10 ms·

Roads are full, one of the issues I've noticed from living in seattle for decades, more parents are driving their kids to school instead of buses. Morning and a

Roads are full, one of the issues I've noticed from living in seattle for decades, more parents are driving their kids to school instead of buses. Morning and afternoon traffic is jam packed with parents and kids, causing major delays for rush hour, just to reach the on/off ramps. Also, the park and rides are full too early, meaning people have to drive or get to work 1 hour or more early. Parking never kept up with all the new apartment buildings, the newer ones are multi levels, and are already mostly full. Public transit has failed to keep up with demand, meaning more cars on the road. Then the limited amount of highways, trucks are stuck in traffic for hours, sharing the road. Uber and Lyft isnt a fix for less cars on the road. Now compound that by the hundreds of issues along the supply chain, decades old port design, same methodology from the 1960s on loading/unloading at the ports, limited space at the ports/warehouses, day long waits for truckers at the port, inefficiency from start to finish. Some ideas, Have the ports move containers to a farther location for pick up, during non traffic times, 9pm to 5am. Have the National guard build some new depots outside of town, hopefully along highways. Optimize the ports, the containers are sitting too long in warehouses, and not enough cranes. The solution shouldn't be "ticket truckers" who cant fix the core issues.

alexpotato 5y ago
I remember reading years ago (pre Uber) that there should be more taxis in the New York City to help people get around. They quoted a professor who had, according to the article, the most accurate model of NYC traffic given a large number of variables e.g. number of commuters, taxis, buses, subway frequency etc. A key take away was the a taxi (or Uber/Lyft etc) is much WORSE for traffic than a commuter car. Commuters drive in, park, leave their car all day then leave. Taxis are constantly circling and looking for fares. IIRC the impact of a taxi was several multiples of the impact of a commuter on daily gridlock. Now, I love Uber/Lyft for all of the regular reasons e.g. allows people in under-served areas get transportation, senior citizens and the disabled with more access etc. The traffic impact, however, seems pretty substantial.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fragmede 5y ago
  However, taxi/Uber/Lyfts are, y'know, moving people around while they circle the city. Commuters clog up the roads with that whole commuting thing, and those car parks are valuable real estate that could be used for anything else.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Why would Uber/Lyft cars be driving around looking for fares like taxis? They are going strictly by the app, so it’s not like they can’t park when the app isn’t giving them any rides, and usually they are just going from one ride to the next as they are scheduled back to back.
  - andrewxdiamond 5y ago
    There is still some time in-between rides where there are no passengers in the car. If riders had a car, that dead-weight car would not be on the road.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      When it’s busy, Ubers at least will get their next ride about five minutes before completing their current ride.
      - andrewxdiamond 5y ago
        True, sometimes it will be equivalent to car travel in that way. But it will never be _always_ true. So overall, Ride share decreases car ownership, but increases traffic.
        seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        I'm not sure. The fact that Uber drivers aren't cruising for fares is at least a huge improvement to the way taxis worked. Having spent 9 years in Beijing, it seemed like an even bigger improvement when ride sharing and even just being able to schedule a taxi with an app meant that cars and people looking for rides were connected much more easily and didn't have to go looking for each other (as I often did before). There are actually places in Beijing to wait for assignments outside of major clogged ring roads and arterials. But it really depends on the design of your city.
rdp36 5y ago
Dude, Seattle has spent billions on light rail and it really works well. Are you on the east side? Decent progress has been made on transit oriented apartments too. I agree traffic is oddly bad during the pandemic, but we have solutions, more transit, protected bike lanes, and apartments near light rail and buslines.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  Is it grade separated? I genuinely don't know, but I fear the answer. Progressives building trains that sit in traffic is very expensive virtue signalling as far as I am concerned.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    AFAIK it’s all in its own right of way, with a mix of being at grade and underground (and soon parts will be elevated). Your description is apt for the South Lake Union Streetcar, though.
  - area_man_2 5y ago
    I cannot speak to east of Seattle but for significant portions it is grade separated. Of the 3 stops where it isn't, it has it's own lane on a major thoroughfare and only chances an errant driver crossing an intersection. Now for the Seattle Streetcars, those are a different story. For the most part, they have a dedicated lane so they breeze past traffic, but could get caught if traffic is especially bad.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Light rail usually isn't. (I don't know about Seattle specifically.)
  - andrewxdiamond 5y ago
    Trains that sit in traffic still have a massive gain over cars in traffic. They are cheaper to run long term than the equivalent sized bus, and can run almost non-stop without the need to refuel. Try not to dismiss ideas so quickly as "virtue signalling" without an understanding of what they accomplish
jmspring 5y ago
Seattle (neh, Tacoma to Bellingham) has built up suburbs around highways unable to keep up with demand. That is the primary reason for traffic. Infrastructure around Seattle is not going to make up for sprawl. That sprawl goes all the way to Snowqualmie and eventually Ellensberg. The whole of that part of WA is a shitshow where infrastructure has not kept up with demand. No, light rail and housing along such will make up for the greater shitshow. I’ve been dealing with the area for over 20 years. The ferry system is also falling apart and that affects those that may take bridges instead of ferries. The gridlock in that area impacts the ports and truckers, but their impact is small compared to the other things that make it a shit show. Seattle / WA driving habits don’t help matters either.
- 01100011 5y ago
