[Randito]

[neek]

I happen to agree (note also how ride-hail services have made traffic worse), but not everyone does. When computers manage the routing, you can supposedly do away with traffic lights, accidents, gridlock, stop & go behavior, all sorts of things. (This is just for the sake of argument - you know from my comments last year how I really feel about these techno-utopias.) Then things start looking like a real network, and the lane-add paradox goes away. Obviously there are still capacity limits, but things become much more predictable. Again, not how I see it all playing out, but when someone claims to know what the world will look like in 100 years, I have to chuckle a little.

If they added a train column, they'd need a lot more people

[Randito]

Typical commuters 2121

[zimmertr]

I'm eager for the lightrail to Issaquah to open so I can move back to the East Side. When my partner and I first moved here from Michigan we landed in Klahanie and really enjoyed it. But she was working in Queen Anne at the time so her commute as awful. So we moved to the city. Magnolia is nice and I really love Discovery Park but I wish I had Tiger in my backyard instead. I think it's unlikely that any future short of a virtual singularity will antiquate train commuting. It's just too efficient and could be made entirely free for citizens. Self driving autos are incredible for obvious reasons, but I think they really shine for long distance driving. At least that's my perspective with a level 2 autonomous vehicle. I'll vote yes on anything train. Low carbon impact. High speed. Distraction-free. Extremely safe. Highly efficient. Low maintenance. Easily automatable.

[altasnob]

The Puget Sound Regional Council forecasts 1.8 million additional people to move to the Seattle area by 2050, for a total regional population of 6 million people. To make this work, we have to convince the majority of people to give up their cars, and we have to convince the majority of people to live in dense, car-free neighborhoods next to transit centers.

[Cyclopath]

More people moving here is all it will take to convince people to give up their cars. Gridlock and parking already make car ownership downright painful in many places. People use cars because they're a net benefit, as that stops being true people start looking seriously for alternatives.

[zimmertr]

Software has changed this city and that's not going away. It has and will continue to permeate every facet of our world. Seattle is unique when compared to other tech hubs like SF and Austin due to it's proximity to beauty. The area will continue to grow exponentially and that will not mesh with a city zoning 70% of itself for single family homes. It only makes sense for adjacent neighborhoods like Queen Anne, Magnolia, Ballard, and Fremont to get upzoned and become more dense. Interbay should have a huge zoning overhaul towards housing as well. I've spent a lot of time reconciling with myself about this this year. I earn more than most Americans as a software engineer and I can't afford a house in this city. No one should have to pay a $4,500/month mortgage for 30 years. That is not okay. I understand that people are incentivized to preserve their neighborhoods. And many of them look at their million dollar houses as a significant portion of their retirement plan. I understand how frustrating it must be to be a fourth generation Seattlite whose grandparents used to live in Ballard when it was its own city. But in this case, it should be important to remember what Spock once said:

[ale_capone]

But do they have good coffee and music?

Honestly, as a generation x'r, I'd never really noticed seattle until singles. One of my favorite movie soundtracks. I only drank black drip coffee before this as well. I checked. It would take me 3:19 minutes one way to firsthill where I'm working. First hill has built on 90% of their street level lots over the past 6 years. Mostly for medical and retirement housing. My stock truck needs 6'8" and there is only one garage I fit in.

[treeswarper]

Had an adventure in a parking garage. Drove in and up the ramps in my work truck with the antennas thwanging all the way off the roof and beams. Then had to have a spotter get out to squeeze into a compact space, which was the only one open. I made it work. Had to have a spotter to work back out of that spot too. Then THWANG on the way back down. A logger told me about breaking unprotected lightbulbs in a low slung parking garage in his dad's work truck. He suspected his dad might have been aiming the antennas at the lights due to being in a bad frame of mind after driving into the city.

[FiveNines]

Self driving car solves OP parking problems at the trains station.

[Kim Brown]

Went to a concert downtown Saturday night - I was worried about Northgate parking because of the Husky game, and Ann Wilson performing at the Neptune, so arrived a little early, thinking I would have trouble finding a spot. While it looked full, on my first pass, I found a great spot in the new-ish garage right next to the train station, almost as good as what I get during the work week; and from what I could see, the surrounding garages had plenty of empty spaces on their rooftops. If a Husky game and 2 great shows didn’t fill it up, I can’t imagine what was going on at 10:00 on a weekday when our Original Poster needed a spot! While I long ago stopped driving downtown in favor of the bus, weekday, weekend, evenings - the train is even slicker. It’s 2 blocks to the Moore, no blocks to Benaroya Hall, a few to the 5th Avenue. Getting home from Seattle Center after 9 PM when the monorail shuts for the night will still be an issue, but I’ll figure something out. Walking through downtown at night isn’t nearly as fun as it used to be.

[Randito]

FWIW: I used the 550 from the Mercer Island Park and Ride to get to downtown this morning. @ 9:45 in the morning the p&r lot was only 2/3 full. The bus itself was only 1/4 full. Bus fare to/from downtown way cheaper than a downtown parking garage. On street parking in downtown is very hard to find, so not an option I wanted to pursue.

[Sculpin]

[Kim Brown]

A Saturday with Husky game commuters and concert goers, as discussed above which numbers could easily have outnumbered weekly commuters. What it boils down to is this: Sometimes you get skunked on parking, and sometimes you don't. It's nothing to argue about, at least as far as I'm concerned. I just can't figure out why on a Tuesday at 10:00 it was so full. The workforce isn't at capacity yet.

[BigBrunyon]

Ah, just keep drivin'. Behind those wheels is where the real deal's at...it's more of an open road seat. A highwayman ain't parkin. He continues to drive.