Introducing Seattle Traffic
I would like to take an opportunity to introduce my newest blog, Seattle Traffic. I have "quietly" added a link on the sidebar under "Sibling Sites", but I thought it would be worth mentioning in a post all its own. Seattle Traffic is an idea that I had been tossing around for a few months now, and I finally made the time to get it off the ground last weekend. The format is pretty much the same as this blog, but I'll be focusing on a different important local topic—traffic, parking, transit, and other related things.
Since I'm now running two blogs whose purposes are to highlight two big problems in Seattle, some may get the impression that I am not fond of this area. Nothing could be further from the truth. My purpose in running both Seattle Bubble and Seattle Traffic is to bring people together to work toward solutions to two of Seattle's biggest problems. I'm even already mulling the idea of making a Seattle blog trinity by adding a third blog dedicated to all the Awesome things about Seattle...
We'll wait and see how well I can handle just two blogs first, though.
22 comments:
This is just a generic statement for Seattle Traffic.
I am always against road improvements, because I believe they INCREASE congestion. I'm all for fixing dangerous intersections, potholes, and structural repairs, but I am always against increasing capacity.
Why?
If you build it, they will come.
No matter what, there is a "market" value to sitting in traffic. If there is too much traffic, people will not build new developments. If you reduce their commute hassle, they will build until the hassle returns.
Put another way...you can sit in 2 lanes of traffic now, or 5 lanes of traffic in 5 years. I'll take the 2 lanes, thankyou very much.
Example:
I grew up in Kitsap County, and my grandparents lived in Tacoma. In the early '80s (prior to the 6th ave bypass), when you crossed the Tacoma Narrows, you had to exit at 6th Ave. and make your way to Hwy 16. It took 5 minutes on a bad day, and if you hit every light.
We couldn't have that, so we got the 6th Ave bypass.
Now, the same commute takes 60-90 minutes, and Western Pierce County (Gig Harbor) is a yuppie slum. Less congestion = more homes = more cars = more traffic = more congestion = more taxes. Lather, rinse, repeat...
Undeterred by history, we now have a second bridge going in. Now, you can drive from Port Orchard to Tacoma (so they think). Once South Kitsap becomes a poor man's Gig Harbor, you will have an epic traffic jam. Tacoma still has to accept all the cars (don't ask me how).
If you had a floating bridge from Seattle to Bainbridge, Bainbridge would look like Mercer Island. Put an 8 lane highway all the way from Seattle to Sequim, and you will have a mess that looks like the SF East Bay.
No, voting down traffic improvements is actually the best way to keep traffic sane.
It's counter-intuitive.
Bill,
I am so glad we agree on something. I'll have to look over my posts to see where we disagree.
The other way to limit sprawl is to make existing housing cheaper than new construction. If builders can't build for a profit, they won't.
10% interest rates should do it.
13% would be better.
More roads reduces congestion. People don't want to believe it but it isn't a matter of debate in professional transportation circles. Congestion is caused by poor urban planning, nothing else. We know how to control traffic but urban planners refuse to accomodate autos for reasons of would be social engineering hubris.
Congestion is caused by too many people. Roads enable people to reduce their costs to develop a new area.
Urban planners blame traffic planners; traffic planners blame urban planners.
Bottom line: build it and they will come.
I've got $100 that says the Tacoma Narrows will be worse in 10 years than it is today. If the new bridge was left unfinished, for some reason, growth on the Key Peninsula/S. Kitsap area would be almost nil.
The other question is: Do we want to look like NY and SF? I know many of the new residents are from there, but if they moved away from the urban chaos, why build it here?
Congestion is not caused by too many people. Any number of people can be accomodated by a primarilly roads based transportation system.
It is urban planners alone responsible for any failures.
Build it and they will come is uban planner talk for the discredited theory of induced demand.
Transit causes congestion, transit is the brainchild of urban planners.
Oh, what the heck, I'll bite: how does transit cause congestion?
Sourmash-
Aren't you the brave one!
R. Cote has written all over the blogs that suburbia is good and urban life/mass transit wastes energy, etc.
He has never been able to explain, however how this is possible.
I guess if Manhattan ever loses it's great mass/rapid transit system and all those subway riders are forced to buy cars to get around the island, we'll find out if his assertions are true.
Transit causes congestion because it is so expensive it draws transportation money away from congestion solutions.
In the US transit is subsidized some 75% and achieves some 2.5% market share. Roads based private transport is taxed at approximately 100% of enumerable costs. Despite this transit use continues to decline. Europe has something like 50% subsidies for transit and 200% taxes on private transportation and transit use continues to decline. The problem is simple, transit is expensive. No need to look further for hidden issues. It is wholly anti-sustainable to promote transit. Wealth consumes resources and transit subsidies consume wealth. It really is that simple.
Transit causes congestion because it is so expensive it draws transportation money away from congestion solutions.
Heh. That's cute.
I presume you also believe organ transplants cause diabetes?
What do young professionals in Seattle feel about all the vendors hawking Real Change on every other corner? I sometimes am one of the vendors, and am curious of people's thoughts. I am at the public library and cannot bookmark this; any comments I'd appreciate you also email to me: jay.maass@hotmail.com
Regards,
Jay Maass
Rather than cutesie and deliberately condescending off topic non sequiturs anyone interested in the actual data and results is welcome to provide an example where there is transit and no congestion. A single example would be enough.
Another good data point is anyplace in the US where transit users pay anywhere close to the costs of the services they consume.
Bill,
If people are stretched to meet today's mortgage, with historic, government manipulated, low interest rates, and no money down, how are they going to afford the house when interest rates are much higher, and lending standards have washed out half of the buyers?
