Seattle Voted For ST3 Because the City Stopped Moving: Congestion Up 35 Percent

Seattle is going nowhere fast. 407695978/ shutterstock.com

The reason why Link is so popular , and why its ambitious expansion, ST3, was strongly approved by voters, most likely has nothing to do with Sound Transit's aggressive ad campaign or anything like our region's increasing enlightenment about the social, economic, health, and environmental benefits of public forms of transportation. No. It's just simply that driving around the city has become impossible. Between 2013 and 2015, Seattle-area congestion shot up 35 percent

Remember 2013? Those were nothing like the good old days of car mobility. Traffic was awful then. In fact, it's hard to believe it could get any worse at that point—and it did! And by a whole lot. With no other car-related options available (Bertha will solve jack), rapid transport by rail faced only weak resistance. Indeed, any mode that is functional is no longer ignored or neglected. For example, Westlake Bikeway, which opened this year, and was named by the Green Lane Project "the country’s best new bike lane of 2016,” must now be used not for aesthetic or health reasons but because it is the surest way to get from Fremont and its surrounding neighborhoods to downtown. What all of this shows? Ideas do not change our bad habits. Frustration and fear and other negatives do.