Beyond the Urban Crunch - how?

The buzz at the hair salon on Pike hasn't changed in months - it's about traffic snarls, density, growth, vows to never come into the city again, etc. etc. - but this time, walking out, it seemed to echo more than ever one end of a civic conversation re managing what's happening to us.

A NYTimes article tracks the mood this week (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/technology/seattle-in-midst-of-tech-boom-tries-to-keep-its-soul.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&rref=technology&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Technology&pgtype=article):

- do we want to be San Francisco with crunching traffic and housing costs out of sight?
- are we rushing to that outcome with every crane that rises on the skyline?
- how do we get the growth we want - the jobs, the spinoff of restaurants, art, a 21st century boom - while keeping what some folks want to call the city's soul?

Walking across the street after the haircut, I thought how our own family's life has shifted urban.  We walk more than drive, I bus and rail whenever possible, love the fact that so much that we like about urban life is just minutes away on foot.  (I drove on Mercer the other afternoon - that's the street that cost millions and years of disruption ending with worse traffic than ever - and vowed "never again!")

And that's the question for the table.  In a city growing this fast, the acreage for cars in motion or in need of parking does not expand - we're not going to tear down buildings so we can widen streets, or rip up more homes to make I-5 eight lanes or wider, or dig more ditches to hold cars sitting for 10 hours, i.e. as one urban planner writes, "...it is impossible from both a practical and financial standpoint to build out of the problem by expanding the physical infrastructure adding lanes, decks, tunnels, etc.

We ARE giving travelers/commuters who recognize this and don't want to drive or hunt a parking space alternatives (bike lanes, transit, Uber/Lyft, etc.), but it's not enough, the technology/data/management systems aren't there yet - we're hunting a 21st century look at how to move bodies and vehicles.  Not there yet.

I often look while walking and driving - to see how many vehicles are carrying one person.  It's an overwhelming number, and understandable - control, flexibility, on demand, etc. - but it doesn't/can't work as a city (especially one virtually surrounded by water) rises.  One person one car multiplied thousands of times, with every vehicle needing a space to idle for 8-10 hours doesn't make sense - and yet the alternatives of transit, bicycles, vehicles for hire are not sufficient to displace the cars now crowded at rush hour into every lane and intersection.   We may need one day something like London's congestion charge - around $16 and up.

My responses are walking/transit/Uber/etc., but I live in a downtown and don't have a ready answer (beyond more investment in alternatives and better management of traffic flows) for folks outside the center who don't like transit, or don't have it nearby, or who need a vehicle to carry goods or equipment.

I do know it's got to be a top 5 civic focus (along with jobs, affordable housing, climate, race); we don't want to lose the plus side of urban life by failing to manage its explosive growth........