Search Results
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SR-520: A Traffic Update
After a topsy-turvy first couple of months—first vacations, then snow—traffic on the newly-tolled SR-520 bridge across Lake Washington seems to have stabilized at about 67,000 cars per day. That’s down by about a third from last fall’s level, just before the tolls were first levied. But data from the Washington State Department of Transportation shows most of the trips that “disappeared” from SR-520 simply migrated to other routes.Read more » -
Should We Trust Toll Revenue Forecasts?
Hey gang! We’ve got a new report out today: a literature review on the accuracy of tolling revenue forecasts. In a nutshell, both national and international experience shows that official tolling forecasts tend to overestimate real-world toll road revenue—particularly where drivers can choose alternative, toll-free routes. If the research holds true for our part of the world, there could be lots of implications for highway finance. Read on for more… It...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 7/22/11
Alan: The “must read” of the week, for me, was this blog post by David Goldberg at Transportation for America. It describes an infuriating miscarriage of justice in suburban Atlanta, where a drunk driver killed a four-year-old child but the mother was the one convicted of manslaughter. This story perfectly encapsulates so much that’s wrong with the way we usually design and build roads in North America, and how we assign blame for predictable tragedies. (More here.) Sam Knight had a revealing account (subscription required) of the authoritarian regime and democracy campaigners in Belarus. It’s insightful and helped me think more about the conditions in which people do, and do not, demand change.
Alan: The “must read” of the week, for me, was this blog post by David Goldberg at Transportation for America. It describes an infuriating miscarriage of justice in suburban Atlanta, where a drunk driver killed a four-year-old child but the mother was the one convicted of manslaughter. This story perfectly encapsulates so much that’s wrong with the way we usually design and build roads in North America, and how we...Read more » -
The Environmental Case Against the Deep-bore Tunnel
Four of our friends and environmental colleagues recently made a case for tunneling under downtown Seattle to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. They, along with many of our friends in the labor and business communities, have concluded that the tunnel is the only viable path forward. It pains us to disagree, because we respect them and value the relationships and accomplishments that our work together has brought. As a citywide...Read more » -
Carmageddon Averted…Again
Courtesy of Sightline Daily’s news service, I caught this gem from The New York Times. Over the weekend, Los Angeles shut down a ten-mile stretch one of the busiest freeways in the nation, I-405. For weeks, pundits predicted “Carmaggedon!!!” would ensue—gridlock traffic that would bring the city to its knees. But, the hype around the looming disaster proved to be exaggerated: “[P]eople in Los Angeles woke up Saturday to something...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 7/15/11
Alan: I've just finished Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers' What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, which documents and cheerfully promotes the rising tide of new, Internet-powered means of sharing and reusing things. From cars to extra bedrooms, toys to designer handbags, business loans to garden tools, scores of new companies and nonprofits are figuring out how to get all the benefits of ownership without all the cost -- or ecological footprint. Sightline is looking into such models, and the legal barriers to them, for Making Sustainability Legal, but this book is worth reading just for fun and inspiration.
Alan: I’ve just finished Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers’ What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, which documents and cheerfully promotes the rising tide of new, Internet-powered means of sharing and reusing things. From cars to extra bedrooms, toys to designer handbags, business loans to garden tools, scores of new companies and nonprofits are figuring out how to get all the benefits of ownership without all the cost...Read more » -
The Tolled Tunnel: Almost An Earthquake?
The Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project just came out, and it’s a MASSIVE document: 286 pages in the main report, plus a whopping 23 appendices. The transportation discipline report (Appendix C) alone runs to 664 pages. I haven’t actually counted all the pages, but I have to assume that they run into the thousands. With that much ink devoted to the project, I’m sure...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 7/8/11
Eric dP: By far the coolest thing I read this week was Craig Welch's front page coverage of the latest wolf pack documented in Washington, this time in the Teanaway region. Several years ago I was driving over Blewett Pass one night, not far away, when I had to skid to a stop to avoid hitting an animal crossing the highway. For a few seconds my headlights illuminated this big rangy husky-looking... what was it? My wife insisted it was someone's dog on the loose, but it looked exactly like a wolf. I'm going to take this opportunity to say it now: she was wrong, and I was right. The Seattle Times also had a good profile of local activist Elizabeth Campbell by reporter Lynn Thompson. There are plenty of things Campbell and I disagree about, but it seems to me that great places need people like Campbell who aren't willing to go along easily with what leaders want.
Eric dP: By far the coolest thing I read this week was Craig Welch’s front page coverage of the latest wolf pack documented in Washington, this time in the Teanaway region. Several years ago I was driving over Blewett Pass one night, not far away, when I had to skid to a stop to avoid hitting an animal crossing the highway. For a few seconds my headlights illuminated this big...Read more » -
Is The Tunnel Worse Than Nothing?
A few months back, the transportation consulting firm NelsonNygaard released a fascinating report that looked at what might happen to downtown Seattle traffic patterns if the state builds a tunnel through downtown, while imposing a steep toll on drivers who choose to take it. (We've already written about that report once before.) Below, for your viewing pleasure, is the most important image from that report. Click it to see a larger version -- and I'll explain what it means in a moment. There's a lot of information in the chart, but you can ignore much of it. The only thing I want you to pay attention to are the orange and yellow bars:
A few months back, the transportation consulting firm NelsonNygaard released a fascinating report that looked at what might happen to downtown Seattle traffic patterns if the state builds a tunnel through downtown, while imposing a steep toll on drivers who choose to take it. (We’ve already written about that report once before.) Below, for your viewing pleasure, is the most important image from that report. Click it to see a...Read more » -
Tolls Do Not Increase Traffic
Holy cow, how did this not get noticed before? The Washington Department of Transportation’s 2010 deep-bore tolling study claims that tolling the deep-bore tunnel will actually increase driving through downtown Seattle. Take a look at the gem of a chart to the right, from page 31 of that report. The chart compares forecasted 2030 traffic volumes from a toll-free tunnel (the column to the left) with a tolling scenario in...Read more »
