transportation funds to build and maintain roads...or at least use 90% of those funds.

And to let everyone use HOV lanes. And to take the money away from RANCID TRANSIT for use on roads.

Anybody got any comments?

Is this just stretching it WAAAAAAAAAY to far in telling our great GODS in government how to do the job that they are so obviously ill-equipped to handle?

Or is this 'One small step for man and possibly a giant stride toward self-government????

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), December 15, 1999

Answers

If the new initiative just gets rid of the HOV lanes it will have well served the citizenry. These lanes are a prime example of "social emgineering" substituting for "traffic engineering". I recently heard one of the DOT gurus lauding the HOV lanes, presenting the fact that these lanes carried 42% of the total people (not cars) using the freeways, with the clear inference that eliminating their use for carpools would dump all these people back on the highway as a whole. However, he was guilty of a little misdirection in that assumption - the DOT was obviously assuming that if there were no dedicated HOV lanes, all passengers in those lanes would immediately stop carpooling, and start driving individually. I believe that this is an unwarranted assumption - most carpoolers (and this includes me before I retired) carpool because of the savings in cost and effort, with the presence of HOV lanes merely an added bonus, not the primary factor, and would continue to carpool even without the dedicated lanes. In other words, the DOT's assumption of a relatively huge increase in traffic is a gross misuse of logic, presented to help shore up an increasingly unpopular experiment in social engineering.

BTW, I read in the morning Eastside Journal that our old friend Ruth Fisher is evidently coming out as the primary opponent of the proposed initiative. She was quoted as saying "It's my opinion that we cannot build our way out of this with new freeways, and I think that view is shared by a lot of people. I think this initiative is shortsighted." She also said that "If there are alternatives" - to highways - "it has been shown that people will use them". She did not say where data supporting this could be accessed.

Wasn't she going to retire if I-695 passed? Yeah, right.

-- Albert Fosha (AFosha@aol.com), December 16, 1999.

Ms Fisher is from the district (http://wsl.leg.wa.gov/common/maps/27dist.htm) where they believe it's appropriate to spend $65 million to come up with a 1.6 mile long light rail (http://www.soundtransit.org/wave/fallwave/tacmap.pdf) to run over uncongested roadways between the Tacoma Dome and downtown every 15 minutes to replace a bus (http://www.ptbus.pierce.wa.us/dtcon.htm)that currently runs over uncongested roadways between the Tacoma Dome and downtown every 15 minutes.

This is obviously less about solving a transportation problem than about a public works project to shovel $65 million into the Tacoma downtown community. The alternative assessment is that those doing it are so stupid that they actually believe a $65 million transit system is cheaper than a $350,000 bus.

Why should anyone give her any credibility? If she weren't a liar, she'd have already resigned by now.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 16, 1999.

Where's my pen.....it's around here somewhere.....

Tim & Co. can just keep them coming. I think THIS one has a good chance of passing.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), December 16, 1999.

"Is this just stretching it WAAAAAAAAAY to far in telling our great GODS in government how to do the job that they are so obviously ill- equipped to handle?"

"The mistake a lot of politicians make is forgetting they've been appointed and thinking they've been anointed." Claude Pepper

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), December 16, 1999.

The book I was going to reference in the previous thread is "stuck in traffic". I cannot come up with the author at this minute, but how many books can be titled that? It makes a good comparison between supply side and demand side management, and does back up the "assumption" that commuters will be more likely to use their personal vehicles when there is no advantage or perceived advantage to using mass transit.

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), December 17, 1999.

"that commuters will be more likely to use their personal vehicles when there is no advantage or perceived advantage to using mass transit. " Which for the vast majority of people is always. Even the transit dependent do not regard transit as their mode of choice. Outside the biggest (over 3 million population) urban areas, even people who can't drive get more trips hitching rides in vehicles with their friends who DO drive than they do taking transit.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 17, 1999.

speculation.

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), December 17, 1999.

theman

Did a quick search for you on BN.com (work for one of the stores, not a plug. Okay it is).

Here's the info on the book -

Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion In-Stock: Ships within 24 hours. Anthony Downs / Paperback / Brookings Institution Press / May 1992 Our Price: $16.95

Ed - work info alot

-- Ed (ed_bridges@yahoo.com), December 17, 1999.

"speculation. " Actually no, this is an area that is studied to death. Read some of the previous threads. There are regular transportation surveys done by the USDOT, and these are THEIR findings.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crossswinds.net), December 17, 1999.

craig, the same govt. you love to hate, you also love to quote.

