Making better transit a top priority

Better transit is key to making Seattle a more affordable and sustainable place to live and work.

Safe, reliable and easy transit options would allow people to get out of their cars and enable successful urban neighborhoods that have more residential density and thriving businesses. Since owning a car adds, on average, about $10,000 to a family’s annual budget, being able to enjoy Seattle without that expense would make a big difference.

When I lived in New York, Osaka and Tokyo I used transit daily and saw

how it helps create an urban environment. In Seattle, my wife and I chose to live in the Columbia City neighborhood because the new light rail line will help make the area more walkable. I believe we should implement best practices from great cities around the world, from Toronto to Kobe.

I ran for city council in part to be a staunch advocate of better transit. I pledged to do the following:

• Ensure a strategy for more reliable and frequent transit on major corridors. This may include adding transit lanes and giving buses priority at traffic signals. We should move forward as quickly as possible on the city’s forthcoming Transit Master Plan.
• Work with King County Metro to make bus routes logical, reliable and easy. Buses should be easy to use even for the occasional rider. Let’s streamline “milk run” routes into more direct service that, in turn, will attract more riders.
• Accelerate Westside rail (West Seattle and Ballard to downtown) and complete the Seattle Streetcar network. Rail goes hand-in-glove with additional density. It stimulates investment and encourages people who otherwise wouldn’t use transit to get out of their cars.
• Work with Sound Transit on regional solutions. I’d like to serve on the Sound Transit board in order to help create smart, integrated solutions that work for Seattle residents.

Meanwhile, in order to make transit function better, we need to continue developing complete streets and improving the city’s street grid. Aside from the deep-bored tunnel project, we need to improve surface streets downtown, add transit and reconfigure I-5 to function better (for example, by converting the express lanes to two-way service).

Transit is a top priority of almost everyone in Seattle and councimembers should treat it as one too.