Smug Seattle keeps throwing money after streetcar, bike lane fiasco that’s totally off the rails

FOX News ^ | July 31, 2018 | Printus LeBlanc

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Once again, the oh-so progressive, oh-so enlightened Seattle City Council is showing the rest of the country what not to do. The idealistic leftists who control the Council are wasting millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars in failed attempts to solve problems the Council members created.

All this is turning Seattle into the poster city for the failure of Big Government. The city best known for fish markets, coffee stores, rain and flannel-wearing musicians is now becoming legendary for its incompetent leadership and its financial boondoggles.

The latest example of Seattle senselessness is the Council’s costly and deeply flawed efforts to get more people riding public transportation and bicycles. Other than spending lots of money, this effort isn’t accomplishing anything.

Seattle was one of the first cities to get electric streetcars in the U.S., with the first electric car entering service in 1889. With over a century of experience, you would think the city would know how to handle public transit. Not so. Taxpayers are paying a big price for the incompetence of city officials.

The public transportation system in Seattle is a mess. Construction costs for new and upgraded streetcar and light rail lines are skyrocketing well above estimated costs.

One of the more unbelievable mistakes made was the purchase of 10 new streetcars last fall. Apparently, when the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) ordered the cars no one thought to check the measurements.

The order was placed for street cars that are likely too big for the tracks and the maintenance barn. The project is already $50 million over budget, not including the $52 million it cost for the 10 cars that may be useless. How has no one been fired for this?

[vette6387]

Michael Savage is right! Liberalism is a disease, and Seattle’s Liberal Government is in Stage 4.

[EnglishOnly]

“The order was placed for street cars that are likely too big for the tracks and the maintenance barn”

and people say smoking dope is harmless? Here are the leaders of a major city ordering street cars that are too big for the tracks. How ignorant can these city leaders be?

[tallyhoe]

You ought to see Lite Rail. It was suppose to cost 4 Billion now it’s pushing 54 billion with no end in sight. Never will pay for itself!

[roadcat]

Here are the leaders of a major city ordering street cars that are too big for the tracks. How ignorant can these city leaders be?

Ha-ha, very ignorant. I remember reading that the Roman Empire succeeded because they standardized roads and wheel track separation throughout their empire - two-thousand years ago. Roads, wagons and trains kept using these Roman specs for thousands of years.

Seattle "planners" can't do what planners throughout history have done, standardizing track width.

[AlaskaErik]

Construction costs for new and upgraded streetcar and light rail lines are skyrocketing well above estimated costs.

A good rule of thumb is that the actual cost of a light rail system is six times the initial estimated cost. And ridership numbers will be much lower than initially projected.

[Slyfox]

Bike lanes? It rains, what, 9 months of the year in Seattle?

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Gee, stupidity runs or ruins, or both, Seattle, just like Portland, only with less class.

It’s a beautiful city. It’s just the junkies, commies, and incompetent Democrats who are screwing it up.

They make Portland seem like a Marxist paradise.

[PIF]

At least Seattle’s trolley goes somewhere, unlike Milwaukee’s which goes around the same four blocks ... ridership is likely in the single digits, other than the homeless making it their new mobile home ...

[KyCats]

Cincinnati SJWs did exactly the same thing, forcing a streetcar system on the city even though there was zero need for it. It’s been up and running now for 2 years, is hopelessly in debt and there is not a single rider on the trains as they circle the downtown area during the week like some phantom ghost ship. It is used some on weekends by tourists and suburbians but is losing tons of money. They’re now talking about radically scaling it back or maybe even shutting it down completely.

And of course, the sane people in Cinci objected to the project from the very beginning predicting this is exactly what would happen. They were all called names and told to shut up.

[Fai Mao]

Modern rail road gage is derived from a Roman chariot in thw Britsh museum.

[vannrox]

streetcar service is the excuse. the reason is graft for the local powerful.

[zeestephen]

Compared to the estimated cost of our “Light Rail” system, the street cars and bike lanes are budget rounding errors.

The last number I saw for Light Rail was $10 billion. It increases $1 or $2 billion with every new estimate.

They started building almost three years ago, and they still have like 4 more years to go.

Here on the Eastside, we have had major downtown streets and access roads completely torn up for two years, with almost no visible progress.

