A package of transit and road projects for the Seattle area is nearly ready for this November’s ballot. It deserves support because it’s the best compromise.
The plan approved last week extends light rail beyond the starter lines currently underway. It also fixes several road bottlenecks that would make bus transit more workable (such as along 520 and 167). True, it would expand 405 perhaps too much, but it also has money to study how to incorporate the Eastside rail corridor into the future transportation network.
The package is barely ready but there’s already plenty of opposition. One viewpoint says I should vote against any project that doesn’t directly improve my commute. Maybe the standard of living will deterioriate so much that people will stop coming here?
I’d argue that that point is still far in the future because, even if it deteriorates, the Puget Sound will remain a better place to live than other big cities. Instead, we should invest in transportation projects that are finally beginning to be paired with development planning. It’s not enough, but it’s a start to capturing the benefits of more people and economic activity without destroying this place.
Financing for this transit-and-roads package remains an issue, but not in the way this Seattle Times article frames it. The true cost isn’t the debt to pay for the projects, which may still be less than perfect. It’s the crippling cost of — yet again — doing nothing.
Comments
One response to “The case for transit and roads”
Brad:
I appreciate that government and taxpayers needs to step up to the regional traffic challenge. I don’t agree with you that Roads & Transit is “the best compromise.” Compromise between what and what?
The majority of dollars in the plan, around 65%, pays for a light rail system that will provide several hundred thousand people per day with a fast ride in 2030. Problem is, the regional trip volume then will be in the range of 16 to 20 million trips per day. Do the math.
On behalf of Coalition for Effective Transportation Alternatives (CETA), I am in the process of analyzing the official quantitative justifications offered for the 20-year, $38 billion Roads & Transit plan on the ballot in November. Results are being posted at http://www.roadsandtransitfactual.info .
The transportation performance of this plan is a poster for the inadequate regional transportation governance described by the Rice-Stanton Commission, which you reported on in Cascadia Report last November.
Here is the story as revealed by the Washington State DOTs computer modeling: Between 2006 and 2028 with full implementation of Roads & Transit, afternoon traffic delay overall would increase by 79%. Without Roads & Transit, afternoon traffic delay overall would increase by 118%. These results are with reference to 2006. The comparison between the two scenarios for 2028 computes out that Roads & Transit implementation lets afternoon traffic delay be 18% less bad.
If you think this is enough improvement for $38 billion, go ahead and vote for it. If you think a better plan is possible, nay necessary, then you may want to hold out for more results, sooner, especially from the transit component.
The benefit-cost analysis for light rail cooked up by Sound Transit and its main construction consultant Parsons Brinckerhoff (and forced on Sound Transit by a mandate from the Puget Sound Regional Council) has all sorts of problems and limitations in its execution, but even if you accept as valid this official attempt to paint the pig as pretty, you can see that a positive return on investment does not occur until the mid 2030s, which is not my idea of a solid business case for spending billions and billions.
There are ways to spend less money and get quicker, more beneficial results. Transit Now from King County Metro shows much better performance numbers, and will be ready sooner. It could be accelerated for much less than the $24 billion Sound Transit chunk of Roads & Transit.
Are transportation agencies doing nothing in the meantime? I don’t think so. Consider that WSDOT is working flat out for the next several years to spend the last two gas tax hikes. King County is implementing Transit Now and Community Transit is implementing Swift BRT on Aurora. We gave City of Seattle a tax hike last fall for transportation. Sound Transit is fully funded (they claim) to build light rail from Husky Stadium to the Airport. We can implement governance reform over the next couple of years and develop a regional roads and transit upgrade plan that has a bigger impact than letting traffic congestion grow 79% instead of 118%.
Thanks for your good work.