Dude, Seattle has spent billions on light rail and it really works well. Are you on the east side? Decent progress has been made on transit oriented apartments too.
I agree traffic is oddly bad during the pandemic, but we have solutions, more transit, protected bike lanes, and apartments near light rail and buslines.
Trains that sit in traffic still have a massive gain over cars in traffic. They are cheaper to run long term than the equivalent sized bus, and can run almost non-stop without the need to refuel.
Try not to dismiss ideas so quickly as "virtue signalling" without an understanding of what they accomplish
The key issue with buses and trains in traffic is they're slower than a car, so people don't want to use it because it's a shittier experience. When you grade separate they become independent of traffic and thus better than driving so people end up using it more.
Cars vs. transit is a pure throughput issue. You will never, even with 14 lane highways, beat one grade separated transit line with how many people you can move per hour. Eventually you run out of land with roads and cars, with trains you effectively do not.
With trains you are limited because you need a certain amount of separation between trains for safety, and station platforms are only so long which limits the number of cars that can load/unload. And at the final terminal (typically the main downtown station) there are a finite number of platforms which limits the number of trains that can be in the station at any one time.
Agree that you can move many more people on one set of rails than one highway, but it's not unlimited.
Regarding the terminus stations, in Europe many central stations are being converted, or where built as, through stations. This allows for much higher throughput since trains don't have to turn around.
Hah, maybe in some abstract social planning sense - but no one (numbers wise) will use them because as an individual they’re clearly terrible as an individual experience compared to a car. You sit in the same traffic as the car, but have no privacy, no control of your environment, little to no control over your schedule, etc.
Ironically, if everyone used buses, they would be much easier to keep timely. They would also receive enough funding and political focus to be kept clean and high quality.
But our ruthlessly individual mindset here in the states blocks us from reaching many of these higher level goals.
That's true, but we must work with the hand we're dealt.
1. We do not have the political power to ban the cars to clear the traffic until people already ride transit.
2. People will not ride in sufficient numbers unless it dodges traffic.
So yes, there is nothing materially wrong with surface-level transit, but we can't make that work until the cars are already gone...so we are stuck building more tunnels, viaducts, etc.
Light rail right like this fundamental is a salve, or yet another feel-good government service for the poor. But it doesn't help us change mass culture, nor can it easily be reformed into something that does.
Now, I should concede Pre-metro / Stadtbahn is not dead end, and allows for an incrementalist approach that is not just slapping band-aids. But you still need to put the urban core underground to have a beachhead, and to my knowledge only San Francisco of North American cities has a light rail that does that.
Except for one location (Singapore) I’ve used light rail or busses, they generally ends up the type of place it isn’t safe to actually zone out. Anecdotally from friends, Seattle’s are worse than most.
One might make a similar argument with taxis and Ubers significantly reducing the total number of cars that need to exist even though there might sometimes be drivers on the road looking for another fare.
Link light rail is grade separated for most of its route. Where it isn’t grade separated, it isn’t much of a concern, and it is never sitting in traffic (it has priority at all it’s crossings).
I cannot speak to east of Seattle but for significant portions it is grade separated.
Of the 3 stops where it isn't, it has it's own lane on a major thoroughfare and only chances an errant driver crossing an intersection.
Now for the Seattle Streetcars, those are a different story. For the most part, they have a dedicated lane so they breeze past traffic, but could get caught if traffic is especially bad.
Within the densest part of Seattle they took over the underground tunnels which for years had been used as (electric) bus transit only tunnels with light rail.
Past the stadium in the south it's at grade.
After a brief tunnel under the major hill it is at grade through the gentrifying area south of Seattle.
It goes above grade near the airport.
There are expansions to the east and north that I haven't seen yet, and the expansion to the south hasn't yet reached a stage where I've seen sufficient details to answer.
It's grade separated pretty much all the way north to Northgate and beyond. (Which opened this year.) Northgate, Roosevelt, U District, UW, capitol Hill, all the downtown stops are all separated in tunnels/elevated rail.
It's at grade only in parts of SODO and South Seattle. The bulk is separated. Even when not, it takes priority at crossings and has it's own lanes that are rarely shared with cars.
I know a lot of the new light rail is, but it depends on the area. IIRC when it gets near downtown(at least in Rainier Valley/International District) it's on grade. Down by the airport it's up in the air. Same with the new extension down to Sea-Tac Mall(or whatever the hell they call it now).
I agree traffic is oddly bad during the pandemic, but we have solutions, more transit, protected bike lanes, and apartments near light rail and buslines.