Comments on: Our Transportation Future

By: autobus

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By: Tom Auer

Tom Auer — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:39:26 +0000

Reuven, thanks for your thoughtful look at the bigger-picture issues in future infrastructure. I would certainly support tolls to support expensive projects that allow travel along a specific corridor, such as the existing and future Lake Washington bridges and the proposed tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way viaduct — especially if a relatively convenient means to collect those tolls could be implemented.

Still, I’m a bit concerned about the smaller picture. While the Rapid Ride bus is expected to make travel easy between downtown Ballard and Queen Anne, I haven’t heard about any real connections to more-regional systems, such as the light rail. Walking from Queen Anne to Westlake is a bit of a hike. While that corridor has lots of bus service, convenience would be destroyed by taking a Rapid Ride bus to Queen Anne, transferring to another bus to Westlake, then transferring to the Link Light Rail.

Not all of us who want to get around local neighborhoods want to, or conveniently can, get around by bicycle. A friend of mine calls Ballard “the nearest, furthest place,” and in many respects it is. We have good public transit connections to downtown (will they be better or worse after Rapid Ride is implemented??), and an adequate but rather slow connection to the University of Washington. Getting to many points in the city requires a bus transfer either downtown or near the U.W. I’ve been a supporter of the light rail since 1995, but it won’t go anywhere close to where I live. I was never a supporter of the half-baked monorail, but it did at least propose rapid service for an underserved corridor.

By: reuvencarlyle

reuvencarlyle — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:55:08 +0000

Thanks Matt for the link and cross post. It’s obviously time for a courageously honest conversation about specific new ways to fund transportation. I’d like to see a legislative strategy around the issue and will be speaking with folks in the know to get a better handle on how aggressive folks are willing to be.

By: Matt Rosenberg

Matt Rosenberg — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:12:03 +0000

oops. somehow the link didn’t take. here’s the url: http://www.cascadiaprospectus.org/2009/07/state_rep_reuven_carlyle_new_e.php#more

By: Matt Rosenberg

Matt Rosenberg — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:09:51 +0000

Rep. Carlyle, excellent op-ed and additional comments here. I've highlighted both, and added some thoughts in this Cascadia Center blog post. Best, M.R.