My posting has been a little sparse as of late. Why? I don’t think I ever really announced it, but as of the end of September, I’m a full time student at Seattle Central Community College. I have one year to go until I can transfer to UW. I’m excited to be back, but the workload is more than I was prepared for.
With full time school and a very interesting part time gig, I’ll be super busy for the near future. Some things I will be looking out for:
Roads and Transit. The latest polling puts the measure at the mid fifties, which is decent, but not great. I get the sense that Seattle’s great civic tradition of screwing the pooch on transportation will pay us yet another visit this fall. Already, the whispers of “vote this down, we’ll come back with something next year” can be read in the blogosphere.
If this this is voted down, I’ll tell you what is coming:
Last January, a commission led by former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice and telecommunications billionaire John Stanton called for a new agency of members who would plan and finance road and transit projects for central Puget Sound. The new Puget Sound Regional Transportation Commission would take functions from the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID), and Sound Transit.
The Rice-Stanton report [2.5 MB PDF] concluded that there are 128 agencies who manage aspects of transportation in the four-county area. “Our current system of transportation governance delivers inadequate results and will need fundamental systemic change to meet our region’s transportation needs in the future,” they declared.
Sound Transit and others fought the proposal, which passed in the state Senate but died in the House.
If ST2/RTID doesn’t pass, the punishment will not be doled out equally. Sound Transit, an organization with no friends in Olympia, will get the lion share of the blame. The Rice/Stanton plan will likely pass both the Senate and the House. (Some ask, “why would Democrats shitcan Sound Transit?” Remember, we’re not talking about regular Democrats. We’re talking about Olympia Democrats. This blogger was once told the story of a Sound Transit community meeting in north Seattle, where state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson showed up in a t-shirt that read “Mag-Lev Mama.” That’s how out to lunch they are on this issue.)
If Rice/Stanton passes, Sound Transit will be folded into a larger agency which will, in all likelihood, be governed by an elected board. Seattle, home to transit loving liberals, will have its political clout diluted by the new governance scheme. A transit board member in, say, Gig Harbor will have the right to veto transit funding in Seattle. And that, ladies and gentlemen (and Sen. Ed Murray), is bullshit.
Don’t forget that even if Prop 1 goes down this fall, roads will still get built. Why? Gov. Gregoire won’t allow 520 to plunge into Lake Washington. Expansion of the south portion of 405 is popular on the Eastside (and already partially funded), and with traffic congestion statistics showing this stretch of road to be the most congested in the state, it will be an easy call for legislators. Roads spending, unlike light rail, has sometimes be handled by the legislature without a vote of the people. Initiative 912 notwithstanding, two gas tax increases came out of Olympia without public votes. This could very well happen again, but this time to fund the projects that RTID funds.
The “Let’s Wait ‘Til Next Year” crowd sometimes cites Sound Transit’s success at the ballot box in 1996 as proof that light rail can do a quick turnaround to be approved by voters. What they don’t tell you is that Sound Transit’s failed measure in 1995 was paired down significantly to gain approval in 1996. The package in ’95 included light rail north to Lynnwood, south to Tacoma, and east across the lake to Bellevue. The package voters approved in 1996 was much smaller in scope. In fact, Sound Transit 2 greatly resembles the original Sound Move of 1995. Even with the much-publicized blunders made by Sound Transit during the 90’s, approval of the original Sound Move plan would have put the region in a great position today.
People who want more high capacity transit are rolling the dice by voting “no” on Prop 1. Don’t assume you’ll get another chance to vote for visionary transit investment like this in the near future.
“Don’t forget that even if Prop 1 goes down this fall, [essential] roads will still get built. Why? Gov. Gregoire won’t allow 520 to plunge into Lake Washington.”
Exactly what I’ve been saying all along, Will. You heard it first from Roger Rabbit.
“Initiative 912 notwithstanding, two gas tax increases came out of Olympia without public votes. This could very well happen again, but this time to fund the projects that RTID funds.”
Exactly what I want — more gas tax, less sales tax.
“Sound Transit’s failed measure in 1995 was paired down significantly to gain approval in 1996.”
Again, just what the doctor ordered …
“In fact, Sound Transit 2 greatly resembles the original Sound Move of 1995.”
It was expensive then, and still is. Duh!
“People who want more high capacity transit are rolling the dice by voting ‘no’ on Prop 1. Don’t assume you’ll get another chance to vote for visionary transit investment like this in the near future.”
One person’s “visionary investment” is another person’s unaffordable tax increase … the problem with selling mass transit has ALWAYS been that you are asking car drivers to pay for other people’s transportation, and that’s always a tough sell — and ever more so in a time of soaring gas prices. The challenge for this funding mode is that you are asking people who don’t visualize themselves riding mass transit to tax themselves to pay for mass transit. Some people inevitably will ask, if mass transit is so great, why can’t it support itself at the farebox?
There are various good answers to that, the best of which is that meeting all of our transportation needs with POVs isn’t feasible. After all, a century-and-a-half ago, railroads couldn’t support themselves either. They needed vast land grants from the government. Yet, they were essential to the nation’s economy and development. You can justify public investment in urban transportation systems on the same grounds. We simply can’t meet our needs by building more roads for cars, because the additional space for roads doesn’t exist. An urban economy can’t function without efficient mass movement of people.
Rail, however, is not necessarily the Holy Grail of urban transportation. It is expensive and inflexible; if employment or population patterns shift, it’s no easy matter to tear up the rails and relocate them. The American landscape is littered with abandoned RR rights of way that ceased to fill a transportation need as mills and factories moved away.
The essence of Will’s argument is that RTID/ST2 is primarily about building more mass transit — and we should spend that money NOW before road-and-bridge needs grab it! To slightly rephrase, this transportation package assumes we will pony up AGAIN for the region’s urgent and essential road-and-bridge needs through separate and additional taxes to be thrown at us later.
Will’s sense of urgency is understandable. Some people see mass transit as discretionary spending — and will see RTID/ST2 as the equivalent of splurging on a fancy vacation while letting the roof leak. Apparently some mass transit boosters see things that way, too — and want to get their hands on this money before too many voters get to thinking about it.
As regards those poll numbers in the fifties, many voters are still under the impression RTID/ST2 is “the” proposal to fix our regional transportation problems, the main act, as it were, and when they find out it isn’t — that RTID/ST2 is merely the gold-plated expansion of Sound Transit they voted down 12 years ago — those poll numbers won’t hold up.
In fact, if voters think RTID/ST2 is a sneaky attempt to foist off a big boost in light rail spending by disguising it as a roads-and-bridges fix, we may see quite a backlash.
Alternatively, RTID/ST2 may pass, but when more taxes are proposed to fund vital road-and-bridge projects (e.g., 520), tapped-out voters just might say “no.” Contrary to the wishful thinking of dreamers, taxpayers are not an endless fount of cash, and if we spend $38 billion on light rail, we may find ourselves unable to raise money for r&b projects — no matter how vital they are. It’s not inconceivable, you know, for 520 to simply get erased from the highway maps. That’s apparently what’s going to happen to the SR-99 through route in downtown Seattle.
I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. Personally, I think the days of the individually-owned, internal combustion engine powered, petroleum-fueled motorcar are numbered. Because cars have been around all our lives, we tend to think of them as eternal, but I predict someday they will become museum displays like steam locomotives: Technology and economics will move on, leaving these fuel-gulping, pollution spewing, mechanical behemoths behind at the curb. So, investing in mass movement of people in urban centers, and disinvesting or at least not expanding our investments in a doomed transportation mode (cars) may well be forward-looking. But that’s still not a compelling justification for rushing into a huge and costly expansion of light rail before the first railcar has run and before we know whether market forces will embrace or reject rail.