  Grew up in the PNW but thankfully moved away 25 years ago before most of the growth. In my opinion the PNW has long been the place where the growth goes unchecked but the cultural animosity for cars has prevented effective expansions of the transit infrastructure. I'm not saying cars are the solution, but I'm saying the pols and voters up there have refused to acknowledge the reality that cars play a major role in our current transportation scheme. I applaud them for working to expand their light & heavy rail options, while also maintaining a (IMHO) decently effective bus system. But that obviously isn't enough. The reality is that people continue to choose single passenger vehicles and the government hasn't don't much to address it. I understand the opposition to single passenger vehicles, but the failure to expand transit corridors when land was cheap will have lasting impacts on the ability to expand rail and mass transit networks as such expansion becomes impossible due to cost. The reality is that, barring a major economic change(which, granted, may finally be here), people will continue to choose single passenger vehicles and not supplying the infrastructure for them means they are even less efficient while they sit in traffic.
  - pitterpatter 5y ago
    >the cultural animosity for cars has prevented effective expansions of the transit infrastructure I'm not sure I understand this point? For one, if anything there's a clear preference for cars as the default mode of transportation.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
> Public transit has failed to keep up with demand, meaning more cars on the road. Public transit simply does not work if people have the option of cars. Public transit did not fail, society’s leaders (and hence society itself) optimized for individual cars. There is no possibility that both can coexist. Public transit also requires dense living.
- Factorium 5y ago
  Public transport doesn't work if you have to wear a mask to ride it. People on the margins between wanting to drive or get transport will switch to driving because of the inherent discomfort and dehumanization of being forced to wear a mask. Remove all COVID-era restrictions from schools, workplaces, and transport, and systems will go back to functioning normally.
  - cowsandmilk 5y ago
    When someone is talking about a decade long trend, they probably aren’t talking about something driven by masks and Covid.
  - Avicebron 5y ago
    I think Japan's public transit is a good example of this not being the case, trains work, run on time, and people are fine with mask restrictions.
    - charlieyu1 5y ago
      Not sure how westerners are comfortable with packing people so close inside the train, with about 6 people per square metre. And the work culture is pretty toxic. Train drivers basically have to apologise if the train arrives 30 seconds late
  - eloisius 5y ago
    Public transit is working great in Taipei and masks have been mandatory for almost two years.
  - 5y ago
tryptophan 5y ago
I kind of wonder why there hasnt been an "uber for bus" yet. I imagine a fleet of buses directed by sophisticated scheduling and navigation algorithms. Users select a destination and pick up point, along with an arrival time. Discounts for ordering 1 day early to aid with scheduling. Pay extra to have the algorithm favor a shorter travel time for you. System makes dynamic smart routes for buses to get people to where they want to go. Make it good at predicting arrival times so people can rely on it. Seems like such an obvious next step for the whole uber/app-based-transport model. Not sure why nobody has tried it yet.
- s0rce 5y ago
  Isn't Chariot trying (or tried?) to do this? (edit: they did go under in 2019).
- benatkin 5y ago
  This played out in San Francisco half a decade ago. It didn't work well. https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/chariot-private-bus-startup-shutters-operations/?&ampcf=1 https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/chariot-private-bus-startup... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_Transit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_Transit
  - sneak 5y ago
    Webvan didn't work, until it did one day. These sorts of casual dismissals assume that the underlying technological landscape doesn't change, and that all organizations execute identically on product. Neither assumption holds true.
  - Factorium 5y ago
    It didn't work because they were strangled by regulation, by City Bureaucrats fearful that the private market would outcompete public transport.
- LogonType10 5y ago
  Because Uber must exploit workers to survive and no one is going to "ride share" their bus.
bullfightonmars 5y ago
Seattle does not bus students to school unless your house is > 1 mile from the school and then only if you are in the zone for that school. I live in a NW Seattle neighborhood that doesn’t even have sidewalks that you could walk to get to the school if you wanted.
- lightrail123 5y ago
  I also live in a NW Seattle neighborhood without sidewalks. Walking or biking a mile is not a problem for most folks? I understand if someone has a mobility impairment, or some other necessary accommodation. But a mile is not a long ways.
daave 5y ago
Fellow Seattle-worker here As a counterpoint- I take express bus 545 from Redmond to Seattle between 8 and 9am on weekdays, and there’s typically less than a half dozen people on the bus. I get from my home to the office in 30-40mins. The slowest part is the tiny stretch of I-5 with no bus lane. I don’t think public transit has failed to keep up, it’s under-utilized, in part due to anxiety about COVID. These same routes were jam packed in 2019.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
honkycat 5y ago
I find it interesting that the traffic we experience every day is also what is causing the issues with supply chains. I feel that it is glossed over. Nobody talks about the larger effects of the traffic in US cities beyond: "You sit in the car longer for work.", not "your meat is expensive because traffic is bad." Cities are always very hesitant to introduce measures to reduce demand on our roads. I wonder if it is intentional that nobody talks about this.
- kiklion 5y ago
  > Nobody talks about the larger effects of the traffic in US cities I always assumed truckers took mandatory breaks during rush hour. Here in Charlotte, traffic is minimal except during rush hour.
- opportune 5y ago
  Reducing demand on roads is a tough sell politically when most people are still car-reliant. People don’t see themselves as beneficiaries at all when they hear “congestion pricing” or “dedicated bus lanes” or “increased funding for public transit.” In this case even that’s not being done. The government is just not continuing to subsidize car-based transit via roads at an adequate level to keep up with demand for car usage. I do think a big part of the problem is that you need a critical mass of public transit before people can really ditch their cars. The network needs to be able to reach far away and enable more than just commuting to a desk job in the city center. And it needs times to remain in that state for all the businesses to rebalance around the public transit network (ie less reliance on huge shopping centers and strip malls only accessible by car). As a result I think you probably get a bit of a U shaped cost:benefit curve wrt funding of transit infrastructure.
  - honkycat 5y ago
    I say this as a pretty leftist person: I also want free stuff. But I am an adult who understands that our roads, cars, and congestion cost money and it needs to be addressed.
- discardable_dan 5y ago
supernovae 5y ago
Not sure why they didn't invest in trains.. seems so silly to truck everything out if its going long haul.

