Seattle has always been a boom (and bust town). I grew up their 20 years ago, and my dad lived in Seattle after his tour ended in Vietnam. The same things we complain about today, we were complaining about them in the 90s and dad was complaining about them in the late 60s.
The boom city nature of Seattle means that it goes through periods of lots of growth quickly enough.
> 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.
Building more freeways usually just attracts more demand. We will never build enough roads to satisfy single driver occupancy demand. The only way to win this is by moving people around more efficiently. If Transit can’t work in Seattle, the city is simply doomed and it’s growth will implode (another bust…it’s not like we haven’t had a few of those before).
You fix the added demand with zoning and a comprehensive regional growth strategy. Not building freeways to service the demand you've have for decades is just insane.
I don't think there has been a single new freeway added since I can remember(early 80s). There is still a huge reliance on surface streets and 2 lane roads to get to the bedroom communities on the outskirts. Not adding lanes to, say, hwy 18, hasn't done a damn thing to limit growth in the east side. It has turned the region into a giant clusterfuck around rush hour though.
Seattle is a boom town, it doesn’t just have a conventional boom or bust cycle. All west coast big cities (Vancouver BC, Portland, SF, LA, San Diego) have a similar rapid growth profile with similar problems. Note that none of these cities have been able to solve them adequately, and we ran out of space to build new freeways decades ago, so that solution is never happening, even if anyone thought it would solve the problem at all in the first place.
A city like SLC, which has room to add freeways along with republican run government to add them, hasn’t been able to fix its traffic problems either. In fact, they just get worse as the new freeways encourage more sprawl.
I think you need to combine realistic freeway growth with other growth limits to restrict sprawl or, you're right, you become SLC/PHX/etc.
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.
There are still many places in the region with only a single major north-south freeway. You can add all the lanes you want, but a single accident can take your 7 lanes of traffic out of commission. We need more transportation corridors to provide redundancy.
If Seattle never build another freeway, but keeps building trains and bus rapid transit we'll come out WAY ahead.
Building freeways gives you room for HOV lanes and busses, and even rail if you plan it right. Not building freeways is a demonstrably failed policy in the Sea-Tac region.
It's like how SF suspended the traditional criminal justice system before they had a working replacement. Sure, they'll get it right someday but in the meantime you just have to put up with a few decades of crime. But hey, one day it will be perfect and ideologically pure.
The famed light rail is supposed to reach Issaquah (from Seattle) in 2041. That's if everything goes according to plan.
Even when staying there, let’s say Woodinville or Kirkland. Driving to Bellevue or Redmond let alone Seattle sucks worse than those.
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.