We know that LINK at $100 million a mile just doesn't make sense. But what about Sounder? It will travel over existing right-of-ways. That can't be as expensive as LINK. Surely, it's cost benefit ratio is reasonable, isn't it?

Well, I don't think so, but judge for yourselves: Where and when will Sounder commuter service operate? Once in full operation, 18 trains (nine in the morning and nine in the evening) will serve the Lakewood-Tacoma-Seattle segment, and 12 trains (six in the morning and six in the evening) will serve the Everett-Seattle segment. Headways (the time between trains) will be approximately 30 minutes.

What will Sounder passenger trains look like? Sounder commuter trains will consist of new multi-level passenger coaches, with a first and second floor, pulled by diesel locomotives. At first, trains are likely to be relatively short -- four to six cars in length. Eventually, up to ten to twelve car trains can be provided as ridership demands. The Sounder will be capable of moving 6,000 people per hour (peak direction during rush hours). http://www.soundtransit.org/sounder/sounder.html

Lets see here. 140 passengers per car times six cars per train is 840 passengers per train. 15 trains into the city per day, 15 trains out of the city per day, equals a MAX of 12,600 commuters per day. BNSF has said you cant have any more than that many trips (to avoid interfering with freight trains) so the only expansion possible is to increase the number of cars (if you increase the length of the boarding platforms or slow loading as the train is advanced to let passengers board a few cars at a time). That would give a MAXIMUM if you want to accept the delays and/or increase the boarding area, of 25,000 commuters. Since the basic cost is $669 million, that is somewhere between $53,000 and $27,000 capital investment per rider IF SOUNDER COMES IN ON TIME AND ON BUDGET AND MEETS ITS MAXIMUM RIDERSHIP CAPACITY. And of course, its already late and over budget. And remember, this doesnt cover operating expenses. This gives you the equipment and facilities that you will need to do the job. It will still require substantial subsidies, both for operating expenses and for replacement of capital expenses. Average speed is 33 miles per hour once you count stops. (http://www.bts.gov/btsprod/nts/apxa/transt98.html) .

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 27, 1999

Answers

Oops-

Doesn't look real promising for Sounder unless the state comes up with considerable money.Let's see, if you add another $60 million to the capital costs, the numbers are now between $29,000 and $58,000 cost per commuter. And that is before BNSF says that the Seattle train tunnel will have to be rebuilt ($120 million or so) or Sounder can't use it. At what point does this get too dumb to do? Are we there yet?

"The road to getting there is going to be challenging," Sound Transit Executive Director Bob White said after the train arrived in King Street Station. Transit officials are laying a large part of the blame on the passage last month of Initiative 695, which does away with the statewide 2.2 percent motor vehicle excise tax. The loss in revenue means the state Department of Transportation has decided not to budget its $35 million share of track and signal improvements from Seattle to Tacoma. For the same reason, the transportation agency is not budgeting $12 million as its share of building a $52 million train maintenance facility in Seattle for Amtrak and Sound Transit trains. Without the maintenance facility, Amtrak will not participate. But many are still optimistic about the project, including state lawmakers who have supported passenger rail investments in the past. One of those, state Rep. Ruth Fisher, D-Tacoma and co-chairwoman of the House Transportation Committee, said yesterday she would fight for the restoration of rail funding during the upcoming session. Over 10 years, the project will cost $669 million. As a result of losing motor vehicle excise tax revenues, state transportation officials say they would have to halt expansion of the intercity fleet of European-style trains operated by Amtrak between Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, B.C. And Ken Uznanski, manager of the state rail office, said that without additional funding, there is money to operate the state intercity trains only through 2002. BURLINGTON NORTHERN SANTA FE WANTS TO MAKE STATE FINANCIAL PARTICIPATION IN TRACK IMPROVEMENTS A PART OF AN AGREEMENT WITH SOUND TRANSIT. "The big wild card in this is the state," Price said. Startup of the initial Seattle-Tacoma service via Kent, Auburn and Puyallup already had been running behind schedule. In August, Sound Transit board members were told that because contract negotiations had taken longer than expected, trains powered by diesel locomotives would not be able to begin operating this month. http://www.seattlep-i.com/local/rail101.shtml

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 27, 1999.