alexpotato 5y ago

I remember reading years ago (pre Uber) that there should be more taxis in the New York City to help people get around. They quoted a professor who had, according to the article, the most accurate model of NYC traffic given a large number of variables e.g. number of commuters, taxis, buses, subway frequency etc. A key take away was the a taxi (or Uber/Lyft etc) is much WORSE for traffic than a commuter car. Commuters drive in, park, leave their car all day then leave. Taxis are constantly circling and looking for fares. IIRC the impact of a taxi was several multiples of the impact of a commuter on daily gridlock. Now, I love Uber/Lyft for all of the regular reasons e.g. allows people in under-served areas get transportation, senior citizens and the disabled with more access etc. The traffic impact, however, seems pretty substantial.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fragmede 5y ago
However, taxi/Uber/Lyfts are, y'know, moving people around while they circle the city. Commuters clog up the roads with that whole commuting thing, and those car parks are valuable real estate that could be used for anything else.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Why would Uber/Lyft cars be driving around looking for fares like taxis? They are going strictly by the app, so it’s not like they can’t park when the app isn’t giving them any rides, and usually they are just going from one ride to the next as they are scheduled back to back.
- andrewxdiamond 5y ago
  There is still some time in-between rides where there are no passengers in the car. If riders had a car, that dead-weight car would not be on the road.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    When it’s busy, Ubers at least will get their next ride about five minutes before completing their current ride.
    - andrewxdiamond 5y ago
      True, sometimes it will be equivalent to car travel in that way. But it will never be _always_ true. So overall, Ride share decreases car ownership, but increases traffic.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        I'm not sure. The fact that Uber drivers aren't cruising for fares is at least a huge improvement to the way taxis worked. Having spent 9 years in Beijing, it seemed like an even bigger improvement when ride sharing and even just being able to schedule a taxi with an app meant that cars and people looking for rides were connected much more easily and didn't have to go looking for each other (as I often did before). There are actually places in Beijing to wait for assignments outside of major clogged ring roads and arterials. But it really depends on the design of your city.

