Not Just for Commuting

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

It’s true, transit share is a distraction, and thanks to John for the shout-out.

BUT — and this is a digression I was trying to avoid in my previous post — we’re just talking about the relatively narrow issue of where to invest dollars to add peak capacity to the network most cost-effectively. If that’s your sole goal, you may end up with a system resembling DC’s Orange Line, with park-and-ride stations built on a highway median.

Not that there isn’t a place for that here in Seattle (the park-and-rides Sound Transit is building along I-5 are quite nice), but there’s a lot more to transit and land use and such than simply adding commuting capacity.

In other words, what Secretary LaHood said.