- As disfunction on a national level and to a lesser degree in Olympia takes its toll, tactical localism, has become the de jour mechanism for cities to advance their urbanist agenda.
- APTA announces public transit ridership is higher than any year since 1956, even compared to 2008 when gas cost over $4.00 a gallon.
- The addicting alpha version of Mini-Metro game takes the transit planning world by storm.
- Data mining Google Streetview to reveal the changing face of neighborhoods.
- Peak-gentrification: What happens when all the “undiscovered” and undervalued neighborhoods are discovered and gentrified?
- Frontlash, a good term for a common issue in transportation and land use planning.
- Seattle is 7th-best US city to get a job in; 5th-highest starting pay.
- SDOT releases center city cycle track RFP and announces selection for the second round of The Green Lane Project. Over half of the nation’s cycle track projects occurred in first round cities.
- Piecemeal rollout of Broadway cycle track causing difficulty, contributes to collision.
- Seattle bike map updated, major overhaul expected next year.
- The Green Tea Party was key in killing Columbia River Crossing, while not a new dynamic the CRC is a poster child the current transportation paradigms of our time.
- Lack of clear communication between WSDOT and Seattle Tunnel Partners worries Councilmember Rasmussen.
- Nearly 3,000 drivers are signed up between UberX, Lyft and Sidecar; UberX has at least 300 drivers active at any one time, more during peak periods.
- USDOT VMT forecasts diverge from the trend over the last ten years or so.
- KUOW does a long-form piece on the maritime history of Seattle and how changes around the stadiums could affect the viability of industry in SODO
- Apple iOS 8 will have transit directions, finally!
- A good comparison of BC to the rest of Canada and what affects its carbon tax has, or more important has not, had on the province.
- Mayor Murray on prioritization of buses vs streetcars projects.
- Senate Eide (D-30, Federal way) who is co-chair of the transportation committee will not run for reelection.
- Portland’s tourism grows but car rentals don’t.
- Weekend service (and/or taxing to) restore service in Grays Harbor starting April 1st.
- SFMTA confirms it will buy electric trolley buses in coordination with King County Metro.
- An assessment about the future challenges and opportunities of vehicle automation
This is an open thread.
Looks to me like the higher rate of tax collection starts April 1 in GH, not weekend service (the article isn’t clear, but seems to imply they’ll be able to re-establish that service sometime this summer).
I was unclear as well but rereading I think you’re correct. I’ve updated the post.
I actually agree with the Carbon tax if goes towards transit or to help study another fuel source to move cars. I just disagree on how the BC Government is using it, which it goes towards reducing taxes.
“Every dollar raised by the carbon tax is returned to individuals and businesses through tax reductions. None of the carbon tax revenue is used to fund government spending.”
http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/tbs/tp/climate/A6.htm
So, if the state of Washington brings in the Carbon tax see what they are going to use for, if transit that is best use of this tax.
Zach, as much as transit is seen to be good on this blog, most taxpayers aren’t with us. A tax shift is probably the best we can get away with – and even then, we’ll only win because a tax shift is conquer & divide the Right.
Revenue-neutral carbon taxes are a good thing. Carbon-intensive energy has significant externalities (e.g., pollution) that users foist on society because they aren’t reflected in the price or regulations. That makes carbon-energy seem artificially cheap and distorts the market. Carbon taxes are a rough attempt to quantify the externalities and make the user pay for them. That gives conservation and non-carbon-intensive energy a more level playing field to compete in.
We just talked about those sprawling exurbs in Clark County. Would people have so eagerly bought into those if they were paying for the true cost of their gas and electricity? Would opposition to MAX and density have been so strong? Could we have gotten a MAX tunnel from the Lloyd district to Goose Hollow ten years ago?
Of course, there are a few problems with carbon taxes as they’re currently construed. How do you quantify externalities that are hard to price? Why aren’t we dedicating the money to counteracting the harms caused by the externalities? And shouldn’t we be charging people even more for necessitating the remediation in the first place? Especially since we cannot remediate 100%. But still I’d say a carbon tax is better than anything else that has been proposed.
Of course I’d rather see the revenue go into neglected infrastructure investments rather than just being refunded in a rebate. But even the rebate is worthwhile. It’s the same principle as the calls to overhaul the US tax code by closing loopholes and lowering the base rate correspondingly. Complaining that it doesn’t raise or lower overall taxes is missing the point. The point is that it makes the tax scheme fairer. It erases perverse incentives. And it doesn’t freeze the tax rates forever. Additional measures to raise or lower taxes can be considered separately after it’s done.
Mike, the problem is at the end of the day, to get a carbon tax passed it has to go to voters. In both BC (which has a carbon tax) and in Washington State (where we live), populists can and will tax reform on the ballot so we have to factor in that.
