James Vesely has 1500 words in the Seattle Times this morning on the ST2/RTID rail and roads proposal, and as I breathlessly slogged through it, I couldn’t quite figure out exactly where Vesely stood.
Then, in the very last sentence: “Consider the $18.9 billion a sin tax.”
We seem to like sin taxes in Washington state. So… um… I guess that means Vesely supports the proposal?
Don’t get me wrong, Vesely presents a useful discussion of our region’s woeful history of transportation planning (or lack thereof,) but while he criticizes “the way decisions are made about roads and transit” his rather thoughtful internal dialogue is in fact a perfect example of the sort of endless deliberation and second-guessing that has killed regional transportation projects for decades.
A concluding estimate of costs and benefits written by the sages over at Sound Transit poses unanswerable questions framed as answers, but they are not. The report cites as benefits questions such as, “What is the value of a human life saved from a needless traffic accident? What is the value of having the contribution of senior citizens in community activities?” These and other epistolary questions are, again, about the sins of our fathers in doing so little for 30 years.
The ST2/RTID plan is far from perfect, and includes funding for plenty of projects whose justification relies more on politics than smart transportation planning. But should it collapse, how long will it be before the region reaches a consensus on building the transit infrastructure we should have started constructing thirty years ago?
Sins of our fathers? Sure. And on this Father’s Day it is important to remember that we are fathers too, and if we do nothing, future generations will look back just as critically on our inability — or unwillingness — to plan for the future.
As far as the mess our transportation planning has been in, I am reminded of the late Emmett Watson’s Lesser Seattle movement, and their perennial question: Have you been rude to a tourist today?
It seems, there is a current of thought that if we deny, deny, deny, long enough, progress will pass us by and we can lapse back into our primordial coma. . . .
http://tinyurl.com/2vbg5h
WHAT A WELTER OF RIGHT-WING NONSENSE FROM YET ANOTHER BRAINDEAD MORON.
GOOD INTENTIONS? HOW ABOUT IRAQ? OVER 400 BILLION, MOUNDS OF DEAD AND MAIMED BODIES, A PHONY
SURGEESCALATION AND NO END IN SIGHT.QUITE A BOOK YOU GOT THERE MORON. 256 PAGES IN HARDCOVER AND A LOT OF PICTURES TO MAKE THINGS EASY FOR THOSE OF YOUR ILK.
Oh look …it\’s after 12 noon and the kiddies are starting to wakey wakey… cartoons over?
There’s a good reason why we haven’t built more transportation over the years: Because it’s horribly expensive and there’s a finite limit to how much taxes most people can afford to pay and still live.
This latest transportation package repeats all the past sins of previous transportation boondoggles. Here is an illustration of ONE of the (many) things wrong with it:
“includes funding for plenty of projects whose justification relies more on politics than smart transportation planning”
Taking food off family tables to pay for “politics” is reason enough, by itself, to kill it.
This is, of course, an accurate characterization. This transportation package is the usual Christmas tree of ornamental projects whose only function is to lure enough voters to get a “yes” majority. This is too much cleverness by half. What is really needed is FOCUS on what’s actually needed — and that’s what we should be asked to pay for, and no more.
We all have “wish lists.” In the real world, nobody gets everything on their “wish list.” Reality-based sentient beings sharpen their pencils, home in on the essentials, and excise the fluff. Everyone, that is, except transportation planners — which is the real reason why we can’t get anything built around it. The problem isn’t too much talk; the real obstacle is that the decision-making process is controlled by bureaucrats afflicted with a “something-for-everyone” mentality who don’t know how to live within a budget, and see no reason to try.
Well, let’s give ’em a reason by voting “no!”
But the gold-plating in this package is only half the problem. The other half is the financing mix. Too much taxation of the wrong people, not enough user fees. I don’t see any farebox increases at all; but why should senior citizens on fixed incomes and low-wage workers struggling to pay for basic necessities pay a hefty sales tax increase to subsidize commuters whose incomes are several times greater? Makes no damn sense. This package needs less sales tax, less MVET, more gas tax, more tolls, and more fare increases. Until the financial burden is more fairly spread, that’s an additional reason why it deserves a resounding “no” vote.
Voting “no” on RTID projects and tax increases isn’t a vote against regional transportation. It’s a vote to send both the project list and financing scheme back to the drawing board for more editing. This is a first draft that needs more work. When the planners come back with a slimmer package with fairer financing, I’ll vote for it.