South of Bellevue they have destroyed at least a hundred acres of green space and trees for rail tracks.

And when they finally finish, they estimate that Light Rail ridership will reduce rush hour traffic by 5,000 cars.

We could have accomplished exactly the same goal by increasing bus routes - for 10% of the cost and maybe 18 months of construction.

Total madness - and not one Democrat or Seattle news source ever utters a word of criticism.

[SkyPilot]

The trite expression "Speed Kills" is erroneous.

Speed does not "kill." Differential Speed kills.

Roads that are designed for automobile use, where 99.8% of the usage is by automobiles, are inheriently incompatible with sharing traffic with bikes, streetcars, rickshaws, skateboards, or anything else traveling at a snail's pace with automobiles.

Cyclists are required by law to observe the same rules of the road as automobilies, but many do not. They fail to yield, make improper turns, and disregard traffic signs and lights. Not to mention that their slow speed impedes the entire system.

Bike lanes in cities are few. They cause more trouble for automobile traffic because there is no way to really design them to not impede 99.8% of the other traffic.

[FrdmLvr]

Yes. Big federal dollars.

[sphinx]

Roads that are designed for automobile use, where 99.8% of the usage is by automobiles, are inheriently incompatible with sharing traffic with bikes, streetcars, rickshaws, skateboards, or anything else traveling at a snail's pace with automobiles.

And that, my friend, is a description of bad road design.

Towns and cities existed for thousands of years before the automobile came along. Streets and roads accommodated ALL forms of traffic, and the dominant mode was pedestrian. Then came the car, which moved at speeds hazardous to everyone else. So here we are.

Forget bicycles for a moment. Think of pedestrians. People should be able to move around their own neighborhoods safely. People should be able to cross the street safely, and at convenient intervals. Kids should be able to walk or bike to school. The elderly should be able to get around without cars. People should be able to get to their neighborhood parks and pools without driving to them. Roads should not become barriers. Too many suburbanites live in communities that require them to get into their cars to do anything and everything; they've lost sight of how good urban neighborhoods live.

So: it should be part of basic road design that we build sidewalks and ample pedestrian crossings. With minimal upgrades, sidewalks and pedestrian crossings can accommodate bikes as well. On rural roads, have good shoulders; this is proper design for automobiles as well, but it also accommodates pedestrian and bike traffic.

Local situations will vary, but around DC one of the biggest problems is roads on which the shoulders and sidewalks were long ago sacrificed to squeeze in another traffic lane. Planners took the existing sidewalk, spent a bazillion dollars a mile putting in a new car lane, and deemed a replacement sidewalk "too expensive." Planners took a city street in an urban neighborhood and turned it into a high speed commuter sewer, risky to cross even if it's not fenced. This kind of thing kills neighborhoods and produces slums.

Want to put a new arterial road through a residential neighborhood? Ok … provided you have a stoplight and a safe crossing every two blocks, put in a wide sidewalk for neighborhood traffic including pedestrians, bikes, moms with strollers and the joggers and dogwatchers, don't eliminate the on-street parking for local merchants, etc. I.e., don't destroy other people's neighborhoods.

Your commute is too long? Live closer to your job.

[Elsie]

You'd think Indianapolis' rulers would learn from our neighbors to the east; but NO!!!

They are all wee-wee'd up over getting our OWN boondoggle!

[Elsie]

Compared to the estimated cost of our “Light Rail” system, the street cars and bike lanes are budget rounding errors.

---

Now, the city has apparently settled on a solution: a tunnel.

But that might be an expensive addition to the millions in local tax dollars Fishers intends to put toward the project.

 

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/07/27/fishers-nickel-plate-trail-could-get-tunnel-116th-street/838055002/

 

https://www.google.com/search?ei=xKBhW6XeN-XVjwSOgKw4&q=fishers+bicycle+bridge+over+traffic+indystar&oq=fishers+bicycle+bridge+over+traffic+indystar&gs_l=psy-ab.3...24444.26515.0.27023.9.9.0.0.0.0.196.965.5j4.9.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.7.800...33i160k1j33i21k1.0._jLf3si0_bo

[Elsie]

Differential Speed kills.

And stops - sudden ones...

VERY sudden ones.

[Elsie]

...in a very short space...