That’s a separate issue though. Zach and I are discussing whether a revenue-neutral carbon tax is good in the abstract, whether we should support it if the opportunity came. You’re talking about whether the state is in the mood to pass it right now. I wasn’t even thinking about that, and I agree it’s not. We can’t even get a bill from the legislature that preserves transit funding, much less increasing it, and that’s much easier than a carbon tax. I’d hate to see what kind of watered-down carbon tax measure would pass in Washington right now.
BC does have initiatives legislation, so it is theoretically possible for populists to get tax issues on the ballot, but it is extremely difficult to do so. The signature requirements are onerous, and the results non-binding on the government. We did have a referendum on the Harmonized Sales Tax here recently, but that was initiated by the government and more as political cover than anything.
yvrlutyens, I was making reference to the HST.
I’m all for direct democracy – that’s how we got open public records and how we’ll get sane gun responsibility legislation and how we put a limit on taxation. I just want all you, er, dreamers to understand political reality.
Urbanism is a very good social development trend, but Alex Steffen’s claim that “cities won*” is a bit of an overstatement. So far, the Urbanist credo hasn’t been proven over the long term, particularly in areas like public education and social justice. The theories are good, but there’s still a lot of work to do in implementation. Steffen is right to point out that increasing the housing supply is a major structural social justice issue (to slightly misquote the author); but there are other challenges and, so far, gentrification has just pushed the problems of transportation (time and cost) onto the lower economic classes.
“Peak Gentrification” makes me wonder if Seattle isn’t the new Bellevue. It should be obvious to any observer that there likely will be a “New Suburbanist” movement that rationalizes the suburban lifestyle into something more sustainable than just a place to park well-worn automobiles at night. The trendy, new neighborhoods may just hatch in places that the Urbanists have eschewed as old-fashioned and un-hip as these new urbanist communities develop into boring replications of each other. Ballard, Green Lake, Capitol Hill, West Seattle all have new, but very similar looking housing stock, virtually identical retail mixes and a somewhat homogenized demographic that lives in those neighborhoods. The bohemians and social innovators aren’t dead, there just not living in Ballard anymore. Watch out, downtown Auburn, you may be the new Georgetown.
From my perspective the areas that have gentrified, not just in Seattle but nationwide, are generally neighborhoods with the fine-grained historical bones that make them unique and walkable. Historical buildings with business spaces that are smaller and lower rent as well as older housing stock.
Suburban areas don’t have these bones and fine grain detail, so IMO a completely different development model is required in a suburban context. I think we can look to Europe where the unique and walkable neighborhoods gentrified a while ago. Their redevelopment has focused on industrial lands primarily on waterfronts (or some other unique natural or institutional focus like an art school) and has been government supported through concurrent expansion of transit to these areas. Essentially Bell-Red in a nutshell.
BUT, some of Seattle’s “suburbs” really do have historical downtowns with good bones — Auburn, for example, has more than 100 years of history in a compact, walkable downtown core complete with a Carnegie library, vintage brick mixed-use retail/housing, and a growing supply of new TOD around the transit center, surrounded by vintage single family housing at sufficient density to support a viable local economy and modest local transit.
That’s what the urbanists have been trying to say! Auburn and Kent and Issaquah and Lynnwood and Renton should return to the compact railroad towns that is their heritage. But don’t just restore the cores as quaint museum pieces, expand them to fit a larger chunk of the population. Expand them vertically with density, and horizontally with small blocks, so that more than the top 1% can live in them. Expand them with a similar style and construction quality as the original, with a few nods to modernism, rather than 99% sleek modern crap.
The “fine-grained”, “unique”, and “well-built” factor is more nuanced. There’s a fundamental difference in how buildings are built and financed now, that goes beyond suburban low-density and modernist sleek. A hundred years ago, people paid cash for property and built buildings for themselves and their descendants. They built them to last a hundred years and they did. Nowadays a developer builds something to sell, and Wall Street finances it. Neither of them are interested in the long term, just a quick sale or 19-year commercial lease. They could care less if the building melted the day after that. Big-box retailers and apartment owners don’t care either because they assume in 20 or 30 years consumer tastes will have changed enough to tear down the building and replace it. So it’s built cheaply and shoddily, with only minimum decorations, and it falls apart after thirty years. The contrast with old buildings is obvious to everyone, because the old buildings still last and are more desirable after a hundred years than the new buildings are after thirty. The solution, therefore, is to build longer-lasting and more beautiful new buildings.
But on the other hand, until they get walkability and human scale right, maybe we are better off with disposable new buildings. At least it makes it easier to replace them when something better comes along.
Urbanism has been proven over nearly 3,000 years. Suburbanism has been tried for about 70 years, and it’s failed. The “Urbanist credo” isn’t anything more than shifting back to the patterns that have worked for the majority of human history.
