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I worship the Tube. In over three months in London, I was only in a private car once, and that was actually a taxi when the Tube shut down with me nowhere near my homestay. Mass transit that works is necessary.

If the monorail debate had been merely the effectiveness of transit in getting people out of cars, we'd be building a monorail right now. Seattle voters have reflected your thinking for many years.

The problem lies with what the monorail was trying to be -- an alternative to light rail that gathered momentum in the darkest days of sound transit. While many pro-transit people supported the monorail, the core behind the monorail was anti-sound transit and pretty much anti-bus as well.

Compared to doing nothing (more roads/cars), of course the monorail would be an improvement. But compared to light rail?

Well, let's put it this way, the capacity of the green line would have been so limited compared to the london underground, CTA, or what sound transit is building, while coming in at the same order of magnitude of cost, as to resemble doing nothing. Check out how long those stations are in chicago, both for the el and the underground CTA. They are huge, able to accomodate long trains and big crowds. Meanwhile, the monorail was talking about tiny little stations with short trains and limited platform space. It would not have been mass transit.

And it certainly would not have been much of an option to anyone, except for that busy west seattle-ballard commute....

They do indeed.

I'm still puzzled and embarrassed that Seattle's light rail will debut two decades after Portland (a similarly sized city but smaller transit region) opened their first line.

Will Seattle's light rail go to SeaTac? Last I heard, it would get a few miles short, which is pointless. If it goes to the airport, then yes, I can see some value. They were over the budget the voters originally approved before even breaking ground, weren't they?

I have to admit that since I quit commuting to Bellevue, I haven't paid that much attention. I certainly won't be seeing any sort of useful mass-transit between Burlington and Bellingham.

It will go to SeaTac. The original light rail system was going to be a mile short of the airport, but they were able to save enough money on construction that they extended the line all the way. The final mile will open a bit later than the rest of the system - late 2009, instead of early 2009 - but they will have regular, complimentary shuttles to take people to the trains from the airport until it opens.

Seriously: get me light-rail from Northgate to Downtown, and I will be ALL OVER THAT. It would be greatly preferable to the current public transit option: stuck in traffic just as bad as if I were in my own car, but with the added joy of urine odors.

I have a unique take on this, having lived in Seattle for three years and the rest of my life in Chicago. Everyone I have met who lives in Seattle and visits Chicago says the same thing you do. You're all wrong.

Seattle has better transit than Chicago. By a wide margin.

Chicago's train system runs in spokes out from downtown. There are no trains connecting these spokes, so the farther you get from downtown the more limited their usage is unless you a) are going downtown or b) happen to need to go along that particular line.

Take the train you took from the airport as an example (this is the CTA's blue line.) This train does indeed kick ass for going between the airport and downtown. I lived along this line for most of my life in Chicago, largely because the neighborhoods on this line are far more affordable than the ones near the lake. Now most of Chicago's nightlife and activities are over along the lakefront, far west of this neighborhood. This is also, of course, the most expensive neighborhood to live in. It makes Belltown look cheap. A different train line (the brown line) runs through this neighborhood, again driving out in a line from downtown.

If I live in any neighborhood besides this one, and I need to get there, I'm screwed unless i want to go all the way downtown, change trains, then come all the way back up. Alternately I could bus, which in Chicago is beyond a disaster because of the street traffic and poor city planning.

This scenario is played out citywide. If you only need to travel on one line, or only need to go downtown, the trains rule. But for a citywide transit system, they are pathetic. Remember Chicago is BIG. It's like 15 Seattles. There are a LOT of places not covered by the trains.

They only people they are truly useful for are Chicago's wealthiest residents, who of course need them the least. Everytime I hear a Seattleite talk about how great Chicago's transit is, its inevitably because they never went anywhere besides the lakefront or the airport (or alternately were based downtown where access to any train is of course a breeze. Of course, only the ultra-rich actually live down there.)

Seattle may not have as many easy and direct routes anywhere, but you can at least reasonably get between most neighborhoods and each other, and often even have express bus options which ride the highways. Northgate from downtown? You're complaining about this trip? I took this same trip daily for a long time and after living in Chicago I was blown away how nice the bus system is here.

Seriously, everyone in this town needs to sit back and really examine how good they think everyone else has it. Could it be better? Yeah absolutely, especially as the density hits (you are dead on target about the pointlessness of fighting congestion.) However, let's not just start saying "We should do it like !" Every city has their own needs and should be planned accordingly. For instance, Question 1: How are you going to put your trains over the Montlake and/or University and/or Fremont bridges?

Portland, on the other hand, kicks ass.

Hah I only now just noticed this post is two years old! No matter, it still holds true. Don't get me started about the SLUT either, what a joke.

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