There's been a lot of talk in the blogosphere lately about transit in Seattle. Another blog, The Transit Option, is talking about the potential to do a neat at-grade in a box viaduct which is very clever -- it actually takes advantage of the hill that is the real thing keeping Seattle from its waterfront.
Some Jerk, who runs the thing, also talks a lot about citywide transit expansion and it is fairly clear we are cut from the same cloth. As a reminder I'm going to drag out my proposed regional Metro system map, and take a little break from normal and talk about actual policy direction. See it all below the cut -- I'd like to get a discussion going if possible.
This is the whole system in a nutshell. The reason it's not detailed or particularly large here is because nobody has been to any meeting where they could see this map; decisions have been made which make this map seem an unattainable reality. So bear with me while I flesh out some concepts I consider important, given that we haven't turned a shovel of dirt for anything but the southern half of the blue line on my map. I am going to outline the vision and then a few policy points to ponder.
The green line represents more or less the proposed route of the failed monorail. The difference being of course that it is built by Sound Transit. It would aspire to run in a combination of elevated and underground alignments and the route would be closely modeled on the monorail route but with some key exceptions -- it may run at grade in places, it should try to run to the ferry dock at Fauntleroy. I'm no West Seattle expert, and I would welcome the feedback of a like minded individual with some ideas for West Seattle. You can see the route comes into downtown from the south and enters the circuit tunnel, and at the north end of the circuit tunnel, I propose continuing underground, going under Seattle Center, into lower Queen Anne and coming out the side of the hill from a tunnel and straight to an elevated alignment alongside Elliott Ave & 15th Ave W. This would cross the locks just like the train does, and descend into the hillside on the other side of the locks, making a quick right turn as it runs under downtown Ballard, and eventually would come up out of the median and run over 15th Ave W "L" style all the way to Northgate going through upper Greenwood.
This completes the Seattle loop. There are obviously areas of the city which are not covered here; as many would suggest there are a variety of systems under consideration: various streetcars, newbuses, and the like. However a lot of area is served here.
One change I would immediately make to the North Link plan is a north Capitol Hill stop down by Roy. It will not do to serve only one end of Capitol Hill -- this would be a major 'on' spot for the train and a lot of people would stop here too.
For the Eastside, I am with Bellevue on wanting the tunnel -- they seem to have selfish reasons, but it's the right thing to do in this case. They should run it to Microsoft and Redmond via Crossroads, however -- this is home to a lot of already developed urban commercial centers -- destination shopping as well as Microsoft, Nintendo, and others.
The map shows lines running to downtown Redmond and Kirkland, but this may be pie-in-the-sky. Redmond sure wants a train to downtown Redmond so I could see Kirkland getting behind it, too. The one thing to remember is that I'm advocating the complete system to be built either underground or "L", and I'm advocating all the routes being able to serve multiple destinations. That is, it is important to have Eastside-Airport trains as well as Eastside-Norhtgate trains in addition to more regular service connecting the hub of each side of the lake to the destinations on its side of the lake.
This is what we call a Metro system, and if Seattle built this one, it could certainly be proud of itself. So the question is, where's the political will, and what sort of public policy decisions could impact the direction we end up going?
An overview of the current structure of Sound Transit is in order. Each sub-region is responsible for raising the money it plans to spend, and considering the routes and technologies that will be used to serve the area according to the area's development priorities. Development occurs in each subarea simultaneously, and tax rates go down if the system expansion doesn't go anywhere. The question is, how high can taxes go, and if the funding sources for the taxes can be diversified.
In the case of the Seattle metro, could the South King County subarea and North King County subarea vote to enact a diverse set of funding sources to begin more work on the projects that are already designed out, rather than having to think about this in terms of whole decades?
People I've bounced this idea off of have bristled for various reasons; a common theme I've found however is that they seem to think that's not particularly acceptable because of legalities: either the funding sources are not allowed to be more diversified within a subarea and not other subareas, or some vague notion that it would be viewed as unfair by other subareas.
One other policy matter that I feel compelled to talk about is how we define success when it comes to cost estimations and accountability to the taxpayers. We taxpayers will want to know how much it's going to cost, and we'll want to know how long we're going to have to pay. I think that is perfectly reasonable. I think when it comes right down to it however, public policy makers and citizens alike need to step back and evaluate priorities. Part of the argument people often use when they talk about this issue is "If we were New York, the decision to do this would have been made and we'd be paying and that would be that." And I would add, after a fashion, we'd be enjoying the public facilities. If we build them properly and they affect enough people positively, they'll have great ridership and people will be happy with them. We'll have been able to look back and say "Yes, we knew it would cost that much; we raised the money, and we paid for it."
I would just tie this in to what I said about Seattle's decisions on the roadways that need to be rebuilt as well. New York is lucky to not have earthquakes; their stuff stays up pretty well and their bridges don't float. I have to believe however that New York would get behind the idea of as-is rebuilds. Another thing about New York is that traffic is terrible there, too. Frankly, I think if we build our commuter rail capacity out (this is what Sno and Pierce should be looking hardest at) we can make it possible for the lion's share of people from this tri-county area to get to other parts of the tri-county area easily, and without riding in cars. And for the people who ride in cars every day because the transit doesn't come anywhere near them, well, nobody knows how to drive in traffic, so it won't be terribly fun, but at least you won't be contending with the majority of the city people.
I'd like to know what people think about this idea. I think it's early enough that these issues should be raised in a public forum, and I'd like this to be the first of them. Anyone who managed to get all the way to the bottom of this rant should have a few things to say.
Thanks.
This freakin' rocks! We should apply all regional transit funds to getting something like this going asap.
Posted by: Brad | September 20, 2007 at 01:47 PM