Orphan Road

In a recent Hugeasscity comment, a friend was described that drives 100 miles to work everyday so that they could have a large house in the suburbs. I ran a quick calculation to see what kind of house they could afford in the city with the money they're wasting in the commute. The difference, with less than a 30-year payback, was $400k. This analysis did not take into account the wasted time from the commute.

Let me quickly go over this analysis again, just to let it sink in. At 200 miles a day x 5 days a week x 52 weeks a year, you're putting 52,000 miles a year on your car. Using a lifespan of 200,000 miles for a $20,000 economy car getting 30mpg, that's $7,700 worth of car you're burning through a year. Add $1,400 a year in maintenance (low, I'd say for that many miles), $600 a year for insurance, and $7,000 in $4/gal gas, and you're up to $16,700 a year (I came up with $14,000 in my comment - I think I used a cheaper car?). In 30 years you'd spend $501,000 doing this.

Now I ask, what kind of upgrade of a house can you get in the city for an extra half million? Assuming you don't need a ritzy area (which you don't if we're comparing the suburbs) that's a big house and a big yard. And you don't need to spend 3.5 hours a day (at an average of 55mph = 910 hours/year = 16% of your waking life = 24% of your non-working waking life) driving a car.

Note that this comparison isn't apples-to-apples. First of all, you'd have to get rid of a car when you live in the city to save on all of those insurance and maintenance benefits (though they'd both shrink immensely if you didn't drive much). But then most of the money was in the gas and wear on the car itself - both of which are all but removed in city life. But the real difference in this comparison is that in the exurb case the money you spend is just gone - sent to oil companies and car manufacturers. In the city case, this money still exists in your house. Yes, perhaps half of it will go into the interest in your loan, but you get the rest back when you sell your house (and likely more, if housing prices go up in 30 years).

Of course a working-class commuter probably can't afford a half-million dollar home in the first place. I think the lesson here is that if you can find a city house that you can live with and afford (even with a larger mortgage than you're comfortable with), it's a strongly better deal than anything you can get out in the country.

This is an extreme example. But it's a real-life example, and likely a common one. Also, the lesson applies for shorter distances as well - the numbers get more mild as you approach the suburbs, then drop off once you don't need a car at all.

Which brings me to the tie-in to Seattle transit infrastructure. With rail or bus access within walking distance, we can extend that carless-commute out a ways from the city center. You still waste life (though less of it), but you don't waste close to as much money.

I think I posted this a while back, but I've updated my Google maps of Link and Sounder alignments based on the proposed 15-year plan from Sound Transit.

http://maps.google.com/maps/user?uid=103428233658015669918&hl=en&gl=us&p...

In my previous post, I argued that:
1. Seattle needs a city-level mass-transit system - not to replace, but to augment the bus system.
2. King County is the wrong agency to build this.

There were several comments about how the branding a Seattle transit agency would be confusing. I'm not sure I agree (many other cities handle this fine), but I'm ok with not having a new agency as a requirement.

Here's my proposed compromise: We build all of the infrastructure, buy the trains, then ask King County to run it. They may need to pay for a few new drivers, but it would certainly be an easier sell than having them come up with all of the initial capital.

Of course, this is exactly what's happening with the streetcars. But I'd argue that streetcars aren't enough. Unless they're completely traffic-seperated, they're just busses with increased ridership (good, but still slow and inefficient). What we need is a monorail-scale plan. We could still use streetcars (though light rail may be better), but elevate them, put them in tunnels, or just make their path completely seperate from cars.

The council approved fixing two crosstown arterials today, Spokane St. and Mercer St. It's a green light with an asterisk, though. The council says that SDOT can do engineering work and even acquire property, but the Mayor has to show that he's got a financing plan before construction can begin.

It sounds like a pretty big vote of confidence on the part of the council, that either the city will come up with the money from outside sources, or from the city itself.

Background here on the back-and-forth between the Mayor and the Council over these projects.

It looks like we run diesel busses on the weekend in case construction might occur, cutting power. A group has formed to move a diesel bus route away from their street. Of course that just moves the problem around.

Why are we abandoning our bus trolley system every weekend in response to an infrequent and avoidable problem? Here's an idea: Maybe we should put trolley power on two circuits where this occurs.

Two pieces worth reading on the Viaduct-Spokane St.-Mercer St. funding issue. Erica Barnett in the print edition of The Stranger, and Larry Lange on the P-I's Traffic Watch blog.

At issue is Mayor Nickels' attempt to push a Mercer St. upgrade through the city council. Nickels doesn't have the money for it, but he wants to link it to a rebuilt Spokane St. viaduct as a way to increase mobility when the Alaskan Way Viaduct comes down.

