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Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

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Re: Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

#41

Post by stephengillie »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #15

Psst, Seattle also has a reliable, free, and open source pair of apps for knowing where you bus is and when it’ll arrive. These apps are built and maintained entirely by volunteers. (In the case of iOS, this is basically just me.) If you have any background in iOS or Android development and want to help improve your own commute in Seattle, come check out our projects and pick up a bug or two. Hundreds of thousands of…

This was the only saving grace for Seattle's various bus systems. Thank you for your work, and linking to where I might contribute too.

Re: Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

#42

Post by chroem- »

news_to_me wrote: post #39
chroem- wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In general, focusing on transit at the expense of drivers is simply the smart thing to do Light rail will not reach Snohomish County until the mid 2030's. That is not an acceptable answer.

So what, we don't invest in light rail at all? That's why we're in the traffic mess we are now — because voters 30 years ago didn't prioritize long term improvements.

We are shooting ourselves in the feet by intentionally diminishing road traffic capacity before the alternative is ready. You are not serving the underprivileged by making it too expensive to drive, since middle and lower income people can only afford to live in the outlying areas in the first place.

Re: Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

#43

Post by throwawaysea »

mulmen wrote: post #24
andrewguenther wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Approval of an insane number of construction sites in downtown core has lead to absolute gridlock, the removal of lanes on arterial roads for wider bike lanes, and the 405 toll lane are the first which come to mind.

Are you suggesting the city approved building permits to discourage driving?

I think what he's saying is that the city has enabled unchecked population growth, and this has hurt quality of life for those already living here, who have put down roots, and been paying their taxes. This is plainly true - the ever increasing height limits in South Lake Union, rezoning of various neighborhoods, etc. has made it much harder to get around as density increases and shared resources (e.g. roads, parks, etc.) become vastly over-subscribed.

Re: Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

#44

Post by gascan »

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.

Hypothetically speaking, given the tremendous expense of accommodating cars and the necessary ridership needed to get public transit working well (e.g. the greater the bus ridership, the more routes & times), I could imagine this actually being a rational step in moving a population over to mass transit.

Re: Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

#45

Post by drak0n1c »

news_to_me wrote: post #28
arcticfox wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just experimented on Google Maps with an arbitrary route: random place near Microsoft campus to a random nice park in Seattle: 1hr30 minutes. Car: 23 minutes. Even during the awful 520 rush hour, it's still ~15-30min faster. > in/out of the city becomes a lot easier for more people than it becomes worse for Pretty hard to imagine losing 2hrs on a round-trip into the city is a benefit for anyone that can't afford to…

Fair enough, but I take measurements like these as a need to further improve transit. For example, the light rail reaching Redmond should help that particular route a lot. In general, it doesn't make sense to invest in making it easier for cars as the population grows — it's not as sustainable as improving transit, since public transit is a far more efficient way to transport people.

That estimation may change in the coming decades. Self driving cars would allow for pooling and far greater car throughput on existing roads (no human latency/error, synchronized top speeds)

Re: Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

#46

Post by WarMachineCars »

chroem- wrote: post #34
news_to_me wrote: post #32

A lot of the anti-transit comments here are simply saying "yeah but it's hard to get to X place by transit" (particularly Microsoft). This may be true now, but from my perspective only underscores the need for even better coverage — for example, ST3 reaching Redmond will help enormously for people getting between Seattle and Microsoft. In general, focusing on transit at the expense of drivers is simply the smart thin…

>In general, focusing on transit at the expense of drivers is simply the smart thing to do Light rail will not reach Snohomish County until the mid 2030's. That is not an acceptable answer.

Cars are not an acceptable answer, living hours from your place of work is not an acceptable answer, backwards counties attempting to benefit from civilization without being part of it is not an acceptable answer.

Re: Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

#47

Post by eksu »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #36
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.

Where are you going to move to? Every big metro area in North America that is significantly geographically constrained has horrendous traffic: SF, NY, Boston, Vancouver, ...

Ideally Boise, potentially Salt Lake City or Bozeman or Spokane or Denver. Mountain West.

If you or someone you know is hiring College Graduates in these areas, drop me a line.

Re: Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

#48

Post by zeppelin101 »

andrewguenther wrote: post #35
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…

> 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... Did we live in the same city? This is the exact opposite of my experience with Seattle transit.

Maybe it depends on the route, but I've taken the buses numerous times (mostly to/from the eastside) and they were always clean and safe and calm.

Re: Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

#49

Post by [deleted] »

noodle wrote: post #33
arcticfox wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe inside of Seattle it's "good", but when I lived near Microsoft I would have to allocate 3hrs+ for a round-trip into the city by public transit.

There are also comparatively very few people who live in the Redmond area and who commute to work downtown Seattle. It probably shouldn't be a heavily serviced path, realistically speaking.

[deleted]

Re: Seattle Is Winning the War on the Car Commute

#50

Post by WarMachineCars »

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…

This nonsense comment can be TL;DR'd as : "I prefer to be part of the problem instead of the solution because I am an entitled asshole"
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