Ross Anderson, a sixty-something retired journalist has the most insulting anti-rail screed I’ve read yet at Crosscut. While Ted Van Dyk embarrassingly admits that “governance” is about killing light rail in its cradle and generally comes off as obsessed, Mr Anderson manages to interview and complement nearly every anti-rail activist in our area. Not surprising from a man who used to work on transportation for the Discovery Institute, a group who thinks deep-bore highways are the solution to Seattle’s transportation problems.
First Mr Anderson sets out to belittle trains and those who like them, first with the title “Seattle goes gah-gah over choo-choos”. Who says “choo-choo”? Mr Anderson must actually want transit supporters to appear juvenile.
We have seen the future of Seattle mass transit, and it looks suspiciously like the past. It is shiny and red and goes clackity-clack between South Lake Union and Westlake. It travels at a maximum speed of 20 mph and costs about $40 million per mile to build.
First, the streetcar doesn’t go “clackity-clack”. It has a welded rail and has a smoother ride than anyone trying to drive a car on city streets.
Second, as we learned this morning from the Mercer street mess (nearly $400 million a mile), as we are learning from the 520 bridge (over $2 billion per mile), and as we are learning from the Alaska way viaduct (also $2 billion per mile), roads cost a lot more than $40 million per mile. What’s the maximum speed on Mercer? And the Ikedon Trio, the train type the SLUT uses, has a maximum speed of about 45 mph. The trolley tops at 25, which is the speed limit.
Seattle, it seems, has gone downright gah-gah over choo-choos. Whatever the price in dollars and aggravation, the city is determined to take the A-Train. We haven’t yet completed that $2.7 billion-dollar rail lines to Sea-Tac, but Sound Transit is desperately seeking more billions to extend that line to Northgate. We have the new South Lake Union Streetcar. And this week, planners unveiled their sketchy visions for streetcar lines in neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and the University District.
All this stokes the ongoing debate: How do we best relieve traffic, or at least provide an alternative way to get around? More roads? Or buses? Or rails? If the rail buffs have their way, we’ll soon be looking at and living in a cityscape reminiscent of another century — the 19th.
Sure there have been streetcars since the 19th century, but there have been paved roads for some six thousand years (talk about old technology), and cars and buses have been around since the 19th as well. And don’t get me started on those old-fashion boat things, or dare I say it, walking. So unless Mr Anderson is fighting for helicopters or Segways, there’s nothing new under the sun.
And has Seattle gone “gah-gah” (Mr Anderson writes like rail supporters are two year olds) over trains? I wouldn’t say so. We have one streetcar line, two commuter rail lines, and are building a first light rail line. You know a place “gah-gah” over trains? New York, where the vast majority of people use public transit, or Tokyo where there’s an average of a train station every 1.5 square kilometers. Seattle rejected Prop. 1, and most other transit expansions in its history. Hardly “gah-gah”.
Not statisfied just trying to make modern trains seem silly and old-fashioned, ironic coming from a man whose ideas involve brand new super-highways, Anderson decided to interview practically every anti-rail critic in the region, none of whom provide an alternative:
Rail critics see their own conspiracy. Randal O’Toole is an Oregon economist and self-styled libertarian who argues that Seattle is about to join dozens of cities that have got little or no benefits from the billions spent on light rail. Trolleys and streetcars are 19th century technology that is too slow, too dangerous and too expensive, he says. “Light rail is simply one more way to take money from the pockets of ordinary taxpayers and put it in the pockets of wealthy businesses.”
Is that what Light Rail is? I thought that people ride it to work, too.
John Niles, a transportation consultant and critic of light rail, is a little kinder toward streetcars. They are probably a mistake, he says, “but the scale of the error is so much smaller than with light rail.”
By “consultant” Anderson means John Niles is on Kemper Freeman’s payroll. Niles is about sixty, and grew up during the auto boom in 1950’s when 10% of the GDP went toward building highways. In his way cars and buses are the only way anyone should want to get around.
Streetcars aren’t the answer to our traffic mess here. Neither is light rail, but its a great alternative to driving. But to oppose rail so strong as Mr Anderson, Mr O’Toole and Mr Niles do, it makes me wonder whose thinking is old-fashioned: the people trying to bring progressive public transportation options to Seattle, or the people stuck with 20th-century, carheaded thinking.