I'm a little confused as to why you think the idea of Sounder not running in the black is a big deal. Obviously, the people never thought that Sound Transit would be self sufficient, or they never would have agreed to increase their sales and MVET taxes to support it. So if the people vote (and vote overwhelmingly) to create a subsidized mass transit system that they KNOW will be expensive and KNOW that it will not pay for itself through the fare box, then what's the big deal?

Also, I note that all of the now defunct DOT funding would have gone towards mainly freight mobility and inter-regional transportation. You yourself pointed out the benefits of me (a suburbanite) paying for the seldom used roads in Eastern Washington. By the same token, the people in Eastern and other non-Puget Sound regions of Washington stand to indirectly benefit from these planned improvements.

As it stands now, Washington ports enjoy about a day's advantage in travel time to Pacific Rim countries over the ports in California. However, California is distinctly aware of this fact and has been spending quite a bit of money on freight mobility improvements to get the food products in the rural areas to their ports as quickly as possible. On the flip side, Washington has done very little in terms of freight mobility improvements, and as a result, the time it takes to go from field to port is quickly increasing. When California manages to eliminate our advantage it will be game over for the farmers in Eastern Washington. Shipping firms will no longer find it economically viable to service Washington ports and instead turn to California, farmers won't be able to find buyers for their crops, and their farms will go under.

Like it or not, Eastern Washington has a vital interest in the transportation mobility of the Puget Sound region. Claiming that the money the state was planning to spend in assisting Sound Transit doesn't help the rest of the state is a short sighted view that doesn't take into account the state's interconnected reliance.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), December 28, 1999.

The big deal for any government project is what you pay for what you get. This was sold as the answer to congestion, and with the alleged benefits of economies of scale and increase in convenience. If it had been sold as something that would cost over $50,000 per commuter using it, would it have been approved (no more overwhelmingly than I-695, by the way). Perhaps, perhaps not. But since the issue has been raised through the transportation improvement initiative, I think the realities of cost-benefit are something worth people knowing, before they make their decision. All Im doing is posting up statements made by Sound Transit people and doing a little arithmetic to get it down to the per commuter costs. I believe this is relevant, and gives you and other proponents a chance to dispute my assessment if you can. And this forum is for the purpose of engaging in such dialogue. So I guess I have to throw your question back at you.. Whats the big deal? Why shouldnt I discuss this??

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 28, 1999.

"Like it or not, Eastern Washington has a vital interest in the transportation mobility of the Puget Sound region. Claiming that the money the state was planning to spend in assisting Sound Transit doesn't help the rest of the state is a short sighted view that doesn't take into account the state's interconnected reliance. "

And in what statement that I made, did I claim that? Saying that a statement I never made is short-sighted isn't going to further YOUR argument much. And a fair amount of the improvements were being justified for inter-city passenger service which WILL NOT go to Eastern Washington. But I will concede your point, that Eastern Washington will be affected by transportation decisions involving Puget Sound and the Puget Sound region will be affected by transportation decisions involving Eastern Washington. That's why all such decisions deserve real scrutiny. What do YOU think of the proposed $65 million LINK-T 1.6 mile light rail system to replace the Downtown Connector?

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 28, 1999.

The voters were asked to approve a proposal that had a dollar amount attached to it and a general concept of a heavy rail line between Tacoma and Everett and a light rail system to initially serve the immediate Seattle area with the rest of the region to be added in future expansions. As you've pointed out, there are multiple examples across the country as to what we could have expected in terms of cost/benefit ratios of approving such a proposal. To assume that the voters were not aware that it would cost so much for the system that we are receiving assumes that the voters were ignorant in their decision, and that's not an assumption that I'm willing to make.

