- Erica Barnett shared her thoughts on the Sound Transit fare proposals. She outlined some of the positives of getting rid of the ride-free zone, but doesn’t address the negative: buses would get stuck downtown. That’s the reason the ride-free zone (and later the bus tunnel) was created in the first place.
- If the weather permits, I might try this bus-run commute, too. The tricky bits are planning on where to leave your clothes, and not stinking up the bus when you get on.
- This Oregon writer adds another datapoint to the snow-salt controversy: old cars can be destroyed by salt on the roads.
- Obama keeps saying “stimulus” and “roads“, but not “transit”.
“The tricky bits are planning on where to leave your clothes” A backpack!
Damnit, I don’t own a backpack!
I find it hard to believe that buses would get stuck downtown if the ride free area were eliminated, for the simple reason that ever other major city I’ve lived in or visited has gotten along just fine without one. What makes Seattle different?
I’m guessing those other cities find efficiency gains in other ways: there’s no confusion over when to pay, people no longer have to pay twice if they travel from one side of the ride free area to the other, and you can use the more efficient “board at the front, exit at the rear” policy. (You can even do all-door boarding if you have fare inspectors.)
Most cities don’t have large downtowns (350,000+ workers) that rely heavily on transit (>40% of workers use transit) and relies only on buses.
Actually a number of cities have a “ride free area” or a “fareless square”, Portland for instance.
kind of a random question, i apologize if its off topic but…
how does this blog manage to attract pretty much only transit supporters? if you’ve ever visited the portland equivalent of this blog, portlandtransport.com, you’ve probably noticed that most people who post there are anti-rail nutjobs who hate transit in general and TOD. its not like seattle and portland are all that different particularly politically.
i long for a blog like this in portland where we can actually discuss specific transit issues (as is the case here) and not have posts get immediately hijacked and turned into another heated debate about the claim of drivers subsidizing transit, or the desire of some to rip out light rail or some other ranting.
We have had various degrees of trolls at different times, but we are pretty detailed, and so it’s hard for serious trolls to be interested in this blog.
Seattle has erika barnett at the slog to take the hit on the totally raving maniacs.
Many of the nutjobs seem to congregate over in the comments on transportation related articles over at the Times and P-I.
how does this blog manage to attract pretty much only transit supporters?
I think everyone’s sort of exhausted from the Prop. 1 campaign. Since then, we haven’t spent a lot of time arguing about rail vs. other modes, so there hasn’t been a lot of argument on that front. It was a little different before the election, but now we’re focusing on small-bore issues and that brings out a different kind of commenter.
Less charitably, dedicated anti-rail folks probably view this as an echo chamber and don’t really want to spend a lot of time here.
There was a time when a lot of anti-rail people commented, but that was a year ago or more.