Inspired by the comments on my previous blog entry, I decided to look into the bus schedules from my house.

King County Metro Transit trip planer suggested the following itinerary:

Total trip time about 50-60 minutes.

So, here’s the deal: there are 10 miles to get from my house to my office, 8 of which are highway miles, in theory it should take me 15 minutes to get to work. In reality it takes me 25-35 minutes to do the trip in my car in off-peak hours (average speed >30 m/hr). It takes 1-1.5 hrs to do it at peak (average speed >10 m/hr!!). The bus probably takes 1hr on average (average speed 10 m/hr if you don’t miss one of the 3 busses) so it doesn’t buy me any time.

I could drive down the car to Montlake and get the bus there but…no there is no parking lot I could use for that. I could ride my bike to Montlake and get the bus but that adds another 30 minutes to just get in and out of biking clothes/rain gear and perhaps take a shower out of respect to my coworkers.

The point is this: public transportation should be at least convenient time wise if you want to convince people to use it.

I’m European and I am used to be much more in traffic and much more open to public transportation then the average American, on top of that I’m used to the delays and strikes of the Italian transportation system… and yet I find Seattle transit to be unacceptable. How do you think the rest of the unfortunate people that live in Seattle feel about their commute?

Leave me a comment

From WashPirg:

" Dear WashPIRG supporter,

Two weeks ago, I asked you to urge your U.S. Representative to stop the Bush administration's proposal to allow barely treated sewage to be dumped into lakes, rivers and streams. Your emails and calls over the past couple of months on this issue were so effective that the Bush administration withdrew its proposal just hours before the House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on it. Then, just to make sure that the Bush administration stuck to its decision, the House voted unanimously to prevent the sewage
dumping proposal from becoming law - even if the Bush administration changes direction. Everyone who took action on this issue deserves big congratulations and thanks.

One of the best things about this victory was that it proved the power of your e-activism - in its press release, the Bush administration specifically cited the 98,000 comments it had received about this issue, many of them sent by people like you in response to our email, as one of the major reasons it decided to drop this policy!

For more information on our win, check out this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which quotes David Masur, the executive director of our Pennsylvania affiliate: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05140/507705.stm

Sincerely,

Megan Blanck-Weiss
WashPIRG Field Associate
MeganBW@washpirg.org
http://www.WashPIRG.org

P.S.  Thanks again for your support.  Please feel free to share this e-mail with your family and friends.
"

Thank you Megan!

Today is a Sad Sad Sad Day!

Quote

Yahoo! News - Senate Votes to Open Alaskan Oil Drilling