If You Build It, They Will Come (Back For More)
Another thing you should know about RTID/ST2 — besides the fact it’s a light rail and not a roads-and-bridges measure — is that if this $38 billion spending package passes, light rail boosters are already scheming to ask you for another round of tax increases to pay for the next item on their wish list:
“One Sound Transit board member, Richard Marin of Edmonds, said that if Proposition 1 passes, … [h]e thinks [wants] … to reach Everett with a ‘Sound Transit 3′ ballot measure … as early as 2015.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c om/html/localnews/2003944318_e lexprop1soundtransit12m.html
Mass transit proponents are like feral cats: Once you feed them, they think they live with you, and you can’t get rid of them. Sound Transit is like the cat that wakes you up at 5 a.m. every morning meowing at the back door, and won’t shut up until you pour some more expensive food into its dish.
@ 1
I pay for all sorts of shit I don’t want or use, but it happens to be important to other people.
Light rail makes back much more than buses at the fair box. But if buses and rail had to make 100 percent at the fair box (like ferries do), no one would ride them because bus fair would be over five dollars, which would make not only car ownership unavailable to poor folks but transit use as well.
@ 3
Of course the aim is to expand light rail in 2015 and beyond. To Everett, Issaquah, over the new 520 bridge, to Renton, to Kirkland… It will be very popular, so much so that there will be great pressure to expand it.
Here’s yet more to keep in mind about Prop. 1: If you build it, you’ll have to subsidize it. I know of no public transit system that pays its operating expenses solely from farebox revenues.
For example, about 20 years ago, I understood that Seattle’s bus system got only 20% of its operating costs from passenger fares and the rest came from various federal grants and state and local transit taxes. This statistic admittedly is stale, and may not have been accurate to start with, but I’m fairly certain public transit doesn’t support itself in Seattle — or anywhere else.
If RTID/ST2 only pays for laying rails, it makes sense that laying more light rail WILL BOOST SOUND TRANSIT’S NEED FOR OPERATING SUBSIDIES, and it will take additional tax increases to raise that money. By voting for more light rail, you lock in higher operating subsidies and the taxes to support them.
Now, I don’t want to mislead people, and in the interest of full disclosure, there is a fair amount of road spending in RTID/ST2, and besides, car drivers are subsidized too. But the difference here is that car drivers pay taxes for public roads to drive cars on, but we also look to car drivers to pay the taxes that subsidize mass transit they won’t use. That’s a significant difference. In addition, RTID/ST2 looks to people who pay sales taxes on daily necessities to help pay for transportation. In other words, RTID/ST2 is a GENERAL TAX.
And a hefty one. A few years ago, voters rejected a 1-cent sales tax increase to pay for education. RTID/ST2 askes for exactly half as much — 1/2-cent — to pay for transportation. It’s true this region’s voters have some weird priorities — our side-by-side sports stadiums at half a billion per copy are monuments to that — but why does anyone believe voters who wouldn’t pay a 1-cent sales tax increase for education will pay a 1/2-cent sales tax increase for expanding Sound Transit? Frankly, I don’t think this bird is going to fly at the polls, no matter what the polling says.
@4 “Light rail makes back much more than buses at the fair box.”
Fair enough, Will. If you post the numbers, I’ll look at them. Maybe you can even sell me. I’m a tough sell, but at the end of the day, I’m a hard-headed practical rabbit and if the cost-benefit lines up right I’ll sign a check … I’m just not sold yet by what I’ve seen so far, that’s all. Don’t feel bad; the Sound Transit guy who collared me at DL last week didn’t close the deal, either. It takes me a long time to make up my mind to spend my dollars, which are all too few, and certainly not plentiful enough to satisfy everyone who wants some of them.
@5 Okay, so how do I pay for all this, on my pensioner’s fixed income, and in the face of rising prices for everything else?
Roger: If you’re a pensioner, I’ll offer you a deal. I will write you a check for the median income’s tax burden increase, every year, inflation-adjusted, until the bonds are paid off or until you die – IF you vote for the package.
Your whole life is subsidized, dude. That’s called an economy of scale – or would you like the private companies to build your roads and charge you for them?
@8 The answer to #8, of course, is that I invest in the stock market hoping like hell that I can squeeze high enough investment returns out of a rather small grubstake to keep ahead of rising property taxes, rising utility bills, and escalating costs for food, medical care, and other things that are a good deal more necessary to me in my old age that commuter transportation.
I wouldn’t worry very much if I felt confident of repeating the 33% market gains (annualized) I’ve realized so far this year … but if I could make 33% in the market every year, year after year, and never lose money … someone would pay me a shitload of money to work for them giving investment advice, wouldn’t they?
While I feel a lot better about my portfolio’s ability to support me in my old age as inflation chews holes in my COLA-less pension than I did back when I had only $10K to put in the market — it’s worth well over 10 times that now — nevertheless I’m still far away from owning enough retirement investments to replace the pension income that inflation inevitably will destroy.
So, asking me to pony up several hundred dollars a year in new taxes for a light rail system I will never use is a tough sell, Will. And to say you intend to come back and ask for even more later is, well, is being commendably honest. But frankly, you can’t sell that to me by saying it will be “popular.” My answer to that is, if it’s going to be popular, get the money from the people it’s so popular with … anything is popular if someone else is paying for it.
The truth is, I badly want to support a rationale solution to our region’s transportation problems, even if some of it will come out of my pocket. I am, after all, a liberal rabbit and therefore by definition not a completely selfish asshole like Republicans are. But this thing has to be affordable to get my support. Gold-plating and grandioise daydreaming about gilding the lily even further is not what wins my heart or mind. When you come off Cloud Nine and get your feet back on the ground and get practical, you’ll have an easier time winning me over, Will.
erratum
rational not rationale
@9 That’s a generous offer, Ben, but how do I enforce it? How do I know you won’t tire of writing those checks after a year or two? What if you die before I do?
Nope, I must decline, because I’m way too wise a bunny to hand over cash now in exchange for an IOU that comes due later.
Let me tell you about how I learned to be such a skeptical rabbit. When I was in law school, I generously loaned my laboriously hand-typed class notes to a roommate. My motives were purely altruistic; I wanted to help him out. The next time I saw him, he informed me that he had decided law school was not for him after all, and he was dropping out. I said, “Gee, I’m sorry to hear that. I’d like my class notes back.” The next words out of his mouth were, “I don’t have them. I loaned them to someone else.” Well, okay, no problem ask the guy for them back, I said. He then informed me that wasn’t possible because he didn’t know where to find the guy he gave them to. The discussion ended this way: “I’ll be sporting and give you a 24-hour head start,” I said, “and then, if I find you, I’m going to kill you.” Fortunately for him (and probably for me, too), I never saw him again, so I didn’t have to serve the prospective manslaughter sentence.
The same thing has happened whenever I loaned books to trusted friends. Without exception, on every one of those occasions, I learned I don’t have any trustworthy friends. That doesn’t mean I don’t have friends. I have plenty of friends, and friends are indispensable in life, but I’ve learned through experience to accept my friends with all their flaws and to overlook their petty acts of forgetfulness, sloth, or dishonesty — in order that I may have friends.
The same thing has happened whenever I loaned money to anyone. After half a century of experience with other people’s heartfelt promises to repay, I’ve learned to make gifts instead of loans. I’m not going to get the principal back anyway, much less any interest; and this way I end up with more friends, fewer enemies, and the same amount of money.
So, Ben, keep your checkbook in your pocket and let’s find another way to get me to vote for Prop. 1. I’ll make it easy for you by offering some tips on how to get me to mark the “Yes” oval on the ballot:
1) Defeat Prop. 1 and send it back to the drafting table.
2) Get rid of the fucking committee and put grownups in charge of writing Prop. 1 Revised.
3) Fully fund 520 and all the other vital projects I’m going to have to help pay for one way or another.
4) To make 520 affordable, shitcan the goldplated 6-laner and ask me to only pay for basic replacement.
5) Sharpen some pencils and figure out a way to buy a 4-lane concrete pontoon bridge for less than 5 times the cost of the shiny new steel suspension bridge in Tacoma. If WSDOT can build one of the world’s largest suspension bridges for $843 million, I don’t see why they can’t lay an asphalt-and-rebar roadway on top of a bunch of concrete-and-rebar rectangular boxes for less than $4.5 billion.
6) Pare down your light rail ambitions, at least for a while. For starters, let’s get Phase 1 up and running, and see if the ridership justifies further investments in more light rail.
