How to beat the car culture
Posted on 22. Jul, 2009 by Tony Arranaga in Featured, News
The shiny new Sound Transit Link light-rail system stretches 14 miles, taking passengers from downtown Seattle and eventually stopping at Sea Tac airport by the end of the year. (lightrailblogger news on the debut here)
Passengers can connect with the light rail system by bus. People could even ride their bikes to hook up with a train. And of course, you could always hoof it to the nearest station.
However people in Seattle may want to think twice before taking their cars in hopes of parking at or near a station
considering there’s only one park and ride. One.
People in Phoenix are probably scratching their heads as they read this. Only one park and ride? Here in the Valley, park and ride lots are built to get people off the road and onto mass transit. The lots are a place to meet up with co-workers, and hopefully carpool into work. Transit leaders here have reason to believe this takes one less car off the road.
“I don’t see building parking lots as getting cars off the road,’” says Steve Ray, spokesperson for Sound Transit, who explained this intriguing concept in the Pacific Northwest. Does Seattle know something the rest of us don’t?
“There are established bus routes and other alternative transportation modes for getting to the light rail.” says Ray. He points to the transportation modes mentioned above.
For years, the Seattle Transit Blog has followed everything rail. STB’s Ben Schiendelman points out Seattle has high density zoning around all their stations, so there’s no point in having park and ride lots.
“People are really curious about how they’re going to get to these stations,” says Schiendelman. “People who are excited about light rail, and not about buses, want to ride the train. But they are not interested in riding the bus to get there, so these people really want park and rides.”
After thinking about it, the concept is logical, but could something like this work in Phoenix? Weigh in and post your answer below.
Rail Life
22. Jul, 2009
I was pretty shocked to learn about the lack of park and ride lots for their new system. I mean, seriously, what are they thinking?
Look at the success of our park and ride lots. The ends of the line get a ton of people traveling from the suburbs. Sporting events, festivals, concerts etc are all times when people decide not to fight traffic and the hassle / expense of parking. Do they not serve any attractions like this?
A Seattle radio station recently called me to ask about our park and ride lots. The guy was pretty un-impressed with their lack of parking and made it very clear to the audience.
Here in Phoenix, if there were no park and ride lots, the ridership would be MUCH less that what it is now.
Makes no sense to me…
Tony
24. Jul, 2009
Seattle’s line is alot like ours in terms of the types of venues served along the way, so to answer your question – yes, Seattle does have those attractions.
I couldn’t believe it myself when I heard the news, and I think it’s an interesting concept. Would it work here in the desert? I’m not so sure, considering the general public’s perception of bus transit here – which is a key link in getting people to ditch their cars in Seattle.
Having said all that, I applaud Seattle in their efforts to get people to drive less! Kudos to them!
TlaB
29. Jul, 2009
Sorry for the late weigh in on this… but nontheless….
Light rail is expensive to build and, once laid, is a “fixed track” with a route that is very hard to alter. For that reason, cities have to be realistic and recognize that people need a myriad of ways to reach it. (No LR track is going to be in the best place for everyone.) Bus routes are a flexible way to reach the LR line because they can be redrawn as needed to serve the population, but people also can be helped by a Park & Ride. Even if they travel part of the way (in bus or car), you can still reduce total emmissions by eliminating some of the distance that is driven at all.
leianna
25. Feb, 2010
well being from Seattle, it makes perfect sense to have just one park and ride and to clarify its not just one for the entire system its one for its neighborhood district. Seattle is the most ecofriendliest place of the Northwest and because of the structure of the cities landscape, the railways were built in order to have the public walk to and from destination – is that not the point of the light rail: to regulate gas emissions and promote the use of this “carpooling” idea to save our cities pollutions? I must agree with Tony and kudos to Seattle all the way for their unique approach to handling a more sensible and organized system that does not require more millions of dollars to build park and ride stations because one in EACH NEIGHBORHOOD DISTRICT is good enough.
CiscoCorrales
26. Feb, 2010
Although Seattle has the reputation of being transit friendly and eco-friendly I beg to differ. Being from the region I know that Seattle (metro) is more car dependent than Phoenix and their traffic woes much more disturbing. While a new traffic study ranks Phoenix (the 12th largest metro in the nation) as the 29th worst for traffic, Seattle with 1 million less in population is in the top 10. On top of that, their light rail ridership, despite being more densely populated than Phoenix and even Tempe, is dismal not even matching Phoenix’ Sunday ridership averages (Phoenix averages 18,000+ on Sundays and Seattle 15,000 on WEEKDAYS).
Park and rides would have been an excellent addition to their system as they have room for such endeavors as they are not New York and would have increased ridership. However, the urban population in Seattle has a very obvious distaste for their suburban counterparts and would rather their system suffer low ridership than bring them on board the system and allowing them to drive less distance and into the city center. A huge lack of foresight in my opinion. As a downtown Phoenix resident, I would rather a north Phoenix, Surprise, East Mesa, Chandler, etc resident park at the Sycamore/Main or 19th Ave/Montebello station than continue their drive into the heart of the city where they’d have to pay for parking and would walk less by doing so…