Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

Post by mulmen » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

beisner wrote: post #9

To add to the points raised in the article, Seattle’s public transit system and transit policy are just plain good . Buses are clean/new, frequent, and on-time; trains (while they don’t yet extend as far as they need to) are reliable and have good coverage along frequented routes; HOV lanes are (finally!!!) present along the entirety of common longer commutes (especially across the lake). The bus system is especially…

Post by news_to_me » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

andrewguenther wrote: post #10

eksu wrote: post #2

How Seattle is winning the war on cars: make driving a car into the city a living hell, and actively peruse road expansions that make commute times worse to move people over to mass transit. Mass transit use up, quality of life down. I've grown up slightly outside of Seattle and have been working at some startups, but I'm leaving at the end of this year.

Absolutely agree. Traffic in Seattle is some of the absolute worst in the country. 25% of workers drive to work only because there isn't even enough room on the road to fit more of them. Getting around Seattle is a massive pain in the ass and public transit just isn't keeping up.

Post by mulmen » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:46 PM UTC

news_to_me wrote: post #11

mulmen wrote: post #7

Public transit in Seattle works for many commuters but the two largest residential neighborhoods in the city are still poorly served. If you are not near the main line getting to a bug stop can be very difficult. Local bus service still seems to be lacking in many areas of the city. For me it's no problem, both my office and apartment are on the C Line route but if I lived in North Admiral I would probably just ride…

Yeah, we could use a lot better coverage in a lot of neighborhoods. Hopefully expansion of the light rail and bus lines that work with it will help, but I don't think it can ever ideally serve everyone – which is why we need to make sure we still adequately serve cyclists and drivers to pick up those who can't be reached. But hopefully we can expand transit to where most people choose it over cars.

Post by andrewguenther » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:47 PM UTC

news_to_me wrote: post #14

andrewguenther wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree. Traffic in Seattle is some of the absolute worst in the country. 25% of workers drive to work only because there isn't even enough room on the road to fit more of them. Getting around Seattle is a massive pain in the ass and public transit just isn't keeping up.

To me, this is just evidence to expand public transit even more. There's only so much road space, and as the population grows we need to more efficiently utilize it – busses and rail are some of the most efficient ways. While we always need to support some car use cases, public transit is really the long-term solution to traffic.

Post by davidw » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:49 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #8

amsha wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any specific actions Seattle has taken to make the driving experience worse?

I think it's more a question of what they haven't done as the city has grown. If you increase the populace, but don't increase the amount of roads and parking, driving gets worse. (I'm not arguing that that's a bad thing.)