rdp36 5y ago

Dude, Seattle has spent billions on light rail and it really works well. Are you on the east side? Decent progress has been made on transit oriented apartments too. I agree traffic is oddly bad during the pandemic, but we have solutions, more transit, protected bike lanes, and apartments near light rail and buslines.

Ericson2314 5y ago
Is it grade separated? I genuinely don't know, but I fear the answer. Progressives building trains that sit in traffic is very expensive virtue signalling as far as I am concerned.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  AFAIK it’s all in its own right of way, with a mix of being at grade and underground (and soon parts will be elevated). Your description is apt for the South Lake Union Streetcar, though.
- area_man_2 5y ago
  I cannot speak to east of Seattle but for significant portions it is grade separated. Of the 3 stops where it isn't, it has it's own lane on a major thoroughfare and only chances an errant driver crossing an intersection. Now for the Seattle Streetcars, those are a different story. For the most part, they have a dedicated lane so they breeze past traffic, but could get caught if traffic is especially bad.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Light rail usually isn't. (I don't know about Seattle specifically.)
- andrewxdiamond 5y ago
  Trains that sit in traffic still have a massive gain over cars in traffic. They are cheaper to run long term than the equivalent sized bus, and can run almost non-stop without the need to refuel. Try not to dismiss ideas so quickly as "virtue signalling" without an understanding of what they accomplish

jmspring 5y ago

Seattle (neh, Tacoma to Bellingham) has built up suburbs around highways unable to keep up with demand. That is the primary reason for traffic. Infrastructure around Seattle is not going to make up for sprawl. That sprawl goes all the way to Snowqualmie and eventually Ellensberg. The whole of that part of WA is a shitshow where infrastructure has not kept up with demand. No, light rail and housing along such will make up for the greater shitshow. I’ve been dealing with the area for over 20 years. The ferry system is also falling apart and that affects those that may take bridges instead of ferries. The gridlock in that area impacts the ports and truckers, but their impact is small compared to the other things that make it a shit show. Seattle / WA driving habits don’t help matters either.

01100011 5y ago
Grew up in the PNW but thankfully moved away 25 years ago before most of the growth. In my opinion the PNW has long been the place where the growth goes unchecked but the cultural animosity for cars has prevented effective expansions of the transit infrastructure. I'm not saying cars are the solution, but I'm saying the pols and voters up there have refused to acknowledge the reality that cars play a major role in our current transportation scheme. I applaud them for working to expand their light & heavy rail options, while also maintaining a (IMHO) decently effective bus system. But that obviously isn't enough. The reality is that people continue to choose single passenger vehicles and the government hasn't don't much to address it. I understand the opposition to single passenger vehicles, but the failure to expand transit corridors when land was cheap will have lasting impacts on the ability to expand rail and mass transit networks as such expansion becomes impossible due to cost. The reality is that, barring a major economic change(which, granted, may finally be here), people will continue to choose single passenger vehicles and not supplying the infrastructure for them means they are even less efficient while they sit in traffic.
- pitterpatter 5y ago
  >the cultural animosity for cars has prevented effective expansions of the transit infrastructure I'm not sure I understand this point? For one, if anything there's a clear preference for cars as the default mode of transportation.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

> Public transit has failed to keep up with demand, meaning more cars on the road. Public transit simply does not work if people have the option of cars. Public transit did not fail, society’s leaders (and hence society itself) optimized for individual cars. There is no possibility that both can coexist. Public transit also requires dense living.

