1.The freeway north and south of city centre seemed to have the highest concentration of cars and trucks per inch that i had ever experienced.

2.The busses have a great system of racks for adding a bike on the front.

The two things seem to express contradictory visions of urban transport and although the statistics quoted in your main article offer some hope (though to be meaningful one has to factor out children – what are the hours for car OWNERS doing) for the future Seattle has a long way to go.

I had visited the city two years prior and seen the construction taking place of a rail link from the airport – two years later still constructing.

Is it finished yet?

That would be awesome. Only I don’t want to be the Pedestrian if there’s any sort of learning curve involved!

First off they look at 25 years of data. Over the last 10 years of the data the trend has been consistently down to the point where it all but reverses the increase of the first 15 years. Somehow they conclude that this will reverse it’s self?

Second, they mix minutes and miles by taking an increase commute time and assuming that equates to an increased commute distance. All they have to do is look at average speeds (data they have) to know that’s just flat out wrong.

Finally, even if they were right in the SWAG that vehicle miles are going to increase State averages are meaningless when it comes to planning individual projects. Driving patterns are going to be wildly different between people living in Urban areas, the suburbs and rural areas. And western Washington might as well be a different State than eastern Washington when it comes to transportation planning.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/planning/wtp/datalibrary/Modes/VehicleMilesTraveled.htm.

Obviously, the underlying assumption of WSDOT’s modeling is incredibly unrealistic in light of the fact that VMTs were experiencing a downward trend BEFORE the increase in gas prices. And that assumption is the basis for the Washington Transportation Plan, and presumably that plan is the basis for the Legislature’s transportation budget.

Less clear is whether WSDOT’s modeling of the Viaduct replacement options was also based on this faulty assumption.

Care to investigate, STB?

If you do want to hook kids on transit, the trick is to make transit easy and appealing to thirteen through fifteen year-olds. That’s the age where they’re old enough to ride safely alone, old enough to think getting rides from parents is lame, and too young to have a driver’s license.

There are some requirements there. Safety for one, since that crime post below is still on my mind. If parents thing the buses or light rail are safe, they’ll let the kid ride instead of taking the time to drive them somewhere. And it would help if the transit system developed to a point where neighborhoods are more connected. Kids want to get from their neighborhood to their friend’s, not just from their neighborhood to downtown.

I do know some places in Seattle that I would consider walkable that don’t have sidewalks, like where my Aunt used to live in Wedgewood. No sidewalks on any of those residential streets, but all the traffic was minimal and local and it was only a few blocks walk down to 35th to retail, bus stops, etc. But 35th itself has sidewalks, of course and I can’t imagine that area being safe for walking without them.

Despite all our attempts at localizing services and resources through urban village plans and transit oriented development, with so many students used to driving past their local school to attend one across town, are they more likely mature into a generation of drivers less likely to ever consider public transit over a private vehicle?

What they are, however, in contrast to your home and work again, is poorer than the Seattle median.

Maybe it’s different in Seattle but Kirkland for sure and I think Bellevue and Redmond assess the property owner for sidewalks. It’s been a battle on the eastside for some home owners to get the city to agree to postponing the sidewalk construction until that person’s 80′ stretch of sidewalk actually connected something rather than being an isolated island of concrete miles from the next nearest sidewalk.

Ben, you’re terribly provincial if you think that “half a dozen people” is all it takes. There are apartment and townhome blocks in Northgate and Lake City that lack sidewalks on every side. Hell, there are apartment blocks on NE 5th in Northgate that have sidewalks only 5th itself. Not that those neighborhoods are as dense as your home (but not your work, natch, which, oh snap, has sidewalks, too) but these aren’t SF neighborhoods. What they are, however, in contrast to your home and work again, is poorer than the Seattle median.