Seattle should look to a city like Vienna or Prague. The transportation systems are surprisingly well engineered but that might be due to the fact that a larger part of the population takes it.
That said, I think we are getting there. I'm somewhat confident that the current problems are the spike.
But long-term the maintenance is significantly higher, as you need to replace the road surface very frequently.
A usual bus stop, or a BRT lane, has to be replaced every 6 months if it’s asphalt, and every 18 to 24 months if it’s cobblestone. That’s a significant expense.
While you can build and use light rail for decades.
Concrete with asphalt on top of it has the issue of the asphalt having to be replaced frequently.
I’m not sure if US interstates with concrete are different, but these were the only options discussed here in Germany.
They have special rights of way
a well documented effect
However, there is an induced demand effect where because there are less cars, more people will drive. So in effect an extra lane appears, empty of the people riding the bus.
And the required infrastructure for light rail creates more demand for development along the line, as the rail itself signals more permanence to developers: they do not worry about it moving in a decade, like a bus route could.
As for demand never changing... well, everything changes.
Source: Personal anecdata from living in an area where local government has been pushing more and more light rail development hard, in spite of never actually delivering any of the promised benefits to traffic congestion, ridership levels, community or business development.
I assume this only happens in places where the roads are overloaded though
Actually... Can you name a few places in a metro area that didn't experience such a boom after a transit stop was introduced? In the bay area even? I feel like I have only ever seen examples of it being good for retail, restaurants, home values.
a metro area that didn't experience such a boom
Take a ride from the Seattle airport to downtown on the light rail sometime, then. You will see a lot of nice looking apartments that didn't used to be there. And you will see some less nice neighborhoods interspersed.
As soon as it actually opened, neighborhoods that could use it suddenly got a lot more desirable (read: expensive).
I think you mean "which Kirkland is bound and determined to ensure never carries trains ever again."
There's a reason why "South Kirkland Station" is actually in Bellevue and the Kirkland City Council is it.
They never specify what type of transit. Amazing that.
In all the articles in the Seattle Times about light rail, the Sound Transit public relations materials, etc., the Eastside Rail Corridor is never, ever, mentioned. How is it that Kirkland has managed a conspiracy of silence about it?
The city council there has been opposed to rail on the ERC ever since Sound Transit 3 was a gleam in the eye. They've wanted BRT, over Sound Transit's objections, because they deem it more compatible with trail uses and not taking up as much space in the corridor. (And able to be located on the eastern edge of the corridor, preserving views to the west. So, yet again, needed infrastructure takes a back seat to scenery.)
Some links:
https://seattletransitblog.com/2015/11/16/kirklands-brt-desi...
https://seattletransitblog.com/2016/03/12/kirkland-st-strugg...
As for ridership, all you have to do is drive that route on 405 during rush hour, which is all day. Downtown Kirkland is gridlocked during rush hour.
There isn't even a consistent scheme to the roads up there, they just deadend, with SR-522 being the only arterial (which is totally wrecked 7 hours a day!). Nevermind the shit many of the people that went to school up there had to deal with, makes Seattle Public Schools look reasonable when compared to the shenanigans administrators at those north end schools would play on many of the students they were supposed to be helping.
I hope for those trapped in that area that things get better, but it seems like so many of the newer neighbors in my area are flooding out of the communities on the north end of the lake.
The big issue with the Cheap Trains of busses is the lack of commitment that is otherwise nice for transit authorities is not an advantage for real estate. BRT just doesn't indicate commitment to the route enough to really boost property. This is why even though tram lines are basically just busses that can't get out of the way they have a much more marked effect on real estate and neighborhood development.
The manned stations are not a distinct factor, by the way. Tram stations are usually not manned either.
Setting up dedicated lanes and then running a bus on them is just a waste.
What we can do is steal some of Portland's better ideas, and put up a green wall on either side of the tracks with shrubbery, bollards at every grey crossing (and gates on the pedestrian crossings) to separate the tracks cost effectively.
We can keep the body count low and trains timely, if we change minor things to effectively separate the rail from other modes of transit.
1 - http://www.king5.com/news/local/suv-crashes-into-sound-trans...
For instance, here there are a couple of bus routes which do every 6 minutes or so at peak times; each bus takes 80 people. However, the tram lines run every 4 minutes at peak times; each tram takes 360 people.
