Rep. Jay “congressional expert on global warming” Inslee comes out for Prop. 1 in the P-I (yesterday? Wednesday? somehow I missed it). I think he basically says what I have been saying all along that Prop. 1 is mostly transit and HOV roads (75%) and if we are to achieve carbon-neutral transportation it will not be from eliminating lane-building but rather moving away from carbon fuels. A green automobile is certainly possible.
Certainly a better argument than “if developers support it, it must be bad!” Jesus Christ, Annie Wagner gets paid to write for a “newspaper”? Transit=Sprawl? I have lost any respect I had for the Stranger, though there wasn’t much serious respect there to begin with.
Explain to me how transit to Federal way won’t cause sprawl.
Explain to me how it will.
Better yet, SHOW me where transit HAS created sprawl.
Done:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicagoland
So you’re saying the CTA created chicagoland? But Chicagoland is hugely dense for it’s size.
Are you sure the low-density exurbs couldn’t have been created any of these?
Interstate 90, Interstate 290, Interstate 94, Interstate 294, Interstate 88, Interstate 65, Interstate 55, Interstate 355, Interstate 57, Interstate 80 ?
How many of the low-density chicago suburbs are served by CTA? How many of them are served by those interstates?
God, we have some of the silliest trolls here.
anonymous, seriously. I told you to show me where transit HAS created sprawl. Showing me a place where transit and sprawl coexist has nothing to do with showing me what I asked.
So, anonymous, the only way you’re going to do this is to find a place that has transit, but not highways, and has sprawl.
You can find a lot of places that have highways but no transit and sprawl. You can find a lot of places that have transit but no highways and high density.
Are you seeing a pattern?
Then there’s LA which has high density, okay transit and sprawl.
I think it’s the ratio of highways to transit that counts. LA has HUGE highways, so I don’t think the okay transit is good enough to combat the sprawl.
Not “good” enough? This is the problem with rail zealots — everything’s a value judgment. Do you like rail because it moves the most people in the most efficient (and cost-efficient) means possible? (It doesn’t.) Or are you just envious of older cities and think that this is the sort of thing that makes a city “world class”?
The relationship with transportation and land-use is a very complex one.
However, transit can indeed cause sprawl. In fact, one of the first uses of the streetcar was in opening up vast areas of land outside the traditional city core for residential development – that’s how Portland grew, after all. They are known as “Streetcar Suburbs.”
However, this is in comparison to traditional urban environments centered around walking.
The automobile offered a magnitude difference in the level of sprawl. Streetcars, light rail and commuter rail can indeed allow people to commute respectively longer distances, but still function in relatively dense environments around the stations (although putting giant park ‘n’ ride lots next to stations kills that distinction vs an auto-dependent one).
Freeway-dependent auto-oriented suburbs don’t have your feet as the limiting factor to get to the station… so you can live as far away from everything as you want, and hence: sprawl.
I should totally be checking out this blog more often…
Funny thing about the Chicago area (or Chicagoland, if you like, which has a negative connotation why exactly?) is that even if you want to call it a sprawly mess, it’s still easier to get around in. Especially compared to Seattle.
May favorite thing about The Stranger’s Blog (called Slog) is that Dan Savage, a Chicago native, writes about the Chicago area transit network whenever he visits. His last dispatch was all about how easy it was to take the commuter train from the burbs to the El train, and then the El to the airport (or the bus to the airport, I don’t remember exactly). He writes that it was way cheaper (about 6 bucks to take transit, i think) than a cab (easily 80 bucks) and while it took a little longer than driving, he got to see all the development that was being built along the transit lines.
If Chicagoland is an example of the worst that transit can do to a place, then bring it on.
zilfondel, the streetcar suburbs weren’t sprawl. They were tiny; everything was still walking distance from the stations.
Seriously, you guys, learn the difference between correlation and causation.
And what about all those 12,000 parking stalls that Prop 1 will build? People drive their cars to transit where we facilitate it; transit can subsidize their sprawl lifestyle. I have a coworker on a hobby farm near Enumclaw that takes Sounder into downtown. He could afford to live in town. He complains that Sound Transit doesn’t provide enough parking at Auburn. Guess what? Prop 1 provides more! So more people can live farther and farther from work and not have to pay the true costs of living that far out. Sounder costs something like $18 per passenger trip. Talk about subsidizing sprawl. Yes, transit CAN induce sprawl.
SeaTrans bloggers, You seem to pick and choose how you will define sprawl. contrary to your opinion transit access is not an antithesis to sprawl. Not all roads are bad, just like not all rails are good.