And if the issue in the transportation initiative is of cost/benefits, I for one would rather have the entire tax repealed. As I read it, this initiative would just dump the revenues from the RTA tax into general highway construction for the DOT. So instead of the $2 billion in local taxes staying to address local problems, it would be distributed all across the state. THAT in itself would be a significant reduction in the return on investment. Besides that, we can't even make a judgement on whether the money would be better spent since we'd be voting to divert funding from an existing project to... well that's just it, besides it going to construction and maintenance we don't know where it would be spent. So lacking a comparison, you're basically saying hey, Sound Transit doesn't have a good return on its investment, so let's dump it in the hopes that the DOT can come up with something better someday.

You didn't make a comment that Eastern Washington doesn't have a stake in the improvements to the transportation mobility, but others outside the Puget Sound region are using that as an excuse to justify their inclusion on a vote to continue RTA funding. Basically, they are saying that Sound Transit is trying to get state funding that will ONLY benefit the Puget Sound region. That's simply not the case. The majority of the proposed DOT spending was in track and signaling improvements. Stuff that would speed up BOTH passenger and cargo train routing as well as get them out of the way of motor vehicle traffic which includes all that stuff being transported from Eastern Washington.

"What do YOU think of the proposed $65 million LINK-T 1.6 mile light rail system to replace the Downtown Connector?"

Well the general rule of thumb is that unless transit drops you very near your door, most people won't even consider it as an option. Since the LINK-T route would pretty much allow a person to go from Seattle to someone office in downtown Tacoma with one short transfer that makes it pretty attractive. From a revenue standpoint Sound Transit estimates a farebox recovery of about 32% for bus service and a 53% recovery for light rail. Basically, I figure LINK-T will provide added incentive for people who work in downtown Tacoma to use transit (I worked in Tacoma for a few years. There is certainly a market for transit service since parking just doesn't exist.) and, although it has a larger start up cost compared to bus service, provides for much higher returns.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), December 28, 1999.

"The voters were asked to approve a proposal that had a dollar amount attached to it and a general concept of a heavy rail line between Tacoma and Everett and a light rail system to initially serve the immediate Seattle area with the rest of the region to be added in future expansions." Not exactly. They approved light rail, commuter rail, and express buses. They never approved (nor were they asked to approve) heavy rail.

"Well the general rule of thumb is that unless transit drops you very near your door, most people won't even consider it as an option." It's even worse than that, actually. It needs to both pick you up from near your door AND drop you off near your door.

"Since the LINK-T route would pretty much allow a person to go from Seattle to someone office in downtown Tacoma with one short transfer that makes it pretty attractive." But the Downtown Connector (bus line) already does that. It makes basically the same 15 minute circular route with five stations that LINK-T is designed to do, right now. With one bus. One propane powered efficient bus. On uncluttered streets. All of the references for this (from Sound Transit websites) are listed on the thread :shallora- does this make sense to you. Parking may be a problem in downtown Tacoma, but traffic certainly isn't, although traffic certainly won't be IMPROVED by running light rail up the street.

"From a revenue standpoint Sound Transit estimates a farebox recovery of about 32% for bus service" If you mean the express buses, they are running those now. Their existence does not depend on the building of LINK-T. "and a 53% recovery for light rail" What they are quoting is $.46 per passenger mile, IF they get the desired utilization. But this doesn't take into account the $65 million it takes to build LINK-T, less the cost of the $400,000 bus which it replaces. Even if you were merely putting $65 million in T-bills at 6%, that's an opportunity cost of almost $4 million a year. (You could keep the bus, and give $11,000 a day in BRIBES for people to take transit. Or just give $11,000 to one luck transit rider each day.) Nor does that count depreciation. Can you HONESTLY say that you believe it is justifiable to replace one bus with a $65 million light rail system that does the same job in the same time with the same frequency? Does this REALLY pass the common sense test with you?

"Basically, I figure LINK-T will provide added incentive for people who work in downtown Tacoma to use transit (I worked in Tacoma for a few years." Why? The people who work downtown can park at the Tacoma Dome (or take an express bus there) and ride the downtown connector now. Heck, they can ride it for free on lunch hours.