7) Figure out a way to build what you’re asking me to pay taxes for sooner than 20 years out. Prop. 1 asks me to pay taxes for construction I won’t live long enough to see. That’s ridiculous. If you can’t figure out how to build infrastructure you collect taxes in 2008 for any quicker than 2027, I’m sure there’s some smart finance guys in the private sector who know some angles you don’t.
8) Give me enough breathing room to pay off the first credit card balance before running up my charges again.
Comprende? Any questions?
I forgot this one:
9) Get rid of all the expensive Christmas ornaments. I’ll buy the tree, but I can’t afford the ornaments. You know, the stuff the committee put in there to get people in places like Everett and Gig Harbor to vote for it. Start by red-penciling the Cross-Base Highway. When that’s done, I have some additional recommendations.
There needs to be ONE regional transportation tax, and that tax increase needs to end it. That tax package needs to be reasonably priced, and it needs to pay for the core projects that HAVE to be done. Even so, it will be so expensive there is no breathing room left to include other people’s wish lists. This needs to be a pared-down, meat-and-potatoes, focused transportation plan; fully funded; and there needs to be an end to all the deception and hidden future tax increases.
And no one should make the mistake of interpreting my position on RTID/ST2 as making common cause with Stefan or his ilk over at Sucky Politics. I live in America. Stefan lives in America, too. That doesn’t make me a fucking fascist. It’s merely a coincidence.
Here’s the bottom line on what’s in store for Puget Sound commuters:
“State traffic analysts estimate drivers in the central Puget Sound region waste about 107,000 hours each afternoon stuck in traffic. Even if Proposition 1 is approved by voters, that figure is expected to increase about 78 percent to 191,000 hours in 20 years because of population growth. However, it’s estimated that if the proposed improvements are not made, congestion will more than double to 255,000 hours of delay each afternoon.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....n14m0.html
(It should be noted those figures don’t imply the average commuter will spend 78% more time stuck in traffic, though, as the increased hours will be spread over more commuters.)
Here’s the bottom line on what Prop. 1 would pay for:
“Highways and roads: … $7 billion, in 2006 dollars, on more than two dozen highway and local road projects, including widening Interstate 405 and improving Mercer Street in Seattle. Almost $1 billion would go toward replacing the Highway 520 floating bridge.
“Sound Transit: … $10.8 billion [to] extend Sound Transit light rail east to Redmond’s Overlake area, south to Tacoma and north to 164th Street Southwest in Snohomish County, and enhance commuter-rail and regional bus service.”
(Same link as above.)
Here’s the bottom line on what Prop. 1 will cost us:
“Sales taxes: … one penny per $10 purchase to pay for highway projects and a nickel per $10 purchase to pay for light rail — a total of about $150 a year per household, on average.
“Car tabs: A new tax would add $80 per $10,000 of vehicle value.
“Who pays: … most households in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.”
(Same link as above.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: When the Sound Transit guy buttonholed me at DL Tuesday night, he insisted Prop. 1 would cost my household about $125 a year.
That’s more than my medications cost (although that’s not going to last) for something I don’t need and won’t use. But I see an even bigger problem, namely, that $125 is a lowball figure. Based on the fishwrapper’s estimates of the sales tax and car tab impacts, the cost to my household is more likely to be $350 a year.
But even that figure doesn’t compute. According to the fishwrapper, Prop. 1’s cost in 2006 dollars is $18.6 billion, but I can’t even buy groceries or garbage pickup at 2006 prices anymore — that’s how fast inflation is now advancing in the local economy. The fishwrapper puts Prop. 1’s cost in actual dollars at “$38 billion by 2027 and a total of $47 billion by 2057.” It’s a lead-pipe cinch I won’t still be paying taxes in 2057, but with some luck, I might be around in 2027. So let’s take those 38,000,000,000 actual dollars and divide ’em by, say, 1.33 million households (factoring in future population growth) and I don’t know about you but I come up with $28,571 and now let’s divided that by 20 years and I get $1,428.57 per year — and frankly, I’m having a hard time reconciling that number with the fishwrapper’s estimate of $350 a year — and the Sound Transit guy’s claim I’ll pay only $125 a year appears to miss the reality by a magnitude of 12.
In other words, my household owns about $25,000 worth of licensed vehicles. That’s not what I paid for them, of course; that’s their current fair market value reflecting depreciation and use. You can’t buy squat for $25,000. These vehicles are used by Mrs. Rabbit, of course; with a perfectly good pair of hind feet with built-in sumarai swords, I don’t need a car and I don’t need no fucking high-priced private security guards, either! (You wanna save on your taxes, rightys? Fire Blackwater and send a bunch of rabbits to Baghdad.) But you know how female rabbits are — they think they’re too good to walk down to the corner to buy a bunch of carrots. (Yummy! I LOVE CARROTS!!!) AND I HAVE TO KEEP MRS. RABBIT IN GOOD HUMOR. (This should require no explanation to anyone with experience in these things.)
The Seattle Times editorial board predictably panned Prop. 1. They said, “It costs too much, it lasts too long and it does too little.” They also echo Roger Rabbit: “Proposition 1 is the wrong proposal. Vote ‘no,’ and preserve a chance to get it right.” (Maybe someone at Fairview Fanny reads HorsesAss.)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....sed14.html
The P-I editorial board predictably endorsed Prop. 1 — but even their support is tepid: “Yes, but hold nose … Proposition 1 … is a stinky mess. But it’s better than doing nothing.” (Roger Rabbit Response: It’s not better, however, than revising it to get it right.)
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.....123543.asp
Um… Will…
1) Sound Transit has a proposal ready to go that was passing in the polls before it got hijacked and got RTID stuck on it. If Prop 1 fails chances are we’ll be getting ST2 by it’s self the next time around.
2) The voting on Prop 1 is screwy. If you’re inside of ST, but outside of RTID Your vote gets counted towards ST only. If you are Inside of both boundaries your vote gets counted towards both ST and RTID. The lawsuit has already been drafted to challenge a winning vote. I wonder how many lawsuits a wining vote will spawn. RTID is so full of flaws that all we’ll get is lawsuit after lawsuit if it passes.
3) And this is an important one. Washington’s Growth Management Act requires concurrency between housing growth in infrastructure growth. The 1.2 million people that we keep hearing are coming so we have to build all this crap is a myth. They have to build all this crap so that the 1.2 million people will come. Voting down RTID is voting down concurrency. Voting down concurrency means that we’ll see more infill development that is friendly to walking, biking, and transit.
Will,
Why don’t you explain to the good folks at home what voting takes place when projects go over budget. How far over budget do they have to go before a vote? Who gets to vote on which over budget project? What numbers are being used as baseline to determine what’s over budget? How are those numbers the valid numbers? And of course, how many lawsuits is all this going to spawn?
Look, we all want transit, but Prop 1 is a dog.
@ 18
Did you read the fucking post?
How the fuck is light rail going to be built if there is no agency to build it?
@ 19
Also, every lawsuit against Sound Transit (and by extension, RTID) has failed. Sierra Club and Kemper’s Kidz got their asses kicked over the ballot title, and they’ll get their asses kicked over that issue too.
@ 19
No, we don’t all want transit. Lots and lots of people, including the Seattle Times, are against transit. In fact, most of the opposition to Prop 1 doesn’t come from Sierra Club assclowns like you, but from the anti-rail types: Phil Talmadge, Kemper Freeman, and the rest.
Even Ron Sims has bailed on the transit vision he once had.
So no, not everyone wants transit.
If you need any english classes, take Doug Cole
If you need any music classes, take James Cauter
Those 2 teachers are why SCCC is worth the tuition
“And no one should make the mistake of interpreting my position on RTID/ST2 as making common cause with Stefan or his ilk over at Sucky Politics.”
Roger, it might help you make your case if you didn’t use all the same weak, ridiculous, and uninformed arguments Shark-anti-sky constantly makes
“In fact, if voters think RTID/ST2 is a sneaky attempt to foist off a big boost in light rail spending by disguising it as a roads-and-bridges fix, we may see quite a backlash.”