+1 on this. The Vienna transit system is so fantastic that I was able to get around the entire city without even speaking German. I remember one day I was riding the U-Bahn with a local friend and asked him what it was like during rush hour. He said, "this is rush hour". There was still plenty of space for people in all wagons. Simply amazing.
- Downtown's financial district and retail core, with the jail, hospitals, churches, and other services (like the methodone clinic and drunk tank) on First Hill.
- Capitol Hill's "crazy night life".
- Queen Anne Hill with normal-ish people.
- Magnolia's rich separation.
- Ballard the Scandinavian fishing village.
- Fremont and Wallingford - the artist and hippie communes, the University District, and Ravenna.
- The International District and The Jungle.
- Beacon Hill and Rainier Beach, where the action happens day or night.
- SoDo (Southern Downtown)'s industrial core.
- Lake City feels like the "northern SODO".
- West Seattle feeling closer to Seatac than Seattle.
So many people finish work around the same times that you get this massive spike of people on the hour, and then it's dead quiet once that on-hour spike has been fulfilled. You don't want to be trying to get on the 545 at 5pm or 6pm. Shift your leaving time so you're at the bus stop 10-15 minutes earlier and it's a whole other story. Although I no longer do the 545 any more, for that, and for my current route I switched to arriving early in the office and leaving 4:30ish. I'm almost always guaranteed to get a seat and have less rush hour traffic slowing down my return home.
One thing that the city could do to help, and has helped elsewhere, is to encourage city businesses to shift their starting and finishing hours, especially those businesses that are a bit more regimented. This spreads out the peak over a bigger period of time and allows both more overall flow and less disruption.
MT 550 running 6 buses an hour felt the same in 2016 - packed in like a mosh pit during rush hour. That's when I gave in and bought a truck, and dealt with parking 6 blocks away instead of hiking 9 blocks down Cherry (and past the perpetual tent city) to the tunnel.
It's because it's a reverse commute, and so while everyone is trying to get into the city I'm trying to get out. The bus would be pretty good if I lived south of Northgate and worked in the city.
On the other hand it's very efficient for getting in to the city, as I can hop on a single bus and be in Green Lake or the U district in about 15 minutes, and it's another 10 to cross the canal.
Some good reading:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action#Collective...
After driving for 6 months, I moved across the street from my workplace (literally). Since then, I've moved onto another job in Redmond, which is just 15 minutes down 520. And the traffic on that part of 520 is so good that half of the drivers go 70 until they reach Microsoft.
When I worked downtown in SF, the options were clear. Take transit or deal with ridiculous traffic and costs of close to $600 a month.
Now that work south of SF, I can either take the company shuttle, which takes 40 min and if I miss it, I have to wait another hour. Or, drive my car which takes 20 min and I can arrive/leave whenever I please. Easy decision.
You can't fault people for making a rational choice.
For people who can make full use of their time on the shuttle, driving is a 20-minute loss of productivity each way.
The value-math works differently for different people.
If it's anything like the commuter buses, you can try to open your laptop on your lap with no elbow room, but the bus bounces too much to focus on what you're coding/reading. What you wind up doing is "work theater" where you appear to be working but aren't productive.
And that's if you can get a seat on the bus. For bus companies to make money, they have to pack in commuters like a mosh pit. And you're trapped there; a literal prisoner of the bus. Will the shuttle pull over if you need to step out for a moment?
The commuter routes subsidize all of the mostly-empty city buses that less-able people ride. (These are people who won't/can't walk/drive 6 blocks to the store.)
In my area, public transit is something that people who don't use it themselves love to criticize others for not using, either.
It's little used specifically because it is badly planned and operated with an eye toward political positioning, not serving would-be passengers.
Guess what, the moment this nonsense becomes indefensible or plain too expensive is when that train or bus suddenly starts working and running on time.
Please, regail us with tales of your bus ridership.
Do you enjoy being squished between people, unable to move? Do you like to "accidentally touch" people on the bus? Or do you get on the bus early and "silently judge" the people who have to stand? Do you pretend to read or work during the ride? (The bus bounces around too much to do any actual work, and that's if you can get a seat.) Or are you one of those annoying people that won't stop talking about Tuscany?
Have you been on a bus when it's had to pull over on the freeway, and turn itself off and on again, to "reboot the bus"? Ever wonder what state the bus has entered that it needs a reboot? What is the driver seeing, or not seeing? How many screens went blank and controls stopped working at highway speeds?
That said, crowded is as much a by product of the crowd. Easiest way to avoid that is to adjust your times.