In November 2021, Congress passed the “Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act”, a bipartisan infrastructure bill significant for its focus on addressing various infrastructure needs in the United States. A major focus of the bill was on public transportation, with substantial funding for public transit agencies to enhance and modernize transit infrastructure. According to the American Public Transportation Association, the bill provided $108 billion for public transit – the largest federal investment in public transportation in the nation’s history – as well as an additional $102 billion for commuter rail, Amtrak, and other high-performance passenger rail projects. In the U.S, public transit is mostly paid for by federal, state, and local funding, along with revenue from local taxes, and the Congressional Budget Office reports that around 2,200 transit systems currently receive federal grant money, and these agencies can certainly expect to benefit from the added funding included in the Infrastructure Bill.
The Infrastructure Bill comes at a crucial time. Many of the nation’s public transit systems are crumbling, with trains serving as relics from the 60’s and 70’s in some networks. Unsurprisingly, creaky trains and buses lead to reliability issues, and as Gabby Birenbaum from Vox News reports, “the poor quality of facilities, stations, trains and buses causes delays, creating an unreliable transit experience that leads to declines in ridership.” And ridership declines cause a viscous cycle, as decreased revenue through fares makes it more difficult for agencies to fund maintenance and repair projects, and in 2017 the Department of Transportation reported that 36.4% of transit facilities are in “poor” condition, along with 19% of transit vehicles, 6.4% of fixed guideway elements (tracks, tunnels, and guideways), and 5.5% of transit stations.
In a society that is heavily car-dominant, Americans often undervalue the importance of a reliable public transportation network. Transportation plays a major role in reducing poverty by increasing the economic mobility of low-income residents. And the logic is simple; reliable transit enables those who can’t otherwise afford a car to access employment opportunities, education, and key resources. According to Kyle Funk and Patrick Hain from the National League of Cities, 87% of public transit trips connect riders to jobs and local businesses, and “without adequate and affordable mobility options, the likelihood that an individual or family can be economically stable and move to build wealth over time decreases.”
In fact, Harvard economists Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren discovered in a study that transportation is a stronger determination of social mobility than factors like crime and the percentage of two-parent families in a community. Furthermore, in a 2015 study Sarah Kaufman from New York University’s Wager School of Public Service analyzed New York City’s 177 neighborhoods and ranked them according to the number of jobs accessible by transit within an hour and completed by 9:00 a.m. on a Monday morning. Kaufman discovered that neighborhoods with the lowest levels of transit access had higher levels of unemployment, and in neighborhoods with insufficient transit access unemployment rates ranged from 12-15%, while neighborhoods which were ranked higher in terms of transit access displayed unemployment rates of 7-9%. Point is, if city leaders are looking for ways to help uplift communities that have been historically marginalized and promote social equity, supporting the developing of public transit networks is a great place to start.
So how has all this public transit news played out in the Seattle area? Well, the passing of the Infrastructure Bill also gave voters the confidence to approve the historic “Sound Transit 3” measure (or ST3), which is an expansion of the city’s Link Light Rail Network. Currently Seattle’s light rail consists of one line that runs north to south, from Northgate to SeaTac. The approval of ST3 looks to extend lines north to Everett, east to Issaquah and Redmond, west to Ballard and West Seattle, and south to Tacoma, along with a more robust set of lines within the Downtown Seattle area. According to Sound Transit, ST3 will invest $54 Billion over the next 25 years and add 62 miles of new track, 37 new stations, and the new network will be 5x the size of the current one, comparable to the subway networks of Chicago and Washington D.C.
Seattle has grown massively over the past decade; with a 21% increase in population and an 80% increase in GDP from 2010 to 2020, the city is one of the fastest growing in the nation. With this growth comes rising housing prices and traffic congestion, and a reliable public transportation system is needed to ensure the city can grow sustainably and affordably. As Paul Lewis from the Eno Center for Transportation states, “This is a transformational thing that’s going to define how the city grows and looked over the next 50 to 100 years.” And Rachel Smith from The Urbanist voices a similar opinion, stating that “giving more people options to move around the region strengthens our economy, adds capacity as we grow, and opens access for all to good-paying jobs.”