Roads and freeways are for pensioner rabbits. Light rail is for you whipper-snappers. Give the half dead old men their roads! Good chance they might die on one, so they need to be new and pretty!
@24 How would I know what they say over on the fascist blog? I don’t read that crap. And those guys aren’t capable of reasoning, so any resemblance between what I write and they write is a random coincidence, similar to two asteroids colliding in trackless space.
@24 Instead of polemics, how about refuting my objections to RTID/ST2 with reasoned argument? You know — fact-based logic … show me where my numbers are wrong. Show me why my complaints don’t make sense. All I’ve ever said is this proposition can and should be improved.
I think i’m with Roger on this one, perhaps partly due to being only a few years from retirement myself. The best thing for sorting out the 520 bridge issue might be an earthquake, or a latter-day Capt. Rolf Neslund, and have us be forced to do without it for a while. We’ve been seduced by all these ribbons of concrete into thinking we can live where we want and work where we want, and drive our gas buggies back and forth no matter the distance–what a bunch of gullible fools we’ve become! Look at it this way: Almost anyone of sound mind would have predicted seven years ago that $3-a-gallon gas would get us out of our cars.
The point, folks, is that we’re going to have to get out of them, sooner or later. Either social engineering or practical necessity must eventually lead to some major lifestyle changes. Driving 25 miles back and forth every day between where you live and where you work is idiocy.
ArtFart – if we lose 520, we will lose Microsoft from the region, and that will be it for the local economy.
Will,
I read the post. I also know that this covers 3 counties, you seem to only talk about a small portion of King County.
Tacoma all ready has a rail link with Seattle, we don’t need two. We do need more light-rail within the city. Prop 1 will gobble up the tax dollars needed to do that and send them to build sprawl in the county.
RTID is unworkable. Yes some of the roads will get built, but they’ll (hopefully) be funded in a way that will actually work.
And then there’s that understanding the Growth Management act thing.
“A transit board member in, say, Gig Harbor will have the right to veto transit funding in Seattle. And that, ladies and gentlemen (and Sen. Ed Murray), is bullshit.”
Gig Harbor is OUTSIDE of the voting district on the this.
“A transit board member in, say, Gig Harbor will have the right to veto transit funding in Seattle.”
Will
As opposed to what we have now….council members from Pacific or Tacoma voting on transit funding in Seattle?
RTID2 will pass, because saying “transit” to Seattle voters is akin to what your dog does when you open the refrigerator door. This huge tax increase offers 19th century solutions to 21st century problems. But why let facts get in the way when we can have a gold plated choo-choo.? Same promises made today as in 1996, same promises that will be broken in a few years due to “engineering difficulties”. Like going across a floating bridge, or tunneling under Capitol hill.
Suckers!
Seeing how Gig Harbor’s State Senator has a PHD from Oxford in ecologically sustainable economic development having him vote on Seattle transit issues might not be such a bad thing. GH’s State Reps are Sound Transit supporters as well, so I’m not sure why you’re all hating on Gig Harbor.
The Rice/Stanton outcome is one among many potential outcomes if Prop. 1 fails. But even if the next legislature could agree on a new regional entity (which is highly unlikely given extremely divergent views on this topic), it would be years before any new body, could produce anything.
So what would happen in the unlikely event that the legislature finds common ground on a new elected government?
An elected board takes about two years by the time you draw the district and have the campaigns to elect them. That’s two years to get started. How long would any new elected board take to do anything? Depends on who is elected. So who knows? It’d take about a year minimum for them to hire their staffs, find out where to meet, and establish their operating procedures. That takes us to 2010 when a new elected body would be ready to do something, and then we’d need to vote on it, so that’s easily into 2011.
And this is the fast track. (Some people think that a board could be appointed at the start and be replaced by an elected board later, but this seems to defeat the whole point of electing people who are accountable.)
Generally, construction inflation is about 4% per year. Anyone with basic math skills can calculate what the cost is on a 4 year delay for a $10 billion program.
If anyone thinks that voting no will produce solutions sooner or cheaper than the one on the ballot this year, they’re just not looking at facts.
Seattle gets screwed in any directly elected regional government. Just like it got screwed in the editorial Frank Blethen wrote in his Seattle Times today advocating for more road building and dispersed bus routes to support more sprawl, instead of light rail.
I wonder what the local Sierra club guys think that will do for the polar bears? And someone needs to call them on their claim that Prop. 1 makes global warming worse. What makes global warming worse is doing nothing anytime soon.
A No vote is the hands down best way to support the status quo when it comes to global warming. It is, in fact, the do nothing approach.
@5…Will…
Isn’t the cross-lake expansion of ST going to be on the Mercer Island span, not 520?
BTW…all those things you fear will happen, I hope happen.
The transportation planning process around here is a farce. Trying to appease every interest without actually taking leadership while jockeying for position, log-rolling, and, in the case of John Ladenberg, empire building.. A Balkanized bag of back-biting and bickering.
I hope the thing goes down like a manhole cover in a lake. Then Olympia will take charge and will force reform by creating a an elected transportation authority with governing and taxing power over the entire Pugetopolis (what Knute Berger calls the I-5 corrider from Thurston through Skagit Counties) region.
That agency will have folded into it every transportation function that’s not exclusivly local in nature or federal in authority. Metro, ST, Community Transit, the Viaduct, the floating bridges, portions of the State DOT, and whatever else has broad region-wide impact. Decisions will be made on what’s best for everyone, not just for smaller, parochial interests.
So many of the concerns expressed by Michael, ArtFart, and especially RR are dead on; these aren’t politicaly motivated fears because they’re shared by people across the board.
I’m glad to see RR raise the spectre of RTID/3 since even a cursory look at Prop 1 reveals what it doesn’t tell you: even as we’ll be indebted up to our eyeballs forever by Prop 1, the minds that conceived it are already working to finish the economic evisceration of the masses with another package and, given the incomplete nature of their product to date, probably another and yet another.
Will RTID/4 and 5 be far behind?
The Times had a good story a few days ago entitled “Should You Trust Sound Transit Now?” and the answer is NO!!! Back when it was first proposed, numbers were offered that everyone knew were fake (what The Times’ article called “‘strategic misrepresentations’ to win political approval”), sponsers as much as admitted they were fake, and the people were told just accept the charade because that’s what always happens.
We got screwed! Fool me once, shame on you…Fool me twice? No thank you!
Yes, per the article and the recent SAO audit, things are better. But the over all track record is such as to warrant deep and abiding skepticism. How much over budget this time? What construction snafu’s will occur? What “unanticipated delay” will end up costing millions upon millions upon millions???
You complain that “how the %$^& will light rail be built?” Well, maybe it shouldn’t be built beyond what’s already under construction until we’ve had some time to see if it will work as advertised. And maybe we should rethink light rail by examining more cost effective alternatives such as expanded bus service?
Light rail isn’t Holy Grail.
The underlying pro-Prop 1 sales pitch is no different than the one used by high-pressure car salesmen, timeshare pitch jockeys, mining stock phone scammers, and the Nigerian oil minister: fear. Buy now or you’re doomed!
“This is your last chance for salvation!!! If you don’t buy now, your life is ruined, your kids will die, the sky will fall, and it will all be your fault!!!”
When Prop 1 fails on a Tuesday, the sun will rise the following Wednesday, and the real adults ol’ Rog refers to will go to work on what hopefully will be a real solution not just to transportation issues, but also to the way “decisions” get made in the Puget Sound region.
Everyone has a dog in this fight, and no one is satisfied with the way things are. That many of the same arguments RR proffers are heard at Sound Politics, on the radio, and in the newspaper from people of all persuasions says that this isn’t a left-right divide issue; we’re all in the same boat.
Take a look at who’s pimping Prop 1: big business and big construction interests. And Dan Evans. Suspicious now?
We’re being asked to buy the biggest pig in the most expensive poke ever, yet ST planners and geniuses don’t even have all the necessary planning work done for the project. They claim to know what it will cost, but they have yet to figure out what “it” entails. For the amount of money they’re asking, they ought to have the damn thing worked out to the minutest detail and last semi-colon.
Flawed process resulting in a flawed product that will only prove itselve to be even more flawed over time. Insanity personified.
