From their press release:
Today a slate of leading environmental organizations announced their endorsements of Roads and Transit. The package will provide more transportation options while improving our quality of life and the environment. The organizations announcing their endorsement are: Transportation Choices Coalition, Washington Conservation Voters, Futurewise, Environment Washington, Tahoma Audubon, and Washington Environmental Council.
With the passage of the joint ballot this fall, voters will give regional transit the biggest boost in state history bringing new light rail, improved service and more transit to Snohomish, King and Pierce counties. “This is a groundbreaking expansion of transit – the largest ever in the state. It is a once in a generation opportunity to change the way we move people and goods,” said Jessyn Farrell, Executive Director, Transportation Choices Coalition.
But what about global warming?
The majority of global warming emissions come from the transportation sector in Washington State. New transit projects will help combat climate change and reduce global warming emissions by giving commuters additional choices. “We must give people better alternatives to driving if we have any chance of combating climate change,” said Bill LaBorde of Environment Washington.
You can’t get people out of their cars unless you give them options that are attractive. I don’t think this endorsement will allay the concerns of the Erica C. Barnett/Kemper Freeman Jr. bloc, but it will present this package to the voters as a balanced one.
The only way Americans will get out of their cars is if they could get around quicker using mass transit. If we buck the pressure, and keep pouring concrete making new lanes, this will never ever happen.
Anyone wanting to comment on todays pathetic Meet the Press check out the new Sound Politcs blog at http://www.soundpolitics.net
This is what Stefan gets when he bans truth tellers from his pathetic blog. Poor Stefan…
So, I’m deleting comments that aren’t on topic. And comments commenting on those comments. Us folks at HA do put thought into these posts, and its a shame to have the comment threads descend into turd throwing.
Sound Transit is great and all, but if we don’t address the real problem, overpopulation, all our effort is a waste of time and money.
As long as every baby being born grows up and wants “stuff” the Earth does not have a prayer.
Unless humans can learn to live with zero, or negligible negative impact on our planet, we are doomed if we don’t stop the baby explosion worldwide.
My solution is to figure the negative effect of every product produced, or used, assign a dollar amount to the damage, tax the dollar amount, and use the taxes to repair the damage 100%. As long as we toss everything away, and never pay a price for the damage we cause, things will only get worse, and worse, and worse. Everyone needs “new” stuff constantly.
There are solutions out there, but who is gonna tell the lady not to have her 6th, 7th, and 8th child. How about her 2nd, 3rd, or 4th? How about mandatory birth control, or sterilization after 1 child worldwide. Period. Problem solved. Oh but that was so easy. Next problem?
Sound Transit is only a band-aid. Replacing what we take from the earth is the real, and only long term solution. If we could only stop wasting time drilling, strip mining, burning etc.
What is a laugh is the fact that they consider our economy doing “good” when our GDP goes up. The faster Gross Domestic Product goes up, the better we do, the faster the planet dies. Anyone besides me figured this out yet?
I’ve got an idea..lets give $40+ billion dollars to a transit authority who has already gone 100% over budget on a rail system that had to be shortened because it turned out it was too expensive to do it as promised.
Lemmings….meet cliff.
I’m with #3.
I’ve seen the projections of what all the various boards,policy groups and various fat cats say our region is going to look like in 2020 and I don’t like it. Their version of “Progress” looks more like a cancerous form of death to me.
Voting against this is the only way I can see to stop their version of progress.
Paving over wetlands that form the head waters of salmon bearing stream to put in big box stores (this is happening a mile from my house!) is not progress!
Good on ya for riding herd on the comments Will.
@ 4
You’re just mad because the ATU stands to lose jobs. Bus routes (with union drivers) will be replaced by train drivers (also union).
With trains, we’ll need fewer drivers.
@ 3 and @ 5
Sound Transit is hardly a bandaid. Adding 50 miles (fifty!) of new light rail will do a great deal to free people from the single occupancy vehicle.
And michael… If you do vote no, and this thing goes down, whatever they come back with (years later) won’t be nearly as good as what’s on the ballot this fall.
Will,
I’m advocating for negative population growth. Vote no, invite gridlock and drive people and corporations away.
Our quality of life was better here when we were all fat broke, but we had salmon, wood stoves, gardens and berry fields. I want that back far more than I want 10,000 new jobs at Micro-Soft or a Target store planted in the head waters of a stream.
20 years from now I want the Puyallup Valley to look like it did 30 years ago.