Then I guess we should wonder about how well those patterns actually have worked “for the majority of human history”. And how well those patterns will work in a global, wired, New Urbanist economy. I’m all-for the end to 20th century suburban rat race social structure, but the world’s 21st century macroeconomic structure isn’t the same as it was 100, 200 or 3,000 years ago. How much of what worked for the Flintstones or John D. Rockefeller would work today?
Whether or not urbanism has or hasn’t been proven, we do know it has an adverse effect on mental health, and it’s recommended cities incorporate plentiful green space throughout their cities. But many urbanists fight the idea of having dedicated green space. Look at the Cross Kirkland Corridor. On the one side you have people who want to save this long sliver of land as an urban sanctuary for future generations. But urbanist want trains running next to the walking path where people will go to relax and restore their mind. Bottom line, it’s important to not let urbanists get everything they want, because the thing they’ll create will be unhealthy.
This is a particularly rich piece of trolling since most “urbanists” know well that the Eastside rail corridor doesn’t go anywhere useful for train riders and wouldn’t have the ridership to support heavy rail service even if it did. The people seeking Eastside rail against all logic tend not to be urbanists.
I wish STB had “thumbs up” or “Like” voting, because you’d get hundreds for this point Alex. There will always be folks who prefer the suburban life-style and they should be able to live it. But they need to pay the full costs in travel time and energy costs.
And, Sam is right about keeping greenbelts inside the urban fabric. Density should only continue uninterruptedly for a half mile or so (the walkshed for a transit facility) and then there should be lower density achieved by somewhat smaller than traditional lots interspersed with genuine green areas, not just lawns.
Well, once again you impose a dialectic of city/suburb and then you stand on a pedestal and criticize.
My point has always been “build more Seattle”.
I live in Kent. What is it? It’s a city. It’s suburban. And it’s got farms, rural.
Most of Seattle could hardly be called urban in the classic sense of skyscrapers and crammed together brownstones.
You say you have always wanted to “build more Seattle,” but then you also say “we need more highways.” You can’t get to “more Seattle” with more highways. Possibly the most critical difference between walkable Seattle and (mostly) unwalkable Kent is that most arterial streets in Seattle are half the width of those in Kent.
In fact, one of the biggest obstacles to “more Seattle” is the existing I-5 structure. Remove it, or replace it with a tunnel, and all of a sudden, you have many acres of land for new development.
“This is a particularly rich piece of trolling since most “urbanists” know well that the Eastside rail corridor doesn’t go anywhere useful for train riders and wouldn’t have the ridership to support heavy rail service even if it did. The people seeking Eastside rail against all logic tend not to be urbanists.”
A few things to note:
The original ‘pencil lines on paper’ analysis for a light rail line that went from Tukwila to Lynnwood along the I-405 Corridor but diverging to the population/business centers was a $4.5+ Billion (2000 budget) option.
WSDOT’s BRT for the corridor and the ST/PSRC Eastside Commuter Rail analysis used the same modeling for ridership, and came up with the same numbers in the areas where they shared the same segments (essentially, before diverging north of Totem Lake).
ST’s Commuter Rail costs were slightly lower than the WSDOT Freeway BRT costs.
Nobody lives by the freeway.
And you’re absolutely right, Eastside Commuter Rail is a suburbanist’s solution.
One thing that was discussed when WSDOT was doing the analysis was that the Woodinville Sub’s ROW could also be used for heavy truck freight traffic.
I guess I should say “more Seattles” not “more Seattle”.
Each LINK station then becomes a Seattle.
With highways and rail linking them.
Centralia becomes a Seattle.
Marysville becomes a Seattle.
Cle Elum…a Seattle.
“Cities won” in the sense that people want to live in them. The author is right about the housing issue, and STB has raised it numerous times. Public education and social justice are really separate issues. Housing costs are a direct byproduct of the rising popularity of cities. Bad schools and social justice are incidentally attached to cities because of America’s post-WWII history. Outside the US cities are even more popular, and they aren’t arbitrarily truncated by political boundaries. In most countries, “Seattle” would include Bellevue, Burien, and Mountlake Terrace. Toronto consolidated like that a few years ago. Even if the burbs kept their separate identities and city councils, some of their functions would be in a regional authority like Portland’s Metro or Vancouver’s TransLink.
“Peak gentrification” is an interesting concept and I’m glad the author introduced it. It may end up being the same thing as the slumification of the suburbs, which is happening here in south King County, Snohomish and Pierce Counties, and more significantly in places like San Bernardino et al. But the solution is the same. Build more walkable neighborhoods in both the city and suburbs — enough for everybody who wants it — and extend frequent transit between those places. How will we know when there’s enough? When the price premium of walkable/transit-rich over non-walkable/transit-poor neighborhoods disappears, or at least becomes insignificantly small.
