[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?