Would light rail lead us down the wrong path?
Portland’s MAX system has been in operation since 1986.
Puget Sound’s spreading traffic miseries are prompting commuters to imitate Mark Twain’s quip about the weather. Only in this case, it seems everybody is talking about the traffic and nobody is doing anything about it.
That situation is changing, but UW transportation and land use experts worry that local voters and their government will pour billions of dollars into a questionable solution. Metro, the King County agency responsible for transit planning and operations, may ask voters to tax themselves to the tune of $6 billion over 30 years.
That vote may be held as early as September of 1992. If the package passes, Metro will put together a transit package which will probably include a light rail system stretching from Tacoma to Everett when completed around the year 2020.
The idea of a rail system for the greater Seattle area is nothing new. Back in the late 1960s, voters rejected a rail proposal which largely would have been built with federal funds. The Puget Sound area fell back on highways, the automobile and buses to meet it transportation needs.
At the same time, rail systems did take root in the Northwest. Vancouver, B.C., and Portland built and opened rail lines in 1986, Skytrain and MAX, respectively. Both cities are now planning for major expansions. The people of central Puget Sound, meanwhile, have yet to reach a consensus on transportation issues.
“We have to have an HCT (high-capacity transit) system, and we seem to be heading toward light rail,” says Seattle City Councilman Paul Kraabel, chairman of Metro’s transit planning subcommittee. “We need to get started. Look at what happened in the decade of the ’80s. We went too far down the path of dependence on the automobile and we reached the point where an increase in traffic hit a critical juncture. We added that one more car and things came to a halt.
“By the turn of the century we will need an HCT if we are to have any hope of getting to work in a civilized manner. By that I mean in less than two hours from the other side of the lake, Lynnwood or south King County to downtown. We need to design the best possible system, trot it out, have a good debate and let the people decide the issue.”
Metro’s proposals undoubtedly will provoke a torrent of debate. Much of it will emanate from the University of Washington where transportation, land use and geography experts doubt that a light rail system—or any single solution—will diminish regional traffic woes. Stronger medicine may be needed to alleviate Puget Sound’s automotive and arterial sclerosis. Congestion, they contend, is part of the larger problem of land use and has to be considered in a larger context.
They also question the wisdom of building a multibillion-dollar system that may attract few new riders. Studies of other light rail systems indicate that riders are primarily those who used to take a bus.
“I haven’t seen a light or heavy rail system anywhere in this country that has delivered what was promised,” says UW Civil Engineering Professor Jerry Schneider. “All of them have come in over budget and haven’t delivered the promised patronage. Even in Europe, where they have higher urban densities, rail ridership is flat and car ownership is going up. If you can’t make rail technology work in Europe, where can it work?”
“You have to be pretty starry-eyed to believe that rail will produce any major regional impact on traffic, although it can have significant effects on a few corridors,” explains Geography Professor David Hodge. “The problem is, we try to come up with a solution, such as light rail, and see if everyone and everything fits into it. Image plays a big role. There is this idea that we are not a world-class city without a rail system. People say, ‘Even Portland has one.’”
In “Myths and Facts About Growth Management,” a study co-authored with Geography Professor Richard Morrill, Hodge contends that rail hasn’t been a key factor in reducing congestion because of the changing nature of urban life and patterns of travel.
In their study, Hodge and Morrill found that congestion has spread to the suburbs, “following jobs, retailing and residences. By 1980 the suburb-to-suburb commute and personal auto use were the fastest-growing segments of vehicle miles travelled nationally, as well as in central Puget Sound. Cross-suburb commuting, however, complicates travel patterns from many origins to many destinations. In general, suburban population and employment densities are too dense to allow uncontested travel, but not dense enough to support effective mass transit.”
They report that transit accounts for only between 3 and 4 percent of all urban trips in the Seattle and Portland metropolitan regions and between 8 and 9 percent of work trips. Even with a 50 percent increase in ridership—a goal they say would be virtually impossible to achieve—metropolitan congestion problems cannot be solved solely by mass transit.
“We have no coordinated vision of the future. A rail system won’t reduce congestion, but it can fit into other community goals,” explains Hodge. “Rail can provide the trigger for a rational land-use pattern. Congestion is as bad in the suburbs as it is in downtown Seattle; today it is a truly metropolitan problem.”
Civil Engineering Professor Scott Rutherford, who is a former director of the Washington State Transportation Center, echoes Hodge, adding: “The landscape has to be reformed to be more amenable to something other than the automobile.”
In the future, Rutherford believes new factors are going to heavily influence transit planning. “Things like air quality are going to drive transportation decisions in Puget Sound, much as they now are doing in Southern California. Even if we build a transit system, it won’t come close to solving problems such as congestion and air quality. The congestion probably will be the same.
