I agree that many families will have trouble going completely car free. But there’s very little reason that they can’t go to one car.

http://www.zipcar.com/seattle/find-cars

Your examples involve infrequent trips. Zipcar for Costco. Ziptruck for the others. Transit should (but doesn’t currently) cover the rest.

The real sticky wicket would be those who live in said area but need to make frequent trips outside of it. They clearly still need to own a car, though they shouldn’t (but currently do) need it for in-city trips.

MAX ridership grew as an absolute value but the it’s share did not change, in my opinion because of a corresponding amount of growth in sprawl. And if you’re looking for “heavy investments” check out ODOT’s highway projects:
http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/REGION1/ProjectPage.shtml

So it has smartly focused on making transit workable in the truly urban area (including the medium-density communities east and northeast of the river to a significant extent), while sending tendrils of rail out into the exurbs that they know will best work combined with park-and-rides. Neither perfect nor ideal, but a thoughtful response to pre-existing development patterns.

Michael, your second sentence says it all: you have “some really good options” in Seattle, and yet “the auto is the best option for me.” That basically applies to all Seattleites — the preponderance of Metro trips are (de facto) 6 times as long as driving. Thus the “auto is the best option” conclusion and the gridlock.

Truth is, I’m actually more optimistic than many, in that I don’t believe “very few can get by with no car” under a much-improved system. There’s no reason anyone between 34th W and 34th E, between N 90th and, say, S Morgan, should need full-time ownership of a car.

Whatever, Zed. Take any transit trip in Portland, and you get the sense that many elective riders are on board. In Seattle, it’s still the mode-of-last-resort and feels like it.

Social responsibility, guilt, and pastries will only get you so far. When you have a bus system as mismanaged as Metro its going to be hard to get people to use it more. Routes that work are often way to packed for comfort and the rest are to infrequent to be of much use.

So while I applaud Portland on their efforts and they do a really good job, Seattle is doing a pretty good job catching up and even using some of Portland’s best lessons learned to create a viable mass transit system.

Instead of all the Seattle-Portland-Vancouver bashing and raving, maybe the tri-Cascade area of cities should work together for better transit. Heck, our mayors actually put one step forward on that point this week.

Tri-Met, like Metro/ST, is a good, albeit flawed, system. There’s a lot i like about it (day passes, generally good bus drivers, no tolerance for fare evasion, more light rail) and a lot i hate (crosstown service is a joke, buses get overcrowded, timed transfers are nonexistent, bus bunching, etc.).

Your intent seems to be to demean Seattle’s transit system; we all agree it has some flaws, but the depth of your criticism seems to be a blanket demeaning of the system; i’m all ears as to specifics.

I really don’t relish the role of raining on Seattle Transit Bloggers’ parade, but…

It seems that only transit agencies that run dinky, dysfunctional, unappealing, and generally inadequate transit systems feel the need to make a lot of hoopla about this sort of event.

TriMet, in spite of recent painful cuts, runs a system that more or less works properly, providing a reasonably time-efficient and cost-effective way to get around on a daily basis. That sells itself.

(Before anyone tries to interject that Portland’s transit share of trips is similar to or lower than Seattle’s, remember that Portland is a very small city, with many unclogged areas where S.O.V. use is to be expected, whereas Seattle is a big, choke-point filled city where a great deal of S.O.V. trips are taking begrudgingly on account of the horrible public transit.)

I apologize if this is too out of place, but does anyone know if there is any organized support for the Intercity Transit ballot measure and/or what I’m sure will be the upcoming Pierce Transit ballot measure? I see the whole thing as related – if transit service is available on a major advertising/demonstration day, then it needs to also continue to be available on other days when people need/choose to use it, too.