For an example of public transportation that's actually working well, check out the Seattle downtown bus tunnel. It's a specially built tunnel, more than a mile long, running under downtown streets. It carries 140 buses and 23,000 commuters every workday and reduces congestion and fumes downtown.
In September 2005 the bus tunnel will be shut down for at least two years so it can be adapted for Sound Transit light rail. 23,000 commuters from all over the region will experience longer commutes and downtown streets will become more congested and more dangerous. Just to build an overpriced demonstration project of a train that will hardly make a dent in road congestion.
If you depend on the bus tunnel to get to work, you'll want to press Sound Transit to keep the bus tunnel open. The best way to do that is to support the Trust and Transit initiative to force a revote on Sound Transit.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 03, 2004 12:12 PMStephan, I thought the monorail was to take care of the fixed rail needs of the downtown core. For more perspective, see my blog: http://pantagruel2.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Cliff on June 4, 2004 10:00 AMCliff, that's a very interesting way of putting it -- "take care of the fixed rail needs of the downtown core." As in, "I need a fix" and you drop in on a bar for a martini. Actually, if you go down in the Bus Tunnel right today, you will see rails embedded in the Tunnel floor. There you go; there is your fix. Or, if you go to the waterfront, under the Viaduct, there are more rails, and a neat old-timey trolley running on them. Another fix. Or check the tunnel portals near King Street Station and behind those new condos on the waterfront. The Burlington Northern / Sounder tracks carrying passenger trains to Everett and Bellingham to give this world class city of Seattle another rail fix.
Meanwhile, what's really world class about Seattle is the network of express bus routes that provide more coverage and better transit service than any light rail system in America. The 2000 Census revealed that our transit commuter market share is higher than in any of Seattle's light rail competitors such as Portland, Denver, and Dallas. Transit market share actually grew during the 1990s in Seattle.
The installers in the late 1980s forgot to insulate those rails in the Bus Tunnel, so they are no good for electric light rail. Light rail has always been the long-run mode intent for the Bus Tunnel, starting back in the days when nobody knew about the clean, quiet hybrid diesel-electric buses that Metro is buying now. But rather than taking the rail insulation installation screw up as a sign from heaven, light rail plows ahead. To get the rails right, officials will shut down the Bus Tunnel for two years, and fix up our rail fix with a $3 billion dollar train to Tukwila. The monorail comes later, and a new train station on the deeper underground Burlington Northern tracks is envisioned by some to be built after that.
The fix goes on.
Posted by: John Niles on June 5, 2004 08:42 AM