WSDOT FAIL
29 Jan 2012 10:08![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nwhikerWe have to put our Good2Go ripoff pass on the car, so that a Texass company can make money off of the tolling on a major bridge while we attempt to pay for a new one.
Did I mention that the tolling has been fraught with problems?
And that the toll is very expensive? $3.50 each way during peak hours, more if you don't have their freaking Good2Go pass.
Oh, and the bridge? Is at this point empty. Nobody is taking it. They expect it to take 45 years -yes, years- for the traffic to build back up on the tolled bridge to what it was the day before tolling started. They were told this over and over before they decided to toll, and even more so when they decided to go variable tolling. They did not listen. They still claim that people will eventually take the bridge, but so far, the volumes aren't apparently going up. I think people might start taking it again when there is an actual new bridge in place, but paying a toll on the old bridge, construction tolls on which were paid off sometime in the 60s, really irritates us. All this affects me because Linnea's school is off of I90, which is now the non-tolled more used route. Anyhow, 405 and 90 definitely have heavier traffic and 520 is free flowing and expensive.
A local columnist, whom I normally like, called people who would spend an extra 20 minutes in traffic to avoid a $7/day toll "ding dongs", which I thought was mean, and quite frankly, stupid. Most of us can squeeze an additional 20 minutes into a day, if need be. $140/month? That gets a bit harder.
As usual, it's the poor and the middle class who pay. The wealthy (and despite the claims on the Seattle Times comment boards, there are plenty of rich Seattle folks too) won't notice the extra money. The high tech population at MS has the option of free to employees employer operated and very nice buses, and flexibility to move their work schedule around to avoid the peak hour tolling if they need to. The people who are screwed? Those with jobs that require them to be in at a given time. Yeah, can we say civil servants, teachers, retails workers, and bank employees? As usual those with the least ability to pay are being hit with the highest need to pay, to get to work on time. So they'll either pay, and will cut back on something else, money that might have done into the local economy, rather than to Texass, or they'll lose another chunk of time, some more sleep, some family time, to avoid the money drain.
We don't, here in the Seattle area, have a public transit system that makes this an easy choice. We have a vanity light rail line that goes "almost" to the airport (officially it does, but actually, it leaves you on the outskirts thereof, far far far from the terminal), the SLUT, Paul Allen's vanity trolley, and buses. Buses that get stuck in traffic, take for freaking ever, and if you aren't there early enough, good luck finding parking at a Park and Ride. By not, for example, using the old rail corridor on 405 for -ahem- transit rail (*), and getting rail across the bridges before some time in the next half century, we are, for all Seattle likes to pretend it's "green", very much dependent on cars. So tolls hurt because we do end up having to pay them, and variable tolls hurt even more because those who pay the highest rate are often those who can least afford to.
(*) Instead of using the tracks that run all the way down Seattle's Eastside for commuter trail, Ron Fucking Fuckhead Asshole Liar Sims got the rails pulled up for a bike trail, which might, at best, help a few hundred people commute. Said bike trail, at times, will run just a few hundred yards for an already established, extensive biketrail. I cycle, so I'm not immune to the need for bike trails, but come on! We need good public transit more than we need bike trails, and this was a golden opportunity, owning a rail corridor that goes through the major tech corridor of the state. Ron Sims is now fucking up and telling lies for the Obama administration, but his legacy of stupid lives on.
Anyhow, we have a pass. The size of a "popsicle" stick, they say. No, the size of a tongue depressor. A large tongue depressor.
And placement requirements? Means it fucking has to be pretty much placed in the middle of the GD fucking windshield, because it needs to be "away" from any component of the car that might interfere with the data transmission. Maybe it isn't so bad in other cars but in the Prius, there is no way to place it that does not end up smack in the middle of my field of vision.
Gah.
Did I mention that the tolling has been fraught with problems?
And that the toll is very expensive? $3.50 each way during peak hours, more if you don't have their freaking Good2Go pass.
Oh, and the bridge? Is at this point empty. Nobody is taking it. They expect it to take 45 years -yes, years- for the traffic to build back up on the tolled bridge to what it was the day before tolling started. They were told this over and over before they decided to toll, and even more so when they decided to go variable tolling. They did not listen. They still claim that people will eventually take the bridge, but so far, the volumes aren't apparently going up. I think people might start taking it again when there is an actual new bridge in place, but paying a toll on the old bridge, construction tolls on which were paid off sometime in the 60s, really irritates us. All this affects me because Linnea's school is off of I90, which is now the non-tolled more used route. Anyhow, 405 and 90 definitely have heavier traffic and 520 is free flowing and expensive.
A local columnist, whom I normally like, called people who would spend an extra 20 minutes in traffic to avoid a $7/day toll "ding dongs", which I thought was mean, and quite frankly, stupid. Most of us can squeeze an additional 20 minutes into a day, if need be. $140/month? That gets a bit harder.
As usual, it's the poor and the middle class who pay. The wealthy (and despite the claims on the Seattle Times comment boards, there are plenty of rich Seattle folks too) won't notice the extra money. The high tech population at MS has the option of free to employees employer operated and very nice buses, and flexibility to move their work schedule around to avoid the peak hour tolling if they need to. The people who are screwed? Those with jobs that require them to be in at a given time. Yeah, can we say civil servants, teachers, retails workers, and bank employees? As usual those with the least ability to pay are being hit with the highest need to pay, to get to work on time. So they'll either pay, and will cut back on something else, money that might have done into the local economy, rather than to Texass, or they'll lose another chunk of time, some more sleep, some family time, to avoid the money drain.
We don't, here in the Seattle area, have a public transit system that makes this an easy choice. We have a vanity light rail line that goes "almost" to the airport (officially it does, but actually, it leaves you on the outskirts thereof, far far far from the terminal), the SLUT, Paul Allen's vanity trolley, and buses. Buses that get stuck in traffic, take for freaking ever, and if you aren't there early enough, good luck finding parking at a Park and Ride. By not, for example, using the old rail corridor on 405 for -ahem- transit rail (*), and getting rail across the bridges before some time in the next half century, we are, for all Seattle likes to pretend it's "green", very much dependent on cars. So tolls hurt because we do end up having to pay them, and variable tolls hurt even more because those who pay the highest rate are often those who can least afford to.
(*) Instead of using the tracks that run all the way down Seattle's Eastside for commuter trail, Ron Fucking Fuckhead Asshole Liar Sims got the rails pulled up for a bike trail, which might, at best, help a few hundred people commute. Said bike trail, at times, will run just a few hundred yards for an already established, extensive biketrail. I cycle, so I'm not immune to the need for bike trails, but come on! We need good public transit more than we need bike trails, and this was a golden opportunity, owning a rail corridor that goes through the major tech corridor of the state. Ron Sims is now fucking up and telling lies for the Obama administration, but his legacy of stupid lives on.
Anyhow, we have a pass. The size of a "popsicle" stick, they say. No, the size of a tongue depressor. A large tongue depressor.
And placement requirements? Means it fucking has to be pretty much placed in the middle of the GD fucking windshield, because it needs to be "away" from any component of the car that might interfere with the data transmission. Maybe it isn't so bad in other cars but in the Prius, there is no way to place it that does not end up smack in the middle of my field of vision.
Gah.
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no subject
Date: 29 Jan 2012 20:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2012 21:28 (UTC)Sigh... Dh took the bridge yesterday and said it was deserted.
The thing that bugs me the most is perhaps the variable tolling. Had they done a $1 fare/24 hours a day, I think people would have reacted better than this insanely expensive toll at the time people need to actually, you know, use the damn bridge.
no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2012 21:34 (UTC)