With the new transportation package up for a vote this November, we in the Puget Sound region have an opportunity to really improve the long term options available to residents of our tri-county area. Recent surveys show that support across the USA is high for alternate transportation methods (other than cars/roads) and you can read a recently released report at this link: http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2007102502?OpenDocument
A while back I wrote this article on Rain City Guide about the upcoming transit package. Spend a little time reading about it before you vote in the next week. When I work with relocating clients we discuss what commuting means to them and the options that they want that will integrate with their lifestyle. For some, that means trying to limit their lives to having only 1 car, being near transit so they don’t have to buy a car, or just limiting how much time they have to spend in stop and go traffic.
Having traveled through about 13 different countries in my adult life (and I’d like to do more) and having been in many major US cities enough to see their alternate modes of transportation, it’s my belief that we in the Puget Sound need to wake up and smell our well roasted coffee (hat’s off to Starbucks and Tully’s :)) and put in place transportation systems that can handle the next 20 years of growth that we’ve got coming. With estimates of 50,000 people coming here each year for the next 20 years we need to do something besides just adding more cars to the road.
