Slog Comments
Downtown-to-Ballard Transit Study Gets Its Dough
3
It just took me 90 minutes to get from the u district to Columbia city. A complete real mass transit system is the only way this city can move forward @2. It's hardly burning $$
4
Had the City stepped up and added some $$ up front to improve the financing of the monorail, we could be riding it today. But no, TPTB didn't want to because Martin Selig and other big developers didn't want it to go past their monuments so it failed under a tidal wave of FUD. Sheesh!
7
As a 10 year long New Yorker, I will say that the rest of country is laughing at Seattle's lack of a proper transit sys.
9
In every place else on earth, the cost of light rail per mile is $30 million dollars. But in Seattle that same amounts buys nothing but a few white papers!
10
You can jigger a study to come to whatever conclusion you want it to. Garbage in-garbage out. But if this city decides not to build a second north-south light rail trunk--grade-separated through downtown--we're going to be regretting it for decades to come. Do we need to build such a thing imminently? No. But eventually, as part of Sound Transit 3.
And I agree with Dominic about the other point he makes. Better to have Sound Transit rather than the city in charge.
Maybe I need to rephrase something I just wrote, "But if this city decides..." A Sound Transit 3 ballot measure will by definition be a regional decision, but a new in-city light rail line is going to have to part of what creates a winning coalition. And you know what, I'd fine with seeing a Ballard-U District east-west route be part of that, but I would imagine Ballard-downtown gives a better bang for the buck, especially considering it could continue to West Seattle and White Center. There's good reason the monorail project chose that corridor.
And I agree with Dominic about the other point he makes. Better to have Sound Transit rather than the city in charge.
Maybe I need to rephrase something I just wrote, "But if this city decides..." A Sound Transit 3 ballot measure will by definition be a regional decision, but a new in-city light rail line is going to have to part of what creates a winning coalition. And you know what, I'd fine with seeing a Ballard-U District east-west route be part of that, but I would imagine Ballard-downtown gives a better bang for the buck, especially considering it could continue to West Seattle and White Center. There's good reason the monorail project chose that corridor.
12
@7 The rest of the country never even thinks about Seattle's lack of transit for all the noisy whining emanating from the east.
13
ah yes those noisy whiners back east, adding rail lines to nyc, 750,000 trips a day on dc metro, what do THEY know about transit? we're unique here. we're the ONLY city in the world with hills and water, therefore our refusal to build a real train system is understandable; nobody else could handle our uniqueness either. so let's keep studying what to do, the fact that in about 200 other large cities around the world, a grade separated multiline train system in web or hub pattern WORKS in rpoviding fast transit throughout a region is irrelevant to us, and stop telling us about it. see, we're unique.
14
It is appalling that Seattle is going to spend 2 million dollars to study a plan for expanding the so called mass transit into Ballard.This city,for all it's growth in other areas,is horribly behind the times in public transportation.
Comments (14) RSS