Re: Buses vs Trains Debate
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:22 am
Oh ho! Sir, the thing you are in want of is a funeral, I shall see that you shall have it! I learned how to deal with bounders like you in the Army. Err, whose dawn - yours or mine?monotonehell wrote:You offend my honour, Sir! Pistols at dawn, corner of 3rd and Blaine - on Queen Anne! (and only you and she will know what I mean by thatPrince George wrote:Maybe so, but some discussions end in deciding on a venue and choice of weapons. So many lives wasted in the name of honour *sigh*.)
It may be more appropriate to convene at Terry & Valley in South Lake Union: that would be on the new trolley lines. It's almost laughably short (that honour goes to the monorail, which actually is laughably short) and attracts the anti-transit crowd who get to say "look at all the money that was spent on this and it doesn't go anywhere". But the residents in South Lake Union and Eastlake actually paid extra for it, and are starting to see their house values increase in the face of the slowdown.
(Further off topic, we could both be waiting at the corner of 3rd and Blaine on Queen Anne and not meet each other. Blaine crosses both 3rd Av N and 3rd Av W. Ah, grid naming - it makes more sense when you're over here than it does looking at the map)
I am in complete agreement that different systems service different land patterns. And that is what makes me sick to see this talk of TODs, of infrastructure upgrades, and of sustainability coming from a state government that then also releases land for several thousand houses in remote greenbelt locations. Deeds not words, Rann & Foley.
Good sir FBI investigator, I assure you this red I wear is only the Royal Ermine. And it's only coincidence that my name is the same as the King that prompted the revolutionary war.monotonehell wrote: <snip bike story>
That's a very encouraging anecdote there. But why do you have to bike to a station to catch a bus? Shouldn't the bus come to you? Otherwise it should be a train.
Why do I go to a station to catch a bus? Remember, this is America. The bus from my house only takes me as far as the interchange. The metro area is cut in two by Lake Washington, which is only crossed in two places - by the SR-520 and the I-90 floating bridges. Yes, these bridges float on concrete pontoons. I believe that the 520 bridge is the longest floating bridge in the world. So that's a massive bottleneck for the cross city traffic. At the start of the 520 bridge the buses have their last stop on the west-side - that combination of bus-stops is called the "Montlake / SR-520 freeway station".
The bus that I catch there (the 545) is about as close as this area has to bus-rapid-transit, but only because they try to run frequent services on it. It has none of the advantages that the O-Bahn has as it has to travel on shared roads. There isn't even a HOV lane on the bridge (there is on I-90). And in this ballot someone put forth a motion to allow single-occupant cars to drive in the carpool lane during non-peak hours, the first step in simply doing away with them.
Now, if Prop 1 (Mass Transit Now!) is passed, they will end up with quite a smorgasbord of items in their transit:
- Intercity heavy rail
- Light rail within the Seattle metro area
- Trolley lines in some neighbourhoods
- Express buses
- Local buses (not shown on that map)
Even a Google search reveals very little. 
Need to dig some more.