P.S. thanks Ed.

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), December 17, 1999.

"craig, the same govt. you love to hate, you also love to quote. " Heck, I don't HATE the government. I worked for the federal government for over twenty years. I just know the difference between FACTS and wishful thinking. The government doesn't do a bad job of collecting facts, and quite often the facts speak for themselves. If you just listen to the spin doctors, you'll never hear the facts.

If you do not believe the USDOT studies and findings that I am quoting, YOU ought to be campaigning to decrease government funding, not me. I've done some of this research, and you would simply not believe how much some of it can cost. It's worth it if you want to do fact based management, but if it gets squirreled away and I am the only one that ever looks at it, we ought to stop wasting our money.

I realize some (heck, most) of these are pdf files and if you have a 28.8 modem they take forever to download, but that's better than killing more trees and paying for hard copies from the government printing office. And considering what YOU as taxpayers are paying, both for the studies themselves and for the capital and operating expenses that are the subjects of the studies, I really would recommend you read them. You can't consider yourself well informed if you just listen only to the spin doctors on EITHER side of an argument (or on both sides, for that matter, truth is not a big issue with spin doctors). And don't let the experts snow you (I was one, and still am in certain areas), most problems, however big, can be understood by a reasonably intelligent person who takes the time to study them. Common sense takes you a long way. Keeping an open mind until you have the FACTS you need to justify being more dogmatic is also helpful.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 17, 1999.

I know first hand how much our transportation projects cost. I work with this sort of thing every day. On a previous thread, a writer was speculating that there are 6-7 billion projects statewide, try around 20 billion and those are only financially constrained mobility projects. That is not including the projects not listed on the constrained HSS list nor safety, bicycling, HOV, etc.etc.

What I am saying is that this new initiative so spend $ only on construction and maintenance leaves nothing for other essential services, some of which are federally mandated, ie, environmental, long range planning. There is also nothing left for developer agreements, and access management.

I am not wanting the world to be filled with mass transit, only a good mix of sov's, bikes,and peds. This new initiative makes this hard to become reality. if you look in newer topic, I list reasons why I think this initiative will fail.

I am not against 695 in its entirety, i'll be the first to admit that some good things came of it, but why not wait to see what happens. What happens if 695 gets thrown out in court. Could the son of 695 stand on its own? This new initiative sure would have a hard time.

The Man, AICP, PE, MURP, APA

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), December 17, 1999.

"On a previous thread, a writer was speculating that there are 6-7 billion projects statewide, try around 20 billion and those are only financially constrained mobility projects."

Excuse me "theman" but there are about 6 million people in the state. You are attempting to convince us that there are over THREE THOUSAND projects for every man, woman, and child in the state??

Either you've slipped a decimal point here, the planning departments are working billions of projects that will be obsolete before they can ever get funded, or you are hosing us with the numbers. Which is it?

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), December 17, 1999.

no slipping of decimal points here, and even better yet, those figures are in 1997 dollars. If you want to see for yourself, go down to your regional DOT office and ask to see their HSP book. Like I said before, this is no short term solution and building new roads is not the silver bullet.

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), December 18, 1999.

"no slipping of decimal points here, and even better yet, those figures are in 1997 dollars."

ARE YOU TALKING DOLLARS OR PROJECTS? You keep saying 20 billion projects. Do you mean $20 billion worth of projects??

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), December 18, 1999.

yes, and that's just the mobility projects.

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), December 18, 1999.

that's a good estimate, it would take me forever to calculate the cost of every project. And it is important to note that I am adding both the financially constrained and excluded from the constrained list on highways of statewide significance routes only.

What I am trying to get at is that most people have no idea how much it will cost to do all of the work that should be done at some time. Therefore, long range planning and preservation needs to be done; and it can't be done with only 10% of the budget.

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), December 18, 1999.

If you mean dollars, say dollars and not projects. Unless you don't know the difference.....

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), December 18, 1999.

How can I say it more clearly? there are x amount of projects that cost x amount of dollars,(the figure I quoted earlier). is anybody else having trouble understanding this?

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), December 18, 1999.

theman-

RE:"How can I say it more clearly? there are x amount of projects that cost x amount of dollars,(the figure I quoted earlier). is anybody else having trouble understanding this?"

This is what you said:

Don't you read your own pos

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), December 18, 1999.