Unfortunately, doing the latter undermines the former. And there's only so wide that roads can go before you just induce more demand and create an impractical manner of cars merging in and out of traffic.

This is now thankfully in the past (and as understand it, the last remnants were torn down just yesterday), but how would you have replaced the viaduct?

Lane widening: I meant that more for neighborhood arterials, not freeways. I like what they are doing with Light Rail here. Provided there are enough stops in convenient walking locations or with parking.

Viaduct: I’m not running for Seattle city council

Widening neighborhood arterials can be even worse if done just for cars. If a widening is done integrated with transit upgrades, then that could be another story. Parking near transit stations is also problematic; you want those areas in particular to have dense mixed used development so it's feasible for more to operate car free. I do agree you need viable last mile problem options like walking, biking, or light electric devices.

On the viaduct, I was just curious of your opinion as a Seattleite in general, not as someone running for office. I've heard varying reasonable opinions on what should have been done.

They were telling me back in 2007 when I lived there that the viaduct would collapse at any moment. Are you telling me it hasn't?

It looks like this was the last piece that just went down.

Go on...

Problem is you have to be able to get city-pay-scale jobs into areas where mass transit goes (vs. office buildings in leafy suburbs near schools) or you are just making more elaborate solutions for moving baristas around.

I don't disagree, hence why we need a lot more than just a sea of park-and-ride at where mass transit goes

A transportation corridor should have just one of two purposes. One should be a destination where people live, interact, and conduct business, while the other should prioritize getting people from point A to point B. Both types are needed and have their proper places. But all too often we try to mash the two goals together, and create a clusterfuck when we do so.

Someone invented a great word for that clusterfuck: stroad. Here's an link describing it: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/201 ... the-stroad

I don’t think we have that problem here. There is particular demand right now for $1.2M to $1.8M houses and hardly anything available.

I’ll read this at some point.

What do you do about areas where hundreds of new housing units are being built and traffic in/out is already really slow on the arterials which are one lane in each direction? This is before thousands more people and their cars arrive in said new construction units?

A good first step is to abolish mandatory parking minimums. If developers don't want to build so much parking, they shouldn't have to.

But at some point we have to come to the realization that we can't guarantee that every trip by car will be quick, and we shouldn't be conducting every single trip by car. Cars will have their time and place for quite a while, but we have to build our infrastructure so that they aren't practically the only reliable way to get around.

Ideally, I agree with this, but downtown Chapel Hill dies a little more each year as people choose to go to other parts of town with better parking. Even giant condo developments have had little impact.

Frankly, if you want take out, you're not gonna wander the streets for 20 minutes looking for a spot or bike, and next thing you know, the awesome empenada place is belly up and the next 3 storefronts are empty too.

It’s nice to see people post about cause and effect instead of just about some cause

I think we’re talking largely about commuters to & from work, primarily during rush hour. At least I am.

For people who work at a desk all day, some other form of transportation is fantastic. Point A to point B, then back to A again at the end of the day.

But for people who have points C, D, E etc. built in to their day - cars ain’t going nowhere.

I'm splitting this off because I got really off topic and I apologize for that. I also think we need a transportation thread in general to talk about these things as they come up, as it's an important issue.

This seems like something that should be put up for a vote and the authoritarian attitude here really rubs me the wrong way.

I don't disagree with that, the travelers with multiple stops, as well as people that need to transport large items, will find cars the most useful. But roads are their most congested when people are going to and from work. We need to provide reliable alternate transportation for them in order to ultimately defeat that congestion.

I can't speak directly to Chapel Hill, and I understand the prisoner's dilemma that could be at work, but nationwide it doesn't seem like central cities are being abandoned en masse like they were in the latter part of the 20th century. I think there's plenty of demand for both carcentric and non-carcentric lifestyles.

I-976 passed here in Washington. Funding for transportation is going to nose dive for the whole state, mostly Seattle but even Vancouver is involved since they're working on the new I5 bridge again.

I fucking hate Tim Eyman and hope his balls are burned off with battery acid while he's sitting in a stolen office chair.

What in the holy fuck happened to my thread title?