Factorium 5y ago
Public transport doesn't work if you have to wear a mask to ride it. People on the margins between wanting to drive or get transport will switch to driving because of the inherent discomfort and dehumanization of being forced to wear a mask. Remove all COVID-era restrictions from schools, workplaces, and transport, and systems will go back to functioning normally.
- cowsandmilk 5y ago
  When someone is talking about a decade long trend, they probably aren’t talking about something driven by masks and Covid.
- Avicebron 5y ago
  I think Japan's public transit is a good example of this not being the case, trains work, run on time, and people are fine with mask restrictions.
  - charlieyu1 5y ago
    Not sure how westerners are comfortable with packing people so close inside the train, with about 6 people per square metre. And the work culture is pretty toxic. Train drivers basically have to apologise if the train arrives 30 seconds late
- eloisius 5y ago
  Public transit is working great in Taipei and masks have been mandatory for almost two years.
- 5y ago

tryptophan 5y ago

I kind of wonder why there hasnt been an "uber for bus" yet. I imagine a fleet of buses directed by sophisticated scheduling and navigation algorithms. Users select a destination and pick up point, along with an arrival time. Discounts for ordering 1 day early to aid with scheduling. Pay extra to have the algorithm favor a shorter travel time for you. System makes dynamic smart routes for buses to get people to where they want to go. Make it good at predicting arrival times so people can rely on it. Seems like such an obvious next step for the whole uber/app-based-transport model. Not sure why nobody has tried it yet.

s0rce 5y ago
Isn't Chariot trying (or tried?) to do this? (edit: they did go under in 2019).
benatkin 5y ago
This played out in San Francisco half a decade ago. It didn't work well. https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/chariot-private-bus-startup-shutters-operations/?&ampcf=1 https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/chariot-private-bus-startup... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_Transit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_Transit
- sneak 5y ago
  Webvan didn't work, until it did one day. These sorts of casual dismissals assume that the underlying technological landscape doesn't change, and that all organizations execute identically on product. Neither assumption holds true.
- Factorium 5y ago
  It didn't work because they were strangled by regulation, by City Bureaucrats fearful that the private market would outcompete public transport.
LogonType10 5y ago
Because Uber must exploit workers to survive and no one is going to "ride share" their bus.

bullfightonmars 5y ago

Seattle does not bus students to school unless your house is > 1 mile from the school and then only if you are in the zone for that school. I live in a NW Seattle neighborhood that doesn’t even have sidewalks that you could walk to get to the school if you wanted.

lightrail123 5y ago
I also live in a NW Seattle neighborhood without sidewalks. Walking or biking a mile is not a problem for most folks? I understand if someone has a mobility impairment, or some other necessary accommodation. But a mile is not a long ways.

daave 5y ago

Fellow Seattle-worker here As a counterpoint- I take express bus 545 from Redmond to Seattle between 8 and 9am on weekdays, and there’s typically less than a half dozen people on the bus. I get from my home to the office in 30-40mins. The slowest part is the tiny stretch of I-5 with no bus lane. I don’t think public transit has failed to keep up, it’s under-utilized, in part due to anxiety about COVID. These same routes were jam packed in 2019.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

honkycat 5y ago

I find it interesting that the traffic we experience every day is also what is causing the issues with supply chains. I feel that it is glossed over. Nobody talks about the larger effects of the traffic in US cities beyond: "You sit in the car longer for work.", not "your meat is expensive because traffic is bad." Cities are always very hesitant to introduce measures to reduce demand on our roads. I wonder if it is intentional that nobody talks about this.

kiklion 5y ago
> Nobody talks about the larger effects of the traffic in US cities I always assumed truckers took mandatory breaks during rush hour. Here in Charlotte, traffic is minimal except during rush hour.
opportune 5y ago
Reducing demand on roads is a tough sell politically when most people are still car-reliant. People don’t see themselves as beneficiaries at all when they hear “congestion pricing” or “dedicated bus lanes” or “increased funding for public transit.” In this case even that’s not being done. The government is just not continuing to subsidize car-based transit via roads at an adequate level to keep up with demand for car usage. I do think a big part of the problem is that you need a critical mass of public transit before people can really ditch their cars. The network needs to be able to reach far away and enable more than just commuting to a desk job in the city center. And it needs times to remain in that state for all the businesses to rebalance around the public transit network (ie less reliance on huge shopping centers and strip malls only accessible by car). As a result I think you probably get a bit of a U shaped cost:benefit curve wrt funding of transit infrastructure.
- honkycat 5y ago
  I say this as a pretty leftist person: I also want free stuff. But I am an adult who understands that our roads, cars, and congestion cost money and it needs to be addressed.
discardable_dan 5y ago

supernovae 5y ago

Not sure why they didn't invest in trains.. seems so silly to truck everything out if its going long haul.