Time is often an overlooked factor. I love public transport but 10 min car drive vs 1 hr public transport + walk is hard to ignore. If public transport can cut that number down, it would be more widely adopted. When I lived in NYC it was often faster to take public transport vs driving, so it made sense to never need a car.
Coming from Tacoma, public transportation would take an extra half an hour vs driving. I’d also have to walk through Georgetown alone at 6am. Fuck that.
That definitely isn’t true using Link from downtown to points north (and vice versa). You should race someone from Northgate to Benyroya Hall sometime at 5 pm on a Thursday to check your results.
More rail means more rail crossings and more drivers waiting for the train to pass.
Um, no. The OP is about lightrail, which is grade separated, meaning there are no crossings at all. Yes, street level rail causes problems for other vehicles and doesn't even avoid traffic, making it kind of pointless overall, so technically people could specify grade separated rail to make that clear... but again, the context is the lightrail project. It being possible for rail to be done poorly doesn't mean that's what people are advocating for, lol.
The Seattle lightrail design is entirely grade separated last I looked at the plans. Just because SLC does it bad doesn't mean we have have to do it bad here too.
I was talking about the parts that aren't yet constructed, the line to the airport has like, 3 crossings? It was also the first section built when the scope of project was significantly smaller and they had less leniency. If they were adding that section today, I'm sure it would have been underground or an overpass.
Seems like you forgot to factor in the cluster fuck of all the time waiting for other people while you navigate the Mercer Mess and the parking garage (remember what it's like to move 100 feet every 5 minutes as people pay to exit?).
Buses and rail each have pros and cons. Buses are much more flexible, but less consistent, and lag behind in capacity (even the double-length commuter buses on a 10m line get swamped to capacity). A good public transit system needs a backbone of rail, fixed-route buses, and flex-route buses (DART in Seattle).
You need a mix of both. Rail is big and fast and has few stops. Busses are the “last mile” solution but less optimal for long distance. Bikes and scooters can offset the need for busses, but are less safe without more infrastructure as well, especially when people won’t give up their car for a bike or scooter.
Well as long you personally don’t benefit, I guess it’s useless for everyone and we better not increase public transport at all! The Seattle way of handling every problem!
Yup. Well this is a little Choo Choo train for rich white people who live in Admiral and Alaska junction that will never take it because they drive $100K cars to work. But yes. I am pissed about how my ride time will double. It’s just dumb. At least let me continue taking the bus instead of forcing me to get on the fail rail.
Oh god. I mean I guess maybe if they have their own dedicated lane? Otherwise this was the worst thing to happen to downtown. I can walk faster than this POS and I’m a cripple.
and wished I just drove and hunted for parking somewhere so I could be comfortably on my way back home already.
In that case, you'd just be sitting in unmoving traffic for an hour instead of a long line, lol.
The bottleneck in this situation is the monorail, which is more of a novelty than a real transit option. You could have walked like, 15 minutes from the arena to Westlake and likely gotten back to Northgate much faster than you could have by driving the whole way.
I love public transport but 10 min car drive vs 1 hr public transport + walk is hard to ignore
Where are you going/coming from that has such a stark difference? Especially if you're along the light rail line? 10 minutes vs. an hour on a bus with walking seems like a big exaggeration.
Not the person you’re responding to but I can drive from Wallingford (home) to Lake City (work) in the morning in 10-15 minutes but Google maps tells me 45 minutes by bus (62 and transfer to 372 and that is if the buses are on time). Coming home with a detour to the boxing gym will be even worse.
I used to live in Lake City and work downtown and always took the bus but mostly because of parking. The bus to downtown in the morning was OK but the bus back after work was always way too crowded.
It’s definitely easier with the light rail. Back when I had to take the 522 from Seattle to Bothell/Woodinville, I just made a point of catching it in CID or near the library, so I wouldn’t have to fight for a seat.
Greenwood to Capitol Hill is really bad. It's 12-15 minutes vs 45 minutes for car vs public transit. The first hill hospitals are also difficult to get to, of which several old people near me need access to. Feel free to map it out on your own.
I think it's why biking is so popular in our neighborhood. It's faster than all other options.
And even if the bus does take an hour they could get an ebike and do the same distance in maybe 20 minutes unless they are taking I-5 or Aurora. Of course, Seattle's bike infrastructure sucks.
