Reminder and poll: Electric trolley bus replacement open house Tuesday night

The mere fact that this discussion and debate is even taking place is total insanity. Did anyone in Seattle ever hear of the Gulf of Mexico and the ongoing oil spill disaster? Does Seattle have network TV news to allow its citizens and public officials to see what is going on in the world? I guess the King County officials all have their heads in the sand. It would seem that they're in denial or reality hasn't quite set in yet in the Pacific Northwest. The whole debate is a "no brainer" and is actually embarrassing to even be having.

Hello King County !! Millions of gallons of oil continue to pour uncontrolled into the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama continues to push the country away from the use of oil and to explore other means of "clean" energy. You guys are fortunate to already have in place what the rest of North America needs and will spend billions to achieve. And here you are thinking of ways to scrap it and replace it with oil burning Diesel buses. There's something wrong with this picture. Am I dreaming this? Will I suddenly wake up and find out that it was a horrible nightmare? We certainly don't need to find more ways to consume and burn oil in this country.

I'm beginning to wonder if the King County officials, who would even entertain the thought of scrapping an electric trolley coach network powered by a clean hydro-electric power source, ever went beyond the third grade. Wake up Seattle.....you've got a wonderful, valuable asset that you should be proud of and boast of to the world. I'm wondering if this debate is just a "make work" project for unemployed consultants?... read more do the King County officials own lots of oil stock? What other reasonable explanation could there be?

And it should be noted that while Hybrid Diesel buses might consume somewhat less fuel that a straight Diesel bus, the oil still has to be extracted out of the ground, refined and transported to the location where it will be used. This is costly and actually consumes even more oil and causes even more pollution. And Hybrid Diesel buses must haul around a heavy supply of fuel in their fuel tanks. Electric trolley coaches just draw the power they need from the trolley wires without carrying around their fuel supply or a heavy power plant. In addition, electric trolley coaches have far less moving parts to maintain and wear out and usually last three times as long as Diesel buses, Hybrid or otherwise.

Trolley Coaches in Dayton, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle operate at a cost $ 12.50 per bus hour
less costly than diesel buses and that includes overhead wire maintenance. Data from National Transit Data Base required by law. Some stupid transit consultants and managers measure cost by the bus-mile but that varies with speed or lack of speed, not efficiency. Seattle trolle coachex are closer t downtown than many buses ands climg a higher percventag aof hills s aer slower. That runs up the labor cost epr miel ,but
buses put on trolley lines woudl be even slower than trolley coaches.
Only Boston had higher trolley costs than bus, but Boston runs trolley coaches in costly subways so it is not comparable. We must also stop buying so much oil from enemy nations. We need to use domestic electricity rather than foreign oil. Trolley coaches cost more to buy because orders are few but they last longer than diesel buses so they do not really cost more.

The poll on this page offers two options: [1] Purchase new trolleys and keep the system as is, and [2] Purchase new trolleys and optimize maintenance and service costs. “Optimize” can be a euphemism giving license to anti-trolley advocates to take the system apart piece-meal rather than en masse. In Edmonton and Philadelphia (where the term “rationalize” maintenance and service costs was employed rather than “optimize”), agreements around similarly worded options allowed the progressive reduction of necessary infrastructure---switch-by-switch, branch-by-branch, and eventually route-by-route---until the remaining system lacked the economy of scale to be cost-competitive.

They should buy new trolley buses and expand the system.