For Mass Transit to Work, You First Need ‘Mass’
2nd August 2022
In my experience, mass transit works best in densely-populated cities. There is a lot more actual demand for mass transit, and city systems can be full at least during rush hour. Unfortunately, the Leftists who run West Coast cities are enamored of mass transit, and totally ignore the fact that they simply lack the “mass” to make it work. Seattle is in love with “light rail,” and their mostly-leftist voters voted to increase taxes on everything (sales, property, cars) to pay for a light-rail system. That system is partly running now, from north Seattle to the airport, but it really isn’t drawing many riders.
Of course, they hadn’t counted on a pandemic of respiratory disease that shut down the system for months, then had few riders when it re-opened; they had successfully persuaded citizens that they should fear all their fellow citizens, which doesn’t contribute much to the demand for packed rail cars or buses. Of course, Sound Transit bemoans its funding shortfalls, which could have been expected in any case. Then, they let kids ride free, contributing even more to the funding shortfall. And their trains have become rolling homeless shelters, making legitimate riders very uncomfortable.
All of these people wished that they lived in New York City, or maybe Chicago, where buildings are piled higher and deeper, everybody works in the center and lives in the periphery (because they can’t afford to live in the center), and everybody’s ‘neighborhood’ is full of strangers who don’t speak English but are willing to sell you foreign food that you pretend to like because that’s Hip And Trendy.