"There is certainly a market for transit service since parking just doesn't exist.) and, although it has a larger start up cost compared to bus service, provides for much higher returns." What's the higher returns? MetroKC estimates operating costs of LINK at $.46 per passenger mile versus $.48 for the average bus route. But neither LINK or LINK-T will be placed on AVERAGE bus routes. Both will be in relatively high volume areas where the cost per passenger mile of the route replace is much less than the average for the whole system. Even disregarding capital costs, LINK will be MORE EXPENSIVE to operate than THAT PORTION of Metro and Pierce Transit that it replaces.

If you are just ignorant about these things and trying to bluff your way through with an answer, OK I guess. I'd recommend you track down the references on that thread and look at them. If you really researched this and STILL think it's a good idea, we are WORLDS apart in our thought processes, and I may reluctantly just give up on trying to convince you.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 29, 1999.

"Not exactly. They approved light rail, commuter rail, and express buses. They never approved (nor were they asked to approve) heavy rail." You lost me there. I seem to recall when they mentioned the use of "commuter rail" in the campaign they meant the use of existing rail lines with commuter trains, which is what they're doing now. I admit I'm no expert on this subject, but, in at least the case of Sounder, I believe the terms "commuter rail" and "heavy rail" have always been interchangeable. In transit lingo they may not be, but that's the way I, and I believe most other people, view it. Unless you can point out any evidence that a large portion of the electorate has seen the Sounder trains and is saying "that's not what I voted on."

Yes, in the long run I do believe that LINK is a better value than the bus system already in place. I did take the farebox return from the regional bus system numbers, but as it was about average with the farebox returns of other transit agencies that you have mentioned, I considered it a fair number to use. I'm not sure if the estimates are based upon maximum usage, but even if they are, that point it moot since we can assume that both number would be affected equally by the adjustment to actual use and we are only comparing between the two numbers. In any event, the use of light rail over bus service is approximately 2/3 more efficient.

So say Downtown Collector receives about $1 million in fares a year (an example, I don't know actual revenue). If we assume the 32% recovery rate, then that means that the operating cost is about $3.1 million. Total loss of about $2.1 million. If LINK were to keep the same fares and maintain the same ridership thus bringing in the same $1 million in fares, at a 53% recovery rate that means that the operating cost would be about $1.9 million. Total loss of about $900,000. It would take a while, but eventually the $65 million construction cost (and this is being done WITHOUT debt, so there won't be any interest payments) would be made up by LINK's efficiencies over Downtown Collector.

Those operating cost numbers you provided do of course reflect the cost of LINK in King County. The system that will run about 20 miles with about 18 or 19 stations. I don't exactly see how that applies to a 1.6 mile system with 5 stations.

Yes, I do think that there will be at least a slight increase in ridership. This is only my opinion, but a light rail system is more of an attractive draw than a bus in terms of appeal. Light rail is also much more visible (but in the case of Tacoma, minimally intrusive) than the bus system. A bus driving through downtown Tacoma could, to the casual observer, be heading anywhere. But you KNOW where that train is headed. So when a person is leaving his office at 5:00 that nearby bus may not even register as a viable transportation option, but that train certainly will be.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), December 29, 1999.

I admit I'm no expert on this subject, but, in at least the case of Sounder, I believe the terms "commuter rail" and "heavy rail" have always been interchangeable.  No. they are very different. Heavy rail refers to systems like BART in SF that travel over dedicated tracks that are physically separated from traffic. Commuter rail typically travels over standard railroad tracks that it shares with freight trains. They are not remotely interchangeable, and are in different categories for DOT record- keeping purposes. Yes, in the long run I do believe that LINK is a better value than the bus system already in place. I did take the farebox return from the regional bus system numbers, but as it was about average with the farebox returns of other transit agencies that you have mentioned, I considered it a fair number to use. I'm not sure if the estimates are based upon maximum usage, but even if they are, that point it moot since we can assume that both number would be affected equally by the adjustment to actual use and we are only comparing between the two numbers. In any event, the use of light rail over bus service is approximately 2/3 more efficient. $.46 a mile versus $.48 a mile is approximately 4% more efficient. These are the figures that Sound Transit is using in their funding applications to the US DOT. And again, the $.48 a passenger mile is the average for the system. It is not the costs on the fairly high ridership routes that light rail will replace.

