Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Transportation
Public transportation in Seattle is behind the time. In many majior cities accross our nation there is a good public transportation system in place. Large cities like New York have the elevated rail systems and subways. Chicago has elevated rails. There are also light rails. What do we have? Yes, we all have buses, and taxi cabs. There are bike lanes. Our city recently got a new elevated rail running from Seatac to the train station, and we do have a few trains like AmTrac going up and down the coast connecting us to other big cities. Has anyone seen the news lately about the trains? Lets just say mudslide. With all of the rain in this area we get a lot of flooding and mudslides. Some of these mudslides block the path for the train or take out the tracks. This has left a lot of people stranded or very late to where they are going. But, lets get back to around the city. It is easy enough to get around the city on a bus. I should know, I take them a lot. The thing about buses though, is that they are still traffic bound and with our city having so many hills it has great drawbacks to when it snows/ices over. If the road freezes the bus can't go its normal route which causes a lot of suffering for the public commuter. I could only imagine having a train that connected all of the parts of the city. No traffic, just going over all of that stuff. How much traffic would lighten up would be amazing. Not to meantion the cause of less pollution in the air. I thought I was in a hippie green state here. Where are all the elevated trains or subways for that matter (if you wanted to keep the butification factor)? I think this is one more form of rust as it applies to our public transit system. I think it's about time to work on some elevated trains or subways instead of roadways with my cigarette taxes. Anyone else?
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So do you really think it's overall that bad here? I have been to many cities and I've got to say Seattle has a much better transit system than most cities. Granted, it's not better than Washington DC, or New York City. However, almost every place I've lived has a worse Metro system. The big problem is that we keep cutting more money away from our transit system, and we keep raising the prices to utilize the system. Right now, it actually cost me less to drive my car places than it does to take transit. But and it's a bigger issue than just transit then. Right? I mean, nobody's willing to pay state taxes here, and much of the money that we selected in taxes, such as cigarette taxes, gets diverted to other programs. So I think the problem becomes a holistic problem with our system rather than a specific problem with just the transit system. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteYes it makes perfect sence. You hit the nail on the head. It is definately more than just a transit problem. I do think I can get around Seattle pretty good so I don't have a problem with it, but I have placed myself in the city so that it is possible for me to do so. There are areas where it would be very difficult. I come from Green Bay, WI and there city public transit is almost non-existant. They have like 2 buses for the whole city. So Seattle is great to me, but I think it could be better.
ReplyDeleteI don't take public transit because it is very inconvenient for me ( i live in west seattle and work on queen anne so that means having to take two buses, AND I live in a cul-de-sac at the bottom of a big steep hill) but I did take the bus when I worked in Pioneer Square 10 years ago at an architecture firm. That was not too bad!
ReplyDeleteOne of my friends told me that we have one of the highest DUI's per capita in this area because of limitations of our transit system. I don't know much about that statistic but I think there could be improvements - but where do we get the funding, like Dr. McCarthy said - so I guess it's okay for now - it's not exactly "broke" but it needs a bit of fixin'!
We had our chance with the monorail, but for some reason people hate tax hikes! I stopped driving to school in favor of the metro and light rail and for the most part it's great! It's cheap and arrives every 15 minutes. However when there is traffic congestion taking the bus is death sentence, it's not exactly the most comfortable environment to hangout in.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to convince tax payers that it's worth it in the long run to develop a well rounded transportation system that dosent crowd the streets and splash pedestrians!