Roll Reversal
For twenty centuries the structure of the European city has included the urban riot and the flight of the patrician class to their estates in the country. In the late 19th century the railroads elaborated this theme and the 'upper classes' commuted into the city in the morning and out at night. We are, therefore, hardly amazed that in the democracy of the automobile millions of essentially common Americans followed the same pattern.
It is seldom remarked that Americans using the interstates to establish vast suburban aggregations were, in the 50s and 60s, leaving cities not only polluted and old, but ruled by criminal gangs. In Seattle, for example, not only did the Teamsters blackmail employers and employees, and the police blackmail gays and rob the blacks, but the Fire Department and the Building Department served as very partial 'enforcers' for a gang at City Hall that punished enemies and rewarded friends.
By the mid-70s the fruits of these policies, nationally, were bankruptcy and riot in almost all our major cities. From the ruins citizens, with varying degrees of success, began to reconstruct city governments with more legitimacy. Sure, Seattle has great scenery, but the houseboats are there because they fought the Fire Department and won, the Regrade is vital because the zoning laws were changed, and the Market and the electric trolley buses were saved by citizen's initiatives.
The pendulum has swung and the cities are now where you go to escape the gangs of the suburban and rural areas. The great traffic flow is still in to the city in the morning and out at night, but with the large cohort of Boomers beginning to retire, it seems not extravagant to anticipate more outward commuting in the morning and in at night, or even a densification of the city core, with residents who both live and work in the city.
Would not such residents be better served by streetcars and trams than by heavy commuter lines? Considering that, with the exceptions of some King County grand juries, the improvements of Seattle governance were made by residents of Seattle, shouldn't Seattle residents try to improve Seattle, and let regional governance look to the region?
Predictions are always hard, especially when they involve the future, but one thing seems certain- the daily ritual of traveling 30 miles to work in the morning, and 30 miles home in the evening, will, for most of us, become a memory instead of a reality. It was, in a sense, the industrial mass-production of a patrician ideal that, even in Rome or Renaissance Italy, never involved the actual patricians in a daily commute. It's an idea whose time has come- and gone.
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Great piece.
//Would not such residents be better served by streetcars and trams than by heavy commuter lines?//
YES. It is my strong opinion that Seattle first and foremost needs an efficient and useful in-city transportation system. One that's good enough to get you from any neighborhood to any other in a short amount of time.
Such a system would remove the need for a car, support a dense city, strongly increase quality of life, and even make the city a much nicer place to visit.
I support Link because I think it's generally a good idea, and perhaps ST3 or 4 will get us part of such a system. But I still think the fundamental point of Sound Transit is to move people around the region - not within a city.
Sound Transit = regional transit system
King County Metro = county transit system
????? = Seattle's transit system
We've been lucky that King County and ST have found it useful to give our city a reasonable amount of service. But it's not their core focus, nor should it be. Perhaps it's time we transform SDOT into a real urban transporation department and have them build us a city-wide system.
For the past 5 years I have lived car-free in the one Seattle neighborhood that is already well connected: the University District. I have to say that the buses definitely provide better quality of life vs single-use suburbs, but what helps even more is having my employer (UW), grocery stores, public library, parks, etc. within walking distance.
I would note that Seattle has three cross-town needs that currently aren't met by road or transit.
One, from Ballard to the U of W and Sand Point Way NE. Two, from Madrona and Lake Washington Blvd to downtown, and three, from Rainier Beach to Georgetown and West Seattle.
All of these are great trips if you want to take your guests from out of town and show them Seattle. They will never forget the five-way intersections and death-defying "fast sections" of their trip from Ballard to Sand Point Way, or the 'can't get here from here' quality of going from downtown to Madrona.
Amazingly, the Seattle DOT has done a good job of identifying possible streetcar routes, but I would add one out Madison to replace the bus service there. It's long overdue.
SC - You know the Burke-Gilman is a wonderfully easy and relaxing way to get from Ballard to Sand Point.
This whole thing is interesting though. When ST2 is all done it will potentially be quiker to take transit from Redmond to downtown Seattle rather than from say Georgetown to downtown Seattle. But, the way I see it if we truly want to build a car-free environment than these regional connections are necessary because you can't bike or walk very quickly to Redmond, Tukwila, or Lynwood. We can encourage biking and walking as primary modes of transportation within dense urban areas and have regional trains to get you between these areas. Interspered between are low-population areas that function as industry, agriculture, or natural areas, hopefully within walking or biking distance of everyone.
True enough, I left town before the western end of the BG was resolved. Talk about RR tracks in the streets! That bit out by the old steel mill was brutal, especially if you got distracted by the sight of red hot rolling steel.
In a better world the residential centers of Ballard would be connected to the employment center, the U of W, by massive use of the essentially level BG.
As for the regional stuff, I consider a lot of the suburbs to be over-rated. A lot of the one-story stuff out there will end up as bleached bones in a prolonged downturn; even in prosperous times there's nothing substantial in the single-story stuff- come back five years later and everything has moved or gone broke.
The people who want to live in a suburban environment eventually will have to protect that choice by becoming die-hard advocates of transit.