During Roads and Transit the no vote basically went 3 ways: Taxes bad, don’t spend the money on rail, or don’t spend that money on roads. This is, obviously, wildly simplified but the don’t spend that money on roads faction told people that the transit portion was good, but we should come back with just the Sound Transit. People are comparing that to the current debate on Prop 1. The programs are worthwhile but the funding mechanism isn’t as progressive as it could be. And lots of the opponents of the measure are saying come back with a better funding measure.
But the difference now is that there isn’t a plan B if Prop 1 fails. It’s hope the legislature sees a no vote as a signal from Seattle voters that they’d like an MVET or some other more fair tax, then hope Olympia gives a shit about that signal and passes an MVET, then a City Council that just lost a vote puts that MVET on the ballot. Then they’ll support it. Let’s call that unlikely.
They don’t have a fully formed plan only that car tabs are unfair. Contrast that with The Stranger and The Sierra Club who wanted to put just ST2 on the ballot. I mean nobody reading this believes Ted Van Dyk or Bruce Ramsey are going to support a progressive MVET, if it pays for the things the car tabs pay for, right? And opponents of car tabs weren’t pushing for an MVET or anything else when the legislature passed the authority. I don’t recall John Fox lobbying in Oly making the case for a better way for local jurisdictions to pay for these things.
Look, I disagreed with The Stranger and The Sierra Club on Roads and Transit. But at least they had a plan and some skin in the game. The anti-Prop 1 people need to explain their plan B and what they’re going to do to make it happen, and so far I haven’t heard that.
Carl, this post is simply dishonest. Fox and his group, agree or not, have been quite clear about their plan: they want council to, first, wait until the economy is better and voters aren’t being hammered with successive regressive tax increases; and then have council come to voters with a package similar to Godden’s original council proposal for a $40 increase much more oriented toward street and bridge maintenance. They’ve been clearly and consistently critical of both the regressivity of the proposed tax and the actual content of it, and while there isn’t an easy fix for the former, their materials are insistent on the latter. Your entire post is a strawman.
There’s one group that’s consistently forgotten whenever the idea of paying for street repairs, transit, or what have you, with a car tab tax comes up: Senior citizens. Let me give you an example.
Joe Contractor, who makes $120,000 a year, drives his crew cab pickup 60,000 miles a year and pays a $60 car tab tax — works out to 1/10th cent a mile and 1/20th of 1% of his income.
Granny Jones, who lives on $12,000 a year of social security, drives her economy car 1,500 miles a year for grocery shopping and medical appointments, and pays a $60 car tab tax — works out to 4 cents a mile and 1/2 of 1% of her income.
The poor old lady is paying 40 times as much per mile and 10 times as much of her income as the rich contractor.
It’s easy to say, “it’s too bad about the regressive tax, but we need this, that, and the other thing;” but you get to a point where loading one more regressive tax on those least able to pay — on top of an already regressive tax system — is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
As I’ve posted before on this blog, I don’t believe we can save public services in this state without tax reform. Making the undertaxed rich pay more — not necessarily their fair share; we’ll probably never get that out of them, but at least a more balanced tax system — is the essential prerequisite to everything else.
Without tax reform, nothing is possible.
Last time I checked a Plan B was for unintended pregnancies .No need for plan like that
@2
stupid fuck roger forgets that the contractor is paying a shitload in gas taxes that the granny isnt.
rabbit fails again, and yet again demonstrates the same tired liberal mantra: raise taxes on everyone, accept yourself.
@1,
Fox testified against any increase in the car tabs. And a $40 increase wouldn’t address the supposedly regressive nature of the tabs.
Carl is right about Fox. He’s never been for anything in his life. David Miller has said he’ll lead an effort for a plan B, but David Miller has never been successful in building a broad coalition in favor of anything, especially the kind of transportation measure that could overcome the typical anti-tax sentiment that exists, even in Seattle.
Easy. The backup plan is to send this back to City Council and tell them to redesign it with better priorities, not Christmas Tree ornaments. 85-90% should be spent on street restoration (see the recent Seattle Times front page story) and the rest to fix demonstrated safety problems.
Our deteriorated (and deteriorating) streets are the elephant in the living room — so big that City Council has gotten comfortable ignoring them.