I hate to say this, Goldy, but the mantra that “we have to vote for this because it’s the best we’ll get” isn’t good enough.
Fuck you, “Fuh Que”/Dug/whoever you claim to be these days.
I write a post, and you decide to hijack it by cutting and pasting entire copyrighted pieces into the comment thread. That’s not only a rude attempt to hijack the thread, it is illegal. So I’ve deleted those comments.
Keep it up and I’ll ban you. You’re free to expose yourself as the hateful SOB you obviously are, but I don’t have the obligation to accommodate you when you insist on violating these basic rules.
No disrespect intended to Goldy here, but . . .
Here we have Goldy posing an empty rhetorical question: “But should it collapse, how long will it be before the region reaches a consensus on building the transit infrastructure we should have started constructing thirty years ago?”
The answer to that question is: we’d get the chance to vote on a better package in about one year.
ST would do exactly what it did last time – immediately put a better measure before voters. The $3.9 billion one that passed in 1996 was better than the $6.7 billion one that did not pass (in 1995). They’ve actually got the next offering ready and rarin’ to go.
Goldy just used exactly the same rhetorical device (a largely-meaningless question) as a “reason” to vote yes that Sound Transit now is relying on in its advertising for the Fall measure. Veseley’s column today actually points that out . . .
I’d argue voting _no_ is the right thing to do BECAUSE the proponents now are just posing rhetorical questions relating to the November measure.
I haven’t heard anyone firmly, loudly advocating for the joint measure based on facts. And I certainly haven’t seen either Nickels or Sims up front, thundering forth about why we should vote yes.
This is their baby – their silence speaks volumes. And no, I don’t give a shit that John Ladenburg is happy with it.
Roger writes, “This is a first draft that needs more work. When the planners come back with a slimmer package with fairer financing, I’ll vote for it.”
Except that the costs of the package are increasing by $1 BILLION per year, 5x the rate of inflation (due to rising land costs, construction costs, etc.).
If they come back from the drawing boards a few years from now, we’ll get a “slimmer package” alright: fewer projects but a higher price tag.
Why should we wait longer so that it costs more to build less?
But Voice of Chalk Scratching@10: Carl Left Foot claimed Fuh Que was HowCanYouBeProudWhenYoureAnAss?
Carl Left Foot claims he’s never wrong. Other Moonbat!s look to Carl Left Foot as the arbiter of all things wrong with neocons.
Hmmm…?
BTW Moonbat!s and other ‘Wipes:
Happy Father’s day, even to Stupidman and Cluelessman. I seriously doubt Stupidman is a father with the potty mouth and disgusting thoughts he posts on this blog about women.
Thank you, Goldy.this looks like “Australian Rules Football” here, but not quite.
Also
Happy Father’s Day, Goldy!
Your daughter is a lucky lady.
The Real truth here is they know it will fail. They learned from the first Sound transit proposal.
So this time they come running in with a 3 to 6 times bigger proposal than the 1st, knowing that it will fail. Then they will come back with one half that size which still keeps them in their wild spending spree for a few years.
Then come back and do it all over again.
Removing 1 car per 1000 is NOT worth 70% of the transportation budget. Period
Vote no on this albatros.
“Consider the $18.9 billion a sin tax.”
They can TRY to guilt-trip us into voting yes, but that’d be a longshot . . ..
When it comes to paying $500 a year for the rest of my life toward eastside freeways and P&R’s, I am not a philanthropist.
They wanted their suburbs. They fought against a new airport there. They fought against a new freeway there. They repeated the mantra of “the free market solves all ills”. They fought against a new bridge for years and years.
Screw the eastside. I have not been there in years except on business.
I will not vote to give them one dime of my tax money. They can solve it themselves.
@12 You’ve got it backwards, Frank: Haste makes waste.
@12 (continued) The last time you bought a car, did you agree to the salesman’s first offer? You can do that with your money, but not with my money.
What would we get if we turned this down?
Ok, good question. How about:
1) a four-lane repair/replacement of the 520 floating bridge, with a toll. Possible savings – up to $3 billion.
2) a simple four-lane cross-base highway going across Fort Lewis. Possible savings – up to $250 million.
