Brad writes (and Ben edits): “Prop 1 included a road project OUTSIDE the (ST) district (but inside the RTID district, and paid for by RTID taxes, not ST taxes).”

So it was included on the ballot to win some votes? I’m shocked that ST would stoop to such deceit!

your 7-14 response to my post, termed it a 1968 argument. this seems false, as I suggested systemwide dynamic tolling of the limted access highways, a very 21st century concept.

The Forward Thrust proposals were for an urban system, not an intercounty system. I am a strong advocate for north Link LRT.

ST2 in Shoreline and Snohomish County is very BART-like, with stations in the freeway envelope that will never develop into pedestrian centers as they will always be dominated by the car. So, ST2 is proposing to build stations in the freeways.

the key issues with ST2 are opportunity cost and rights-of-way. In a one-to-one comparison, I would agree the LRT is preferable to BRT, if the corridor needs the capacity that LRT can provide. This is clearly the case in the north.

Both LRT and BRT are continuum that can provide a range of transit attributes (e.g., speed, reliability, capacity) depending upon the frequency and exclusivity they are provided. Several Latin American cities have Metro-type BRT systems. Several US cities have low capacity LRT systems. A streetcar is a form of LRT.

The ST notion, seconded by you, is that only complete exclusivity is worthwhile. But many BRT systems get by with less than complete exclusivity. They are not perfect; but they are much less costly as well. Where is the break even point? How may BRT lines is one $2 billion east Link LRT worth? Link LRT can provide great capacity. But how much of that capacity is needed? A good carpenter needs to know which hammer to use for which job. The eight pound sleg (Link LRT) is needed for Northgate, but several finishing hammers would be better on the spreadout Eastside.

In East King County, the ST2 choice is between one LRT line or several BRT lines and transit use of the Woodinville subdivision. Route 550 attracts slightly fewer daily riders than Route 545 or routes 522, 306, and 312 combined.

A key asset that should be promoted by the transit investments of ST2 are the urban street and sidewalk grids you wrote about in your Crosscut piece. Everett and Tacoma should have transit investments that improve transit mobility within those centers. Bus and commuter rail are the best modes for inter county and long distance trips, not BART like Link LRT.

The worst example of this is the 219. It stops just down the street from my house, but I don’t use it to commute because it doesn’t connect to any buses to downtown. Instead it terminates at Factoria, which is less than five minutes away from either Eastgate or South Bellevue P&R! I could take the reverse direction to Newport Hills P&R, but that would take me through three different neighborhoods and take half an hour. The problem with this route isn’t that it doesn’t have enough service hours; the problem is that the service hours it already has don’t serve anyone.

Oh, and don’t forget the city that’s the reason for your standard of living.

It’s not a blackhole, brad, since service is not limited by the amount of parking spaces at a station. Think about stations like Beaverton Transit Center in Portland– NO PARKING. It’s always in competition with Hatfield for the most-used station on the westside. Feeder buses work, of course.

And people here are saying that charging fees for park and rides is not a bad thing and that actual world-class cities get by with it no problem. You don’t and won’t use the system so you hurl a good-for-the-gander logic at something you refuse to understand.

You’re doing this on purpose, clearly, but it’s good for discourse to show what sort of way-off arguments people are making.

I think making the argument for how many service hours can be transferred to the eastside would be a great boost to the process.

And I don’t need your respect. I have plenty of respect in my neighborhood, slummy as it may become.

My point to you is this: As a PCO, I’m not just one vote. So we don’t really cancel each other out, do we? (link for full context)

How incredibly distasteful.

I’ve asked you to explain what your transit plan would be. This is the exact plan you wrote:

Ideas:
More transit on more major thoroughfares NOW!

Expand the old park-and-rides, to make the system accessible from the Eastside.

Make express routes direct to/from downtown. (The 545 and 554 are ridiculous.) (link for full context)

Do you want to know why some here are tired of you? It’s because people like me tried to have an intelligent discussion with you and were insulted. It’s because your took nearly 20 posts to extract your alternative to Sound Transit and it consists of:

* More transit
* More parking
* More express bus

Perhaps the most generic transportation plan I have ever read. Do you expect us to have a discussion about the alternatives to LRT when you aren’t even discussing them?