The Piper
Hey Roger Rabbit,
If you’re having difficulty making ends meet, try getting a job and not wasting your remaining years on this fucking blog.
You’ve got a fixed pension? What the hell were you thinking? I know it’s not a Ph.D. in finance, but even a casual read of “Money” magazine over the past 20 or 30 years would have done you a lot of good! For a “smart” guy, you’re not showing much common sense!
Michael at 32,
People (in Tacoma & Pierce County) hate Gig Harbor because the town has turned into another Bellevue. It’s too goddam snotty and arrogant, and the people over there like to flaunt how fucking wonderful, worldly, chic, and sophisticated they are. The rest of Pierce County doesn’t appreciate the attitude.
@34
“in the case of John Ladenberg, empire building”
Yes, exactly.
@34
“maybe we should rethink light rail by examining more cost effective alternatives such as expanded bus service?”
Tacoma has the Sounder Train to Seattle, express bus service to the air port and to Seattle, what it doesn’t have is a good way to get down town to use those services.
John Ladenburg has stated that he’d support bus rapid transit to Seattle (giving the buses that are all ready running to Seattle a dedicated lane on I-5. BRT is a long way from perfect, but we all ready have the buses and the lanes, this is something we could do on the cheap and start next week, not 20 years from now.
In the 10 years I have been a citizen of Seattle, having wokred for the city of Seattle and King County, I have yet to see Seattle/KC deliver on any transportation plan. I left LA 10 years ago and within 3 years of leaving the 210 Freeway was extended 75+ miles–5 lanes each direction. During this same time, KC/Snohimish added 1 carpool lane to I-405 and a bus lane to Hwy99.
You should not trust Sound Transit, our stupid KC Executive or the silly mayor we have. We need transportation improvements up the wahzoo, but the current plan is nonsense and you would have to 1) just arrived in Seattle and be blindly impressed by the amount of money this region is sinking into its transportation woes or 2) believe that the lightrail will arrive anywhere near your neighborhood in the next 10 years.
Wake up Seattle–you are slow to learn. Slow to drive. Slow.
This is what Roger Rabbit meant to say: You pesky kids get that light rail off my lawn!
“The lawsuit has already been drafted to challenge a winning vote. I wonder how many lawsuits a wining vote will spawn. RTID is so full of flaws that all we’ll get is lawsuit after lawsuit if it passes.”
The ONLY thing Sierra Club is good at: frivolous last-minute lawsuits. Good thing it gets their names in the news. This “branding” sells more of those $15 crappo made-in-Burma backpacks and calendars (their other specialty)
Too bad Sierra Club is always MIA when these laws are being drafted. And too bad the Sierra Club has next to zero influence in Olympia (I’m sure John Stanton will listen to them).
Will, the dirty little secret (aside from their masked opposition to light rail) is as follows: our local Sierra Club actually likes the governance commission’s plans.
The same naivete driving them to sacrifice an 85% good package for the 15% bad….this brilliant logic also leads them to believe (from their perch on the planet of pillows, rainbows and unicorns) that an elected four county government will somehow have their Fremont-centric values in mind. Of course, it will take five years to get the new elected mega-government off the ground, but with help from the Discovery Institute, Kemper Freeman and Ted Van Dyk, maybe Sierra Clubbers can shave 6 months off.
Did I mention Mike O’Brien could get the one Seattle seat? That way he can get to be in the paper a lot. Which he likes. This is important.
These goofballs, who blindly follow Ron Sims around like pets, also believe the residents of east King County, South King County, Pierce County, Snohomish County and Kitsap County will be happy to have their asses taxed off via tolls so they can get some more of Roger Rabbit’s shitty buses.
In the meanwhile, the loopy theory goes, Seattle gets rail to Northgate, Ballard and West Seattle (then construction is immediately halted).
Miraculously, Ron Sims – on his own – has found a MAGIC FORMULA to make light rail “do more, for less money, faster”: the whole region pays for Seattle’s shorter, less effective rail line. The ‘burbs will LOVE their crumbs! Sierra Clubbers never liked the extensions to Lynnwood, Bellevue/Redmon and Tacoma, anyways.
Works out great on paper.
Excepţ- when did the Sierra Club decide diesel buses would be the weapon of choice for fighting climate change?
When Ron Sims told them so?
Mr. Pavement Ron Sims. Mr. stinky, dirty bus Ron Sims, Mr. Attention-starved Ron Sims. Mr. “I’m gonna one-up you, Greg Nickels”.
We have some fabulously enlightened leaders out here. Thank God even the worst politician will always have a kool-aid drinking interest group like Sierra Club to follow them around.
Ron Sims will deliver the Sierra Club to the land of milk and honey, a land where lawsuits are highly regarded, theory trumps practice, and pointy-headed academics dance with (carbon neutral) Unicorns.
I can’t wait!
“In the 10 years I have been a citizen of Seattle, having wokred for the city of Seattle and King County, I have yet to see Seattle/KC deliver on any transportation plan. I left LA 10 years ago and within 3 years of leaving the 210 Freeway was extended 75+ miles–5 lanes each direction.”
Behold, another anti-rail crank who uses LA as his model! michael, say hi to another member of your new “coalition.”
And then we have Sound Politics groupie Piper Scott:
“I hope the thing goes down like a manhole cover in a lake. Then Olympia will take charge and will force reform by creating a an elected transportation authority with governing and taxing power over the entire Pugetopolis”
You know the right wing, anti-government rail haters are desperate when their “solution” is: a big new bureaucracy, and more politicians with new taxing powers. At least with the current model, we get a vote. Under Piper Scott’s Discovery Institute plan, the Man makes all the decisions for us (yay!)
Just brilliant, Piper Scott! And terribly consistent with your views!
While Piper Scott represents the Sharkansky urban myth machine echo chamber (where right wingers come up with a new solution to “liberalism” on the half hour) Busdrivermike personifies the typical NW crank:
“This huge tax increase offers 19th century solutions to 21st century problems. But why let facts get in the way when we can have a gold plated choo-choo.?”
Eh? The 21st century “solution” is a crappy bus? Busdrivermike, are you ever going to reveal what the transportation promised land looks like? Not enough bandwidth in you basement?
“Step into the box, buddy! What’s your beef.”
@39
In the 10 years I have been a citizen of Seattle, having wokred for the city of Seattle and King County, I have yet to see Seattle/KC deliver on any transportation plan.
What? Is the Sounder just a figment of my imagination? Or does it only count if it exceeds everyone’s wildest uninformed expectations?
The reason why everyone from Crackpiper to Roger Rabbit opposes this thing is because we’ve become a nation of spoiled brats who think that everything in life should be easy and free and that we don’t have to sacrifice for anything. For decades, Seattle has avoided doing what’s been necessary to provide for the proper transportation infrastructure for a metropolis this size. We already know that the longer we wait, the worse our options will be. That’s not automatically the reason to vote for this thing, but for far too many people, it’s not even factoring into the decision. And that’s why Seattle is so “slow” (although you’re right, please here really, really suck at driving too).
Seattle is insane. Absolutely insane. All these arguments against mass transit – from *liberals* – suggests how deeply screwed the Puget Sound region is when facing the crises of the 21st century.
All these anti-Prop 1 arguments, like those from Roger Rabbit, are made out of the belief that the basic conditions of the 20th century will continue indefinitely. That, as RR said, jobs and housing will be flexible so a fixed guideway will be quickly rendered obsolete.
By what? If this were the 1950s that argument might hold water. Not now. Here is where the lack of public knowledge of Peak Oil (which will make driving VERY expensive, very soon – already $3/gal gas is the norm) becomes such a problem. Here is where the public unwillingness to wrap its head around climate change becomes such a problem.
The anti-Prop 1 arguments all assume that the 1950s, or the 1980s, will last forever. That the basic economic conditions of those years are still valid and will be valid for decades to come.
They’re not. They won’t be. Puget Sound’s future is in building rail infrastructure that is not dependent on oil. Without that, the place is screwed. What of the added freeway lanes, you ask? Those will be very easily converted to rail pathways when fewer people are able to afford to use those freeway lanes.
