In Arizona, their transit agencies ensuring people there’s enough shade at their light rail stations. Kind of an opposite problem to our transit systems.
Also on Phoenix, drivers there are having a little trouble getting used to light rail. Thanks to Andrew for the links.
I hope ST plans a pretty agressive “driver education” blitz before startup to avoid some of the car/train collisions that are going to be a reality.
Drivers are not used to a quiet train ‘sneaking’ up on them from behind, as they wait to make a left turn along MLK, with the radio going full blast, and texting their significant next. Or the drivers in ‘game day’ traffic around SODO trying to be the last car that inches into the intersection while the light is turning yellow for the umpteenth time on their lane. Then they have no place to go, except to block the tracks, causing the LRT driver to just sit, beep, and make faces like “you #%*$# jerk!
Your description of drivers is extremely vivid, hilarious
The shade issue is a really big concern for a few months of the year. We are fortunate that, most of the year, our weather is amazing and will help promote walk-ability of some of the neighborhoods. Since Phoenix has always embraced “sprawl” in the past, this is going to be a very nice change!
Our system also has some very nice safety elements built in. Hopefully, the accidents will be kept to a minimum. :-)
If you’ve ever driven in Phoenix, you know their drivers are pretty self-centered. Hopefully, Seattle Nice will translate into Seattle Smart. But given the fact Seattle drivers can’t handle a .1th inch of rain…who knows. We do know that Chopper 7 will be on hand the second the first fender bender occurs. Despite the fact major death and destruction has occured on MLK over the years, sans light rail.
I’ll comment on the poster above. My wife and I had a 4 hour layover in London, a city we hadn’t visited before. Everyone told us to stay in the airport, since this wasn’t enough time to see anything and we’d miss our flight. We ended up riding the London Eye, watched a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, and sat down for some wonderful toast and soup in a little British pub. We then made it back at the airport, early for our flight all thanks to the Underground. Would we have made it on a bus? Not with the London traffic we observed.