Artists have long decamped to Bellevue, Vashon Island, and the Olympic Penninsula so they’ve already leapfrogged Auburn. Also, the distance from the city matters. Hipsterism can only really develop in cities or close suburbs. Even if Auburn becomes a notable artist’s colony or a new kind of hip-hop emerges there, it won’t make Microsofties move there because it’s just too far. Tacoma has a more established arts scene and it still hasn’t made the leap into stardom, and it has a more urban environment to support it (i.e., more places to live, more transit, more jobs available). Vashon Island is gentrifying in its own rural way, but it’s still not “hip”. its main attraction is being a small island, as its attraction has always been.
“Whether or not urbanism has or hasn’t been proven, we do know it has an adverse effect on mental health,”
That’s a myth. It’s possible to have a flourishing healthy city. Even if most people live in small apartments. There are hundreds of different ways to make a city healthier or less healthy, and you can’t blame various unhealthly policies that have existed in some cities on urbanism itself.
“and it’s recommended cities incorporate plentiful green space throughout their cities. But many urbanists fight the idea of having dedicated green space.”
It’s recommended that cities incorporate vegetation and wildlife. That’s not necessarily the same thing as “dedicated green space”. There are many ways to incorporate vegetation, such as street trees, sidewalk bioswales, gardens, P-patches, rooftop gardens, wall gardens, indoor agriculture, etc. Replace those unused “Open Space” lawns with flowers, shrubs, and/or vegetables. Tear up concrete plazas and put in gardens and paths. The waterfront redesign is incorporating pocket wildlife habitats for birds and small critters. All these return the city to a more balanced ecosystem, which is better for humans both physically and psychologically.
Mike Orr, you say it’s a myth that living in a city has an adverse effect on mental health. You are mistaken.
People in cities have a 39% higher risk of depression and bipolar disorder. They have a 21% increased risk of anxiety disorders, such as panic attacks, extreme phobias and obsessive-compulsiveness. Young women growing up in cities are five times more likely to suffer from the eating disorder bulimia, according to a ten-year study in the British Journal of Psychiatry. American studies in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry have found a link between city childhoods and poor attention spans. City dwellers are more likely to suffer from higher anxiety, mood disorders and schizophrenia.
Sam, none of that is meaningful. Why, you ask?
Because you have a lurking variable. LEAD POISONING.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
Due to the motor vehicle epidemic, there was a long period when cities had far more lead in the environment than the countryside. So, when cities had more LEAD, then they WERE bad for your mental health.
We’ve cleaned up most of the lead. So the other problems are going to go away on their own, most likely.
“I’m all-for the end to 20th century suburban rat race social structure”
I don’t even know what that means. Urbanists are mainly concerned about the physical environment and walkability.
That’s why I’m fighting for a train-free green space corridor on the eastside. It’s essential for good mental health.
Great; if it’s decided that is after all a good place to run trains or buses, you’ll be glad to know there’ll still be train-free green corridors here, and <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sammamish+River+Trail/@47.6931885,-122.1263503,13z, and here, among many other places.
I’m not arguing for rail in the Cross-Kirkland Corridor, but just pointing out that there’s no inherent pressing need to keep this one particular greenspace.
William, if we don’t need additional green space because you can point out other places where it exists, then would you say that we don’t need additional density because I can point out other places where it exists?
If the existing density is as un-crowded and new people can get full enjoyment of it as easily as they can the existing green space, then sure!
Why don’t I see some ads here for “Save King County Metro”?
At least you guys in King County get a chance to save your own bus runs – but up here in NW Washington State, we need the state legislature’s help – even though Skagit County donates a dime & a nickel to the rest of the state. Most of our region’s transit districts are tapped out.
I would hope you guys in King County give this the best shot in hell of winning…
At the Northgate Station meeting last night, there was a booth with detailed engineering plans for Lynwood Link. I asked the man there why all the 130th St Station designs had both entrances on the north side of the street; why couldn’t there be a better transfer from eastbound buses? He said he didn’t know, but that sounded like a good idea and he’d definitely pass it along.
So, progress! (I also put the same thing on my comment card, along with saying the bike/ped bridge is imperative.)
I’ve brought it up multiple times… Maybe a post is in order.
Then it’s even more strange that the rep there sounded like he’d never heard of the idea before?
But yes, I’d avidly read a post on that.
Meanwhile, there’s a change.org petition for a Graham Street station, which the rep did say he was aware of. I expressed hopes that even if 130th wasn’t built initially, ST would leave room for it to be easily added; he didn’t seem too positive on that, though, citing higher costs.
OMG, why could they not see this themselves? Obviously, none of the planners ride the bus.
I think this is partly an issue around expectations and a lack of long-term clarity on bus-rail integration. If Metro clearly said to ST this is where we want a transfer and Metro had a track record of reorganizing buses to do that I’m sure it would be on STs radar.