The region is going to throw away yet another golden opportunity to extricate itself from oil-dependent sprawl. And it is going to throw it away, just like it did in 1970, just like it did in 2005. But those opportunities will not always come. It really is now or never – and it pains me to see so many liberals and Democrats opting for never.
Thor is absolutely right. A no vote is a vote to maintain the status quo, and to do absolutely nothing about transportation, climate change, and energy independence.
As to the person who claimed that LA has done more than Seattle in the last 10 years to address congestion, that is so far from the truth as to be scarcely credible.
“Decisions will be made on what’s best for everyone, not just for smaller, parochial interests.”
That was funny as hell, Piper Scott. Know why? The entire region settled on light rail years and years ago, yet a small squeaky-wheel minority keeps flailing around trying to revisit every last decision.
You and your buddies at Sound Politics are the tiny/noisy/angry white guy minority, tilting at windmills to establish your far-right creds in a relatively progressive region.
You might have better luck fighting the global warming “myth,” Piper.
“BRT is a long way from perfect, but we all ready have the buses and the lanes, this is something we could do on the cheap and start next week, not 20 years from now.”
“michael” has GOT to be that space cadet Mike O’Brien. The guy works in a law firm or something, and suddenly decided he would play a transport planner on TV.
Rather than just listen to the anti-rail nuts within his Sierra Club bubble, do you think michael consulted with any REAL engineers or planners? Such consultation might have prevented spaceboy mike from suddenly deciding a trolley to the Hilltop and a dedicated buslane for Tacoma would be a better deal.
Mike needs to get out Fremont once in a while. Those buses already exist, guy. So do the bus lanes. What you’re missing is riders, because many people don’t like the loud bus on the crappy freeway. Capice?
Kicking carpoolers and Vanpoolers OUT of the I-5 HOV lanes (and letting mike’s Kemper-Blethen buds & SOV Lexus drivers in) will REDUCE capacity, not enhance it.
If michael got out of Fremont more often, he might also realize Federal Way is not Tacoma. Same goes for Des Moines, Fife, Kent…none of those places are Tacoma.
43. You are incorrect. Born and bread in Seattle, went to school in LA. The Sounder works for whom? Does it take us north or south on the east side? Does it take us east-west to ease the bridge load? Does it take cars off the road north-south on I-5? I am sure you had a point mentioning the Sounder as support for Prop 1. Can you remind me what that was? I think we should spend $5 trillion on transportation provided we have the vision and leaderhsip to make real improvements. What is the vision and who are the leaders that will that happen? Norm Rice? Greg Nichols? Ron Sims? Do you know these guys??
“The reason why everyone from Crackpiper to Roger Rabbit opposes this thing is because we’ve become a nation of spoiled brats who think that everything in life should be easy and free”
You nailed it, Lee. I wish I could be as concise!
This is also the unifying factor behind the left-right fringes who have unified (for a couple weeks) to defeat Prop 1.
The left feels anything can/should/will be regulated and taxed into oblivion. As such, their solution (the Ron Sims Plan B) is to instantaneously slap tolling gantries up on every on-ramp. This is what called social engineering- literally. The Sierra Club’s free lunch will some from sinner suburbanites who drive and kill Polar Bears.
The right believes there’s plenty of free tax money sitting out there in Olympia’s Ft. Knox. They just need to find the key for Dino Rossi, and he will build the Sound Politics echo chamber hundreds of lane miles of new free-freways.
Complex problems always cause simpletons to produce simplistic solutions.
Look at Piper Scott lauding Roger Rabbit and Sierra Club airhead michael. These people were made for eachother.
Where were they when the Roads & Rail plan was put together over the past 3 years? On the Internets, probably – complaining about the last free lunch that was denied to them!
Note that Lee and the rest do not claim that the Sierra Club is wrong about global warming.
Prop 1 supporters, knowing that they have badly lost that argument, lean heavily on the crutch of scare mongering (we will die if Prop 1 fails!), disingenuous portrayal of Sierra Club positions, and the intellectually lazy habit of personal attacks.
The passage of Prop 1 will lock us into a plan that will make global warming worse; if you care about the environment, it is a certain loss. On the other hand, if Prop 1 fails, there is a chance to come up with a plan that works.
If you believe that global warming is impossible to solve — which is what a yes on Prop 1 amounts to — then you should just come out and admit that you think we are doomed. You’d be wrong there too, but at least you’d be honest.
“You are incorrect. Born and bread in Seattle, went to school in LA. ”
Ok, I know you didn’t mean to be hilarious, but thay WAS hilarious, Seattleisslow.
The 7,000 trips on Sounder each day are made by people who would otherwise be driving on roads which have already reached capacity. Get it?
“What is the vision and who are the leaders that will that happen? Norm Rice? Greg Nichols? Ron Sims? Do you know these guys??”
Guy, Rice and Sims are on your side now. You gotta stop bashing them. They got light rail in their neighbohoods, and suddenly decided it was too expensive for anybody else to join the club.
Cranks and lunatics need to have a “get to know eachother” event soon.
It has to be very soon, because after Nov. 6th, they will all be at eachother’s throats again.
Hmm; Goldy says “mid-fifties” which I assume is straight from the pro-campaign. If it were, 55%-57% they would use a real number, not that ambiguous term. My guess is that the yes vote plus projecting how the undecideds will split puts them at 53%. So, the pro slide is slipping fast from the last poll, even with all their TV and the taxpayer funded glossy propaganda mailing. Look for politicians to start distancing themselves even more. Except for Julia Paterson, it is not as if any of them have been hugging this dog.
The problem for them is that they won’t be able to run far enough away to avoid accountability. Which is why Goldy and others are wrong to claim that we are heading into endless process, or governance reform. Look for a bunch of competing solutions after this fails — the imperative to do something about transportation is not going away. Nor is the imperative to do something about global warming. Politicians without the ability to craft better solutions will find themselves in deep trouble with the electorate. And thank goodness. Locking ourselves into a long term plan destined to make global warming worse is exactly the wrong thing to do at this stage of our history.
Al Gore is right – it is time for bold action. Which means we should reject this mangled political compromise that makes global warming worse.
“Prop 1 supporters, knowing that they have badly lost that argument, lean heavily on the crutch of scare mongering”
That’s weird, Sierra Clubber Scotto. The people funding your No campaign believe global warming is a hoax, hope to build 10x as many freeways, and (like half of your group) want to eliminate light rail and replace it with diesel-spewing buses.
Like an Evangelical preacher, otterpop has done a fine job of proclaiming himself to be on the cutting edge of ideological purity. He likes to make this proclamation a lot.
If only scotto had something besides words to get people to believe there’s substance behind the bumbersticker slogans.
Hey, rtidstinks. You Sierra Clubbers always travel in pairs, don’t you. I like the new single-minded litmus test spiel…I can tell a lot of thought went into your plan to stop the world from moving. Do you mind halting plate tectonics while you’re at it?
Funny you should mention Al Gore. The last time purist greens displayed this brand of fervor, they told us in 2000 that Al Gore was a “sell-out” and “we could do better.”
Sierra Cub Scouts are asking us to “vote our dreams” once again. They demand we jump off the cliff, but they’re so out-to-lunch, nobody bothered to check on how shallow the water is below. Not even their lame lobbyist in Olympia, who knows exactly what awaits everybody next year.
The local chapter has become such pathetic ideologues on the subject of global warming, rtidstinks/otterpop will toss out 85% of good transit-friendly projects because of 15% bad elements.
Under the old democratic system, this was called “compromise”. Under the new hysterical Sierra Club model, 15% general purpose lanes will kill the planet. Tomorrow.
(so hysterical, Sierra Cubbers will drive average Americans away from the cause in favor of a small number of like-minded fundamentalists)
God, you lib fascists annoy me. I say we scrap the 85% of mass transit shit and build LOTs of general purpose lanes!!!
@49
Note that Lee and the rest do not claim that the Sierra Club is wrong about global warming.
Yes, and note that many of the people here (like Crackpiper) who deny that global warming is a real problem are opposing Prop. 1.