Actually, that link reveals a lot. So I’ll link to it again: link link link. If anyone has an hour, check out the linked thread. In it, I attempt nearly a dozen times to respond to brad in a thoughtful manner while he ignores the vast majority of my post and resorts to the same-old personal attacks.

And, seriously, how many times have you insinuated that people here have no idea what Redmond is like only to find out that we used to live in Redmond or we current work there? How many times do you have to try to divide us, only to find out that Wow, we are one region — we are interconnected.

Our political differences would be more interesting if they weren’t fueled out of pure spite for Martin Duke.

To respond to your point, we all paid for light rail too but that doesn’t mean that it’s free to use. Just because you help pay for a parking lot doesn’t mean that it’s free to use for eternity, as well.

However, it’s up to your subarea. If they think that free parking is a priority, that’ll be at the sacrifice of something else in your subarea. A Seattle politician won’t have much say in that decision.

The nominal fee is really just a revenue-neutral way to help people near the lots by opening up spaces. The idea is that people start to carpool, walk, bike, or take the bus, if it’s reasonably convenient for them, ad freeing up space for people that really have to drive alone.

But if you and your neighbors would prefer that parking be free and scarce, that’s certainly fine with me; it makes no difference to those of us who don’t use a car at all in our commute.

If you do poll your neighbors, I ask that you please make it clear that this parking idea is NOT Sound Transit policy, just something a blogger cooked up. It’d be a shame if a rumor started that hurt the chances of the ballot measure.

Actually, Brian lives in Kent, and fully 4 of the 6 of us work on the East Side.

Glad you’re still taking transit, in spite of your obvious disillusionment with us.

If you’re going to vote solely on the impact of this package, and you don’t think this helps you, there’s not a lot I can say without understanding your travel patterns. But if there is some configuration of rail that you would like to see, I’d argue that voting for this measure is the fastest way to get there. Aside from the requirements of sub-area equity, ST is tackling the highest-ridership routes first, and there’s really no other logical way to approach it.

If you just want buses, buses, buses, I think we’ve been clear on why we think that’s a bad idea, but you’re entitled to your opinion. In fact, someone who doesn’t care that much about encouraging density or creating fast, comfortable rides, and is happy to have marginal increases in ridership would quite reasonably favor a bus-only proposal.

As for getting pissy, your comments have often teetered on the edge of personal attacks. Your most recent comment has been a pleasant exception.

Uh, don’t you think that the proposal will get much more scrutiny and attacks in the general election?

Can’t a debate include opposing views? Or is this only a limited-access club of pro-LRT fans?

I just really don’t think you guys try to see things from any view but your own. Sound Transit is a regional org. Yet the bloggers here apparently only live in one equity district. And the whole ST region should drink the kool-aid of a bunch of guys who aren’t even representative of that same region?

Sorry. That doesn’t work.

So essentially, you guys engage in groupthink and then get pissy when someone disagrees.

Remember, I came here one of the most strident pro-transit people in my area. But getting beat over the head by this Seattle-centric “I get it, you don’t attitude” is really aggravating.

And it’s exactly what the anti-ST nut jobs will use against you.

So, you can call me whatever you want. I’ll still ride the bus. I’ll ride the LINK. I’ll try to get friends to ride the bus to games. I’ll keep trying to get my Northgate-living girlfriend to take the bus. All that.

But if this ST proposal does NOTHING for me, don’t get all pissy without actually considering what I’m saying might be true.

People paid to buy the lots. People paid to build the lots. People paid to expand the lots. People will pay to build rail service to the lots. And then AFTER THE FACT you’ll tell them that they have to pay for access to the lot.

If paid parking is on the agenda, then they need to be up-front about it. Otherwise, it’s a bait-and-switch.

That’s my honest, no bs reply.

I’m attending an Obama movie night tomorrow night. There are going to be about 20 people there, all pro-Obama, which should mean relatively progressive, pro-transit, etc.

I’ll do an informal poll. Would you vote for the ST proposal this fall if you will have to pay for parking at the pnr? And do you support the current ST proposal?

I don’t have any idea what these people will think, and I’ve never discussed it with any of them. But my general sense is that with high gas prices and low prop values, people are having a tough time of it.