Apple: Find me directions from Seattle to Tacoma.
DIRECTIONS:
Alight Greyhound Bus at Seattle Greyhound Station (811 Stewart St, Seattle, WA 98101) bound for New York City Greyhound Station (625 8TH AVE New York, NY 10018). This involves 5 transfers and duration is 2 days, 18 hours, 5 minutes, approximately 2,857 miles.
Walk to JFK International Airport. Approximately 20 miles, duration 10 hours.
Board flight to Orlando, FL. Duration, 3 hours.
Walk to Cape Canaveral. Approximately 53 miles, duration 20 hours.
Wait for NASA to implement space shuttle replacement. Duration 10 years.
Board space shuttle replacement. Complete approximately 37 orbits of Earth. When orbit is approximately above Tacoma, WA, alight space shuttle replacement and begin free fall. Approximately 250 miles, duration 4 minutes, 45 seconds.
Your desecrated corpse has arrived in Tacoma, WA. Duration 10 years, 4 days, 3 hours, 9 minutes, 45 seconds, distance 3180 miles.
How is there not a bus that goes from northgate to capitol hill / broadway. Am I not seeing a route? I am really confused here.
Yes there is: Take the 66/67, and transfer to the 43/49.
Transfers are your friend!
Alternately, while the Convention Center stop is still around and I-5 south isn’t congested, 41 into the tunnel and take something uphill at Boren / Pike.
Transfer-based networks lead to more overall service than one-seat-ride networks. Jarrett Walker at humantransit.org has written about how Sydney Australia is at the extreme of a one-seat-ride network. Every street has five routes going to all five major parts of the city, and it’s so expensive to operate that they come every 30-60 minutes, which makes it hard to do your daily life with transit. In contrast, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Chicago have grid networks with buses coming every 5-15 minutes (20-30 minutes late evening), so you can get from anywhere to anywhere with just one transfer and you never have to wait long.
Seattle is in between these, more on the one-seat-ride side but it’s inching closer to the gridded side. Northgate to Broadway has never had a one-seat ride, but several neighborhoods west and east of Northgate have one-seat rides to downtown. There could theoretically be a grid route on 15th NE/23rd S, but it would just miss Northgate and Broadway. Your best bet is to take the 41 to Convention Place, walk one block to Pike Street, and the 10/11/43/49 to Broadway. But in 2021 Link will run from Northgate to Broadway, so then you’ll have a one-seat ride. That won’t help you get from Northgate to West Seattle, but it will help you get to Broadway. Actually, it’ll help you get to West Seattle too because it’ll cut the total travel time and raise reliability.
Chicago is a bit of a different story though, as they have the L trains that, while not exceptionally fast, don’t get stuck in street level traffic either. BART and MUNI and Skytrain exist, but they don’t have anything like the coverage of core rail routes that Chicago has. BART stations are too far apart and are really more along the lines of LINK. MUNI’s streetcar / light rail lines are not really that extensive. The L, however, is not only fairly extensive but it has frequent enough stations that it really helps tie everything together.
I was speaking of the bus routes in those cities. I forgot about the train routes, but they’re all radial. Chicago’s trains are extensive but they don’t go crosstown. You can make a train+bus grid trip but not a train+train.
In another 7 years, it will be a one-seat ride on Link. It could arguably be construed as such today on the 41, depending on how far you are willing to walk from Convention Place Station downtown.
Can Transportation Boosters from ANY Modes Help Themselves?
Sightline has a good read on DOT’s chronically projecting VMT’s on the same high trajectory for the last 10 years, while the actual number has been flat.
http://daily.sightline.org/2014/03/10/can-dots-help-themselves/
They cite the need to do the big projects as they have always done, and really can’t help themselves. It’s this thinking that gives us CRC’s, DBT’s, Mega floating bridges, and on and on, when improving upon what we have, solving the bottleneck riddles and keeping things from deteriorating is the wiser investment.
Much of the ridership estimates on New Starts projects use the increase in VMT’s, and increased travel times to project how many drivers will switch to rail when built. In other words, if the VMT’s don’t materialize, neither will the transit riders due to increased congestion.
At some point, as DOT’s, the PSRC, and local DOT’s and Transit Agencies re-evaluate their long range needs, we may need to rethink expensive rail to far flung places like Everett and Tacoma.
A line from Everett to Tacoma alone would be the third largest light rail system in the US. No other single light rail line comes close. In fact the NYC Subway’s longest line, the A train, is 38 miles long and takes about two hours to go end to end (when running express).
At some point, as DOT’s, the PSRC, and local DOT’s and Transit Agencies re-evaluate their long range needs, we may need to rethink expensive rail to far flung places like Everett and Tacoma.
