Category / Rail Related

by Adron

Oh For Pete’s Sake!

…or maybe I should say “oh for Portland’s sake!”

I live in Seattle these days. However, anyone that has ever read a blog entry or two on this blog probably knows the I also love Portland. Portland got me out to the northwest from the backwards and hellish heat of the southeastern US. Portland also is far more of a driving force in the northwest than many from other parts of the country may realize. They’d look at a map and probably think that Seattle would be more of a driving force.

I’ve come to find that this is not the case.

Don’t get me wrong. Seattle has lead the way in many progressive ways, but just walk down any major area in Seattle with decent livability and you’ll hear a recurring theme if you mention having lived in Portland for a while. I can tell you, 9 out of 10 people will almost swoon with a respect and love for what has been accomplished in the city of Portland. Rightly they should, a tremendous amount of progress has been made toward cleaning up that city in spite of the pitiful desecration that the “American Dream” had left it in. The city continues to make huge progress in biking, transit, livability, parks, financing (without printing money like our glorious Federal Government does), improving community outreach, community involvement, and to top it off the city has more restaurants, strip clubs, art walks, coffee shops, and library books in circulation per capita than any American City! Those are some serious bragging rights.

But that leaves me with a slight problem with all this swooning. Sure I love Portland pride (of all sorts) and am proud to have called it home (and still do to a large degree), but there is a problem when other places start doing nothing but swooning and imitating it! I have a simple request.

STOP!

Seattle has plenty to be proud for, I know Portland has great transit (or better, as most state to me when the topic of Portland comes up, and that is without me even saying I’m the Transit Sleuth guy…), I know it has all these projects and other things they’re doing to make it even more livable, even more fun, more enjoyable, more caffeinated, and even more bike, pedestrian, and human friendly. That’s great, but I want to hear about what Seattle is doing. I want to see Seattle moving forward. I want to hear about what Seattle is doing to keep up and stay competitive with Vancouver BC, Portland, and San Francisco even.

Seattle is a great city. Combine it with Tacoma, and you have a massive power house of a metropolitan area in the north west. The city is pushing forward with bike trails. Which it could do even more with. I think Seattle could be a leader in this realm! But alas, the last 4 discussions I’ve heard about bike trails or greenways end with “as discovered in Portland”… AAAAAHHHHH!!!

Then the transit question. Seattle should take this beast by the horns too. Stop doing half ass measures to barely keep the trolley buses running or a little sprinkling of a streetcar or light rail here or there. Stop mitigating by just allowing people to drive anyway, start allowing people to truly LIVE instead of just pushing the gas pedal and brake in that stop and go catastrophe called I-5. Seattle could lead in so many ways in this regard and has done a lot of work around this. Yet I hear unending stories from people in coffee shops, on the street, downtown, and in Pioneer Square about how the city is going to maybe get around to this or that by the time everyone who cares in 90, and our childrens’ children might get some benefit out of it. Then somebody usually swoons about how Portland already has 4 light rail lines and is working on their 5th (or as I like to call it, the extension of the yellow line south). Seattle should push aside the waitlist of Sound Transit and get King County Metro to move into the limelight with some SERIOUS efforts to bring light rail to Seattle proper (not just tossing it out of site and out of mind into the tunnel). I think some steam will be gathered with the First Hill Streetcar, but the city should really take the lead, brag about what IS being accomplished and keep up the pressure! Stop letting every story end with how bad ass Portland is. This is Seattle, people should talk about how bad ass it is when they’re here IN SEATTLE!

Anyway, I hope that something starts to trigger a serious change. I already do see a serious downtown (and west side) vs. east side pride. Again, something that I believe in. The cultural differences between the east side of Lake Washington and downtown (plus West Seattle) are HUGE! Seattle should be proud of its leadership and should continue that over the east side, there’s no chance they make any progress on that side anytime soon. Seattle is the cultural leader of this entire metropolitan area and the city should be proud of that.

I’ve got my fingers crossed, so let’s here some props for Seattle, and let’s move this forward.

by Adron

San Francisco…

I wanted to write more about this trip, but that just didn’t happen. So instead of writing anything I’m going to just post some of the pictures from the trip. Cheers!  🙂

PCC Streetcar (Click for full size image)

PCC Streetcar (Click for full size image)

Philadelphia Arrow Lines

Philadelphia Arrow Lines

by Adron

Streetcar Party in PDX

This got me thinking about some of the awesome things going on in Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland. This year is the 10th anniversary of the Portland Streetcar. Tacoma is almost done with an additional stop on their streetcar line. Portland will open the east side line next year. Seattle is starting on their First Hill Streetcar, now, soon, it is kind of in the works. So the expansions, albeit slow by historical standards, continue onward! Overall, congratulations are due to the north west in general! This part of the country, to put it simply, kicks ass!

by Adron

Questions: Seattle, Light Rail, and Increasing The Standard of Life in the City?

