The List (Updated 6/12/06):

1. Incentives to businesses who have workers telecommute at least 1 day week (distributing the work-at-home day evenly across the week). The more days and employees who telecommute, the bigger the incentive.

2. Incentives to businesses who have workers work staggered hours, non-traditional 40 hours a week, or 4/10's.

3. Increase the number of buses for routes with the heaviest volume of passengers; upgrade older, smaller buses with newer ones; implement wi-fi on longer-distance routes.

4. The "Car Ferry" Idea (??? Anyone remember this, I think a U of Washington Prof came up with the idea)

5. Incentives to businesses to implement 'company buses', like those used by Boeing.

6. Company-sponsered 'ride matching' programs.

7. An 'insurace tab' system, like license tabs, but renewed every quarter - ID drivers who don't have insurance and get their vehicles off the road.

8. Have Ferry riders pay 100% of the cost of riding a ferry, divert remaining $ to road improvement.

9. Stop trying to control every aspect of the traffic light, ie, left hand turn controls, sequencing each direction, etc. Make it a flashing yellow green so cars can complete a left hand turn when no traffic is coming.

10. Force the metro cities to time the lights on major thoroughfares so traffic will move through the city.

11. Have bus turn-outs at the bus stops along heavy trafficed streets (like Aurora) so they don't have to stop a lane of traffic.

12. NOT SURE THIS WOULD WORK IN SOME AREAS: On-Ramp traffic lights should be adjusted to give longer intervals between vehicles going onto the freeway. Two examples on 167, Valley Freeway:

84th St On-Ramp, southbound. There is practically no delay between Red/Green lights. Traffic on 167 backs up to 212th.

Willis St, On-Ramp, southbound, has two lights on the ramp. One will be red and the other red, vice versus. No delay between vehicles, therefore, traffic backs up to 84th

13. SIMILAR TO 'CAR FERRY'? What I suggest is a Metro transportation system comprised of collection hubs to transport quantities of personal small electric cars greater distances. These hubs would be a gathering point where small personal cars could be quickly loaded on a large transport. The transports would use existing rail, roads or HOV lanes initially. These hubs would be located just off the highway in major cities and points of interest throughout the greater Puget Sound area.

The benefits of this type of system are as follows:
Greater range for electric vehicles
Overcomes reluctance to let go of a personal vehicle.
Retains freedom to come and go as you please
Reduce traffic congestion
Incentive to purchase electric vehicles


14. Find a way to lower the cost of housing closer to the metropolitan areas, and people can live closer to where they work. .

15. Incentives to businesses that have a greater percentage of their employees living near the business and thus lessening the commutes? Or incentives to individuals who live within a maximum distance from their employer.

16. Convert HOV lanes to general purpose lanes to immediately increase road capacity.

17. "Paid lanes", where when you're running late, you can pay to go in a special express lane.

18. Open 520 to 2 passenger HOVs rather than 3 or more.

19. Open to all traffic all Puget Sound HOV lanes outside of defined rush hour windows (eg - 0500-1000 & 14:00 – 19:00).

20. UNSURE IF THIS COULD BE DONE: Collect usage tolls to pay for any Viaduct replacement costs above and beyond the 2 billion in state funds presently allocated.

21. Have directional lanes that change with the traffic pattern. On the East Coast, there are places where there are six lanes of traffic going across the roadway. In the morning time, there are four lanes going into town with the flow of traffic and in the afternoon there are four lanes going out. There are green arrows or red “x”s above every lane so you know which ones are being used and which ones traffic is coming the other way. It’s a great way to full utilize the lane miles we already have. The overhead signs wouldn’t be very expensive nor would the painting of the lanes for the bi-directional use. This idea could be used on the SR 167 for example. Put two lanes in the middle of 167 and have them going North in the Morning and South in the Evening.

We could double deck I-5 and I-405 like they did in some places in California and the eastern sea board. The top deck could be a toll road paid for with a revenue bond supported by the tolls. People would still have a choice, they could drive in the free congestion or they could pay to drive home. With an idea like that, you could even set the tolls pretty high so as to retire the debt early or pay for other road projects. I’d be willing to bet that a lot of people would opt for the toll road just to be able to go home and not sit in traffic. We could do the same thing with SR 167 and other places in the state where congestion is severe. That way, most of the transportation improvements are being paid for with user fees.

22. Increase Marine Transportation capabilities/infrastructures all over Puget Sound to reduce traffic on our highways.

23. 167 WORK: Finish the extension of 167 to i-5 Expand 167 to 8 lanes from renton to the yet to be built Tacoma i-5 connection. Rebuild the 405/167 interchange to direct most of the traffic south. Build express lanes over the top of and up the middle of 167. Make it so you can only get on/off at 405, sr18, sr 512 and at the future i-5 connection. Make them toll lanes.. (I’d pay a buck 50 every once in a while if I could get home 20 minutes earlier) .

24. Mandate government workers hours to be between 9am and 8 pm.

25. Offer large registration/ state fee discounts to large trucks (cargo semis, e.g.) if they are willing to only be on the road from 7pm-5am.

26. Stop the installations of the so-called 'noise abatement' walls that in essence restrict any and all expansion of road lanes as it will become increasingly cost prohibitive to buy up those lands for expansion. I read a few years back the Rep. Jay Inslee was a major instigator of this practice and at a taxpayer expense running upwards of $1 million per mile.

27. Peak-period restriction on licenses - Preventing people who are not capable of driving in heavy traffic from plugging up the freeways during rush hour. Those people might be people with slow driving violations or violations for other traffic obstructions, for new drivers and possibly for the elderly.

28. Move the HOV lanes back to the right side so users don't have to cross traffic lanes to get to it.

29. Loosen up on speeding tickets on freeways (like CA did).

30. State patrol needs to better enforce existing traffic laws, especially on the freeway. Slower traffic should stay in the right lane and they need to be going the speed limit--not five or ten miles per hour below it.

31. Turn the 520 3 person carpool lane Westbound from 405 to the bridge into a 2 person carpool lane and put it on the left instead of the merging right lane.

32. Purchase the heavy rail lines from Renton to Woodinville that Ron Sims wants to turn into a bike trail and turn them into a light rail line. Many park and rides are close to this train track.

33. Start ticketing people who drive with passengers that DON'T move into the HOV lanes.