The previous post opined Mayor
Durkan urging commuters not to drive alone into the city or to ask the city for
help in planning their trip was “unlikely” to reduce congestion. Two Traffic Lab articles in the Feb 3rd
Seattle Times show they also don’t recognize either the problem or the
solution.
The front-page article “How the
Highway 99 tunnel might shake up your routine” includes the WSDOT justification
for the tunnel, “the reason for this project was to get the viaduct down before
it killed somebody”. It’s not
clear how much reinforcement the viaduct would have needed beyond what was done
to enable it to withstand boring the tunnel. Maybe that’s why the
U.S Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) in 2014 concluded the $3.1 Seattle tunnel project had earned a dubious new
distinction atop the list of 11 "highway boondoggles" that shouldn't
be built.
The article “implies” not many
will be affected since “half of downtown workers use transit and only
one-fourth drive alone”. However a PSRC, May 8th, “Stuck in Traffic: 2015 Report”
included “pie charts” depicting “Commute Mode Share” for 2010 and 2013. That between the three years, the
number of commuters who used transit increased from 8.6% to 9.8%, while the
number of commuters who drove alone dropped from 74.4% to 73.6%.
It’s “unlikely” those numbers or “how
people experience congestion has fundamentally changed” since then. Especially since the Traffic Lab article
also reported, “Everett to the north now endures the nation’s worst highway
delays”.
The second Traffic Lab article
“Altered routes could become routine” continues in the same vein thanking those
for the adjustments they’ve made” while the tunnel was closed, and urging they
“keep doing them”. Even tunnel
proponents recognize many commuters who previously used one of three lanes on
the viaduct to exit in downtown Seattle will now be "reluctant" to use one of two
lanes through the tunnel to exit on an onramp to Republican St, “J-hook” back
to downtown, and pay a toll to do so.
Clearly the decision to use the
tunnel to replace the viaduct rather than to supplement it with additional
lanes under the city was a major blunder. As a result congestion on I-5 into the city from Federal Way
will surely raise its rankings as one of the most congested in the
country.
Yet the Traffic Lab refuses to
acknowledge the billions spent on light rail extension to Federal Way, like
those spent on extensions to Lynnwood and beyond, will do absolutely nothing to
reduce the congestion. That any riders added by the extensions will simply
reduce access for current riders. The only way to reduce congestion is to increase the number
of commuters able to use public transit.
Yet Traffic Lab continues to abide
Sound Transit light rail extensions and CEO Rogoff’s plans to continue their
decade-long refusal to increase bus revenue hours at least until 2041. Sound Transit needs to be “persuaded”
to increase transit capacity with hundreds of additional bus routes into the
city from both Everett and Federal Way. That they need to provide commuters
access to the bus routes with added parking or local bus routes from near where
they live to T/Cs with the buses.
The added bus routes could be
facilitated with an HOT lane with fees set to limit non-transit vehicles to
where the total is less than the 2000 vehicles per hour required to assure 45
mph. (Until HOT was implemented the HOV lanes could be restricted to +3 HOV during peak commute.) That egress and access in
Seattle for each route could be expedited with one or two designated drop-off and pickup locations
on an elongated bus-only T/C on 4th Ave.
Instead Traffic Lab continues to
abide Sound Transit plans to spend 86% of their $2.4 billion 2019 budget on
light rail extensions. That the more than $2 billion is only a down payment on Rogoff’s plans to spend $96 billion on
what he proudly calls “the most ambitious transit system expansion in the
country”. Neither he nor apparently Traffic Lab recognize his transit system expansion will do nothing to increase transit capacity into the city. That the only thing the transit system expansion does is increase the operating costs creating a "black hole" for the area's future transportation funds.
Again, the two Traffic Lab articles urging commuters to change their commutes into Seattle while abiding Rogoff plans to continue
extending light rail rather than expanding bus transit clearly show they don’t get it!
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