Lewis and Smith both make a great point; the light rail will play a major role in shaping Seattle in the upcoming years. And there is a lot to look forward to with ST3. Firstly, it is clear the designers of the network expansion paid close attention to how the light rail will work to serve the city. Not only are commuters easily able to access downtown Seattle from the North, South, and East sides of the city, but the network does a decent job at facilitating suburb to suburb connections. Trips from Bellevue to Redmond, Shoreline to Bothell, Ballard to West Seattle, and Burien to South Renton are all possible with minimal transfers. This inter-connectedness is a refreshing sight when looking at the subway or light rail networks of other major American cities, which largely follow a “radial” pattern, such as the ones seen with Chicago and Washington D.C above. The main purpose of these networks is to facilitate suburb to downtown connections, allowing mostly corporate suburbanite workers to commute to their downtown jobs. However, for commuters to traverse from suburb to suburb, they would first have to take the train to the downtown, then transfer lines and travel outbounds again, often making taking a car more justifiable. This design of subway and light rail systems limits the upward mobility that transit systems can provide to low-income populations, as those without a car are unable to make the suburb-to-suburb journeys that those with a car would otherwise be able to make. The implementation of the “outer ring” seen in the Link Light Rail that starts runs along the Eastside through Bellevue connecting the north and south ends of the city serves to make the greater Seattle area as a whole more accessible to all.
Not only will an expanded light rail network promote more social mobility, but it will also allow Seattle to prosper culturally. Firstly, public transit allows for more random, small social interactions to take place. These encounters can be as simple as an elderly lady asking for help at a stop or striking up a conversation with someone on the train about local sports. While these are small instances in themselves, they do add to the overall cultural framework of the city, making it more livable as a whole. After all, social interactions largely do not occur when everyone is in their own car.
Public transit will also allow for a greater influx of people in public areas, creating spaces that are more vibrant and lively. Currently, the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DST) is a bleak, cavernous corridor that serves thousands of passengers a day. However, the Mayor of Seattle, Bruce Harrel, envisions a future where the DST is filled with “artists and musicians, pop-up vendors, and social service workers and members of the faith community [to create a proactively positive presence for all.” Light rail stations can become centers where creatives can freely express their work, in front of a crowd where people from all walks of life congregate daily. Additionally, stations can become underground food scenes, filled with delicious cafes and food stands. As Richard de Sam Lazaro from The Seattle Times explains, “Imagine a world where before heading to the airport, you picked up a coffee at a cart in Westlake Station. Or imagine arriving at the Pioneer Square station and instead of doom scrolling until the train arrives, you can listen to a neighborhood musician sponsored by the city’s busker program.”
Seattle is primed to become a major corporate and cultural center in the upcoming years. Tech companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, will continue to attract young professionals to the city, the redevelopment of Climate Pledge Area means more big-name artists will be visiting Seattle, and the city is looking forward to hosting World Cup matches in 2026. How Seattle chooses to pursue its transit projects and goals will play a key role in determining how well the city is able to adapt and capitalize on its growing influence and economic relevance. If ST3 follows through, a version of Seattle lies in the not so distance future where owning a car is a mere option, mobility is the norm, and opportunities are plentiful. However, if the project falters, Seattle may become another American city hampered by urban sprawl and car-dependency. It is up to the city to determine its fate.
Works Cited
American Public Transportation Association. “APTA Smart Guide: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.” APTA, http://www.apta.com/advocacy-legislation-policy/bipartisan-infrastructure-law-hub/. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.
Bouchard, Mikayla. “Transportation Emerges as Crucial to Escaping Poverty.” The New York Times, 7 May 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/07/upshot/transportation-emerges-as-crucial-to-escaping-poverty.html.
Chetty, Raj, and Nathaniel Hendren. “The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility I: Childhood Exposure Effects*.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 133, no. 3, 10 Feb. 2018, pp. 1107-62, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjy007. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.
Kaufman, Sarah, et al. “Mobility, Economic Opportunity and New York City Neighborhoods.” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2598566.
Lazaro, Richard. “Tunnel Vision: Imagine Vibrant, Welcoming Seattle Light-rail Stations.” Seattle Times, 31 Mar. 2023, http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/tunnel-vision-imagine-vibrant-welcoming-seattle-light-rail-stations/. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.
“Seattle Is Building a $54BN New Railway.” YouTube, uploaded by The B1m, 9 Feb. 2022, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct4bwWsP3iE&t=38s. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.
Smith, Rachel. “The Urgency of Getting Light Rail Expansion Right.” The Urbanist, 11 Apr. 2023, http://www.theurbanist.org/2023/04/11/the-urgency-of-getting-light-rail-expansion-right/. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.
Sound Transit. “System Expansion.” Soundtransit, http://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.
Leave a Reply