“There is a tremendous latent demand for freeway capacity,” he continues. “As soon as I get off the freeway, another driver will get on. There is no way to keep up with auto traffic. If you build a rapid transit system and it eliminates congestion, no one would use it because we would all go back to driving our cars. We will never have free-flowing freeways and we wouldn’t want them because they would only generate more development.
“There are a lot of technologies that can provide a solution. But I would start with what are our realistic financial resources. If Metro asks the people to vote on a rail system, it is going to cost a lot of money. There is one side of me that wants to see it built, but another side wants to put that money into K-12 education. The well only has so much money.”
The details of what Metro will propose to the public haven’t been determined. But it seems certain that Metro’s proposal will be three-pronged. It will, according to Metro planners, contain a mass-transit element, a bus/carpool lane component and a package of additional bus service.
All indications are that Metro will ultimately lean toward a light rail system for mass transit over a rival proposal calling for a busway system, which is a network of roadways separated from other traffic and built just for buses. The utility is looking at three major corridors for either mass transit system:
- A northern line from downtown Seattle running through Capitol Hill and the University District north to Everett.
- An eastern line crossing over the I-90 bridge to Bellevue and Redmond.
- A southern line connecting downtown Seattle to SeaTac Airport and on to Tacoma.
Metro’s timetable would start construction in 1995 or 1996 with initial service starting in 2005. Links to Everett, Tacoma and Redmond would be completed in 2020.
In addition, Metro, in cooperation with the state Department of Transportation, would pour money into 400 miles of new bus/carpool lanes, 300 of them on highways and 100 on surface streets. Finally, Metro plans to expand its bus service by 40 percent, phasing in one million hours of new service annually over a 10-year span.
Most of the upcoming debate undoubtedly will focus on the light rail element of Metro’s plans and whether or not a system will attract enough riders.
Engineering Professor Schneider thinks Metro’s system will fail without a large feeder system because it won’t have enough stations and parking lots for riders. These feeder lines could include buses, as well as people movers (smaller transit lines serving individual neighborhoods with moving walkways or miniature rail systems). Without an adequate number of stations and adequate parking or feeder systems, Schneider believes few people will ride the main system.
Technical Communications Professor Mark Haselkorn, who studies commuter behavior, concurs. “From our surveys, most drivers on the freeways wouldn’t use light rail,” he says. “Right now I would guess only 10 percent of the people commuting by car into Seattle would use a light rail system if it was convenient, fast, safe, pleasant and well-marketed. Perhaps another 5 percent can be convinced to use it. Eighty-five percent will never take it.”
Getting motorists to switch to mass transit is going to be a difficult task. Despite traffic jams, Puget Sound drivers, like most Americans, are in love with their cars. And the automobile remains the most convenient way to get to work. That’s why transportation officials and researchers such as Rutherford talk about “travel demand management.” That’s a collective term for a wide range of proposals and incentives aimed at getting people to cut the amount they travel, change how they travel, alter travel times or even adopt alternatives for traveling.
Rutherford’s travel demand management plan has a long list of options. It includes raising gasoline taxes, installing commute-hour highway tolls, raising the price of parking, reducing the supply of parking spaces, lowering transit fares, telecommuting, four-day work weeks and creating neighborhood office centers for workers.
But a travel demand management plan may sound confusing and long-winded to the average citizen. Fred Jarrett, Mercer Island city councilman and chairman of the Metro transit committee, feels voters need a concept they can “buy into.”
“People don’t buy into something that is inherently rational,” he says. “My judgment from polls is if we don’t put together a plan that includes a rail component we won’t get very far with the public. HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle lanes) is a hell of a good thing, but it isn’t sexy. People won’t necessarily make a rational decision. Given the choice of two cars, they tend to buy or choose the more attractive one, not because it is more functional but because it’s nicer. It’s the same with rail and HOV.”
Rutherford disagrees. “We need a whole comprehensive package of mobility for the region, not just a couple of rail lines. I want to make sure people understand the impact of a transit system, how much it costs, who it serves, what it does for the region and what are the alternatives. I want citizens to be able to make an informed choice. Do they want to build a Mercedes or a Chevrolet? When people are faced with choices they make rational decisions.”
Shifters, pathseekers and obstinates: commuting behavior analyzed
If you are looking for someone to blame for Puget Sound’s growing traffic woes, take a look in the mirror.
UW researchers have zeroed in on local commuters in the largest survey ever undertaken of American drivers and their habits. They found that only 17 percent of downtown drivers would even consider getting out of their cars for a bus, carpool or vanpool.
