[beisner]

To add to the points raised in the article, Seattle’s public transit system and transit policy are just plain good. Buses are clean/new, frequent, and on-time; trains (while they don’t yet extend as far as they need to) are reliable and have good coverage along frequented routes; HOV lanes are (finally!!!) present along the entirety of common longer commutes (especially across the lake).

The bus system is especially critical to this. It doesn’t take billions of dollars to add a new bus route, or make buses more frequent on a route, so congestion issues at bus stops are largely addressable. The routes are also generally being made more convenient, so the added benefit of driving in a car is diminished.

I live in New York now, and while the subway coverage here is certainly unbeatable, its unreliability, dirtiness, congestion, and the borderline-criminal mismanagement of public transit infrastructure in NYC (including buses) make me really miss living in Seattle.

[stephengillie]

Bus routes are a circuit, so they are more heavily impacted by traffic than other modes of transportation. Thus, heavy traffic regularly makes Seattle's commuter buses 10-20 minutes late. The bus from Mountlake Terrace can sometimes be over an hour late, and rush hour makes this a 2-hour ride on top of the wait.

With a car, you can hop off the freeway and take a side street and you're there in 30-40 minutes instead of 2+ hours.

If you want to discuss borderline-criminal mismanagement, there's the $50 billion ST3 plan. We could put one WA State resident on the moon for that price.

[loeg]

> With a car, you can hop off the freeway and take a side street and you're there in 30-40 minutes instead of 2+ hours.

You're comparing the best case time with a car to the worst case time of a bus. How long do you think the car will take in 5 years, or 10, as the region continues to grow?

> We could put one WA State resident on the moon for that price.

Perhaps, but what's the utility of that? Infrastructure costs money and the region needs mass transit or it will suffer from increased gridlock and commute times.

[stephengillie]

The best time with a car was 15-20 minutes. I haven't had that commute in 3 years so I'm not sure how it is today. Seattle is at maximum capacity, and it's spilling out into the larger region. I don't forsee commutes getting much worse, as if commute times get any longer, fewer people will commute, balancing out travel times over weeks to months.

A call to the absurd is a way to illustrate my frustration with the relative lack of return on the investment.

[arcticfox]

Maybe inside of Seattle it's "good", but when I lived near Microsoft I would have to allocate 3hrs+ for a round-trip into the city by public transit.

[noodle]

There are also comparatively very few people who live in the Redmond area and who commute to work downtown Seattle. It probably shouldn't be a heavily serviced path, realistically speaking.

[Bensch]

Maybe before the new 520? There are now continuous bus lanes for most of the 545's route.

[Analemma_]

Seconded, the new HOV lanes on the 520 have made the 545 a much more bearable option than it used to be.

[SirPulse]

During regular working hours? No way! 545 is awesome and takes ~30 minutes to Seattle. So an hour is more realistic. Even carpool is not bad with much better HOV coverage.

[andrewguenther]

> Seattle’s public transit system and transit policy are just plain good. Buses are clean/new, frequent, and on-time; trains (while they don’t yet extend as far as they need to) are reliable and have good coverage along frequented routes...

Did we live in the same city? This is the exact opposite of my experience with Seattle transit.

[beisner]

Yeah I suppose I might have just experienced a particularly good section of it. I've lived in Kirkland and Bellevue, and took either the 540->372 (change at Westlake) or 255->522 (change in U District) to get to Lake City nearly every day. Buses were always pretty pleasant (esp. compared to NYC), and only added ~15 minutes to the trip. Also would commute across 520 a bunch, and found the bus service to be pretty darn convenient getting to SLU, Downtown, U-District, Cap Hill, Fremont, and Beacon Hill. Obviously not EVERY route was convenient and used Uber to pick up the slack, but 9/10 times public transit was only slightly slower and slightly less convenient than using a car.

[loeg]

I was going to say, Seattle buses were not new and often not clean five years ago (in my experience). Metro suffered a lot after the 2008 financial crisis. It's really only in the last few years we've been getting new buses to replace all the old ones.

As far as cleanliness goes, it really depends on the route. Commuter routes tend to be pretty clean.

[poulsbohemian]

It's so much better than it was, and still so much better than so many other cities in the US. Not to say that it is actually good relative to the rest of the world.

[zeppelin101]

Maybe it depends on the route, but I've taken the buses numerous times (mostly to/from the eastside) and they were always clean and safe and calm.

[burger_moon]

Ya I take the bus to work everyday and rely on public transit here 99% of the time I'm going anywhere and 'clean, frequent, on-time' happen, but are not the norm. Some of the express routes if you're lucky to live near them are frequent during day time weekly business hours but once you get outside of that and core downtown travel it gets much harder to get around. I put up with it but everyone I tell about my use of public transit here thinks I'm crazy for not owning a car, and I'd agree.

[CarDrone2]

We probably don't live in the same place. You see, I live in reality, while you live in a fantasy world where your ability to drive your car for cheap matters.

Roads need to be _EXPENSIVE_ to use, Cars need to be expensive to own Transit needs to be _UBIQUITOUS_ and _CHEAP/FREE_ to use

_ANY_ other combination is insanity. It has been proven time and time again that any other combination leads to insane amounts of congestion.

[andrewguenther]

Did you even reply to the correct comment?

[mulmen]

I'm not sure you can attribute HOV lanes on an interstate to the city of Seattle. Most of the I-90 bridge is not even in the city limits. In this case maybe you mean "Seattle" as in "Seattle Metro area" which would be fair. ST + Seattle Metro transit seem to be doing a good job considering the realities of transit around here.

[Bensch]

Many of these (on state and interstate highways) are paid for by Sound Transit. It's more proper to say "Seattle area", but it's largely our tax dollars.

[beisner]

You're right, of course. I don't really know how the city coordinates with the state, but I'd assume that there's certainly collaboration w.r.t. main conduits of traffic into the city, as well as with the greater Seattle metro area.

[abawany]

I have visited Seattle a few times and I agree. I live in a transit desert and Seattle by comparison is 'streets paved with gold'. I tend not to rent cars during my visits now and just use the bus service as much as possible, with Car2Go/Lyft for emergencies.