps–i’m from here, too. i think it’s good when people share ideas they bring with them from other places.
Ok, “anonymous.” Two points:
1.) Learn to capitalize.
2.) Stating, “I’m from New York. We have subways there, and I really like them,” is not sharing an idea. At least, it’s not sharing a very practical idea: we can’t very well go back to the early 1900s and re-create Seattle’s development, can we?
It’s not that I’m opposed to people moving here, per se. What I don’t like is transplants who come to Seattle and then act shocked/offended/surprised/angry (take your pick) that it’s not just like where they come from in California, New York, DC, or Boston.
Oh, wow! I hope this is easier for you to read, M./Mme Anonymous, now that it is properly capitalized. I shall also do my best to avoid split infinitives and other grammatical missteps that might offend your delicate sense of netiquette. Personally, I think it is good for people to come here and express their frustration. If more Seattleites expressed frustration, we would have better transit. (Again, I was born and raised here.) Unfortunately, many Seattleites don’t want to push for more transit, more responsible urban planning, etc. They want to protect their single-family zoning, their “great view” viaduct, etc.
So, personally, I welcome the transplants and their sense of disappointment, anger, and urgency re: transit. I try not to take the type of reactionary “love it or leave it” positions that you espoused, but I would rather the native sticks-in-the-mud move to some smaller city than hold back the development of the infrastructure that is necessary to accomodate this city’s growth.
Every successfully city in the world has people moving there from somewhere else. When Arthur Denny came, he wasn’t from here, remember?
Anyway, People from outside seattle aren’t trying to re-create Boston or New York, they can just imagine a better Seattle that has a train system.
And if you think Seattle is perfect and awesome today and needs no improvement, you’re going to be sad because the city is going to continue changing with or without your approval. At least get on the right side and make sure it changes for the better.
So… shouldn’t folks from New York be used to grabbing a cab to go home after a night of drinking?
I’m a different anon. I grew up here but have also lived in NYC and SF. I cannot stand the shitty, slow, inconvenient public transportation we have here. It’s a disgrace.
I moved here after living in Boston for 7 years, all of them without a car & relying on subways, trolleys, buses, & the occasional cab. 2 of those years I didn’t need to transfer subway lines to commute but moved because I was renting from a slumlord. I found a better place about 4 miles from work but required a transfer in subway lines. Boston subways don’t really run on a schedule as they frequently have maintenance issues. This leads to more people waiting & more crowded trains that people can’t get onto, etc. & what should be a 30-minute commute often took an hour. While I was grateful to have it, the subway was no prize. Having been a vehicle passenger many times, I am convinced I could get places quicker by car… even with traffic, construction, & snow.
Now I live in West Seattle & love it! I also found a job in Fremont that I love as well. They are about 10 miles apart in terms of driving. Commuting by bus would involve 2 transfers &, likely, would take 2 hours in the morning & 2 hours in the evening with all the traffic, transfers, waiting, etc. … just to go 10 miles!
That’s why I drive. Transit does not save me time, & when I think about it, the little 1.8 4-cyl engine my 3-year-new car probably pollutes a lot less running for only half an hour than a bus does crawling in traffic for 2 hours. Plus I’d rather be home than sitting on a bus.
anon from boston, a few points:
1) there is no way it would take 2 hours to go from west seattle to fremont, or vice versa. give cross-streets and we’ll plug it into the metro trip-planner (which is fairly accurate with trip durations–i say that from years of experience) and see what it says.
2) if you honestly wish to contend that you are polluting less by driving your car, you are either stupid or lying to yourself. your point is almost not worth disputing.
3) you are certainly correct that in many instances it is more convenient to drive. for some, this necessitates driving. others have either the flexibility of schedule or the commitment to a more sustainable model of living to take public transportation nonetheless, but any city with brains and a conscience will be working to make transit more convenient so people like you–for whom convenience is paramount–will get out of their cars.
Actually, West Seattle to Fremont is one of the few good through-connections through downtown. Since the 54 turns into the 5, you can get on the 54 in West Seattle and stay on the same bus into Fremont – you just need to walk down Fremont Avenue from Bridge Way – about three or four blocks.
Oh, and I’m a different anonymous as well. I also grew up in Boston and *loved* the T, since it let me get just about anywhere in the city with one transfer. Unfortunately here we believe that only long “regional” trips are important, so we propose to build a long spindly rail line between cities 40 miles apart, rather than to build a network of trains in the city where 2/3 of transit trips are. We think of light rail as a salve to spread over suburban land uses to cure them of their car-centric nature, instead of a transportation system that needs to work for its users.