Public Interest Transportation Forum - http://www.bettertransport.info/pitf
Comments by John Niles, Technical Chairman of Coalition for Effective Transportation Alternatives (CETA), to the RTC on the occasion of its final meeting, December 18th, 2006.
Good morning.
I’m here mostly to thank you for your hard work toward a fine report, and what I hope is the beginning of significant change.
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Hot off the press: See the Commission's December 31, 2006 Final Report to Washington State Government |
The details of the mission statement and the charter for the new Puget Sound Regional Transportation Commission will be important, and to underline what I said Thursday, creating a linkage of how the recommendations can cause the improvements envisioned will be important for your report.
But now, as a holiday gift, I want to present you with my Top Ten Reasons for the RTC to reorganize PSRC, RTID, Sound Transit and regional transportation planning generally:
10. Years of dithering over replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
9. Even more years of dithering over upgrading the SR-520 floating bridge.
8. The Seattle Green Line monorail from start to finish -- did regional transportation planning ever make any impact at all on this deal?
7. The pending $25 billion life cycle cost for Sound Transit Phase Two to add 159,000 daily riders, never, ever to be officially compared with, say, rideshare promotion that would raise average vehicle occupancy from 1.35 to 1.37 for the same effect on traffic reduction.
6. Planning to construct a 6 mile, 3 billion dollar light rail train tunnel from Pine Street to NE 75th, the construction and operation of which -- including the benefit of cars removed from the road -- would add to greenhouse gas emissions over the lifetime of everyone in this room.
5. The still-uncompleted Puget Sound HOV expressway network -- never embraced as the foundation of a permanent, high-capacity transit system.
4. Planning to reduce bus and truck capacity on the I-90 Interstate Highway bridge by eliminating two lanes that could be filled with buses and HOVS, but won’t be, in order to build the nation’s first floating railroad tracks, creating the peak hour spectacle of trains with five miles of empty space in between.
3. Electronic smartcards for bus riders to pay fares -- implemented throughout Europe and South America -- but still not implemented around here after ten years of trying.
2. Access to a 30 minute maximum work-commute on transit, according to PSRC: available in 2040 for the average household to fewer than 2% of the region's employment opportunities, even with 125 miles of light rail and massive densification around train stations. Needless to say, the official Destination 2030 forecast also has traffic congestion becoming much worse -- doubling to tripling.
And, the number one reason for RTC to recommend reorganization of transportation planning around the Puget Sound:
1. The realization that doubling regional transportation revenue could be achieved with region-wide open road, location-aware and time-of-day variable tolling averaging 15 cents per vehicle mile and at the same time eliminating the gas tax, transit sales tax, and MVET. A device to measure mileage and record a road user fee has already been tested in the Puget Sound region.
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Thanks to the Regional Transportation Commission for its recommendations toward reform!
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