One thing I’ve noticed in the past year or so is that it’s gotten much more difficult to park downtown. Through a combination of factors — more electronic meters, fewer free parking areas — the city has really changed my personal calculus: I think twice before driving downtown, even on a Saturday. And I’m much more likely to take the bus.
Some folks aren’t so happy about the changes:
Some neighborhood activists complain that the city’s goals are unrealistic, at least until there’s more convenient public transportation in Seattle.
“The city’s living in a planner’s fantasy that … if you make it hard to park people will magically walk or ride their bike,” said Matt Fox, a longtime activist in the University District, where the city has substantially reduced free parking.
“Until the transit alternatives are in place, I think this is a punitive approach that’s going to make people’s lives really miserable.”
Well, I have a hard time believing it’s going to make anyone’s life truly “miserable” (there are far worse things happening in the world), but I can see where he’s coming from. However, we’re in a bit of a Catch-22 with waiting “until the transit alternatives are in place.” Adding more bus service will be easier when there’s more demand, and there’ll be more demand when there’s more service. In the meantime, Metro’s Transit Now initiative will help.
But my instinct is that the barriers to entry are still too high for many people. The bus system is darn confusing if you don’t have a route that you know and use frequently. It’s reminiscent of the Simpsons episode where Lisa tries to take the bus to the museum and finds herself deposited out in the boonies. When she asks the bus driver why the bus didn’t stop at the museum, he replies “that’s the No. 22. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, this is the 22A.” It’s funny because it’s true.
It surprises me that a city with this many information workers can’t come up with a more intuitive way of communicating bus routes. Use colors, use shapes. Have more intuitive bus maps. Identify, say, 8 major routes and make them stand out from the pack somehow. We’re sort of getting there with the BRT component of Transit Now, but so much more could be done for what’s basically peanuts compared to the cost of, say, laying a mile of rail.
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