3) a bit more reality on the cost of adding two lanes (one each way) and another onramp for highway 167 (current cost estimate $1.5 billion) Could we make the most important changes for a half billion dollars? Possible savings – $1 billion.
And there are bunches of little projects that we could just skip, or get others to pay for. For example, the Tacoma Mall exit from I-5. It’s just not that difficult to get from the freeway to the Tacoma Mall. If the merchants want their own exit, they should pay for it.
(I deliberately picked something in my neck of the woods. You folks up in King and Snohomish Counties can certainly find a bunch of similar things.)
We need both roads and transit, but we do not need them gold-plated.
As to the comments about how we need to pass this bloated package now, because it will only cost more if we wait, I’m going to swipe Roger’s “car dealer” scenerio and say that this sounds remarkably like someone trying to sell me a deluxe Hummer, saying that if I don’t buy now, it will cost even more next year.
Except that I don’t want a Hummer. A Ford will do nicely, thank you.
Goldy says:
Fuck you, “Fuh Que”/Dug/whoever you claim to be these days.
I write a post, and you decide to hijack it by cutting and pasting entire copyrighted pieces into the comment thread. That’s not only a rude attempt to hijack the thread, it is illegal. So I’ve deleted those comments.
Keep it up and I’ll ban you. You’re free to expose yourself as the hateful SOB you obviously are, but I don’t have the obligation to accommodate you when you insist on violating these basic rules.
06/17/2007 at 12:36 pm
Whaa whaa whaa whaa… screw you, you hypocritical bastard.
Rules for some but not for all? FUCK YOU.. whatsamattayou… not enough blowjobs for beer last night or has the preteen finally told what to do with yourself.
Ban me? Good luck with that.. hasn\’t worked yet.
Maybe Ted Van Dyk can figure this out. After all, it was ‘his’ generation that fucking blew this in the 60’s. You know, that heroic, sacrificing, and all wise generation that didn’t do much of anything (as long as they had butt zits during the Korean War) but spent copious amounts of tax money to build suburbs to the ends of the universe, vote in GOP candidates, and kvetch about ‘dirty hippies’.
Com’on Ted. Impart your wisdom. Maybe dump more dough into the anti-missle boondoggle? Ay. There’s fucking wisdom.
It is not the cost, folks. It’s our priorities to begin with.
The Station at Tukwila looks more like a taj mahal. Bling and all.
No more from this guy. I won’t and don’t worship at the alter of Sims eternal waste.
FQ- read the message- beyond being off topic there were copyright issues. Start your own blog if you want to operate that way. See what kind of traffic you get.
@ 24- As one who has managed public projects, the bling generally comes from the host communities demanding mitigation. I’ve had permit reviewers mandate variations in roof lines ( to add interest, along with much cost) and dictate that the building should not sit square on the site.
Agree or argue through the permit process.
And I will dispute Roger’s point @ 19. Construction costs are escalating much faster than the base rate of inflation. Delay is costly and when you consider construction seasons, a few months equals a year.
The Sides of the pillars near the Tukwilla station look like the back of the Water trucks I see dropping off 5 gallon jugs. Sequins, we’re not building a damn evening gown (that would be cheaper.
We need about a 25 yr delay!
I won’t argue the specifics in Tukwila, I’ve never seen it. I just speak from past experience. Also don’t assume cosmetic treatments add significant costs.
I also recall significant criticism of the old Seattle Municipal Building and the King County Admin Building ( the waffle windows) for cutting costs in design. Public facilities are intended to last a long time. Costs can be amortized.
(Just don’t bring up the Kingdome, I won’t defend that decision either)
One problem we have is many of the same folks who argue against public expenditures for transportation projects argue against comprehensive land use planning.
Dug @22,
I know who you are. I suppose if I were a righty I might sue you for slander. In small claims court.
Or perhaps I should pass your IP and your comment on to the Seattle Police, and see if it matches up with any fraudulent complaints they’ve received over the past couple years?
Goldy: ever notice how those who always call others “child molesters” actually end up BEING child molesters themselves? I swear, if self-hatred ceased to exist, half the Christian Right base of the Republican Party would disappear….
anyways….GS@ 24 proves he has no idea what is going on in the world.
That “Taj Mahal” was insisted upon by the fine Republican-leaning Tukwila City Council years ago. They even got a “gold-plated” hook and ladder truck out of the deal.
“Blame Ron Sims” is proof that intellectual laziness is the calling card for all Sound Politics goons these days.
