
Seattle's next light rail plan is slow because it reflects our values - jseliger
http://seattletransitblog.com/2016/04/07/st3-is-slow-because-it-reflects-our-values/
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WalterBright
It would cost $200m to add tracks to the 520 bridge, and there's an existing
100 foot wide right-of-way from Renton to Bothell. I.e. for less than a
billion and a couple years, the trackage could be more than doubled, and more
than double the communities served.

The fact that this is not part of the 25 year $50b plan means something is
terribly broken about Seattle's mass transit plan.

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thrownaway2424
It would cost that much just to add the pontoons to the bridge. The cost of
actually adding more bridge width and the rails thereupon would be more.

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WalterBright
I read that the 520 new bridge was build to accommodate light rail with $200m
in additional spending.

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thrownaway2424
Did you read that from WSDOT? WSDOT says this:

"How much would it cost to add light rail to the floating bridge?

[...] Secondly, it would cost between $150 million and $200 million to
construct the 30 additional pontoons and to install them on the floating
bridge, alongside the 77 pontoons required for the six-lane bridge. There
would be other costs associated with the bridge deck expansion and other
infrastructure, including rail lines."

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WalterBright
Yes, that's what I'd read, and apparently it would cost more. But it clearly
is designed to accommodate the rail expansion, rather than having to build yet
another bridge for that.

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dapvincent
Don't underestimate the value of the monorail that can transport someone 6
blocks in light speed.

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ilostmykeys
By the time they do everything right and in the proper way no one will want
the stupid thing. It will be outdated and stupid. That's the Seattle way:
aversion to making decisions fast and moving along. People here are aftaid of
taking any risk. And on top of that, there is a severe amoung of entrenched
old school thinking.

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paul
The good news is that by the time they are finished, the whole thing will be
obsolete. Self-driving technology is going to completely change urban
transportation.

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rayiner
I will put $100 into an index fund and bet the proceeds that self-driving
technology will not be competitive with rail by 2040. The technology will be
much harder to bring up to the necessary level than anyone expects, and
without banning human drivers (politically impossible for the foreseeable
future), you'll never be able to match the capacity of rail.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Even with perfect software how could cars, self-driven or otherwise, ever
compete with rail? A four-track rail system has a per-track throughput of
100000 people per hour. Freeways can get 2000 cars per hour per lane, and an
average of 1.6 people per car works out to only 3200 people per hour. That's
the theoretical best. Actual roadways never approach this figure.

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noir_lord
> Freeways can get 2000 cars per hour per lane

I'm missing something, in a single lane at 60mph you would be able to get ((60
* 1608)/5) (assuming car is 5m long) = 19296.

If we assume that there is 5m of seperation between every car (possible when
_all_ cars are automatically driven and communicate with each other) that's
still 10k cars an hour.

4 lane highway, 40k an hour, assuming occupancy at 1.6 that's 64000 an hour.

Human driven no way, we are too unpredictable and react far too slowly to
safely drive in that way but computers probably could.

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thrownaway2424
Well you just made a pretty unfair comparison since you added up to 64000 for
all four lanes vs 100000 people /per track/ on a 4-track railway. But I think
your assumptions are all pretty optimistic. You wouldn't be able to run cars
that close together on a multilane roadway because cars would need to move
between lanes to enter and exit which would cause pipeline shocks if there was
that little room.

Anyway the main difference between my claims and yours is that yours are
speculation, while mine are based on history. We've seen five million people
disembark at actual railroad stations. It's happened. We don't have to
speculate.

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caiob
25 years! holy moly!

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WrongTitles
Sound Transit is a regional transit authority. Seattle has little to do with
it (except in 50 years there slightly more rail).

Please fix the nonsense title.

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alyx
Maybe I'm missing something,

But I honestly don't understand the point of spending billions of dollars
building light rail, when the solution seems much simpler.

Roads? Check

Busses? Check

Busses are way more flexible than rail. They can utilize existing road
infrastructure. With some investment into dedicated bus lanes in high traffic
areas, and more busses/bus routes, people can be moved around with
significantly less capital investment.

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bkjelden
I agree with this quite a bit.

I'd like to see a US city facing traffic/growth problems right now really
embrace BRT[0].

To me it seems like the pragmatic solution, given the already extensive
freeway networks in most US cities, and the incredible capital outlay required
to get any sort of rail system up and running, not to mention the 20+ year
timelines.

But I think most Americans have a much stronger stigma of buses than subways,
so maybe it's just too uncool for the US to ever embrace.

[0]: Bus Rapid Transit -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit)

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discodave
Seattle already has a pretty expansive bus network, including express busses
and a combined light-rail/bus tunnel.

And yet... the roads are still gridlocked.

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throwaway13337
Seattle's bus system sucks - and it's not just gridlock.

There aren't enough running to make it make sense. This is probably because
there aren't enough people actively taking the bus... because there aren't
enough running.

It would be ideal if they raised the gas tax significantly and funneled the
money into a better bus system. Get cars off the street and add more buses.

Who's gonna vote for that, though?