So say Downtown Collector receives about $1 million in fares a year (an example, I don't know actual revenue). If we assume the 32% recovery rate, then that means that the operating cost is about $3.1 million. Total loss of about $2.1 million. If LINK were to keep the same fares and maintain the same ridership thus bringing in the same $1 million in fares, at a 53% recovery rate that means that the operating cost would be about $1.9 million. Total loss of about $900,000. Recovery rate is different than costs. You can raise recovery rate by raising the fare, but that doesnt nevessarily get you more customers. Transit buses cost about $100/hr operating expenses, over half of that going for salaries. Figuring 16 hours a day, 365 days a year, gives the TOTAL COST of the Downtown Connector at $584,000 a year, making it possible to continue to run it FOR FREE for 111 years before you would offset the capital expense of putting in the light rail.

It would take a while, but eventually the $65 million construction cost (and this is being done WITHOUT debt, so there won't be any interest payments) would be made up by LINK's efficiencies over Downtown Collector. Regardless of whether or not theres debt, there is an opportunity cost of $4 million a year, enough to run 10 Tacoma Connectors on that route, one leaving the station every 90 seconds. Talk to your accountant, Theyll explain it to you. But assuming that the 2% decrease in costs that Sound Transit claims will be realized by light rail actually were realized, then yes, this would eventually pay off the $65 million capital investment. 2% of 584,000 per year is 11,680 per year. That allows you to pay off your investment in a mere 5 thousand six hundred and sixty-five years. That is of course, if none of the equipment wears out in that length of time.

Those operating cost numbers you provided do of course reflect the cost of LINK in King County. The system that will run about 20 miles with about 18 or 19 stations. I don't exactly see how that applies to a 1.6 mile system with 5 stations. Ostensibly, there would be some degree of economy of scale in King County and the figures per mile would be even worse for a smaller system.

Yes, I do think that there will be at least a slight increase in ridership. This is only my opinion, but a light rail system is more of an attractive draw than a bus in terms of appeal. Light rail is also much more visible (but in the case of Tacoma, minimally intrusive) than the bus system. A bus driving through downtown Tacoma could, to the casual observer, be heading anywhere. Well Patrick, that last sentence could be true, but if youve really ridden transit much you may have noticed that they USUALLY go to where the sign on the front and side says theyre going.

But you KNOW where that train is headed. So when a person is leaving his office at 5:00 that nearby bus may not even register as a viable transportation option, but that train certainly will be. I do not understand from where you derived this opinion!

But Patrick, I really do believe that your post reflects how we got into this mess. The FACTS and FIGURES are readily available from a multitude of public sources. Take those, and a little long division (I mean a calculator makes it EASY, you dont even drop decimal points like when we used slide rules) and you can figure out for yourself whether the plans make sense or not. But you are willing to let $65 million (that could have been used to fund public health clinics FOR THE CHILDREN) be wasted on this project without even doing your homework. An opinion isnt enough, Patrick. Get yourself an INFORMED opinion.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 29, 1999.

Before you start to QUIBBLE over this Patrick, I ran the figures with YOUR numbers. Neither Pierce Transit nor Metro has anything NEAR your assumed 32% recovery rate on the average (the respective numbers being about 16% and 22% respectively (1998 figures)) but suppose the 32% was true and your hypothetical farebox recovery rate of 53% for light rail were also true. That gives a 19% increase in recovery. 19% of the current cost ($584,000/yr) would result in a net savings of $111,000 a year (almost ten times the correct figure). But suspending disbelief, and USING YOUR FIGURES, the time to pay off the $65 million capital investment is, lets see.$65,000,000/111,000 = a mere 586 years! Now thats assuming no further capital investments (Hell, the tracks themselves will have rusted away before then). Is long division a lost art, or what?

