The Sierra Club asks, Does a mile in a car equal a mile on a train? Apparently not:
Pushkarev and Zupan in their pioneering 1980 study compared the six American regions with rail transit (New York-northeastern New Jersey, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Cleveland) to other U.S. urban areas over 2 million population, concluding that for every p-m (STB: Passenger Mile) ridden on transit, four vehicle miles were not driven.
It’s an interesting read, if a bit technical.
According to the 520 Tolling Committee that could be the toll. If it’s each way, round trip would be $6.85, costing about $1712.50 a year for driving. That’s crazy, I’m guessing the 545 is going to get even more crowded.
Since we’ve had a sudden infusion of new readers, I thought it might be a good time to produce a primer on what it is that we do here, and what we believe.
This blog has many purposes: general news & information about transit in the Puget Sound; debates on the merits of various small transit projects like RapidRide, the Seattle Streetcar, and Eastside Commuter rail; and stuff we think, as transit fans, is simply “neat.” In the current context, however, our most interesting role is policy advocacy.
Our blog authors are private citizens that live in Kent and Seattle, and work both in Seattle and various places on the Eastside. Although we have many disagreements over the priorities of various smaller projects, the authors share three core convictions that come across in the blog, and they all lead to our endorsement of Sound Transit 2.
1) Transit investment is generally better than highway investment. All modes of transportation receive government subsidy, and the question is where those resources are best used. Although light rail is often attacked for being expensive or not cost-effective, in fact the cost per rider compares quite favorably with most projects that improve highway capacity. Furthermore, transit has significant benefits in terms of pollution, global warming, sprawl reduction, public health, and social equality.
2) The regional transit backbone should be rail, not “bus rapid transit”. There are a multitude of reasons for our conviction on this point, but this post is a pretty good summary of some of the most important arguments. If you search our archives, you can find many, many other posts about BRT that marshal some additional points. Throughout those comment threads, you can read some of the arguments and counter-arguments that have arisen between our authors and various factions of the readership.
3) For all practical purposes, Sound Transit is the only game in town. There are as many rail plans as there are rail advocates. However, the Sound Transit plans are a mix of sophisticated technical analysis and recognition of the political realities necessary to win a public vote. Although I’m sure your rail plan — whatever it might be — has its own merits, as a practical matter going back to the drawing board is a recipe for delay. Given the spiraling cost of construction over time, the reduced quality of life as we wait for program completion, and the quality of the plan on the table, the additional benefits of some other plan are likely to be overwhelmed. In particular, I’d like to refer to Ben’s excellent piece on why light rail has to cross I-90 instead of SR 520.
Additionally, Sound Transit has emerged from an initial period of organizational disarray to become a well-managed organization that meets its objectives, plans conservatively, and passes audits with flying colors. Attempts to reorganize or replace it with something else risks the depletion of valuable staff experience, renewed organizational chaos, and more decades of delay.
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I hope you decide to visit frequently, or subscribe to our RSS feed. Even if you hate rail, I think there’s pretty useful discussion of local bus route planning, news of events, and healthy debate between advocates of various plans.
Although this principle is typically honored in the breach, I ask that commenters refrain from personal attacks and impugning motives of others. Our comment thread is, at best, a very educational exchange of facts, and I hope that we can expand that professional tone.
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
I’m glad that the STB dudes are meeting to talk about how to pass the new ST ballot measture that’s coming this November. I can’t make the meeting, but I thought I’d share a thought or two.
Sound Transit can’t actually campaign. So we need other groups to form — like last fall’s “Yes on Roads and Transit” — to do the legwork. That campaign was relentlessly positive, and I think that was a perfectly reasonable tactic to use.
However, while I was away, I caught a few radio and TV ads promoting Honolulu’s proposed light rail system. And I thought they were very effective. Here’s one:
The radio ads are even more aggressive. They basically call out the anti-rail folks for being full of it. They’re made by a 501(c)4 called “Support Rail Transit.”
Of course, negative ads are risky. They repeat the negative. Why give the anti-rail zealots a platform for their arguments? That’s why negative ads are generally accepted as a sign of weakness (c.f. Microsoft’s new anti-Apple ads, or any of John McCain’s recent anti-Obama ads).
But maybe it’s time to get more aggressive. Mayor Nickels’ recent op-ed is effective because it openly mocks the anti-transit folks’ arguments as absurd on their face. The Honolulu ads use a similar tactic.
With all the misinformation floating around in the public about what Sound Transit is and isn’t planning, it might be time to shoot down some of these arguments publicly. Our major local media outlets have generally been loathe to call B.S. on these guys, maybe someone else needs to.