5. 'The bus system is stupid'
If people must pay to use freeways, transportation planners say, there must be alternative ways to get around – cheaply and quickly.
If people must pay to use freeways, transportation planners say, there must be alternative ways to get around – cheaply and quickly.
There would be no toll booths. Electronic sensors would detect whether you have a paid pass to use the freeways, and if you didn't, there would be cameras ...
Tolling and other measures are in use as congestion-reducers in London, Singapore, Rome, and many other places. There are a lot of ideas out there for Puget Sound planners to consider.
Mere talk about road tolls is seen as a threat to an unrelated $14.5 billion transportation ballot measure in November. That's why a proposal for widespread tolling has been secret until now.
King County Executive Ron Sims has his own inconvenient truth to convey: Tolls are inevitable on all major Seattle-area freeways. And he already has a plan for us to discuss.