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I'm really glad to see some cities still invest in unified, balanced public transportation infrastructure like this. Seattle is a great example of what all citi
by maxsilver 8y ago
I'm really glad to see some cities still invest in unified, balanced public transportation infrastructure like this. Seattle is a great example of what all cities should be striving for.
- metildaa 8y agoI think what was missed during this viadoom was that SR-99 allowed many employers to demand people needlessly commute to an office, when most of the former daily users could work from home or at a closer location. The Wednesday after the Viaduct closed, I dropped by a few office buildings, and business after business was operating with only a handful of the usual staff on site. Most of those office employees are only on site daily due to poor management IMO.
- DaniloDias 8y agoLeave Seattle at 1pm. It takes 5-10 minutes to get to 90/I5. Leave at 5pm, it takes an hour. It is definitely a great example, but no one should strive to emulate it.
- FPGAhacker 8y agoNo kidding. Seattle should be an example of how not to plan a city. Traffic is astonishingly bad given the population.
- tjr225 8y agoThe Seattle metro is a unique situation that exists outside of just city planning...we are trapped between various lakes, mountains ranges, and massive bodies of saltwater - and I don't say this in the regions defense - I have suffered an insane commute here before choosing to make the sacrifices necessary to live and afford to live in the city. At the same time the things that make commuting in this place difficult are what make it precious. Hopefully ST3 comes to fruition as there simply aren't many more places to put highways.
- FPGAhacker 8y agoThis is true, the geography does create some traffic funnels.
- ken 8y agoAdding highways isn't the only tool available to transportation planners. Isn't it interesting how some intersections bog down at any capacity, while others are busy and still keep moving smoothly? There are types of lane and intersection designs which never seem to work well, and I'm surprised that more isn't done to avoid or eliminate them.
- throwaway98121 8y agoDid they really plan it? I feel like no one expected Amazon to grow as much as they did. And the domino effect was everyone else started coming into the area because tech talent was here already (or across the lake in Bellevue and Redmond). I’m not a Seattle native so do correct me if that’s wrong.
- corprew 8y agothe tunnel was always sort of dumb, but seattle had a really reasonable traffic growth plan for its expected growth. the actual growth has been way higher than the plan.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hbosch 8y agoSeattle will always be congested due to sheer geography. It’s surrounded by water on all sides. Want to go east? You have two bridges, and neither one is particularly better for the suburbs of Bellevue and Co., since that area lies between 520 and I90. To get to West Seattle you have one bridge, or take the 2x as long drive down and around. Living out West puts you on the ferry schedule. Seattle’s congestion is kind a crap-chute because every downtown/SLU employee is basically choked through a bridge in one way or another. Edit: and no one wants to live south. For whatever reason. And even if you commuted south, seems like it’s about a 50% chance a semi is going to be crashed on that weird median.
- BurningFrog 8y agoYou can build more bridges. That is not "geography".
- phillipcarter 8y agoIt is. The entire region is a giant landslide hazard, which makes it extremely time-consuming to build things, including the ends of bridges.
- coryrc 8y agoLots of people live to the south. Land in South Seattle has significant pollution problems though.
- icelancer 8y agoYou should read more about the shitshow that was Bertha and the Seattle tunnel. Lot of lawsuits and complete stupidity went into this project.