Daimajin, you’ve got your own little screed that you’ve written… Perhaps you’re invoking a cousin of the Streisand effect?
Just keep twisting the knife. The more they fight, the more you know you’re winning.
Twisting the knife? This post is devoid of content. It is primarily a list of insults and suggestions that older people are stupid and uninformed.
Sorry if this is angry, I’m just fed-up with the anti-rail propaganda coming from crosscut. I don’t think my piece is any more insulting than Ross Anderson’s.
Check out this piece Anderson wrote a couple of months ago.
Witness light rail, the ever-so-fashionable update of old-time streetcars. In 1996 voters approved a new light-rail route between Northgate and
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, but what Sound Transit is building hasn’t reached either point. Instead, work has begun on a route from downtown to someplace in suburban Tukwila, where it is expected to run out of gas.
That some place being the airport.
Mr Anderson has been saying awful things about transit for a LONG time. I don’t feel bad saying he’s out-of-touch, and today’s gas prices are key evidence he’s on the wrong side of history.
Angry is an understatement. This is down-right ageist and polemic.
quasimodal, should we not respond to these ridiculous attacks?
I don’t think old people are uniformly uniformed and stupid, but writers who have devoted their life to fighting progress are not uniformed, but hope to keep the populace that way.
http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/05/shorter_crosscut
Slog reads STB
Hm. I must be too young – or too old – to catch the Streisand reference. Please explain, nickb.
Quasimodo, don’t get defensive. We all get old. Cranks who embrace crustiness and stale thinking deserve a kick in the pants every once in a while. I can appreciate Anderson’s endless loop historical perspective, myself. I just think he’s been consumed by it. Tomorrow’s commuter simply isn’t interested in a vote which took place in 1911. They just want to get to work, and spend more time with their friends and family. And less time alone in a car.
Get it?
If “older people” who write the ‘perpetual whiner’ column for Crosscut want to illustrate that they aren’t “stupid and misinformed”, I would encourage them to do so.
But, so far, Crosscut has turned out to be a sounding board for old Seattle (if you’re going to try and defend a lost cause, DEFEND it). Anderson proposes no viable alternatives in his column. None. Instead, he quotes right wing think tank cranks (angry old white guys, natch) who cannot see beyond their own personal vendettas.
Randal O’Toole is no more a credible source than Karl Rove. So, why would Anderson quote him? O’The Tool is paid by Big Oil and energy interests to spew his junk. I can see why fellow Discovery Institute fellow John Niles would also be quoted, but hasn’t Anderson figured out by now that Niles is just spouting Kemper Freeman’s FreewaysFirst! pablum?
And least O’The Toole doesn’t hide his contempt for buses. Niles does an excellent job pretending they could serve as a viable alternative for rail (O’The Tool at least took the trouble to analyze the long term operating costs and environmental impacts associated with diesel buses)
So, to summarize, Daimjan is on to something here. The old guard has failed us. Their ideas might be in line with the values of Jefferson County and the old Boeing Bust days of Seattle. But they are nowhere close to serving the needs of a fast-growing metropolitan region.
Maybe Anderson should limit his “back in the good old days” pitch to weekly Port Townsend paper.
By the way, I can’t wait until Crosscut starts overkill advertising a mega-development golf course/resort up the street from Anderson’s Port Townsend house. One thing about the Old Seattle die-hards behind Crosscut: they still wanna get paid.
I don’t know whether ECB reads STB, but I don’t think this post was published until right about the time ECB wrote that, so I doubt she got the walking thing from this post.
I just think it was the obvious response.
I am against ageism, myself. In fact, I am taking a stand against getting old. Don’t these ungrateful kids know this country was founded on the notion progress needed to ne stopped in its tracks?
I refuse to bow down to these young whipper-snappers critiquing cranky Crosscut columnists who don’t deserve to be criticized for their antique arguments.
Dagnabbit, this country really started going downhill when manual typewriters and carburated engines became unfashionable!
Fight ageism. Don’t get old! (or stagnant)
All of you here do realize that you come-off as the opposite of Anderson, don’t you? I have never encountered a blog where there is so much myopic group think as here. As much as he is anti-rail, most of here worship at the temple of rail. In your zealotry for rail, I think many of your have lost your objectivity, and some are so fanatical about rail you have lost touch with reality.