I oppose Prop 1 but will happily vote for and actively contribute to a new Prop 1 that recognizes the real needs out there.
Yes we need to improve bus and bicycle facilities, but first we should recognize that buses and bicycles operate on pavement. Improving pavement is not bowing down to the almighty automobile, it is just recognizing that pavement (existing city streets, not new highways) is a necessary element of all urban transportation.
Perfect Voter: The City has already passed a maintenance levy, it’s called Bridging the Gap. BTG requires 2/3 of its revenue be spent on maintenance. Oh, and don’t forget the existing $20 license fee. Most of that goes to basic maintenance too.
No one is ignoring maintenance, but it’s not like we have the space to build more roads in the city. The only way we get more capacity out of the existing streets is to use them more efficiently and that means moving more people by transit, bike and foot. That means spending money to enhance transit and making it safer for people to bike and walk.
FW@8, Bridging The Gap isn’t. What you and City Council are ignoring is the magnitude of the maintenance crisis. BTG is only slowing the rate of deterioration.
Ask a knowledgeable person in SDOT: “if we extended BTG indefinitely, how many years would it take to bring Seattle streets up to the level of Shoreline or Bellevue?” A truthful answer would be in decades…or never.
We aren’t going to move more people very effectively by “transit, bike and foot” with the streets continuing to crumble beneath us. The issue is priorities, FW — priorities (and no, $18 million to plan for new streetcar lines is not now a priority.)
Perfect Voter: The issue is where do you strike a balance between preservation and improvements? The state DOT just completely disregards preservation and puts virtually all new revenue into new projects. Seattle, though, has done a pretty good job of dedicating most new revenues to maintenance.
Sure, we can’t make all the streets pristine with this funding, but we’ll be even worse off if we don’t take advantage of the $60million in maintenance dollars that come with Prop. 1. It’s not like a 100% maintenance package would be easier to pass. Some of the polling that was discussed on Publicola and Slog shows that a lot of voters don’t think new revenue should go to maintenance, that it should all be covered by the base (they forget what Tim Eyman and inflation has done to the base). Plus, all the bike and transit advocates who supported Prop. 1 will peel off and either oppose or stay neutral on a 100% maintenance proposal.
Re: streetcars: If we don’t start spending some money now on planning, we won’t be able to build any in 5-10 years (same is true for BRT). Just to get in line for federal matching dollars involves 2-4 years of planning, environmental analysis and preliminary engineering. And even then, it’s likely to take a few more years to get a grant. And then it’s 2-3 years for construction. This isn’t a luxury or a toy. By the next decade we’re going to need higher capacity transit because demand on the corridors identified for High Capacity Transit will overwhelm the capacity of the existing bus system.
Oh, and BTW, less than $8 million is for planning, most of the rest is intended to serve as local match for federal grants.
FW, I strike the balance at mostly preservation (thank you for using that term); many of the improvements in Prop 1 are luxuries when weighed against the preservation needs that are so apparent (well, to some of us anyway).
Yes, the Christmas Tree approach of Prop 1, offer something for bicyclists to get them on board, something for freight mobility, to get them on board, etc. etc. is the classic way to put over a ballot measure; we’ll see if it works this time. Trouble is it usually underfunds the critical needs and overfunds the ornaments.
I’m surprised that you believe that so many interest groups that get a bit out of Prop 1 will peel off when offered a mostly-preservation ballot measure. I don’t think they are all that narrow minded.
As I said earlier, bicycles and transit operate on pavement. I don’t think that is such a hard sell to the cycling and transit communities.
I know at least a few cyclists (STP riders in fact) who very much want better Seattle streets to ride on.
Oh and BTW, the Resolution says that the $18 million for streetcars includes only “possible matching funds for construction”. You’re betting a lot on that “possibility.”
If the federal dollars don’t materialize then the remaining HCT money gets reprogrammed into bus corridors. It’s as simple as that.
Smoother streets are nicer for STP riders, but I’m not going to let my kids ride their bikes to school or a friend’s house just because the pavement is now smoother. Connect our neighborhood with adjoining neighborhoods with a greenway or a cycle-track that separates them from auto traffic and that changes everything.