Amazon and Expedia “Connectors”

Danny Westneat's June 26^th column, “Troubling Truth about our Parking Garages” laments the added Expedia parking and the 12,000 stalls added in South Lake Union.  That, “The transit through the Amazon Jungle is terrible for a growing city”. One proposed solution, congestion tolling, was rejected in an April 18^th Seattle Times editorial concluding tolling city streets or implementing a congestion charge downtown would do little to curb automobile usage. 

Westneat’s solution, “Seattle desperately needs more mass transit faster, to give better alternatives to all this driving, …. forcing this change sooner by turning some car lanes over to true mass transit, such as buses or light rail”.  However, Seattle street congestion is only a part of the problem.  Many if not most commuters have already likely endured long delays on I-5 and I-90 before ever reaching Seattle.  

Clearly reducing their commute times requires reducing congestion on those routes.  Yet a June 26, 2017 Times article admits light rail will never be the answer.

Sound Transit 3’s light-rail system, as it expands over the next 25 years, will do little to ease I-5 traffic

Sound Transit’s confiscation of I-90 Bridge center roadway for East Link’s limited capacity will also increase, not decrease, cross-lake congestion.  Sound Transit and King County Metro recent plans to halve current bus service when East Link begins operation will increase congestion along the entire I-90 corridor. 

What’s needed both on the routes into Seattle and in Seattle is a viable alternative to driving alone or in carpools. Yet Sound Transit has refused to increase transit bus revenue hours for the last ten years and its 2019 long-term budget precludes any increases for the next 20 years. 

Earlier posts have detailed how additional local bus routes from near where commuters live to T/Cs with express bus routes into stations on an elongated T/C on 4^th Ave would reduce congestion along the entire route.  One option for Expedia and Amazon would be to implement their own transit systems for employees or contract with private charter companies for their employees and other South Lake Union employers.

For years Microsoft “Connector” has been providing transit for some of their employees to their Redmond campus.  However their ridership pales in comparison to the 34,000 Apple, Goggle, and Facebook employees using shuttles in Silicon Valley.

Some combination of vans and buses could be routed to near where employees live or to existing T/Cs with parking spots reserved for employees or new dedicated T/Cs.  (New T/C parking would presumably cost far less outside Seattle). The buses and vans could be equipped with WiFi to make better use of commute time.  it's something that could be in operation in months rather than years. 

Again, lacking any Sound Transit increased bus service, Expedia and Amazon “Connectors” are the only alternative to increasing congestion.