West Seattle Blog has a roundup and full video (part 1 is above) of last night’s event. It was a blast to participate, and I was pretty pleased with the things I had an opportunity to say. I’d also like to thank whoever it was at Sustainable West Seattle that decided to distribute copies of Oran’s frequent transit map, which turned out to be a useful prop.
I didn’t have a particularly good response to Tom Rasmussen’s second question to me, about RapidRide, parking, and business interests, but fortunately everyone else on the panel (including Tom) and several audience members covered the points I would make upon further reflection.
You’ll have to go to WSB to get the other two portions of the video. West Seattle Herald also has a summary of the event.
Good stuff, Martin. Thanks for the post and providing your insights! Looks like a good discussion was had by the community and the panellists.
Overall I think you did quite well. As to the question of taking away parking for business owners to allow for a dedicated bus lane, it really depends on how many spots we’re talking about, what type of business it is and so-on. Maybe the types of businesses that depend on people arriving in personally-owned vehicles don’t belong in areas of increasing density. Perhaps some of the spaces on side streets need to be made into 30 minute only spaces if loading and unloading are important. Or, heaven forbid, if a business is dependent on customers with cars, that business will have to provide parking on a lot. As one business owner in the forum said, for every business that complains about having their parking taken away there may be several businesses that are happy to be along the proposed route of a high capacity transit system, opening their business up to another set of customers.