191–200 of 401 posts
Kansas was running on fumes for a long time by not taxing. Now, this? One group of idealists were replaced with another with no more sensibility than their counterparts.
You're mistaking Kansas City, MO with Kansas City, KS. Kansas (the state) was running on fumes for a long time. Kansas (the state) also has nothing to do with this. These are literally the first three words of the article: "Kansas City, Missouri"
On my first visit to Seattle, you could ride the bus anywhere downtown for free. It seemed like a great way to provide mobility to those in need, while still having a paid option for those in the outer areas of the city to get home to their suburbs. The first conversation I had with someone on the bus there was with someone going to an employment counselling office. Not sure why that struck me, but it always stuck wi…
IIRC, the reason Seattle instituted the free fares downtown scheme was to reduce bus boarding times, especially in the tunnel beneath downtown where buses would often get backed up. /No longer live in Seattle, so I may not be remembering this correctly.
From the 1973-09-09 NY Times [1]:
> “I make a flat prediction,” said Mayor Wes Uhlman, who conceived the plan. “With the E.P.A. [Environmental Protection Agency] breathing down the neck of all of us, every major city in the country will be providing free transit within two years.
> “The downtowns are becoming congested and polluted, and we simply have to reclaim them for people away from the automobile.”
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1973/09/09/archives/seattle-joining-...
Seattle used to have this for an area of the city. It was called the "Free Ride Zone" - and it had some unexpected consequences. The primary problem is that homeless people would get on the bus because it's warm, and would fall asleep. The busses became rolling homeless shelters. This caused other people to take the bus less, because of public safety concerns, as well as simple quality-of-life issues like unpleasant…
Not to be rude, but don't you guys have security to just take them off ? It's a public disorder no ? I do feel for the homeless, and of course its a refuge etc, but its a public service and so can be removed from the tram/service. Its not a difficult solution to have to just grab a free ticket which could take you to the end of the line. In which case, no ticket (even free) no pass. I have a high opinion of Seattle i…
And put yourself in a bus driver's shoes - if someone just walks on the bus, what are you going to do about it? Best case, you cause a major delay for something that is unlikely to be prosecuted. Anyways, from a practical standpoint, I think that Seattle's transit only gets about 1/3 of its funding from fares; at the end of the day their mandate is to move people around with as little friction as possible. Also, even if there was an incentive to be strict, the 'one RFID card to rule them all' system is pretty recent; plenty of people just wave some sort of ID or the paper transfer ticket that you get from paying cash. Checking all of those carefully would mean longer delays.
I guess it might sound odd, but Seattle is not what you might call an ideal city. Evading a bus fare is less criminal than plenty of petty things that the police have a stated policy of ignoring, such as actual theft, and it seems like the public transit agency makes do because it's not their job to deal with that sort of thing.
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The measure was sold largely as a general flipping of the bird towards King and neighboring counties by the rest of the state. Generally there is opposition from eastern Washington for car tabs going to fund Sound Transit's investments on the western corridor, which doesn't really do anything to benefit those that don't live in the western corridor. And yes, I am aware that King net exports money to the east. I'm not…
I thought the SoundTransit car tabs were only paid inside the SoundTransit area? Are Eastern Washington voters really paying $500 car tabs to build light rail hundreds of miles away? That would be shocking to me if true.
Great to see. Our tax money subsidizes car ownership (quite massively) already, glad to see some equity here. Everyone kicks and screams about transit systems "paying for themselves" but nobody asks the same of huge highways in the middle of nowhere.
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This. imho transit ridership bears more of the burden of the "fuck poor people" undercurrent of America. It's maybe the snowy after image of the American Dream: Anyone can make [if they work hard] / It must be their fault if they don't make it.
Even in its most dysfunctional state, like busses that are total shit and run once an hour on a drunkenly erratic schedule, it's still operational as compared to other things like homeless shelters, drug rehab centers, and mental health care which don't exist or are completely overwhelmed.
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What is it that's preventing us from forcing our politicians to offer better options? I would vote for a solution to this, and even donate money to it, if enough other people were doing the same. Don't most people feel the same about this issue? What systemic problem is preventing a huge mass of people who agree on this from making a meaningful change happen?
It's just a much harder problem to solve than you realize it is. The truth is a lot of the homeless people that aren't in shelters choose not to go to shelters. Why? The biggest reason is because shelters don't allow drugs or alcohol, and if you're an addict that's an immediate pass. There are other reasons too. Sometimes couples want shelter together, but most are separated by gender (and for good reason: to prevent…
Is there some way we can organize a discussion about practical solutions to this issue, and then pick that and tell the politicians to go do it?
I'm not saying our current solutions are good by the way, which seems to be what some people replying are interpreting my comment as.
I'm personally in favor of just state funded small apartments, where yes, if they want to shoot up, let them shoot up.
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Not to be rude, but don't you guys have security to just take them off ? It's a public disorder no ? I do feel for the homeless, and of course its a refuge etc, but its a public service and so can be removed from the tram/service. Its not a difficult solution to have to just grab a free ticket which could take you to the end of the line. In which case, no ticket (even free) no pass. I have a high opinion of Seattle i…
Enforcing laws against the homeless is not the done thing in Seattle. The problem is not thinking of ways to detect their law breaking, but rather that the city chooses compassion over order and consequently ignores their lawlessness instead of enforcing the law. If you do come to Seattle, you'll find the streets teeming with the homeless who are completely undisturbed by the police. Just walking around the city, and…
As I mentioned, I don't know enough about the area/situation.
But I am genuinely pleased that people at least give a shit.
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So fuck the middle class because the rich don't want to pay taxes?
The middle class makes up most of the tax payer population. You can't tax income at the top and expect much unless you added 20%.
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Even in its most dysfunctional state, like busses that are total shit and run once an hour on a drunkenly erratic schedule, it's still operational as compared to other things like homeless shelters, drug rehab centers, and mental health care which don't exist or are completely overwhelmed.
As much as rich people hate buses, they're a vital transportation resource to working folks - I take a bus and metro every day and save a bunch compared to owning and commuting in a car.