The only way to do that is with much lower prices.
People who bought the NAZ at 5100 were certainly not going to sell below 1000, but they did (or someone in the chain did).
The NAZ didn't have criminal lending standards and 125% margin.
Housing does.
Cheers,
E
Yes, 20 cents on the dollar would put us in a severe depression.
That is my point.
I will give Cote' a thumbs up on how mass transit sucks, and adds to the problem.
Mass transit brings the 'burbs closer to the city (which entices people to move out even more, and take advantage of the transit system. Without the ferry, Bainbridge Island and Poulsbo would be nothing but Rednecks, meth labs, and chicken coops (think Belfair). The ferry and Agate Pass bridge allow people to live in the NK/BI area and work in Seattle. Without it, urban workers would have to live in Bellevue or MI.
Mass transit also has another effect: it brings the city to us. In the San Francisco area, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) connects Oakland, & SF to Contra Costa. While it is nice to get dropped off at the Walnut Creek kiss-n-ride so you can work in the Embarcadero, it also allows the urban crime corps to peddle their wares in the 'burbs.
Logical fallacy: Begging the Question.
BOB: Transit does not work.
ED: How do you know?
BOB: Because there is congestion in cities with transit.
ED: But how do you know that improving their transit systems won't reduce congestion?
BOB: Because transit does not work.
See also: Fallacy of False Dilemma, Fallacy of Questionable Cause.
I claim transit does not work in the US because every attempt to revive it from its 90 year slide in transportation share has failed. That's not some wild eyed "transit is bad" kind of claim. It is well doucumented and a tacit recognition that transit is slow and expensive. It has always been slow and expensive. Transit has held still while other modes have made tremendous advances. Not just autos but pipelines, cargo rail, ports, everything except passenger transit.
This is about the time we start hearing about the NCL conspiracy and such. I'm all for anything anyone wants to try. Let's just keep it on the facts and not on these personal attacks. I've asked several what should be easy questions. Why can no one answer? Oh, and I've also processed and cross indexed near every transit agency in the nation. If anyone is interested I can provide them with the true costs of their transit useage so that they can move to the high moral ground by paying the true costs of their trips.
I'll start paying the true costs of Transit when autos start paying their true costs, including roads, oil, environmental degradation, and medical costs.
Autos already pay their way. It is just a matter of unsupportable faith among transit supporter that they don't. You are thinking about the Sierra Club "True Cost of Gasoline" claims that are roundly dismissed as biased buy transportation professionals.
Fact is transit users are so selfish they refuse to pay even the operating costs of their addiction/hobby.
Notice not a single attempt to answer any questions and yet another attempt to turn the discussion away from the actual failings of transit to the imagined but unreferenced failings of autos. Next up, the false claims of safety differentials. And still no answers to the eay questions and still no civilty in addressing the isssues and not the person.
just for giggles I'll respond to your absurd question. Buffalo has no congestion and it has a subway.
Excellent example. Buffalo has just over 1 million people and 4000 miles of roads. 4 miles per thousand people as these things are measured. Los Angeles? Land of roads? Glad you asked: 2.1 miles per thousand. And Los Angeles? Spends 80% of its transportation budget subsidizing transit. Oh, and Buffalo is 40% as dense as it was in 1950. Los Angeles is 50% denser than in 1950. Are these trends beginning to form a pattern? THese are important trends for Seattle to be aware of.
Can we please stop feeding the troll?
If we ignore him, he'll move on....
Trolls don't provide numbers from the FHWA HM series. Trolls say things like "roads don't pay for themselves." Who is the troll you were thinking of and why?
Bill,
How many California mortgages were originated as I-O or even I-O-N-A last year? How many had income documentation along the lines of "don't ask, don't tell?"
It doesn't take much to crash a market. Why buy the 50% at "market" value, when you can buy in the 50% that is distressed?
I still hold to my 20 cents on the dollar by 2010 prediction. Or the more humorous version, where I take a swipe at RE professionals.
Leverage gets you into a house. It also gets you out of a house.
Bill,
I enjoy your responses.
Your friend may not sell, and continue to make his payment, however, he will not be able to sell and take his equity with him. Many will be in that boat. I think a 15-20% reduction in home prices will just about wipe out any meaningful equity in the housing market. Sometimes, I think a 10% reduction will do it.
Many people will be forced to sell as their loans adjust. They (or their lenders) will not sell at 20 cents, as the market will not have tanked far enough.
HOWEVER...
They will be selling an asset that is declining in price. Two or three owners later, it will have reduced to that amount. If the job market suffers, while inflation rages on, and interest rates skyrocket, people will only be able to afford 20-25% of what it was at the top.
Put another way, most of the housing appreciation in the past two decades is a result of falling interest rates and shodding lending standards. If these trends reverse, expect housing prices to retreat accordingly.
Put another way, if respectable lending standards come back into practice, how many people can afford to put 20% down, if they can't transport equity from another property?
It's not zero, but it's close.
Even in my smug little 'burb, I am wondering how many have even $40K (sans equity from California) to put down on a $200K house? Some do, but not enough to float the entire island, much less the entire PNW. 59% of new homeowners on BI come from out of state (re: California). Take away the 59%, and $75K incomes will not support $700K prices.
Highland Village, Texas (substantially wealthier, all built-out, easier commute, better schools, lower crime, higher education attainment) barely supports $225K homes (much nicer homes than most of BI) on $105K incomes.
Keep your comments coming. You can go to my blog if you don't want to clog up Tim's blog.
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