The researchers, Technical Communications Professors Mark Haselkorn and Jan Spyridakis and Industrial Engineering Professor Woodrow Barfield, distilled data from more than 6,000 Seattle commuters. They found that commuters fall into four groups based on their willingness to change and respond to traffic information:
- “The Shifters”—The largest group of commuters, nearly 40 percent, Shifters are willing to change their departure times and routes on their way to and from work. Shifters will not get out of their cars for a different travel mode.
- “The Obstinates”—These people won’t change their departure time, route or mode of travel and claim traffic information is not available. Obstinates total 23 percent of all commuters and have the highest overall percentage of males.
- “The Pathseekers”—This group, nearly 21 percent of all drivers, is willing to switch routes before and during commuting. Pathseekers, however, won’t change departure times or modes of travel.
- “The Pre-Trip Flexibles”—This is the smallest category, 17 percent, and the one with the largest overall proportion of women. Pre-Trip Flexibles are willing to change their departure time, route and even their mode of travel if they receive information before they leave home. Once on the road, however, Pre-Trip Flexibles won’t shift routes.
In addition to classifying commuter behavior, the survey also analyzed the commuting experience:
- A commuter is late for work, typically about four times a month because of traffic.
- A commuter is lonely. About 76 percent of vehicles going into downtown Seattle have a single occupant.
- A commuter is stubborn. Most drivers, 92 percent, don’t consider using an alternative mode of transport.
- A commuter has stress. Two-thirds of all drivers say they experience “some” or “a lot of” stress while commuting.
- A commuter listens to the radio, which is the overwhelming first choice for obtaining traffic information.
By understanding how motorists obtain traffic information and how they use it, the UW researchers hope to design new systems to improve the flow of information to drivers.
“The idea behind our work is to allow people to become more intelligent consumers of traffic facilities,” says Haselkorn. “It’s like reading the ingredients on two cans of food in the supermarket. But with traffic we currently don’t have any labeling. That means we don’t know how much a transportation system will cost us in stress and time, so we can’t make informed decisions.”
The study is part of a larger effort to provide motorists with more “up-to-the-second” traffic information. In cooperation with the state Department of Transportation, a network of sensors has been installed on freeways feeding into downtown, allowing traffic flows to be monitored on a computer screen. The researchers hope to make this information available to radio and television stations within two years.
U-PASS may cut through District’s traffic knot
On Sept. 30, the University of Washington will launch its own attack on traffic gridlock through U-PASS, one of the most comprehensive transportation management programs in the nation.
Students, faculty and staff with have the option of purchasing a pass that will allow free bus travel in King and Snohomish counties, as well as providing other commuting benefits.
While U-PASS promotes a mixture of transit options—including carpools, vanpools and bicycles—its main focus is to encourage the use of buses. Metro will expand bus service to the University by about 60,000 annual hours, or 20 percent. Community Transit of Snohomish County will also increase service.
In addition, a night shuttle will pick up pass holders on campus and take them to their homes in the “U” District and Ravenna neighborhoods. A ride-match service will promote vanpools and carpools. For faculty and staff, a guaranteed ride home program will cover emergencies when there is a need to take a taxi home. Funds from pass sales will also improve and expand UW bike facilities.
The U-PASS is an optional program for students, faculty and staff. For students, the cost is $20 per quarter. Students will be automatically billed for the pass on their tuition statement and must mark a check-off box and return a U-PASS sticker if they do not want it. Transportation Systems Manager Michael Williams estimates that 75 percent of all students will purchase a U-PASS.
UW employees who drive alone to campus will receive a U-PASS along with their parking permit. Their parking rates will rise from $24 to $36 per month. For those employees who do not drive to campus, the pass will cost $27 per quarter, a deep discount from the $31.50 per month fee for a peak-hour, Metro bus pass. Williams expects between 80 and 85 percent of the faculty and staff to participate.
The U-PASS is a response to the increased traffic in the University District, which grows about 2 percent each year. The demand for parking exceeds the supply on campus. Traffic is sluggish at most times of the day and bumper to bumper during rush hours. In addition, air pollution is on the rise in the neighborhood.
The University plans to construct a ,number of new buildings over the decade to provide “state of the art” teaching and research facilities. These new buildings are essential for attracting and keeping top faculty and students.
Some of the construction sites eliminate surface parking lots. Parking garages are funded by parking permit holders. The more garages needed, the higher the parking rates. The University must either consolidate its parking in expensive garages or encourage more people to leave their cars at home, Williams says.
Through the U-PASS, the UW hopes to encourage those who can commute by carpool, vanpool and transit to do so when possible. During the school year, the UW triggers about 60,000 trips each day to the district. At the end of the U-PASS three-year trial period, UW planners hope to have cut that number by 5,000.