Bureau of Transportation Statistics for the USA show that “commuter railroad” service is the cheapest mode of public transport in terms of passenger mile. Considering this includes such catastrophes as TriMet’s WES (which connects a bunch of park and ride lots and not surprisingly isn’t very popular) there are some properties in there that are doing extremely well. That’s just the USA, which has some uniquely awful cost effectiveness statistics for these types of services.
Furthermore, it isn’t as if adding highway lanes is somehow vastly cheaper.
“Much of the ridership estimates on New Starts projects use the increase in VMT’s, and increased travel times to project how many drivers will switch to rail when built.”
Oh dear, that’s crap modelling. Given that VMT is dropping due to changes in preference, the models are going to have to be recalibrated to predict higher transit ridership. Repeatedly.
Of course, the housing models are probably equally bad, and need to be recalibrated to reflect the decline in popularity of the the outer suburbs.
Re: 20,000 years of human society: someone noted a long time ago that what’s often called the fall of a civilization is really a matter of a large number of people changing their minds. What generally happens isn’t like Cecil B. DeMille.
There may indeed be scenes of screaming barbarians looting classic mansions, but most people who are not titled nobility have been going about their business in a changed manner for quite some time. There’s the story of a Roman emperor, possibly the last one, who lived in a villa a lot farther out of town than Medina. He had a favorite pet chicken named “Roma”
When the news came to him that the capital had just been torn to pieces- by guys who had been staffing the Roman army for generations, and had finally had a bellyful of not being allowed to live in town-his answer was: “Roma? But I was just petting her a minute ago!”
After World War II, years of Depression were over. And with the rest of the industrial world having put our economy in charge of the planet by obligingly left itself in ruins, the average American for the first time in his or her life could afford a car. And a more relaxed and less crowded style of life.
Imagination is even less reliable for the future than for the past. Probably not even Buckminster Fuller or Frank Lloyd Wright could project a country where precisely because most people had multiple automobiles, nobody could move. But undoubtedly, there were prescient and philosophical people who could wearily understand that any civilization will indeed change when a generation of young people decide it’s BO-RING.
The war cry of urbanization….
Mark
In WA state, we spend 40% of our transportation dollars on mass transit. But only 4% of the population rides mass transit. Something to think about.
Talking about which – Can I have a source for that, Sam or anyone else? I’ve promised my friend I’d look through the mass transit budget some day.
I was just blindly repeating something I heard on talk radio yesterday. I could give you a link to the clip, but it’s not an official source, so it wouldn’t really do you any good.
More like 15% max on Mass Transit in the Puget Sound region.
http://www.psrc.org/assets/10540/T2040UpdateAppendixF.pdf
Extrapolating the current spending of 6.9 B for ST, against 45.4 B for all modes during this decade is an upper end, because technically, ST is not a mass transit agency. It’s a regional transit agency, and that’s a big difference. Much of what they do is not mass transit, such as regional express buses or Tacoma Link.
Likewise, RapidRide for Metro is billed as BRT in the ordinance, but it’s really just ‘better bus service’ in most cases.
Sams 4% number is close for all trips in the region, which hasn’t changed much in 20 years, but transit is doing a much better job of providing trips during the most congested commute hours to selected cities, like Seattle.
Sam does bring up a good discussion topic though. How much Mass v. How much Transit is the right mix?
Sam,
With all the bullet point blather that is conservative talk radio, this blog’s resident R quit listening to the David Blowzes (aka David Bozes) and Dana “Grrrrrrrr” Loesches of the world. Hell their minds are so freakin’ closed to moderation – and I know from calling them up on their shows – I’m done.
So hopefully you learn not to repeat mindlessly that junk. I’m sure their talking points are paid for by anti-transit and anti-gun responsibility profiteers just as much as the WEA has bought a state political party lock, stock and barrel.
Sam, don’t listen to talk radio, because they *just lie through their teeth*. WA spends the vast majority of its transportation funding on roads & streets, far more than 60%.
mic, I think they meant the broader term public transit.
Then your numbers would be correct (39.2% spent on transit, for 4% of the trips) (page 8 of the link above).
It’s a point worth noting that transit does not live in isolation, whether for spending, or planning how we move about. 40% spent to achieve 4% of the trips is not something to brag about.
BTW, today is the last day to comment on the PSRC 2040 update.
You can’t just take the budget of one year in isolation. Lots and lots of very expensive highways were built in the 50’s and 60’s, an era when virtually nothing was spent on transit. If you run your calculations on all inflation-adjusted transportation expenditures in the past 100 years, you will not get anywhere near 40% of dollars spent on transit.
And you know that because you ran the 100 year numbers yourself? Or, maybe you’re just blowing smoke again to cloud the issue Sam was reporting. The number given was for the current 10 year period, not just one year, and it’s our own transportation planning agency’s work, not mine.
mic, that’s Puget Sound region, not WA, so Sam’s talk radio folks got it wrong anyway.
