An Independent E-zine on Public Transportation
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PITF has been on-line since 1996! See it here as in 1996.For a new direction as PITF entered its third decade of online presentation, and as Sound Transit with voter support advanced its $54 billion ST3 expansion plan, we decided to try describing what's happening with some rhythm in a music video titled "Seattle Train Wreck." Click here http://trainwreck.video to see our efforts in music production. |
Last Update: August 1, 2021 |
Hosted by Global Telematics in Seattle Founders: Dick Nelson (R.I.P.: 1936-2019), John Niles, and Jerry Schneider
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Supporters of public transit must be willing to share some simple truths that folks don't want to hear. One is this -- Paint is cheap, rails [sic] systems are extremely expensive.
Yes, transit riders often want to go by rail. But it turns out you can entice even diehard rail riders onto a bus, if you call it a "special" bus and just paint it a different color than the rest of the fleet.
Once you've got special buses, it turns out that busways are cheap. Take that paint can and paint a designated bus lane on the street system. Throw in signal preemption, and you can move a lot of people at very little cost compared to rail.
A little honesty about the differences between bus and rail can have some profound effects.
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Latest Twitter messages from John Niles
King County Metro posts trip cost calculator focused on gasoline price vs bus fare.
High Quality Bus Services Attract as Many New Riders as Rail
Bias and Misrepresentation in Sound Transit Analysis of East King County Transit Options
Sound Transit and its Citizen Oversight Panel by Emory Bundy
Updated Sound Transit Report Card by Emory Bundy, reformatted with graphics in pdf
How Sound Transit Abused the Planning Process to Promote Light Rail by Richard C. Harkness, Ph.D
Click for real-time Puget Sound regional travel times from Washington State DOT
Viewings since 1996:
Introduction
In November 1996 citizens living in the central Puget Sound region of the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. voted to raise their local taxes and begin implementation of a ten year, $3,900,000,000 rail and bus plan to expand public transportation facilities and services. The plan -- after 14 years overrunning both the approved budget and the original schedule -- is administered by a public agency and special government taxing district, the Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (RTA), later renaming itself Sound Transit. This region includes parts of three counties and the major Washington State cities of Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue and Everett, with a total regional population of about 3 million.
This web site is maintained by a group of Puget Sound area residents who have since 1996 opposed certain parts of the Plan including light rail. We knew back then that voters were deceived about what they were approving, and we said so during the 1996 campaign. In December 2000, Sound Transit revealed that its Seattle light rail plan would cost $1,000,000,000 more than what voters approved, and take three additional years to build. As of late 2012, the first light rail line in Seattle -- opened in July 2009 -- is operating with lower reliability than promised and is well short of the ridership forecast made before opening. Important parts of the 1996 plan were delayed until a phase 2 doubling of the Sound Transit sales tax, a $23 billion phase 2 expansion plan, was approved by voters on November 4, 2008 by a margin of 57% to 43%. This approval came despite false claims made by Sound Transit about cost and performance, as documented within this site.
This Public Interest Transportation Forum presents information that bears on halting light rail expansion and replacing it with other available options that would be implemented faster, cost less, and at the same time achieve better levels of mobility, environmental quality, economic vitality, and general welfare in the region than are currently anticipated in the official Plan. More on why we are doing this.
The Seattle region already has an excellent bus-HOV transit system, organized by county, in which Sound Transit now operates express bus service. To learn more about existing transit systems, click here.
Last Modified: January 27, 2019
Contact the Editors via email: niles@globaltelematics.com
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