Prop 1 supporters, knowing that they have badly lost that argument, lean heavily on the crutch of scare mongering (we will die if Prop 1 fails!), disingenuous portrayal of Sierra Club positions, and the intellectually lazy habit of personal attacks.
Global warming is not an argument. It’s a factor. Global warming is only part of the overall decision-making process here. The Sierra Club is saying that a Yes vote on Prop. 1 will have a worse impact on global warming than a No vote. What Will and many others are saying is that a No vote will likely have the worse impact on global warming because:
a) All the roads (and probably more) planned out by Prop 1 will still be built, but the transit will have a much less chance of getting done
b) The lack of rail transit will continue to prevent Seattle from effectively increasing its population density, which leads to more sprawl
c) Even more roads will need to build to handle the increased sprawl caused by a lack of transit
You are more than welcome to convince yourself that the support for transit is so great that it will just get done later, but that ignores the reality of what the legislators in Olympia hear from their constituents. Many people don’t recognize the value of transit until it’s too late. It’s been too late here in Seattle for decades and we still haven’t learned that lesson.
The passage of Prop 1 will lock us into a plan that will make global warming worse; if you care about the environment, it is a certain loss. On the other hand, if Prop 1 fails, there is a chance to come up with a plan that works.
You sound no different than the people who made the ridiculous argument that if we get rid of Saddam, Iraq and the entire Middle East could only get better. The reason you can’t envision the problems down the road is because you simply close your eyes and imagine that they won’t happen.
If you believe that global warming is impossible to solve — which is what a yes on Prop 1 amounts to — then you should just come out and admit that you think we are doomed. You’d be wrong there too, but at least you’d be honest.
You know, you’ve gone from being someone intelligent here to being a complete embarrassment. You know full-well that we’re not arguing that we’re “doomed” when it comes to global warming. We’re arguing that these decisions aren’t as cut and dry as you want to make them out to be.
Having read the post again, Goldy gets what the poll numbers are saying — this thing is going down: “I get the sense that Seattle’s great civic tradition of screwing the pooch on transportation will pay us yet another visit this fall.”
It is time to stop defending a political compromise that calls for building more highways that make global warming worse. We are heading into the stage where liberals need to define what comes next — a plan that actually makes progress on global warming instead of locking us into ever increasing global warming pollution. That is the way to get light rail, and even more transit, back on track, and avoid the proclaimed inevitability of new roads.
I understand, the “political realists” will need to take some time to gripe about how obtuse everyone else is to not listen to their authoritative “insider” information. But hopefully, then they can get to work on redefining political reality to take into account the actual reality that the climate is changing unless we take bold action. Which is what Al Gore asks us to do: “In America, political will is a renewable resource.”
And by the way, the Sierra Club endorsed Al Gore for President.
@46
You’re so wide of the mark I’m not going to bother.
@44
We’re not arguing against mass transit, we’re arguing against a bad plan.
“The anti-Prop 1 arguments all assume that the 1950s, or the 1980s, will last forever.”
Actually, that’s the pro RTID people.
Not to rag too much, but how’s about taking a look back at another good example of Sierra Club hysteria. WTO, 2001. They rallied the troops, fought the good fight…and what actual substance came out of it?
Well, if you sign up, for 15 bucks, they send you a backpack.
Made in Sri Lanka. You can tell the Sierra Cub Scouts are on the cutting edge of free trade and cheap labor.
In other words, it’s the attention they crave – attention for unpopular positions they know nobody wants. Once any radical element comes to terms with the improbability their radical positions will ever take root, the natural cycle kicks in: they become more hysterical, and prosthelitizing replaces common sense, incremental solutions average Americans can get on board with (you know, the impure people). Then the activist flame burns out, and move on to something else. Like RTID. It’s political A.D.D.
Take Sierra Club’s railing against light rail. They believe the train to South Everett sucks because it relies on transit centers (evil car-oriented park & rides…not found in Fremont). Then they oppose the south line, because – while it achieves the land use transformations the north line doesn’t – it’s too slow. Guys, this is what’s called a “trade-off”. You get one or the other. You don’t get both. (Welcome to the imperfect world outside your perfect bike-riding bubble.)
It doesn’t take a transit planner to figure out the SC has no idea what they’re doing, which renders typical results: with their swerving views, Sierra Clubbers are basically contradicting themselves, and are now locked into a logic loop. (the brand of gridlock we are accustomed to here).
And the East line? Well, their buddy Ron Sims wants to turn I-90 into the world’s pre-emminent BRT showcase. And SC Transportaion activists don’t want to counter their ONE prominent spokemodel’s wacky views.
Several of us have been asking doctrinaire Sierra Clubbers how it is they plan to solve the climate crisis with 40,000 lb 3000 hp fossil fuel powered buses. No word back yet (and I, for one, am not holding my breath)
@60
BRT can take cars off the road today. We’ve got the buses, the drivers, the infrastructure is already built. Can light-rail do that?
BRT is an interim step, not a final solution.
“I understand, the “political realists” will need to take some time to gripe about how obtuse everyone else is to not listen to their authoritative “insider” information”
Hey, Rtidstinks, did you get that “ignorance for the common people – knowledge for the elite!” perspective from Bill O’Reilly?
I’m sorry you feel beat down by reality. All the more reason to get hysterical about a whole new issue next year. You know, when Piper Scott’s rail skeptic friends in Olympia embark on a five year process to find a way to spend the light rail billions on 520, and really nice lids/parks for Montlake and Medina.
Why would anyone in their right mind want to vote for Prop. 1 ? If you are complaining about the inability of lawsuits able to derail Sound Transit, you would be giving them more ammo to steamroll over the public again and flip us the bird in their rear view mirror. They don’t have to be accountable to anyone – even Ron Sims realizes now that he and King County Government has created a monster.
Let Julia Patterson have panties in a wad with her tantrums and storm out of the room after hearing from troublemakerTim Eyman, because he dared to call ST “sleezy” – which is like saying the emperor has no clothes. Give him credit for here for saying what thousands would like to have said, but couldn’t be there to say it at 1PM on a weekday. Sound Transit has shown since its inception that it is ruthless appointed agency and cannot be trusted.
Prop 1 is nothing more than having Sound Transit use high pressure sales tactics and say “if you don’t pass this, this region is doomed with traffic congestion because it will be too late if you don’t pass this plan”. They are ramroding this down our throats and in reality and are preparing a scaled down version ready to go in case Prop. 1 fails that will be ready for vote next year. Why the f*** should we mortgage our future and believe these bastards, who will line their pocket if this passes ? VOTE NO on Prop. 1 !
I honestly do not understand the delusions that some of the people posting against Prop 1 are staggeringly under. Piper and the rest of the pave the region till it looks like LA, know exactly what they are doing.
Seattle/King County has a long history of sticking its head in the sand and snatching transit defeat from the jaws of victory. If anyone really believes that a better and shinier transit package will replace Prop 1, they really need to study the area’s history. Start with Monorail.
Oh sure, it won at first. But where is it now? Is that crickets I hear? If the region was so transit ready and friendly, why hasn’t it been built yet?
As soon as I can, I am moving out of Seattle. The city has lost all of its beauty and is turning into everything I despise. A bunch of self-centered egotists that believe if they concentrate and “visualize it” hard enough, they can convince themselves they haven’t concreted and paved over every square inch.
@To Many To List…
I’m curious as to why so many people are willing to die on the hill of light rail as a matter of raw and naked faith. Would those of you who think only light rail is the path to Nirvana please enlighten me?
Politics makes strange, albeit temporary, bedfellows. So what if I find momentary common cause with Ron Sims, Norm Rice, Ed Murray, Rog, Michael, and any number of others who either question or oppose Prop 1. On occassion, positions on issues can’t be measured purely on the basis of an ideological divide; life is far more complex.
In no particular order of importance, some thoughts:
Light rail strikes me as 19th-Century thinking for the 21st-Century. Fixed, unyielding, inflexible, unresponsive to rapidly changing conditions, and breathtakingly expensive beyond belief, it’s more suited to a time when society was relatively immobile and homogeneous.
Any number of commentators have questioned what will happen if things don’t pan out as light rail prognisticators have predicted…what if people don’t choose to ride it or live near it? What then?
