Seattle Times “Traffic Lab” Incompetence

I’m back from a two-week hiatus for travel, what I consider the “spice of life”; in this case a tour of “America’s Great National Parks”.  What I initially thought of as another “bucket list” item far surpassed my expectations.  It also was a two week break from watching any news, reading any emails, or doing anything regarding this blog.  When I returned the last paper prior to my stopping delivery prompted the following post.

Seattle Times “Traffic Lab” Incompetence

The August 10^th Seattle Times headline “Daily parking fees reduce solo car commuting” typifies their incompetence in dealing with the congestion on the roadways leading into the city.    For a paper that prides itself as the “Winner of 10 Pulitzer Prices” they’re totally oblivious to the Sound Transit “Prop 1 and Beyond” light rail extension debacle.

It’s something I first experienced in 2012 when I filed as a candidate for 48^th District Representative.  My “candidates interview" was “cut short” because they showed absolutely no interest in my concerns that Sound Transit’s claims for the benefits of confiscating the I-90 bridge center roadway for light rail were sheer fantasy. 

Since then I’ve referred them to hundreds of blog posts concerning the stupidity of spending billions devastating the route into Bellevue and inevitably grid locking bridge outer roadways.  All for light rail that will forever limit the capacity of the center bridge roadway to about 50 buses an hour, a fraction of the transit capacity needed to attract the ridership to reduce I-90 bridge congestion.  The vast majority of  I-90 commuters won’t even have access to East Link leaving them the choice between paying very high HOT fees on HOV lanes or facing gridlock on GP lanes. 

The posts have all been ignored as have attempts in subsequent “candidate interviews” to raise concerns not only about East Link but the stupidity of spending billions extending light rail routed through the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel to Lynnwood and beyond in the North and to Federal Way and beyond in the South.  The extensions will do absolutely nothing to increase transit capacity into Seattle.  Any riders attracted will only reduce light rail access at stations nearer Seattle.  The increased operating costs with the longer routes without increasing capacity will either necessitate a huge increase in fares over what bus riders are currently paying or a huge increase in subsidies to cover the shortfall. 

None of the extensions would have been possible without the Times support.  They were a primary sponsor of the legislation enabling ST3.  They allowed Sound Transit to ignore demands they consider added bus service as an alternative to light rail.  They allowed them to claim ST3 extension riderships that were more than 10 times current transit ridership.  They continue to support spending $54 billion on ST3 extensions despite conceding they will do little to reduce congestion.  They refused to raise concerns about Sound Transit’s blatant mendacity regarding car tab taxes.  

The “Traffic Lab” article is another example of the Times “not seeing the forest for the trees”.  The claim paying daily fees reduces solo car commuting seems a lot like their claim forcing drivers to pay tolls reduces congestion.  They support their conclusion showing the percentage of commuters at big companies in King County including Seattle, who drove alone to work, declined from 57.3% to 51.1% from 2008 to 2016. 

They neglect to show how the percentage of “drive alone commuters” from outside Seattle has changed with “daily fares”.   A PSRC “Stuck in Traffic: 2015 Report” did conclude drive-alone commuters were 73.6% of all King County commuters in 2013, a small decrease from 74.4% in 2010 though that may have preceded any fare change.  

However it’s “doubtful” the more than 70% of county commuters choice to "drive alone" is affected by whether they pay daily or monthly parking fees.  The reason they continue to endure the long delays in the PSRC "Stuck in Traffic" report is, “They don’t have any choice”! 

  

These are the commuters Sound Transit was supposedly created to serve.  Yet all of the P&R lots with access to the area’s major roadways have been filled for years. Even with ST3, Sound Transit waits until 2024 to begin spending $698 million on a measly 8560 parking spaces by 2041.  Consistent with their approach to parking, they haven’t significantly increased bus service for years.  That’s what a “Pulitzer Prize” winning paper would expose. 

Instead they have a “Traffic Lab” that either fails to recognize or simply ignores the stupidity of spending countless billions on light rail extensions that will do nothing to reduce congestion.  The fact that the Times "Traffic Lab", which supposedly "digs into the region's thorny transportation issues" seems oblivious to the reality of Sound Transit's light rail spine reflects either incompetence or worse.  The real tragedy is the billions wasted constructing the spine along with the huge operating subsidies the extensions will require will make it far more difficult to fund the added highway lanes needed to address the area's current and future congestion.

Needless to say, if they ever give me a "candidate interview" (so far they've ignored my candidacy despite the fact I received nearly 50,000 votes)  I don't expect a favorable result!