Well, Anderson spent his whole life n a region where federal freeway money was being poured out by the bucketful. But wait!- That’s not all! He also spent his working career at the Seattle Times, a newspaper that probably got 80% of their revenue from car and suburban real estate advertising.
IOW, Anderson has spent his whole life learning how to write thousands of words without ever, even inadvertently, offending the sensibilities of people who sell cars and houses. Of course, all of this has to be served up in a sort of faux, “even-handed” style that journalists use to persuade themselves they’ve looked at all sides of the picture. Then a light historical patina is applied, in much the same way that some car companies try to evoke classical marble columns in the styling of their radiator grilles.
Anderson, in short, is your ultimate phony. In spite of his “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds” support of sprawl, he himself has moved away from the mess he helped create. From his 1890s Victorian-styled town of Port Townsend, he accuses streetcar supporters of wanting to live in a Seattle that resembles that of the 19th century. Well, du-uh!
He and his echo chamber of mental pipsqueaks are just short of certifiable. Take Randall O’Toole and his idea that mass transit is some sort of swindle intended to make the poor poorer and the rich richer- this guy is really thinking in another dimension that has no relation to reality as we know it. It doesn’t bother him in the least that there are no privately owned city-wide transportation systems in the entire world anymore. Like the guy who thinks he’s discovered perpetual motion, O’Toole will patiently explain to you that you just have to accept this totally new set of facts to understand what a genius like him is saying.
Anderson also displays the hallmark of a strong intellect (holding two mutually contradictory opinions at the same time) when he believes that people like streetcars because they are shiny and new and, oh, yeah, also really really old-fashioned. In actual fact people really do like streetcars because they are both of these things, and if Anderson had applied some thought process using facts, instead of simply deciding to hold opinions, he might have learned something from this. To him, though, this fact is just something to bludgeon his opponents with, and about as useful to him as the proverbial lamp-post the drunk leans against.
In short, he’s the kind of writer I usually find when I follow a link to Crosscut.
Here I go and intentionally avoid Crosscut, knowing it’s a right-wing sounding board, and you bring a typical article here.
[sam] There’s a big difference. I agree, much that happens over here pushes strongly for light rail. But at least it’s passion for something. All that happens at Crosscut is complaining without proposing solutions. I don’t care if it’s rail or magical elves carrying me to work – as long as we end up in a better world than the car-heads will create for us.
I’m not defensive, I’m reacting to what I think is offensive. It’s not OK to just throw insults at people and think you’re “critiquing”.
I think of myself as a rail supporter – as long as it’s planned strategically and implement effectively. But I think uncritical support is just as destructive to that cause as unsupported criticism. I would like to see real engagement in debate about where rail makes sense, rather than blather about how it is superior and cheaper in all instances.
Highways and roads are not cheap. Even sidewalks aren’t cheap. But rail is not cheap either when we’re talking about hundreds of millions per mile. This region has done a poor job of discussing what solutions make sense where, and how much is appropriate to spend given competing needs. Should we fix existing roads and highways? Should we complete a sidewalk system? Should we get signals working and give buses real priority in traffic? Should we complete street grids in developing areas?
When I read this blog it seems as though rail is the only thing worth doing, and all that needs to be done. Why not rise to the challenge and start answering the critics rather than just insulting them, belittling their concerns and questioning their motivations? I’m not disagreeing with your characterization that the crosscut writers may have an anti-rail bias, but having a bias is not something writers here have any standing to complain about.
BTW, I admit that I haven’t read the crosscut piece, so I’m not saying it contains valid criticism. I don’t generally find anything of value in the screeds of long-time rail critics either – I just don’t like to see the people I’m supposed to agree with having just as knee-jerk reactions as the people I know I don’t agree with.
Doesn’t matter how much roads cost: they are necessary.
Transit improvements are frills to be tacked on after all the necessities have been dealt with.
Though writing with tons of sarcasm, its basically the truth.
“This region has done a poor job of discussing what solutions make sense where, and how much is appropriate to spend given competing needs. “
Give us an example, Quasimodal. I am tired of reading generic comments like this.
Prioritization is not the real problem. Local-control Puget Sound is not going to cede power to a benevolent dictator anytime soom, and the freeway-centric state legislature isn’t going to catch a clue anytime soon.
