Snoqualmie (C’mon, say it with me: Snow kwal me) is a typical small town in Western Washington. Typical means it has two distinct faces. Old Snoqualmie has an intact downtown and a railway museum with real live trains. Thomas the Tank Engine visits in the summer. In the new portion of Snoqualmie, developers have built hundreds of homes that now house people whose jobs are in not so nearby Issaquah, Redmond, Bellevue or Seattle.

Old Snoqualmie sits alongside the Snoqualmie River and hugs the bottom of the valley. Snoqualmie Ridge, where I and several thousand new residents live, sits atop a 900 foot plateau about a mile outside of Old Snoqualmie. We live in a planned community that was designed to be part of the “new urbanism.” Snoqualmie Ridge is a highly compact, relatively self-sustaining place with its own grocery store, fire department, and library. (Coming soon, so they say) The town is designed to cut down on single occupancy vehicle use. It is an example of “Smart Growth.”

The idea that this was a smart growth community was a major factor in our decision to buy a home here. We reasoned we could minimize our various environmental impacts with energy conservation, by buying locally as much as possible, and trying to use mass transit when we could.

However, while the developer spent millions on the new main road, the police and fire stations, there is no bus stop. The road alone cost 25 million dollars and so I can only assume that there was no money left over for steel pipe and signs that say BUS.

So we are left with the following mix of modern convenience and a near complete lack of pubic transit: We have wifi access at the coffee shop, but no bus comes up the hill to us. We have an online community chat site, but people cannot complain about the bus service because there isn’t any. We have a professional class golf course but, well, you get the point.

To catch the bus, I need to travel three miles in the wrong direction down the hill, over the railroad tracks to wait in the dark across from the bowling alley. Because of various stops and starts, my bus trip to work now takes an hour. The same trip takes 45 minutes on my bike. I typically ride the bike.

But, Dear Reader, you must know I am a fairly dedicated bike rider. I grew up in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin and so winter in the Pacific Northwest feels like an extended early spring. Based on my observations, the average Snoqualmie Ridge resident would not brave the dark winding paths to town all for the privilege of taking three times longer than usual to arrive at work, sweaty and covered with grime.

Yet, the average Snoqualmie Ridge Resident might ride the bus to work. If, it were cheaper than driving. (it is) If, they could relax during the trip. (They can) If, it did not involve driving in the wrong direction in the vehicle they are trying to use less. (It does) And, if there were efficiently planned bus routes near their homes. (There aren’t)

So, smart growth is a buzzword among urban planners. It may be a way of minimizing some of the damage car dependent suburbanization is inflicting on our Dear Nation. But, the Snoqualmie Ridge Community undid all these by failing to establish efficient bus service, thereby removing the smart and leaving us, once again, with growth.