In a recent interview with the Whatcom Indy, Mayor Pike was asked:

Q: What about transportation issues in Bellingham, with some arterials being allowed to go to Level F? How do you see the future of transportation in the city?

Very, very, very good question.

This is a killer issue, and I experienced a bit of consternation as I read his responses. I'll quote his responses below and give you the "off the top o' my head" thoughts. I reserve to right to "revise and extend" my remarks at a later date. I'm very tired and may not be thinking as clearly as I'd like to be.

Here we go...



Okay... for starters, I find that condescending. "I'm educating the peasants." We don't need to be educated. We need the City to be responsive to our transportation needs. That's their job. Yo? But to be fair, let's look at Mayor Dan's remarks and see if he clarifies what he means by this.



Correct! That's the problem, and rather than fix it, the previous City Council just changed the LOS to "F" so the the congestion was considered within acceptable limits. That's not leadership. That's not even a Band Aid. That's the ostrich hiding it's head in the sand under the pretense that there is no problem.

Let's read on:



This response is just absurd. We're not living in Mayberry (you younger folks may not get that reference), and I'm not going to ride my bike from the top of Alabama Hill to Costco and back, as if I could actually carry my purchases home on my bicycle anyway. And while we're in this arena of flapdoodle, let's just state here and now, I'm not carrying my groceries home on WTA either. I'm not going to purchase a trunkload of groceries, bus them home, and then carry them in my beefy, manly arms the remaining six blocks from the bus stop to my front porch.

We need to move from the realm of supernal bliss to reality! We're a city pushing 80,000 right now, and we're not all going to vehiculate ourselves around Bellingham on knobby-tired bicycles, or on buses.



Here, Mayor Dan makes it clear that he is favoring the social engineering model in which local legislators see it as their responsibility NOT to fix the problem and pain we are enduring, but rather to utilize the pain of the present situation to achieve an alternate goal; get us out of our cars.

Now, the argument can be made, and it is a debate I've had with others, but the debate rarely stays on topic. The topic of debate here is "What is the role of the Mayor and Council?" Given his answers in this interview, I'm confident, Mayor Dan would say his responsibility is to accomplish an environmental greater good by moving us from our cars to vehicles powered by "humanergy" or to mass transit. This is a goal explicitly stated by Councilwoman Barbara Ryan when the previous council refused to address the LOS problem. I just disagree with this as a starting point.

I believe it is the responsibility of the Mayor and Council to SOLVE the problem before us rather than redefine it. Traffic is a @#$#%^ mess, especially around 8:00AM and 5:00PM. Fix it! If we can agree on that as the probelem and the goal, then we can begin to discuss how to get from point A to point Z. But I refuse to accept that the role of the Council and the Mayor is to socially engineer me into a position I don't want to be in.

Now, we move to a real eyeball roller:



Let's do some translational work here. "It's not our fault."

Good grief man. Grow a spine! That is such a cop-out. Methinks we are dealing with an individual who either does not accept, or does not understand the Growth Management Act. I do not pretend that the issue of urban growth is an easy one, but I'm not going to look at poor decision making by the Bellingham City Council and respond to it by pointing fingers at the county!

Now, put on our corporate thinking-caps and let's digest this next profundity...






Well, where, Dan? Which neighborhoods are going to accept this growth? Edgemoore? Tweed Twenty? South Hill? Who is standing in line with hand eagerly raised saying, "Please, oh please, increase the density of our neighborhood?"

Look, I understand the desire to prevent "sprawl" however we decide to define that. (Believe it or not, there is not universal agreement on what sprawl actually is.) But if we are going to do this, and do so without violating the GMA, then we have to have areas ready, willing and able to receive the increased population. However that happens, we must remain inside the sphere of reality, and understand that this will intensify the traffic woes we currently endure.

This is not rocket science. More people within the city limits, increases congestion. Increasing urban density may well be a reasonable response to the desire to prevent sprawl, but it is not a solution for our current LOS violations.

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Damon,
I've been sick with the crud this week so I missed the Council Transportation work session last Wednesday. Tonight I was viewing the video which is now posted on COB.ORG, click on City Council and Agenda's, video's

If you want to get to the LOS meat of the presentation, fast forward your media player to 35 minutes in and watch about ten minutes worth. Dick McKinley addresses LOS and traffic concurrency. It doesn't address your concerns about major trips to Costco, etc. but it does lay out the concepts in a way that makes sense to those of us neophyte's. Dick claims that it's not an attempt at "social engineering" as it is addressing transportation in a way that makes sense. See if this makes sense to you and if not I know I'll hear from you on it; right?

Stan,

I watched Dick's presentation, and if we accept his assumptions, then yes, it makes sense. To some degree, it makes sense generically regardless. He wants to avoid spending money unnecessarily, and I'm all for that. What I would challenge is the graph he produced.

Dick's graph looked something like this:


If Dick is correct, then his logic carries more validity. However, my experience driving various roads in question is that they have an LOS more like this:


Clearly, this is experiential, and it may be that a traffic study needs to be done, but if my scenario is closer to reality than Dick's, then his line of reasoning becomes invalid, and corrective action needs to be taken on these roads.

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I think your post illustrates beautifully what I'm trying to say with the opening of this thread.

I have this life view that says, "What is, is." You and I (and everyone else) have habits and limits to what we will do for a cause. People are going to do what they are going to do, and what they are going to do is drive their cars. Call it lazy... Call it uncaring... non-environmentally sensitive... selfish... It really doesn't matter. They're going to do what they are going to do. We can argue endlessly about what should be done, but that is pointless. This is what people are going to do. Our task (your task) is to decide how best to address the LOS problem, given the reality of people's choices. That's the puzzle/dilemma that is laid on your plate.

One approach, endorsed last year by Barbara Ryan, was to force the issue by not widening the roads. The idea is to make it so painful to drive, that people will be forced into other options. That's social engineering, and I don't like that. Another approach is to widen the roads, allowing for a greater traffic flow. That will fix the problem; no question about it. Some have objected that this is "enabling" and will lead to the Californication you mentioned above, so while it fixes the LOS issue, it carries with it a potential for unintended consequences. There are hypothetical ties to sprawl (however we define it), and arguments going both ways on this.

I don't envy you your task, and only hope that everyone will take the discussion as seriously as I believe you are taking it.

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