Comments on: McGinn Proposes More Late Night Transit Service

By: joshuadf

joshuadf — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:39:47 +0000

Jeff, I understand your frustration, but you don’t have to respond to every silly claim. Reminds me of http://xkcd.com/386/

By: Jeff Welch

Jeff Welch — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:24:12 +0000

I don’t understand what you want

For starters, I want McGinn supporters to stop acting like I insulted their mother’s chastity anytime a comment remotely critical of the man is made.

Mallahan won’t fund bus hours, McGinn will.

And I thought one of the major points of this thread is that McGinn’s proposal to expand late-night bus hours hasn’t been accompanied with a plan to fund them? Sheesh.

By: Jeff Welch

Jeff Welch — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:17:41 +0000

Ben,

Believe it or not, I tend not to tailor my comments to your potential responses – or your hair-splitting peccadillos. Knock yourself out.

By: Duck Duck Grey Duck » Blog Archive » Late night transit is always a good thing

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:24:08 +0000

[...] pretty good with transit and a candidate who’s pretty terrible with transit. Anyway, a recent post discussed a policy goal of Mike McGinn’s (he’s the candidate who bikes and wants to [...]

By: Followup on Nightlife and Transit - Seattle Transit Blog

Followup on Nightlife and Transit - Seattle Transit Blog — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:54:38 +0000

[...] asked the McGinn campaign whether his support for transit service till 3 am would be funded by the City, or merely a case of him advocating with Metro and Sound Transit. [...]

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:18:58 +0000

Well it’s not any worse than a shadow bus would be.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:11:24 +0000

I love the shadow bus idea! Too bad they didn’t have a pre-Link Link bus for a few years… it definitely would have been convenient for me, although off-roading down Beacon Hill might have been tough.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:09:40 +0000

What about going to a bar with your co-workers?

By: John Jensen

John Jensen — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:16:35 +0000

There were actually about 10 different options according to my iPhone. Yeah, I was surprised, too.

By: groan

groan — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:47:44 +0000

The 174 at late night is an experience that need not be repeated

By: Good Grief

Good Grief — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:36:46 +0000

Hee hee — excellent rant! Windy is the perfect nickname for this guy.

By: Good Grief

Good Grief — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:35:04 +0000

Yeah, although riding that route at that hour you are risking your life. I took the old 174 to the airport exactly once when it was too late for the 194 — never again.

By: joshuadf

joshuadf — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:16:27 +0000

Don’t forget trees!

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:04:48 +0000

I want my transit dollars paying for moving drunks around. I do not want them driving and hitting my kids/friends/co-workers/dogs/cats/houses/light poles etc.

In the long run it’s way cheaper to move drunks about safely than to pick up the pieces after they have done their damage.

Note: the NYTimes ran an article about Phoenix’s light rail ridership exceeding the estimates because people were bar hopping along the route. Sounds good to me.

By: serial catowner

serial catowner — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:38:09 +0000

I’ll admit, it’s kind of a life change when your work starts seeming more fun than going to a bar.

By: Mike Orr

Mike Orr — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:28:56 +0000

Our brave car-free future requires late-night buses. McGinn is only stating the obvious, and it should be in Seattle’s long-term plan. If more night buses were available, more people would ride the bus to bars/shows. This cuts down on drunk driving as well as reducing general automobile use.

London, Glasgow, Duesseldorf — these are just the cities I’ve been in that have comprehensive night buses to the entire city and suburbs. In some cities it’s every night; in others it’s just Friday and Saturday. Like Seattle, they consolidate several day routes into one night route.

So when I lived in the U-district, it was possible to attend an event on Capitol Hill and catch the 2:15 bus home. If the event was in Fremont, I could catch the last 44 just before 2. But when I lived in Bellevue, it was take the 280 to Bellevue Way and walk an hour from there. And those all assume the event is near downtown Seattle. If it’s somewhere else, you have to first go downtown and transfer, which may mean waiting for the 3:30 bus. And if the event is in Tacoma, forget it.

In San Francisco and Chicago, the night buses don’t go to the suburbs but they do run every half hour.

One analogy I like is, imagine if I-5 were closed between midnight and 5am. Would drivers howl and complain? If they need to travel 24 hours, is it not surprising that bus riders need to do the same?

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:17:11 +0000

Wait actually I was wrong, the 124 just continues as the 174 at that time at night. Looks like it gets to the Airport at around 4:15am.

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:15:53 +0000

You can get to the airport from DT Seattle in the middle of the night on the 124 and 174, with a timed-transfer between the two at Tukwila/International Blvd station.

By: serial catowner

serial catowner — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:15:52 +0000

Ben, did you even read the third paragraph of my comment directly above yours?

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:11:02 +0000

And everyday dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of people die from drunk-driving accidents. It is important to provide service that lowers the possibility of that happening in Seattle. Also, I can assure you that money for extra late-night bus service on Friday and Saturday nights will not come out of the storm drain budget.