-What would we get if we turned this down?
Ok, good question. How about:
1) a four-lane repair/replacement of the 520 floating bridge, with a toll. Possible savings – up to $3 billion.-
John Barelli proves he’s eating the Space Cakes, too. Nothing like charging people for more-of-the-same-gridlock and no improved transit/carpool connections across 520.
There’s a reason gridlock has ruled here for two decades: people used to listen to the basement-dweller crackpots like GS and John Barelli!
“Screw the eastside. I have not been there in years except on business. ”
In one sentence, busdrivermike shows how absolutely absurd the self-centered “I live on an island” Seattleites can be, as well. As if the region isn’t interconnected in a million different ways, and as if our economy can be segmented up to satisfy every kook and his dumb ideas….
And, finally, Dick Whiskey proves even thoughful people have the capacity for being totally clueless and naive:
“The answer to that question is: we’d get the chance to vote on a better package in about one year.
ST would do exactly what it did last time – immediately put a better measure before voters. The $3.9 billion one that passed in 1996 was better than the $6.7 billion one that did not pass (in 1995). They’ve actually got the next offering ready and rarin’ to go.
Goldy just used exactly the same rhetorical device (a largely-meaningless question) as a “reason” to vote yes that Sound Transit now is relying on in its advertising for the Fall measure. Veseley’s column today actually points that out . . . ”
Number 1: the Gov and the Legislature have made it perfectly clear the RTID and Sound Transit are tied together forever as long as they have something to do with it (and they do).
2) They will not allow either big ticket item on the 2008 ballot, because that’s when the Gov, half the Demo-controlled Senate, and half the Demo-controlled House are up for re-election.
3) If this measure fails in November (that is, if all the cranks get their way) those who oppose the light rail portion will work incessantly on the “governance reform” measure which came close to passing last session (it’s the one way to be against light rail, without actually admitting it). That governance “reform” measure will take at least three years to shake out, and by that time Kemper Freeman thinks he can help get the region’s “priorities” in order. (All the hapless “no new roads ever” greens will clueless take the Nader route, and play into his hands without ever even knowing…)
4) Whiskey Dick calls the $3.9b ST plan passed in ’96 as “better” than the $6.7 billion plan rejected in ’95. That $6.7 plan is now the $11b plan we see in front of us, and will be a $16b plan by the time these idiots stop navel-gazing, and killing off the good with the perfect (which is about all they’re good for)
In other words, Goldy got it right: GET ON WITH IT. Delay=higher costs=more delay. It’s the Sound Politics wet dream.
How pathetic is it that ‘progressives’ are falling for this garbage…
BigD:
Sorry for the delay responding.
The problem I, and some others have with the current plan is cost. If money were no object, then we could build a six lane, gold plated bridge across Lake Washington, and do everything else that everyone seems to want.
Cost is an object, and this plan costs a lot. Some portions of this plan cost way more than seems reasonable.
The biggest example of that is the 520 bridge project. Why does an old-technology floating bridge cost so much? The cost has been compared to other floating bridges and even to (normally more expensive) suspension bridges, and we’re not seeing any answers.
If adding two lanes multiplies the cost by a factor of four, then we need to find another way of dealing with the problem.
Additionally, as has been shown over and over again, it is impractical to “build our way out of congestion”.
“Progressive” and “Liberal” do not equate to simply being willing to throw unlimited amounts of money at problems until they go away. We have seen in the recent Monorail debacle the end results of that sort of thinking.
It is not reasonable to say that we have to accept an overpriced, bloated highway plan because if we don’t, then that overpriced, bloated plan will be even more expensive next year.
And the blame for it not passing does not belong to the folks saying that it is overpriced and bloated. It belongs to people that are unwilling or unable to consider that we should spend tax dollars carefully, as if they were our own money.
Because in the end, it is our money.
Oh, and BigD:
I do not live in a basement. I live in a rather nice house just outside of Gig Harbor, where we get to pay for a bridge that we didn’t want (but King County did), and get to pay tolls for the priviledge.
Now you folks over on the east side want me to buy you a new bridge with my tax dollars, and since I want you to at least try to use my tax dollars wisely, I become, in your words, a “basement-dwelling crackpot”.
Ok, you’ve convinced me. Busdrivermike was right. Buy your own bridge. I’m busy paying for the one you folks made me buy.