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 29, 1999.

Whoops- A little MORE research (and correcting where I said 19% and should have said 21% (oops). Turns out that the latest figures for hourly operating costs for Pierce Transit are only $74.50 per hour (http://www.ntdprogram.com/NTD/Profiles.nsf/1998+All/0003/ $File/P0003.PDF). If we take that times 16 hours/day times 365 days a year that gets the operating costs down to $435,000 per year. Your presumed advantage of 21% in operating costs (remember, its really only 2%) now decreases further to $91,366 per year. Payoff for your capital investment (disregarding the $4 million a year opportunity cost) is now a mere $65,000,000/$91,366 = 711 years. Think its going to be Y3K compatible?

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 29, 1999.

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math. Seen on a bumper sticker

Play the lottery a lot, Patrick?

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), December 29, 1999.

Or maybe Patrick is out buying a calculator?

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), December 30, 1999.

Oh where, oh where, did Patrick go, Oh where, oh where can he be? With his fact, fouled up, and his logic bizarre, Oh where, oh where can he be?

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), January 02, 2000.

With every passing hour that this goes unanswered, it demonstrates Patrick's ignorance of basic accounting principles.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), January 03, 2000.

Okay Craig, you've just been made the transportation GOD of the state of Washington. You control all of the monies and make all of the decisions dealing with transportation in the state. What are you going to do? And don't say...I'm going to Disneyland/Disneyworld!

How about you Mark?

-- Gene (Gene@Gene.com), January 04, 2000.

"Okay Craig, you've just been made the transportation GOD of the state of Washington. You control all of the monies and make all of the decisions dealing with transportation in the state. What are you going to do? " Privatize everything possible. Scrap prevailing wage legislation. Spend not one more dime on Sounder, light rail, or any other passenger rail related activities. Scale back transit to a system of social support for the transit dependent. Phase out subsidies to ferries over a five year period. Start building ROADS, first identifying areas of constraints in current highways for improvement. Get rid of SmartGrowth to avoid making the problem worse. Put in a dedicated North-South Truckway (toll). Put in dedicated parkways (auto/light truck only) to areas that are not going to be industrial (tolls also, initially). Same thing for the Lake Washington bridges- lighter, built to handle light vehicles, not 18-wheelers. Build a bypass around Seattle for North South traffic, well East. Site the new Seahawk stadium on the Eastside

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 04, 2000.

"How about you Mark? " I'd probably add to the above hovercraft ferries to avoid the Seattle area for traffic going North South (http://www.drive-alive.com/hoverspeed.htm). Might be cheaper than the North South road bypass. Board down around Olympia and get off around Anacortes. I'd also go with hovercraft passenger only ferries for the commuter traffic. They'd be faster than the current ferries, with no wake problem to speak of. And you can drive them up onto the land to avoid the necessity for boarding docks. Just a parking area a block from the water and a big boat ramp will do.

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), January 04, 2000.

What makes fixing Seattle's traffic problems more difficult is the fact that they've basically let them fester for the last twenty years. This may have started off as a reaction to the Boeing boom- bust cycle (bust at the time) but then kind of became entrenched. Seattle's always been a different kind of town, dating back to the general strike days. For whatever reason, they fixated on mass transit and indeed built one of the most involved (and heavily subsidized) bus transit systems in the nation. But they were fighting megatrends against transit, including declining immigration (immigrants are big time transit users), rising wealth, increased numbers of women of child-rearing years in the workplace, shift of jobs from CBDs into the suburbs, and the effects of other congestion reducing steps such as telecommuting. The net effect is that they got themselves in a real hole, and will have to pay the price (one way or another) to get out of it. But it isn't going to get cheaper if we wait longer. Either Seattle will content itself to have growth and industry go elsewhere (and that's a possible choice, Emmett Watson suggested as much with his "Lesser Seattle, Incorporated" take -off on the then popular Greater Seattle Incorporated, 30-40 years ago. What Seattle CAN'T do, is have it both ways. If they elect to go with the Draconian measures they would need to make SmartGrowth and Transit both work, industry and people will simply go elsewhere, outside of the UGMA. Bellingham, Tacoma, and Olympia all have the ability to add industry and people at a more reasonable price. Planes can be built in Everett (or Wichita, for that matter). Seattle has a limited time, perhaps 5 years, to begin fixing it's problems, before the problems become so big that it's just cheaper to go elsewhere. And the only thing Seattle has that puts it at an advantage is its port facilities, and they can be developed elsewhere too, if it comes to that.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 04, 2000.