Add in the private cost of transportation – vehicle purchase, insurance, space to store the vehicle, maintenance, fuel and infrastructure to purchase, maintain and use the vehicles – and the percentage of our actual spending on transportation devoted to transit is, I’ll bet, very similar to its percentage of use.
Forget real world problems, let’s talk Mini Metro high scores! I got over 700 once but I haven’t been able to get near it since. It’s a way better alternative than working on my thesis.
I got 909 once. Most of the time I get around 300 though.
I can’t figure out the relation between the different station types and the people. Should I be trying to optimize my line to connect to the same shape station or a variety or does it not matter at all? The most I got to was 308.
Version 7 is much harder to get high scores on, due to some rules changes.
A closer look at APTA’s report allocates 92% of the growth in trips was in New York’s subway system. Outside of New York, transit ridership increased .1% between 2012 and 2013.
I’m curious about something. If you take 100,000 car owners and drivers, and then 100,000 public transportation users who don’t own a car, how much tax and other revenue does the first group throw-off, and how much money does the second group throw off in a year’s time?
With the first group, we can count things like the fuel tax, parking meters, taxes parking lots pay, various tickets like speeding and red light, road tolls, taxes from car washes, taxes from repairs and maintenance, various tab and licensing fees, emissions test fees, all the various jobs related to the automobile that wouldn’t exist without it, ferry fees, luxury vehicle taxes, excise taxes, and I’m sure there are a bunch of other revenue cars generate that I’m forgetting. All of this money helping schools and other government services, like programs to help the poor.
Ok, now let’s tally up all the money that transit users who don’t own cars spin-off in a year. I can only think of the $5 ORCA fee.
Could someone do the math for me on this? I’m really curious which group contributes more money? I honestly don’t know.
Sam:
If all of those transit riders drove instead, parking would have to be built for all of them. That would roughly double the amount of parking needed in downtown Seattle and the University District. How would poor and middle-income transit riders’ budgets be affected by paying $300+/month, or more as parking got scarcer, for parking? How much would devoting all of that real estate to parking raise residential and commercial rents and real estate prices? What would be the social costs of having so many blocks with no frontage other than parking lots? How many tax-generating real estate projects would go unbuilt because of the stupefying expense of providing the necessary parking? How many students would the University of Washington have to turn away because needed educational facilities would be replaced by parking?
I can’t tell you what the numbers are for Seattle, but here in Portland a huge percentage of the city and county road budget come from property taxes. The drain on property taxes from various sources has been large enough over the years that now it is the state income tax that provides the majority of school funding – though in some areas there is also still a significant property tax fee.
Here in Oregon, it is a constitutional requirement that any fees from roads, autos, etc. go back into road building and maintenance, so as far as our area is concerned there is a 0% raiding of auto based fees from transit here. The city does get a bit of income from parking fees and there is a small percentage of the state gas tax revenue that goes to cities to help with road maintenance. However, the city budget has a wide assortment of sources.
The basics of the city of Portland budget are given here:
http://www.portlandoregon.gov/cbo/article/456883
Page 32 shows the origin of the money.
Page 33 of this 704 page document (which is only the summary) shows that some $174 million goes to Transportation and Parking. The only transit service operated by the city of Portland is the Portland Streetcar, which is largely funded by a special tax district from businesses along the line. There is some $10 million allocated to light rail line construction, but only about $7.8 million of that is part of the transportation budget (page 36). There are some water line upgrades that are happening in concert with the light rail line construction and so some of that is paid from water fees.
The details of the transportation budget are here:
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/cbo/article/435889
The line item for the Portland streetcar is $8.9 million, and the Portland Arial Tram is $329,900.
The other 20 or so page of specific line items are mostly street projects, but there are some items that are general purpose such as the computer system for the Bureau of Transportation.
All in all, it looks to me as if in our case some $156 million was spent on road related transportation projects but were not collected directly from road or vehicle related fees.
David and Glenn, two words: I am not stupid. You both answered a question I didn’t ask. I want to know what kind of money do 100,000 car owners/commuters spin-off as opposed to 100,000 carless transit riders. I did not ask where does money from roads come from, and I did not ask what would happen if transit riders switched to driving cars. What’s wrong with having an honest discussion about just that one aspect of commuting? How much money does each type of commuter pay in taxes and fees vs the other? It’s almost like people here are afraid or unable to say something that might paint car ownership in a positive light. They reflexively always counter with some tangential argument. Me: Hey, how much does the average car commuter pay in fees and taxes per year? Answer from STB commenters: Cars contribute to global warming!
The taxes and fees come from various sources, so to answer your question you need to dig through the budget documents to see where it all comes from and where it all goes to. If you aren’t willing to do that, then you won’t be able to answer your question.