The problem lies with the transit critics, in my view. Here’s how the whole thing works:
years and years of “discussing what makes sense where”
big fight ensues, producing winners and losers
winners move forward
losers grind their axes for decades, and complain how the selection process “didn’t make sense”
The difference between Seattle and other regions: the crazies, cranks and sore losers get lots of media attention in this town.
If you get a chance to read Ross Anderson’s recent articles on transportation, you will know he is in close contact with the whackos, the pretendgineers, and the grudge club. Must be a requirement for all Crosscut writers.
There has not been a serious analysis of system options for rail since the early 1980’s. There has been no analysis ever by Sound Transit or PSRC of whether their proposed investment from Everett to Tacoma would have a greater benefit than other system plans that would provide a more intensive network within a smaller radius around Seattle.
The long range plan had no alternatives analysis. It was an EIS that assessed the impacts of completing every potential project that had been suggested. The Everett to Tacoma plan has been considered a key political assumption since two legislators from Everett and Tacoma wrote the original high capacity transit legislation to require rail to connect urban centers in different counties. There was no technical analysis then or since that ever suggested that to be a sensible idea.
There has been no discussion of which potential rail benefits are most important – should high capital cost be focused on long distance commutes, or to local circulation? Does rail have greater opportunity to impact work trips or non-work trips which require higher frequency and greater simplicity? These things have never been debated by ST.
The ST2 ballot was assembled by requesting each jurisdictions’ top three proposed projects, and the packages were put together in meetings of ST boardmembers in each subarea. The analysis done to prepare the ST2 package was limited to questions about how far to progress along the pre-agreed corridors. There was no full-board discussion of system objectives or issues, of alternative system concepts, or of the best use for each mode. There was no criticism of choices made by one subarea from board members in another.
That’s what I’m talking about. I’m not saying that there aren’t parts of the ST rail system that make sense, just that the debate has largely between knee-jerk supporters and opponents about whether rail is generically good or bad, rather than about how it should be designed to provide the greatest benefit.
Frankly, quasimodal, you’re not giving credit where credit is due. From the early 80s on the planning departments of cities, towns, and counties conferenced together and traveled to other regions to see what was working and how they did it. I know most people didn’t notice this, but it was (sketchily) reported in the Seattle dailies. This was a long process that eventually agreed on the broad outlines of light rail here.
You may think they did a bad job; I think, all things considered, they did a pretty good job.
Secondly, of course the process is political. This is a democracy, the rail proposals involve spending public money to create future institutions, and nothing goes forward unless elected representatives will support it.
From what I can see, nothing flagrantly irresponsible has been done. It seems pretty obvious to me that you would want to connect Everett, Seattle, and Tacoma, and particularly that you would like to be able to go to the airport on the light rail.
You seem to think not enough study was done- what I saw was 15 years of study that resulted in a ballot measure that passed. Even if mistakes were made, we may, soon enough, be glad we didn’t wait another three years to do more studies and consider more options.
There are times when the perfect is the enemy of the good.
“There has been no analysis ever by Sound Transit or PSRC of whether their proposed investment from Everett to Tacoma would have a greater benefit than other system plans that would provide a more intensive network within a smaller radius around Seattle.”
Ohhhh. So that’s where Quasimodal is coming from. He wants Everett and Tacoma to pay for Ballard’s rail line.
Can you say “insane in the membrain”?
As stated earlier, Quasi is still fighting battles lost in 1993 and 1996. Seattle could have kept its transit authority, as well. But Metro gobbled it up. Before Quasi tries to re-write 40 years of political and legal history, he might want to figure out how to get rid of Metro’s 40-40-20 (20 being Seattle/North King) rule.
Then, he can go on to tackle the chore of convincing Redmond they should pay for a West Seattle light rail line.
“The ST2 ballot was assembled by requesting each jurisdictions’ top three proposed projects, and the packages were put together in meetings of ST boardmembers in each subarea.”
Errr…now Quasimodal is just making stuff up. Typical.
“the debate has largely between knee-jerk supporters and opponents about whether rail is generically good or bad”
Um, that war was started by the rabid rail opponents, who decided “anything but light rail” was the way to go.
I believe most of the light rail “true believers” here do not subscribe to a monomodal approach. Or, an approach which randomly excludes one particular mode because of a grudge they are carrying…or the grudge some rich anti-transit guy is paying them to carry.