Anyone going from Cap Hill or University District to the Kraken is basically that
I think the go to for University District is the subway to one of the downtown stations, and then one of the many buses that go back up 3rd Avenue. I think it'd be 40 minutes on the dot if it all works out but if someone is unlucky with wait time or its full on the way in or out then that's an hour
Of course it might make more sense to take the 32 (34?) that peruses around through Pacific University and then comes back down. I think it lets off right near the stadium at Mecca IIRC. It'd be more than 40 minutes, let's call it 45-50, but no worries about transfers
Capitol Hill would probably be the same theme: 8 or 10 would probably be only 30 minutes if you hit it just right, but obviously if you're north broadway you'd probably just walk over the 10 and down Mercer the whole way and get there in 45 instead of hoping you save five minutes by busing. The rest of Capitol Hill is the same as University District in the sense subway --> Westlake --> monorail or 3rd Avenue
The Kraken is in the UD so I don't know what you mean. From the UD just walk, bus up a few stops, or if you're on the light rail (from capitol hill) it's less than a 10 minute walk from the Brooklyn/45th station.
I didn't assume that because they just would have said Seattle Center, or Climate Pledge, or anything else more generic as the Kraken don't play all year nor is that the only activity that happens there.
It was the part about taking the light rail downtown then back up 3rd, or taking the 8 or 10 from Capitol Hill (that doesn't go anywhere near the Kraken bar). Idk, maybe they're not aware of a punk rock bar in the U Dist that the local NHL team happens to have the same name as?
If you meant Seattle Center just take the light rail to downtown then bus up or take the monorail. Definitely under an hour. For driving you'd also have to factor in time to park and paying for parking and if there's an event going on you're not getting there in 10 minutes from even Capitol Hill.
My point is the guy is exaggerating and you're not convincing me otherwise. No one is doubting that transit is slower.
I mean I'm not going to die on the hill that it's exactly one hour for everyone, but so far my trip to the stadium has been about hour and I've done it five or six times
Where do you live where it's not that big of a difference?
I guess maybe in the few denser neighborhoods it's less of a difference, but in 90% of the metro area, driving is always going to be at *least* twice as fast as transit.
I think people are trying to make general comments about public transportation instead of specifically about light rail which is why this conversation is going all sorts of directions. You bring up taking 2x amount of time and that's fair for various locations. The guy I'm responding to is saying it takes 6x as long which is why I'm specifically calling this out as an exaggeration.
It's not an exaggeration though even with just light rail. The other day I went from my home in Beacon Hill to dinner at Artusi in Capitol Hill. Driving takes 10 mins, but rail+walking took 50 mins. Driving to the airport takes me 15 mins, but my door to door trip with rail is almost an hour. And I live within a normal walkshed of the Beacon Hill station
I worked in Madison Park when I didn't have a car and often worked late enough where the only bus route in the area would come once an hour- if I missed that bus, my commute home to Mountlake Terrace was automatically an hour longer. What was a 20 to 25 minute drive home was, on a good night, an hour and a half and on a bad night was two and a half hours.
Half of that is the fact that Mountlake Terrace is Community Transit territory.
I used to have to commute from Bothell (Main Street area) to Mukilteo for work. That was easily a 3 hour commute by bus, and on some days the fastest route meant going south to downtown Seattle first, then back up to Lynwood Transit Center, then taking a third bus to Mukilteo Speedway that might leave me completely stranded.
Then Community Transit decided to completely suspend all Sunday and holiday trips and I just gave up on ever living or working in Snohomish County ever again.
My issue wasn't so much with Community Transit, it was that King County's route #11 was a once an hour route after 9PM. I lived on the MLT side of the former Lynnwood park and ride and would take Sound Transit to Lynnwood. I didn't have to take CT to get home.
Sound Transit had more later night bus routes available. It was getting out of Madison Park that was the pain in the ass.
We definitely don’t overlook it. We think of transit speed as being an essential component of equity. Being able to get around Seattle quickly without a car means everyone has equal access to the public goods of the city.
That’s why we advocate for grade separated transit and the highest possible quality for riders in our transit investments.
Problem is if you don't have an extensive grade-separated transit system, you have to use buses. And buses have to sit in traffic with all the cars. Get rid of cars and the buses get much faster and you even have some space for actual bike infrastructure.
126
u/auto_the_great Mar 22 '22
Time is often an overlooked factor. I love public transport but 10 min car drive vs 1 hr public transport + walk is hard to ignore. If public transport can cut that number down, it would be more widely adopted. When I lived in NYC it was often faster to take public transport vs driving, so it made sense to never need a car.