Comments on: Danny Westneat: City Won’t Let You Park to Ride

By: mimi_t_b

mimi_t_b — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:33:53 +0000

yay! they listened!

By: southseattlescarlettletter

southseattlescarlettletter — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:45:37 +0000

It was on King 5 news at 6:30 as well…….they did a great story on the need for Park and Rides in SE Seattle. Looks like the word is getting out……ridership is dropping on light rail.

One item King 5 news covered which raised my eyebrows was that SHA wanted to start renting parking spaces with the land taxpayers paid for…..

SSSL

By: Tom T

Tom T — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:11:59 +0000

Per the Seattle PI tonight, it looks like McGinn is taking the reasonable road on this one. http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archives/190772.asp
Nice to see that he heard us! Let’s hope for as much progress on crime issues.

By: SolvayGirl

SolvayGirl — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:21:20 +0000

Look. It’s all a matter of time and money. Yesterday evening I took two teenage girls down to Seattle Center for a play at the Children’s Theater. I drove—20 minutes each way via 99 and paid $7.00 to park (about what it would have cost to take a combination of bus/train/bus roundtrip; Monorail—much cooler, safer and faster—would have added$12.00 to the cost of the trip). Getting from our houses near Seward Park to the Othello Station without a car would be dangerous and very wet on foot, or time consuming via the 39. Getting home at 8P would be worse.

South Seattle is not an urban village. It’s the outlying part of a vibrant city and many people need to access that city by car. There are plenty of people like me who do not have the luxury of excess time to spend being politically correct and taking public transit (even if it were safe).

My husband commutes downtown by bus, but he doesn’t have to make dinner or get our daughter off to school, so the 45-60 minute trip is a nice way to relax. I work at home (the best way to avoid a daily commute). The idealists who believe we will all give up our cards for long and unsafe transit rides are kidding themselves. Make Seattle even more difficult for drivers who want their kids to be able to take advantage of all the fabulous opportunities the city has to offer and families will continue to flee this city even more than they already have.

And as for the comment about the farmers’ market. I’m glad you can afford to shop there, because I can’t. I grow my own instead.

By: Tom T

Tom T — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:05:41 +0000

Can’t afford it – we won’t gentrify.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:28:19 +0000

Hmmm….underground parking with farmer’s market on surface level?

By: Mark B

Mark B — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:17:24 +0000

Thats what I’m talking about, this will discourage ridership.

By: Mich

Mich — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:35:37 +0000

Have any of these people ever stepped foot in South Seattle? You know.. outside of the nice block. Either way, they have a seriously distorted sense of reality if they think I’m going to voluntarily lengthen my commute to work or sacrifice my personal safety just to avoid using my car. Taking away a parking lot isn’t going to get anyone to stop driving to work. In fact, I’m driving to work again. It sure beats getting mugged both -on- and off the bus!

By: Mark B

Mark B — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:28:05 +0000

“I like the transit solution better than encouraging more car usage.”

But this solution does encourage more car usage, I know a lot of people who used to take public transit that are now back to driving.

By: Tom T

Tom T — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:56:01 +0000

The Mayor has a well meaning, anticar zeal that doesn’t have any reasonableness about it.

Check out the comments on SeattleTransitBlog (which does seem to be reasonable, http://seattletransitblog.com/2010/01/07/city-goes-after-private-park-and-rides/#comment-96504) and Publicola (http://publicola.net/?p=22342) to understand my way or the bikeway mentality among the converted in Seattle.