It’s impossible to tell “how much each type of commuter pays in taxes”. It’s also a stupid and meaningless question.
Obviously, Bill Gates pays more in taxes than thousands of commuters in the state, so whichever category he’s in probably pays the most in taxes. But this is meaningless — he pays more taxes because he’s richer, and it has nothing to do with his commute…
Sam,
You’re probably right that riding transit contributes less taxes and fees than driving a car. But, in large part, that’s because riding transit costs less money, period. I pay less taxes on the hundred dollars I put in my savings account than on the hundred dollars I use to buy something.
But to fully compare the effect of riding transit, we’d need to know what transit riders will do with the money they save. What will they contribute to society – whether through the government or otherwise – from that? In my case, my charitable giving is probably higher than it would be if I had a car. Someone else might buy a house, spend a week in the Olympics, or spend time volunteering with community organizations.
You’re probably right that riding transit contributes less taxes and fees than driving a car.
Driving a car contributes more taxes, certainly. However, it also consumes more taxes. For example, just at the federal level, there is a significant amount of the highway trust fund that comes from general fund monies as the federal gas tax money is insufficient. Then, there is a certain amount of housing and urban development funds that go into subsidizing parking in urban areas.
Sure, I realize that in the current mess there is transit funding that comes out of the fund as well, but the amount that comes out of other sources to pay for the absence of adequate income from gasoline taxes is greater.
So, just in the federal budget side of things you would have to approximately double federal gas taxes to make auto driving pay for itself.
You can also look at the extremes. How much resources would be required if there were no cars (everybody on transit) or no transit (everybody driving). For the “no cars” scenario we can look into our own past and at cities with a small car mode share. In 1900 everybody travelled by streetcar, the economy then could afford the infrastructure, and the roads/parking didn’t take up much space. Cities with a large transit modeshare have less total resource outlays, both public and private, and are more immune to oil-price shocks and shortages. In contrast, cities with a high car modeshare, like much of the US, have several times more outlays.
I’ve just heard we will not see a transportation package this year.
Frankly, as the R in the room, I blame Curtis King. I also blame the Spendocrats who resisted transportation reform. It was, is, and remains time for shared sacrifice. We do need transit. We also do need transportation reform and to quit siphoning off transportation dollars for other things to bring costs in line with other states.
What Curtis’s staff has to say for Curtis: http://src.wastateleg.org/king-says-failure-to-pass-transportation-package-not-due-to-lack-of-effort/
I did honestly attempt to find a Democratic Legislative Caucus reply. Didn’t see one.
“I also blame the /insert-word-of-choice-here/…”
Please, stop doing that. To you directly and to the others who are doing this with more increasing frequency: they’re not “Spendocrats” or “Republithugs” or “Con$ultant$” or “Greenies” or “Urbanazis” or any other derogatory word. Throwing around ridiculous labels does nothing to advance any kind of debate and only demonstrates that entrenched repetition of talking points is becoming more and more common. These are actual human beings whose opinions or motivations happen to differ.
If someone disagrees with a stance or action or stated motive, please state why, preferably with sources or other facts to back up the assertions being made but giving a reason is awesome all by itself. Using shorthand for finding someone’s politics distasteful doesn’t help solve the actual issues that need to be addressed.
You wanted a reason: Try I think the Democratic Party’s spendocracy and resistance to transportation reforms is repugnant. We cannot be throwing more money at the problems in our transportation system when our state has an outstanding legal liability in the Billions………
I also have many colorful words for Curtis King who has no idea of the importance of transit. Many. Just ask………….
Have you actually looked at the difference between spending by Democrats and Republicans?
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
There really isn’t much. Some are good, some are terrible, but in the end you can’t point to one party or the other as having the better spending record.
Glenn, nice link but I’m looking at the spending from a state side of the equation.
Republicans in WA ST want to cut spending.
Democrats in WA ST want to tax & spend – sometimes on necessary things.
Borrowing & spending has been the Republican practice since roughly Reagan. I’ve never seen an elected Republican at the state or federal level who really wants to cut spending: they always redirect it to their favored buddies, and then borrow for it.
I am very hostile to borrow-and-spend. I’d much prefer taxing & spending. This makes me conservative, in reality, but not in the topsy-turvy world of politics.
Adam Bejan Parast, you posted this round-up with this very addictive game the week before finals. What the heck is wrong with you? :-)
Why hydrogen-powered cars will drive Elon Musk crazy
http://qz.com/186432/why-hydrogen-powered-cars-will-drive-elon-musk-crazy/
These are compliance car quantities. These are not real car sales. The cost per hydrogen car is still esimated at a million dollars, before subsidies. A bit high.
And 100 fueling stations planned? Tesla’s already got 79 Superchargers in the US.
Sorry. Hydrogen isn’t a good energy storage method. It’s just a scheme for trying to convince people not to buy electric cars.