Good Guy (and Great DJ!) Gene Balk crunched the numbers today and found that Seattle “now ranks as the second most bus-reliant major U.S. city, after San Francisco”—and that a full one in five Seattle residents takes the bus to get to work.
These numbers are exciting for those of us who hope to some day be able to get around more easily on expanded rail and bus lines, but of course, are probably making some conservative jagweeds who shall not be named poop themselves in terror.
As Balk points out, if there really is a War on Cars (SPOILER: THERE IS NOT), “cars are losing.”
The addition of other new ways to get around has had an impact, too, and is generally helping the city become less dependent on cars; as we learned last month, more than 9,000 personal vehicles are no longer on the road, and, in about half the cases, it’s a direct result of having access to Car2Go and other services.
And despite pee-pantsing about “disappearing parking spaces,” the number of spaces that have been absorbed or altered in the last several years pales in comparison to the number of people who aren’t driving; in 2015, SDOT reported that there were only 1,380 fewer street parking spots in the entire city since 2011.
Meanwhile, 78,000 Seattleites routinely take the bus into work, and of the 44,000 new workers who have come to town since 2010, 19,000 are commuting by bus. And that doesn’t take into account people who walk, carshare, or take their bike in.
Which like, people who are ultra-reliant on their cars should be stoked about. The more people who take the bus, the more spaces there are for you!
(Oh, and confidential to all residents: You are not entitled to street parking. Go park in a garage where there is actually a lot of space and pay the price because free and subsidized street parking is actually kind of a scourge.)
Basically, these numbers are one big advertisement for why adding transit is the smartest thing we can do—the market has demonstrated a demand, and it’s time to meet that demand.
Go read Gene’s whole piece and then the next time someone bloo-bloos that there aren’t enough places for them to park their beloved single-occupancy vehicle, tell them that all the cool kids take the bus.
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