I know I’m just ranting and I’ll probably vote yes. But, it really was better here back in the day….
Facts support my positions:
Actually, Sound Transit 2 does help address the overpopulation problem. Rail transit creates density, and allows for infill development – more people – in the city. More and more people have been moving into the cities in the last decades.
The interesting thing about cities is that the people who live in them tend to only reproduce at replacement level.
Check out Stewart Brand’s TED talk (use google) as an example of supporting evidence. He discusses population growth.
michael:
Forcing people to keep living out in suburban and rural areas will actually drive them to have more children than if they live closer in. Voting yes will get you closer to your goal.
Hell, look at Japan’s negative population growth. That has nothing to do with them running out of space (they’re nowhere near), it has to do with population leveling off in cities.
Will:
With trains, we’ll need more buses. This isn’t a game of “replace the bus with the train” – all those local stops the buses serve will still need service, but once light rail is in operation, there will be a LOT more people taking transit overall – and a lot more demand for all the connector routes.
The concept of rail service replacing/eliminating bus service is unsound – rail service creates more demand for bus service, except along a very few routes where people switch to rail.
busdrivermike:
Do you know why Link is more expensive than it was originally going to be? Do you recall that construction cost inflation has been in the double digits for several years? Was the agency somehow supposed to have planned for this? Other companies didn’t.
So why the hell is Ron Sims going to get a rail corridor in trade for an airport and pull up the tracks?
When is Nickels gonna ride a bike rather than driving to the new bike trail he opened up?
Why can’t I ride my bike through from Landsburg park to Cedar falls? There’s an old railroad grade there but Seattle in their selfishness has it closed.
“Rail transit creates density, and allows for infill development – more people – in the city.”
No, you are completely backwards. These transit systems create sprawl in the exurbs because they remove a disincentive to living far away from downtowns: freeway congestion. That is why the realtors want RTID/ST2 – home prices and subdivision construction in far flung corners of King, Snohomish and Pierce Co.’s will take off.
“Forcing people to keep living out in suburban and rural areas will actually drive them to have more children than if they live closer in.”
That is what Sounder and the RTID roads plans will foster: housing further out from the employement centers.
Bassackwards Ben Schiendelman’s goals would be met not by RTID/ST2, but by higher gas taxes, congestion-reducing variable tolls using RFID technology, government offices operating during swing shifts, and per-mile charges for auto use.
Sales taxes for trains that won’t come on line for twenty-five years? NO.
“I’ve got an idea..lets give $40+ billion dollars to a transit authority who has already gone 100% over budget on a rail system that had to be shortened because it turned out it was too expensive to do it as promised.”
Busdrivermike proves the old adage that most opponents the this plan base their opposition on pure mythology. Sound Transit is still under budget, and is building 19 of the originally promised 20 miles. Who cares if they’re only getting to Rainier Vista/Husky Stadium instead of the U District – the line is going north into Snohomich County in Phase 2, either way.
“I’ve seen the projections of what all the various boards,policy groups and various fat cats say our region is going to look like in 2020 and I don’t like it. Their version of “Progress” looks more like a cancerous form of death to me. ”
For michael and facts support my positions: fighting population growth is like fighting plate techtonic shift. We could institute Chinese-style population control laws…yeah, right – that’s gonna happen soon.
“No, you are completely backwards. These transit systems create sprawl in the exurbs because they remove a disincentive to living far away from downtowns: freeway congestion. That is why the realtors want RTID/ST2 – home prices and subdivision construction in far flung corners of King, Snohomish and Pierce Co.’s will take off.”
Articulated puts forward a bogus argument Rob McKenna used when he fought rail. Too bad there isn’t a single metro region which built and expanded their suburban rail systems which makes his doom and gloom scenario come true. People will continue to move to and live in suburban areas whether rail is built there or not. Rail isn’t going to serve any areas with raw, undeveloped land. We will see areas like Federal Way start to put density where parking lots and strip malls now lie http://federalwayblog.com/2007.....hony-wins/ but you really need to be a complete idiot if you believe rail will cause sprawl – or an anti-transit ideologue.
PS – there won’t be any rail stations at suburban cul de sacs – but go ahead and stay in your made-up reality, articulated.
