Let's have another look at the Urban Mobility Report to estimate the cost of our traffic woes. Last time, we noted that Seattle has the second lowest per-traveler delays of any large city (45 hours per year), ahead of only Philadelphia (38 hours per year). That's roughly a 15% difference in hours wasted. At $21.25/hour, the median hourly wage in King County, that extra time is worth roughly $150 per year; that is, if I were an assistant manager at the fish shop in Pike Place Market earning $22/hour, and the government raised my taxes by $100/year but reduced my commute time by 15%, I could come out ahead by working those extra 7 hours. And even if my boss wouldn't let me work those 7 hours, I would have more free time to do fun things like watch movies, though I might have to rent them rather than buy them or go to the theater.
Let's apply this to regional traffic as a whole. Seattle spent a combined 74 million hours in congestion-related traffic delays last year. If we could reduce that figure by 15%, it would free up about 11.5 million person-hours, which is worth $245 million. When you factor in fuel costs, the total amount wasted due to heavy traffic is right under $270 million per year. That is, if the government raised taxes by $250 million per year (roughly $90 per person or $360 for a family of four) but reduced traffic congestion by 15%, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue-Everett as a whole would be better off.
Let's stop there for today. We spent 74 million hours stuck in traffic last year. If we had the traffic levels of Philadelphia, we would have spent only 62.5 million hours stuck in traffic. Those extra hours "cost" us well over $250 million per year. Up next, we'll look at the costs of the Roads & Transit package and see under what circumstances it turns out to be a good deal for the region.
Texas A&M just released the latest edition of its survey of traffic conditions in America's major cities. Pictures tell the story best. Here's the key table (emphasis added):
And this is a map of the Philadelphia train system:
Up Next: we'll run the numbers to see how much we ought to be willing to spend to reach Philly's lower level of congestion problems.
The real crime against accounting in the anti-transit propaganda is the claim that it costs ... [Austin Powers music] ... $157 billion dollars. You can see ominous looking spreadsheet and listen to the radio ads. Scary, right?
Scary, but completely fraudulent. This sort of accounting would have made Enron's bean counters blush.
This fall we're gearing up for Yet Another Transit VoteTM, this time on Sound Transit 2: The Wrath of Light Rail as well as some road improvements. That means it's also time for anti-transit forces to kick in to high gear and, make stuff up.
The shadily named "Eastside Transportation Association" is running ads trying to convince you that no one will use the transit system, but there seems to be some accounting gimmicks going on. The ad claims "transit handles less than 3% of all the people on the road, and the experts' best projections ... doesn't increase it to 5%". This just doesn't add up. Projections show the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue-Everett population growing to roughly 4.6 million, while the new transit system will probably increase ridership to about 370,000 riders. By my count, that means transit's already serving 8% of the population, and an even higher percentage of adults. In reality, Seattle-Tacoma already has one of the most-utilized public transit systems in the country, but we have to make more investments if we want to keep up with the population growth.
What's more, November's ballot initiative is a vote on transit construction and road construction, with the overwhelming majority of roads projects going to suburbs and neighborhoods outside of Seattle. It includes a new 520 bridge, improvements on 405 and various 5XY roads in South King, Pierce, and Snohomish. Everyone gets something out of the package.
Drinking Liberally, tonight at the Montlake Ale House, 8pm to close.
We'll be redecorating the Republican Street sign that the mayor gave us [more on that later]. Free beer if you have a campaign sticker you can tack onto it.
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 08:03 17 October 2007