So far, the council isn't buying, prefering to wait until more funding is secured. They may have a point. To the outside eye, it seems like Nickels is just rushing to get Mercer done so it's nice and pretty in time for the Vulcan-built Amazon headquarters opening in SLU in 2011-2012, and he's using the Viaduct as a convenient excuse. But that's just idle speculation on my part.

That said, costs of a new Mercer St are going to continue go up, up, up. Maybe it is best to float a bond like the Mayor's suggesting and get to work.

Rendering of Mercer St. looking west from SDOT.

If for no other reason, the current end of the Waterfront Streetcar will be remembered for the stunning pile of absurdities that have accumulated to do it in.

The beginning of this story is reported now as the need of the Sculpture Park for the land the carbarn stood on- when in fact, the arty types simply objected to the appearance of the carbarn. Let that soak in a minute- people who buy 'modern art' complaining about the appearance of the carbarn.

When this story broke, business types a few miles north offered space for the carbarn and money to extend the tracks, to the new labs and businesses near Interbay. This was turned down. Apparently the Waterfront Trolley "no longer fit into the city's transportation plan". That's right, the same city that works overtime to attract cruise ships can't see the role of a heritage trolley line running past the point where the passengers get off the cruise ships (not to mention the ferries).

So, what is the plan? That's right- there isn't any. They don't know if the Viaduct will be rebuilt or replaced with a "surface option", and they intend to "service the transportation grid around the viaduct". Nickels said they would even be looking at streetcars as a way to carry the load during viaduct construction.

Gee, Mayor Nickels, you mean a streetcar like the one that used to be part of the transportation grid around the viaduct?

This is all doubletalk, and the reason they're trying to snow us is that they're ashamed of their real motives and their lack of ability to think or plan constructively for the future. Don't expect a happy ending from this crowd- in spite of their cocktail party appreciation of art, they simply don't get the big picture.

Two East-West routes that are critical to a post-Viaduct Seattle are still short funds in the wake of Prop. 1's failure.

The Mercer cost estimate has increased $78 million since late last year, chiefly because of inflation and advanced design work that now includes property costs. The project would widen Mercer between Dexter Avenue and I-5 but not include reconnecting streets above Aurora Avenue.

Some $78.9 million has been secured for the Spokane widening, now estimated to cost $168.5 million, which includes $3.4 million from the Port of Seattle; new ramps would connect the Spokane Street Viaduct to the waterfront.

Lowering Aurora and reconnecting the streets above has always been the most appealing part of this project for me, but that's because I don't have to deal with Mercer during rush hour.

Also, if you're interested, you can watch a video simulation of the 2-way Mercer and narrowed Valley streets here (22MB .avi movie). It sure will look cool when that new Amazon.com office goes in!

Don't try and sneak through those red lights! 19 more red-light cameras are coming to Seattle next year.

The four that were installed in the pilot program cost $460K and brought in $1.1M in revenue, not a bad investment! Oh yeah... accidents dropped, too. :)

Vulcan welcomes the Streetcar! I guess they'd better. After all, they paid for the darn thing.

Meanwhile, the Times puts the Streetcar in the context of the last South Lake Union streetcar, built in 1890. Reading the article, a lightbulb finally went off in my head about why this thing, which I've been ambivalent about and which seems at first glance like an overpriced toy, actually matters:

The streetcar is meant to attract tourists, serve the cancer center, and help a new wave of office workers run errands downtown. For some, it will be a connection to express commuter buses or future regional light rail, at Westlake Center. Tracks run along the edge of Lake Union Park, which is being expanded and rebuilt with the idea that it will become a popular destination.

When New York first conceived of a subway -- also around 1890, as it happens -- it was because downtown needed to grow. You had lower Manhattan teeming with people, but farms and estates just a mile or two to the North. Why? There was no practical way to get up there and back in a reasonable amount of time. The Subway was, on a micro-level, the inner-city equivalent of the Trans-Continental Railway: it opened the frontier (i.e. Midtown Manhattan) to development.

While the parallels are obviously inexact, it seems that we're seeing a similar trend here in Seattle 100 years later. Downtown is finally growing too big to walk from one end to the other in a reasonable amount of time. The streetcar opens the frontier.

Of course, streetcars still get stuck in traffic. But I don't honestly see any other option for the city right now. People feel burned after the monorail, and it's going to be a long time before we see another form of rapid transit to connect downtown and its immediately adjoining neighborhoods (Ballard, Queen Anne, West Seattle, etc.).

Ripping up Eastlake Avenue and other streets and removing parking spaces to extend the tracks up to the U. District will be controversial and difficult. But it may also be our only option. There are underutilized streets in the grid, and a well-designed streeetcar, with its own lanes and traffic signal priority, could actually work out pretty well for us.