Craig,

You had already made yourself clear on what you would cut or scale back (i.e rail, transit, ferries, etc.). You had also brought up a general idea for separate toll roadways for trucks. Would this be new roadway or limiting truck use to existing roadway? Would it be right to say that any new roadways would be toll roads?

You made a vague recommendation to build more roads, starting with a study to identify the improvement limitations of existing highways. Would you use any recommendations coming out of Gov. Locke's transportation panel?

The only specific item that you have identified is a bypass around Seattle (Which I agree with. Lets put another airport out there with the football stadium!).

I found it interesting that you did not offer any specific recommendations for solving traffic congestion in Seattle or in any other area other than the ideas present earlier.

Mark842,

This hovercraft ferry system that you cited, works well going across the English Channel since the users are generally on vacation and are willing to pay more. A North-South road by-pass ferry system, much like the Washington State ferry system, needs to address more of an every day commute.

-- Gene (Gene@gene.com), January 05, 2000.

"You had already made yourself clear on what you would cut or scale back (i.e rail, transit, ferries, etc.). You had also brought up a general idea for separate toll roadways for trucks. Would this be new roadway or limiting truck use to existing roadway? Would it be right to say that any new roadways would be toll roads?" Keep what you've got. Add new tollways. Set tolls to pay off the tollways over 15 years.

"You made a vague recommendation to build more roads, starting with a study to identify the improvement limitations of existing highways. Would you use any recommendations coming out of Gov. Locke's transportation panel?" I don't know. Judging by the make-up of the panel, I rather imagine this would be a garbage-in, garbage-out exercise. Many of those making up the panel are the same people who's failed policies have gotten us here.

"The only specific item that you have identified is a bypass around Seattle (Which I agree with. Lets put another airport out there with the football stadium!)." Not unreasonable.

"I found it interesting that you did not offer any specific recommendations for solving traffic congestion in Seattle or in any other area other than the ideas present earlier." Actually, you might be surprised at how much solving just a few of the larger problems makes with the local traffic as well. Theory of constraints applied to non-linear systems can give some surprising results. Much of your congestion comes from the last two or three percent of traffic that you add to the road. This has lead to the fallacy that you can't build your way out of congestion, because there's usually a marginal demand of more than 2-3%. But increasing the capacity of a road by 5 percernt is no big deal, either by building capacity or often just by avoiding mixmaster designs like I-5 in Seattle which require all sorts of lane changing depending on which way the reversible lanes are going, not to mention the infamous left hand exits.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 05, 2000.

"This hovercraft ferry system that you cited, works well going across the English Channel since the users are generally on vacation and are willing to pay more. A North-South road by-pass ferry system, much like the Washington State ferry system, needs to address more of an every day commute. " And I have little doubt that someone whose intention is to go north on I-5 without stopping in the Puget Sound area would be more than happy to pay to avoid the congestion between Olympia and Marysville. The cross sound commuters are an even easier fix, particularly for the passenger only traffic. Hovercraft can zip along in an East-West direction pretty easily, without the wake problems of the current high-speed passenger boats. This service has been successful not just in the Channel, but in Hong Kong as well. And it's been going on for a long time. The technology is mature and the costs are well known.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), January 05, 2000.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety... Henry L. Mencken In Defense of Women, 1923

And still no postings from Patrick, admitting his misjudgement of LINK-T.

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.

OH Patrick, here it is! The thread you ignored!

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), January 19, 2000.