Comments for Orphan Road

Comment on Revisiting Airport Link by Matt the Engineer

Matt the Engineer — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:23:21 +0000

A few comments:
1. One of the airport shuttle trains was built recently, with the airport expansion. I worked on relocating some air conditioning components at the time. Plus, building transit right into airports is nothing new.

2. For reference, SeaTac’s parking lot is the largest parking structure under one roof in the entire world. I’m not sure that’s the world record I want us to hold.

Comment on Revisiting Airport Link by joshuadf

joshuadf — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:11:33 +0000

Sounds to me like a problem with assumptions, since he almost definitely walks a lot more than 1,000 feet once inside the terminal to get through security and to the gate.

Comment on Revisiting Airport Link by Frank

Frank — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:50:23 +0000

You won’t get any complaints from me on that. Thanks for the comment.

Comment on Revisiting Airport Link by jdubrule

jdubrule — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:54:11 +0000

Ooorr… we could treat transit preferentially vs. cars, and have light-rail directly to the terminal, even if it means shunting the cars further out of the way, or making people take the skybridge to the giant parking lot.

“Rail link, directly to an existing terminal? It can’t be done!”, you say… SeaTac didn’t always have a shuttle-train system, it was added in 1973, 24 years after the airport terminal was first opened.

Another question… Why are we told that it’s good that we’re 1000ft from the terminal? Well, so it can serve Int’l Blvd, and the businesses/residents there. Why aren’t those businesses closer to the airport? Oh, because we have an enormous parking lot in between them & the terminal, of course.

While we’re on the subject, why do we need a giant parking lot, there, anyhow? Let people who drive to the airport park offsite, and split that between taxis, pick-ups, and rental cars, and turn the current taxi/pickup/drop-off lane into the light-rail station. DONE.

We just don’t have the stones to tell people they shouldn’t drive to the airport if they can avoid it. We’d much rather make it really inconvenient to use the state-of-the-art transit connector, just in case nobody uses it.

As a great example of how this can be done properly, Washington’s Reagan Airport had me going from the baggage claim to on a train in ~ 5 minutes, including figuring out the crazy ticket machine they have there.

Comment on Visit to Jakarta: BRT was a bad idea by Peter Smith

Peter Smith — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:58:17 +0000

BRT is excellent for driving car ownership wherever it is implemented — Jakarta included.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/capital-gridlock-looms-in-indonesia/490271

Comment on Visit to Jakarta: BRT was a bad idea by Matt the Engineer

Matt the Engineer — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:50:47 +0000

Not really – Frank runs this place. (who are you?)

Comment on Visit to Jakarta: BRT was a bad idea by snogglethorpe

snogglethorpe — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:16:43 +0000

Ah, you have your own blog.

Comment on Visit to Jakarta: BRT was a bad idea by News Roundup: Globetrotting - Seattle Transit Blog

News Roundup: Globetrotting - Seattle Transit Blog — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:07:08 +0000

[...] Matt the Engineer unimpressed with Jakarta’s relatively good BRT [...]

Comment on A Capitol Hill Benefits District? by Matt the Engineer

Matt the Engineer — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:48:20 +0000

This not only would make something like Prop 1 pass, it would make it amazingly more cost effective. We would have wasted* a significant amount of money adding sidewalks to the further-out areas. Rebuilding sidewalks is easier and cheaper than building new ones, and each foot of sidewalk serves far more people in Capital Hill than it would out in those red and orange areas.

Yes, that’s just looking at the sidewalks. But the same works for the other services provided by Prop 1. The more density you have, the more valuable these services are. Each hour of bus service will help a whole lot more people. Each square foot of road repaving will help more bikers. Etc.

*ok, not really wasted – any sidewalk work is better than nothing

Comment on Missing the Forest for the Trees by The Weekend Wrap: November 20-26 | The SunBreak

The Weekend Wrap: November 20-26 | The SunBreak — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 20:22:22 +0000

[...] building coming (Magnolia Voice) Shots fired overnight just north of Maple Leaf (Maple Leaf Life) Why Beehive Bakery closed (Orphan Road) 826 Seattle celebrates its newest book, White House award (PhinneyWood) Shots fired [...]