More Buses = Best way to reduce pollution?

Ok. I have drunk the Kool-Aid and am in total support of the idea I threw out yesterday that dramatically increasing bus service is the best way to reduce congestion, improve global warming and reduce air pollution. Screw Light Rail and forget building roads as solutions. Here's why:

1. The Light Rail plan doesn't have enough track or enough stations. Chicago's elevated train has over 250 miles of track with 144 stations. It runs all the time. If you're in the Loop a train comes every freaking 2 minutes. Seattle's Light Rail plan will have 1/5th of the track, far fewer stations and will take a long long time to build. I just don't think it's going to have the dramatic increase in ridership that increasing the number of buses would.

2. Frequency -- Many people that do not commute to work on the bus will take buses up and down the north-south streets of downtown Seattle. It's free, so that's part of it but I would argue it's mostly because the buses come by every minute or two. These same people would not take the bus if it came every 30 minutes even if it was free. In my opinion, that's why the L or Manhattan's subway system is used by so many people -- because you don't have to wait! It's simply faster and more convenient.

3. Increasing the number of roads may reduce congestion, or may not, but it will obviously not reduce pollution.

4. The City of Seattle can test my theory -- We do not have to build a Light Rail system for 10 years or expand 520. Just take 2-3 bus routes... I'd suggest the 14 (Jackson/Mt.Baker), 27 (Yesler/Leschi) and 3 (Cherry/Madrona) and run them all every 10 minutes. The City of Seattle ALREADY tests how many cars go down these streets. At the end of three months test the number of cars again. If it doesn't increase ridership or decrease cars to make a positive effect on pollution, fine. You've learned a ton without spending much.

Would this reduce global warming? If every bus had more than six passengers that would otherwise drive, then yes. Good discussion here. (Note: this figure is not accounting for the upgraded hybrid-diesel buses starting to be in use since 2004, but uses older '90's style buses.)

Quick math -- There are 70 buses on Yesler/day and 8700 cars. To get to global warming parity, if you increases buses to 220/day as I suggested yesterday, you only need to reduce the number of cars to 7800, or roughly 10%.

My biggest question... what is the particulate effect (non-global-warming causing pollution). I'll examine this later.

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Objective Labor Day Study of Bicycle and Auto Traffic on Yesler

Following on the heels of yesterday's post, where my investigation of Mayor Nickels "Bicycle Master Plan" uncovered that it is relying on bicycle advocacy groups to collect data on bike usage in the city of Seattle, I decided to conduct a little informal poll of my own on bike traffic.

At first, I was planning on simply counting the number of bicycles that passed in a 10-minute period. Then, after approximately 45 seconds of sample data, I witnessed such brazen displays of lawlessness that I decided to expand the parameters of my study.

Data to be collected:
1. How many bicyclists came to the intersection?
2. How many bicyclists made a valid and legal stop at the stop sign?
3. How many cars came to the intersection?
4. How many cars made a valid and legal stop at the stop sign?

I very quickly had to amend the data collected as it became clear that not a single car or cyclist was going to actually come to a full and complete stop before the stop sign. Without further ado, here is the outcome of the study:

The location: A four-way stop on Yesler.
Time: 2:43 - 2:50 PM, Labor Day, September 3rd

Number of cars passed: 15
Number of cars that made a full & complete stop: 1
Number of cars that sort of stopped legally: 8
Number of cars that blew the stop sign: 6

Number of cyclists passed: 4
Number of cyclists that made a full & complete stop: 1
Number of cyclists that sort of stopped legally: 2
Number of cyclists that blew the stop sign: 1
Number of mind-blowing spandex outfits w/ matching helmet: Sadly, just 1

This data was fairly shocking to me, especially the number of cars that made no attempt whatsoever to slowdown except for whatever deceleration was required to stop the tires from skidding prior to making a right turn.

Mind you... this intersection is directly in front of an elementary school -- and a bus stop -- and is on a hill.

If I was a police officer looking to make quota on traffic violations -- based on my small sample size of data -- this intersection is the motherlode.

My next action is to contact the local police precinct to ask them to crackdown on cars that don't stop... I'm not exactly a McGruff the Crime Dog sort of person... but this was over the top. I'm also going to consider collecting more data on a weekday morning before going to work to catch up on a more typical day.

To be continued...

Bicycle Master Plan -- Yesler... Priority #9

According to the City of Seattle Department of Transportation between 4,000 and 8,000 residents commute by bicycle. I decided to look this up as I saw a city employee marking up the sidewalk and street outside my house with white spray paint, and saw what appeared to be bike lanes outlined further west on Yesler.

Adding a bike lane to Yesler Ave is apparently is the 9th priority in Mayor Nickels Top 9 South Priorities to incorporate into the Bicycle Master Plan. 9th Priority out of 9???? Mayor Nickels must not live in my neighborhood because I see large volumes of spandex cruising by my kitchen window every day.

The goals of this plan are to triple the amount of bicycling in Seattle in the next 10 years while at the same time reducing the rate of crashes by one-third. I believe the lanes can encourage more bikers, but I have a hard time believing Seattle will reduce the rate of crashes. Given that Yesler allows street parking on both sides, is on a major bus route and is going to add space for biking, I don't think that crashes will be reduced by much unless this plan is accompanied by driver education on how to look for bikers and factor them into driving.

The performance measures are comedic... performance target for tripling the number of bicyclists until 2017 will be collected in part by bicycle advocacy groups who will count the number of bikers that go by various locations. Hmmmm... I suppose I'm being unnecessarily cynical since I'm completely in support of this plan, but I would suggest that data collection & statistical analysis is a little more impartial.