The Negative

I’ve given Seattle (specifically Metro and Sound Transit) a lot of crap over the years. Overall they do an ok job, I do think they spend WAY too much money on what they’re building. For whatever reason Sound Transit just keeps on suggesting these cut and cover, dig and cover, elevated, and tunnel bore type routes which are insanely expensive. They’re building light rail like it is heavy rail, which puts light rail in the heavy rail price range without the carrying capacity. This leaves me perplexed. This also leaves the Seattle area with very little light rail that could be serving hundreds of thousands of riders by now if it didnt’ get stuck every time it is up for vote or pulled off the “build queue” because it is so blasted expensive.

As I’ve said before, there are prime examples of how to use light rail to our south and north of the city. Vancouver BC carries more people on light rail than the entire Seattle Metro System, and it is only a couple of lines. Portland carries over a hundred thousand people a day on its line, with a per ride cost that is vastly lower than Sound Transit Link Light Rails costs now or will ever cost even with additions. All of this amounts to a lot of scary budget problems and other concerns that I have about Sound Transit.

Overall, it looks more like this whole light rail effort of Sound Transit’s is somewhat misplaced, overpriced, and won’t actually serve to create or expand town centers in core areas that it will serve.

The Positive

Looking at the east side line provides a glimpse into an amazing service potential. Uninterrupted by traffic, unencumbered by the inefficiencies of diesel, hybrid power, or even rubber on road concerns Bellevue could be connected 365 days a year through almost any conditions. Cold weather concerns in this area wouldn’t even bother light rail, the destructive nature of chained tires on buses goes away for this route. Increased capacity to move people between Bellevue and Seattle increases by a substantial percent.

Over a period of 30 years of operation, the net cost of light rail, even with some of the above mentioned design cost concerns, would be equivalent to that of similar bus operations with lower capacity.  (Keep in mind this is in comparison to the usual 18-22 years it usually takes for light rail to recoup and become cheaper than equivalent bus service, after which light rail only becomes a smaller and smaller cost compared to equivalent bus service)

Additionally the amount of “choice” riders will increase based on empirical ridership numbers. The town centers that are served (Bellevue and Seattle) will gain foot traffic that, some realize, is vastly more valuable and less costly to service than auto based traffic. The Overlake Transit Center area, pending Microsoft maintains itself as a dominant employer in the area, will become even more intensely utilized. In addition Microsoft itself could probably even woo additional talent from downtown (which it often desperately wants to do – re: Connector).

The Questions

In the end though, will this work? Will Seattle be able to provide the funds for this? Will Seattle get enough support from the Federal Government? Is the potential payoff even worth it compared to a cheaper implementation of light rail? Why is Seattle, at least by action, ignoring lessons learned in Denver, Portland, San Francisco, and Vancouver? Will people really use the system in enough numbers to validate its massive cost per mile? Already auto based transportation is draining this country of monetary resources, inefficiencies, and now we continue to fall into hock to support it. But can we do better with well built transit services? Will we recoup enough efficiencies from this to save so much of our decaying standard of life? Will Seattle’s (via Sound Transit) ongoing attempts to build out light rail actually build up the town centers within this city?

What’s your take? I’d love to know. Please comment!  Cheers  🙂

by Adron

A No Ride List Like The No Fly List

Seriously? I read this thread over on Progressive Railroading and it caught my attention. The write of the poll starts off with,

As I voted on the recent poll, should Amtrak start using a “no ride” list like the airlines “no fly” list, I was suprised to find that better than 10% of those who voted as of today voted no. No meaning they don’t think we need the same security and peace of mind on a train as we have on a plane. I find that very interesting.

Are you kidding me? I’m usually not aggressive about my retorts, but this guy has misplaced several KEY realities within the first three sentences of his query.

Let me explain something bout idiots first. Yes, I may sound like a completely mean, impolite person for saying it this way, but it needs written. Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, no matter how smart is a complete tool and idiot if for one minute they think the “no fly” list or the TSA keep us safe and secure. You are a complete FOOL if you have some peace of mind about flying because of THESE reasons. See further explanation below of why you should feel safe flying.

To people that think we need a no fly list or a no ride list you’re blurring the line between a criminal and a citizen or any developed country having simple civil rights to be able to move between lands, cities, and places of interest. Should a private railroad be allowed to do this? Yes. Should Amtrak? No. It isn’t private. To pretend it is completely ignores the reality of its operation.

The reason above why I said you should feel safe flying is simple. The whole idea of terrorism has killed a negligible amount of people worldwide. Terrorists (whatever this ideal actually means is something held by the perpetrators of such ideas), have been amazingly inefficient at getting their points across or being effective in their murderous attempts at garnering attention. The statistics are in your favor, you ARE safe when you fly.

The other simple fact is that flying is the safest for of transportion on earth. I’d be hard pressed to say that walking is even safer, because it probably isn’t. Several thousand people per year die walking.

So when you fly, or think about curtailing the ability for certain people to fly based on an arbitrary and fuzy notion of “no ride” or “no fly” lists, think about the REAL reasons we’re safe. Not the stupid, inane nonsense that follows the hyperbole of the media and idiocy of our leaders. Fear sells, fear limits our lives, and fear is almost always completely unfounded.

Live life. See the world. Stop worrying about oppressing others.