“Bassackwards Ben Schiendelman’s goals would be met not by RTID/ST2, but by higher gas taxes, congestion-reducing variable tolls using RFID technology, government offices operating during swing shifts, and per-mile charges for auto use. ”
Articulated repeats the same mistake most anti-rail activists make: they propose non-viable “solutions” and alternatives to try and achieve the same mobility options and congestion relief rail provides. If these silly solutions actually WORKED, dontcha think some other region or city would have tried them by now, articulated?
The promise of telecommuting, changing work shifts, and the all-encompassing “technology” solutions to congestion have been around for three decades, and have been promoted by loony-tunes rail opponents for just as long a time. Even we took articulated’s moronic advice, and King County decided 10k of its employees would go to work at 9:30 am instead of 8:30 am, two things would occur: the peak hour commute would stretch out a little longer faster than it otherwise would, and 2) the “freed-up” space on the highway those 10k commuters would create would quickly be taken up by others taking new trips. Induced demand doesn’t solve traffic problems.
The trick is to give large numbers of people a way out of traffic, something buses just can’t do. Sorry, articulated / busdrivermike. Go ahead and continue selling your absurd non-solutions, though. The public isn’t going to jump on “RFID technology” as a substitute for rapid rail anytime soon, or anytime in the future.
@13
Drool, fergawdsake. We’ve been over this.
If the eastside corridor is purchased or railbanked by the government, it will be preserved for future transit use.
If it is not purchased or railbanked, the right of way will probably be abandoned by BNSF and disappear.
Whether or not we tear out the one existing track, which is likely inadequate for any real rail transit (and exactly who is going to ride a DMU passenger train from Renton to Woodinville on a weekday, anyway?) is at most a small sideshow. The imperative is to preserve the corridor, however it’s done.
As for the old MILW right of way through the Cedar River watershed, it is a little funny to think of freight and passenger trains going through it for decades without a problem (while flushing?!), but bikes not being allowed to.
Drool.
Pay attention to Frank.
No one with a brain thinks anybody would ride some 10 mph train from Renton to Woodinville on the crazy curvy old beat up tracks BNSF wants to unload fast.
And 10 mph is about all those beat up winding eastside tracks can handle.
Sims is on to something by putting the railroad’s land in the hands of the government – a trail works on most parts, and rail that can move people will eventually work on some parts. The lousy tracks there now will need to be torn up in most places to do anything above 10 mph.
The alternative is for the railroad to sell the land piecemeal. That’d be dumb. There’s 42 connected miles, and the part between Renton and Kirkland might actually move people fast some day.
In the meantime, might as well bite the bullet and build 50 more miles of light rail that connects the big things. It won’t get any cheaper.
Thor,
If they pull them up they won’t go back down. They could even reapir the tracks for less cost than scrapping them. When they tear them up the ballast goes to pot and must be redone. Just watch how track removal is done.
Frank,
When the trains ran through the watershed they did not flush. They closed the toilets off on the train. They even had an inspector type from the City of Seattle aboard to ensure compliance. I understand however that bears shit in the woods. BTW, I believe Native American types are allowed in there to hunt.
“Sound Transit is still under budget,”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Somebody eats acid . . . .
The voters approved a $3.9 billion plan, which was to include buses, HOV lanes and two kinds of trains. So how much does ST say those things will cost now? $11.8 billion.
On time and under budget my ass.
Frank.
Sounds like you are pulling your cost comparisons from where the sun don’t shine.
The commuter rail promoters sound great until someone bothers to look at the facts about the condition of the tracks and the actual alignment of the tracks in the corridor. It’d cost hundreds of millions to upgrade those track into anything anyone would actually ride – which requires speeds far in excess of what those curvy tracks can handle with any upgrades.
We need to move where there is agreement – there’s agreement to acquire them for public purposes. That’d be a good first step. The Sims plan for a trail has fallen completely apart. The Port will never hand over the money to purchase the tracks from the BNSF. King County won’t agree to sell Boeing Field to the Port.
What’s that leave: no money for anything, rails or trails. That means the railroad does what it wants. It’ll sell pieces to the highest bidder unless a grown up emerges on this issue with a real plan to acquire the land in the corridor and the abilily to sell it. So far Sims has failed. He knows what he’s for. He just can’t actually do much when the going gets tough.
Best In Show – thanks for the support. Your points are dead on, especially those about infill in areas that currently have strip malls.
thor – let me reuse a comment I wrote elsewhere on commuter rail in the BNSF corridor, which largely reiterates your point:
You don’t get people out of their cars by building billions of dollars of new roads.