Technology isn’t static, and people in this area, more than any, should know that. The car of tomorrow isn’t the belching polluter that we all used to drive back in the 70’s. Innovations in fuel efficiency, pollution control, composite materials, alternative fuels, and more may yield in the not to distant future a zero or near-zero polluting private motor vehicle.
Anybody who tries to absolutely predict the future is doomed to disappointment. Ask those who pooh-poohed the desk top PC, then the astonishing advent and growth of the Internet.
While it’s momentarily struggling, Boeing’s 787 is a good case in point. The innovations developed for that airplane will find their way to Detroit, et al, in short order. Remember, Allan Mullaly, Ford’s CEO, is an old Boeing man.
A regional transportation authority isn’t a big new bureaucracy; it’s a consolidation of probably over 100 petty fiefdoms that make feudal societies look like models of good governance by comparison.
Prop 1 is the product of to many antithetical fingers making to large a pie for anyone to eat.
To those who say proposing a regional authority runs counter to my views, all I can say is I appreciate how they know my views better than I do. Please advise as to what my view are so we’ll both know.
I’m not anti-government per se, I’m anti stupid and wasteful and chowderheaded government, which is what we have now in the realm of transportation planning and politics.
Like Italy before Garibaldi or Germany before Bismarck, a ton of tiny jurisdictions that don’t make sense on their own but might if brought under a common authority, so it is with the multitudes of overlapping agencies, councils, committees, boards, and whatnot.
Opposition to Prop 1 can’t simply be attributed to “selfishness” and dismissed as such. That’s juvenile and facile thinking. It’s one thing to support what’s good for the commonweal, but it’s entirely another to sell our souls and bodies into perpetual servitude for something that has yet to move a single body from Point A to Point B.
Is it selfish to refuse to be swindled? I prefer to think of it as good stewardship and respect for the hard-earned dollars of taxpayers and the limited number of carrots Rog has at his disposal.
No one who opposes Prop 1 is of a mind to say nothing should be done or that somebody else should pay for it; we neither think nor want the easy and free…We all want the wise and well crafted.
A “No” vote isn’t a vote for the status quo, but a “Yes” vote endorses the status quo of gravely flawed decision making process producing astonishingly disasterous products.
It’s time for a change at the most fundamental level. New ways of making transportation decisions and plans have to be developed and implemented otherwise we’ll continue to wallow in the same stew.
Prop 1 doesn’t represent democracy or political compromise; it’s the worst of the opposite. Tossing bones to every interest group, POV, and constituency save those who commute by whaling ship (watch Prop 1 drafters quickly amend the deal to toss them a whalebone now), it’s a simply a mess! No real prioritizing and leaving projecs half-finished isn’t compromise, it’s calumny.
There are some who believe transporation planning should be done on a strictly environmental basis. Others on a basis of the efficient movement of people. Others fall in between. Prop 1 doesn’t represent compromise between these POV’s, but, rather, an effort to appease them. Looks like the effort is failing.
That voters approved a light rail package once doesn’t settle the issue for all time and eternity. Many remember the hornswaggling that was done then, and they remain deeply suspicious to the point of believing that ST is synonomous with “lie.” While we’re stuck with what we’re building, must we be stuck buying more?
That a new governance, decision making and planning process, and more might take time only means that it might take time. I would rather have the right thing done later than the wrong thing done now. Prop 1 is the wrong thing.
Light Rail is not synonomous with “visionary.” Just because some other place does it doesn’t mean we should too. The recent Times article’s reminders of the problems we’ve seen to date locally plus the fact that nine out of 10 of these projects exceed original cost estimates and that today’s estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, should be a bucket of cold water in the face of those who’re giddy with enthusiasm for Prop 1.
Dump it…dump Prop 1, reform the pathetic decision making and planning process, think regionally, not locally, and do it right…
The Piper
@46
“Mike needs to get out Fremont once in a while. Those buses already exist, guy. So do the bus lanes. What you’re missing is riders, because many people don’t like the loud bus on the crappy freeway. Capice?”
I’m not in Fremont. Hate Seattle actually. You might want to check the capacity figures on the express buses and park and ride lots. We’re full up.
What limits BRT is being stuck in traffic with everyone else. Making Carpool lanes bus only is cheap, easy and quick. And can be done while we work on getting rail lines built. That light rail line to Tacoma wont be operational until 2020 or something like that, why not use BRT in the meantime?
“Note that Lee and the rest do not claim that the Sierra Club is wrong about global warming.”
We get it, michael. We’ve all known about the reality and implications of global warming for what – 15 years – but somehow you guys were able to claim the high ground. Congrats.
What was it, 2005, when Sierra Club got on board the No on 912 campaign, to support $8.5 billion worth of freeways across the state, with a small pile of crumbs being tossed to us transit advocates?
What fad issue was the Cascade Chapter pursuing then?
Oh yeah, I almost forgot: moose bridges. Correction. One moose bridge.
Two years later, and the local chapter of the Sierra Club is on the cutting edge of climate change crisis rhetoric.
You guys complain about the .10th sales tax going for roads, knowing full well that will be easily spent on the hundreds of millions in transit included in RTID alone (excluding ST2).
Kemper Freeman and his climate change embracers could not have asked for better useful tools in their anti-transit jihad.
Only a small set of insular and isolated fools could have fallen for this scam.
I can see why the Sierra Club is so proud of themselves.
@68
First off I’m not part of the Sierra Club’s political or Transportation committees. Haven’t been to one their meetings since 2004. So… That’s not me.
Second, I support rail. I don’t like this package for a lot of reasons I’ve stated them before, I wont waste the space here.
@62
The elites are driving this thing. Look who is paying for it. It’s too bad their four million dollars will be wasted on TV ads and consultants, instead of doing something useful.
I guess I still believe in this quaint thing called democracy — you know, where the politicians listen to us, not the other way around.
Let us know if you ever want to join us.
The arguments against rail strain credulity. “It’s a 19th century solution” – boy, those European nations whose cities have robust rail networks sure are living in the past, eh? And poor Denver, poor Boston, poor NYC – they sure are regretting their rail systems that are driving investment and residents from those places as if they had the plague.
BRT is NOT a solution. Nothing that relies on oil is a solution. The finite supply of oil, and its soaring cost, is the big missing piece in this discussion. The anti-Prop 1 folks believe that somehow the Puget Sound can survive without light rail, or by delaying its construction another decade. They will be in for a very rude shock in a year or two when we hit $100/bbl oil.
The Sierra Club is not credible on this topic. True environmentalists would understand the need to build clean mass transportation that encourages infill development and further discourages sprawl. I don’t know what bizarro game they’re playing, but we should not be party to it.
OF COURSE Prop 1 is going to cost us a lot of money. There are no free lunches any more, people. Seattle gave up its chance at cheaply building its way out of this crisis in 1970 when they rejected $500 million in federal money – 80% of the cost of a regionwide mass transit system that would make the ST2 plan look tiny. No, because of the lost opportunities, getting out of the oil-based transportation mess is going to be very expensive. The point here is that the alternative – doing nothing – will cost even more.
Finally, everyone seems to be missing Will’s point in this post. You who oppose Prop 1 have NO alternative plan. You’ve got absolutely nothing to offer. This plan is imperfect and it is flawed. But it is also a far sight better than the status quo, You are going to regret it – and soon.
“What limits BRT is being stuck in traffic with everyone else. Making Carpool lanes bus only is cheap, easy and quick.”
Easy? Like the Gov waves her magic wand? I love how these know-nothing clowns always seem to have an easy answer for very difficult problems
How’s about a Governor Rossi, which will be much more likely to occur if Prop 1 fails. Think Mr. Anti-transit will bite on to your naïve concept?
If the solution was cheap and easy, it would have already been deployed. Get it?
Ever check to see how man carpools and vanpools would be displaced back into the general purpose lanes, should your “simple solution” be followed, michael? Hint: there are more carpoolers (especially mom+pop) than bus riders, and they cost the taxpayer nothing. They also halve their carbon footprint the instant they get on the road.
Furthermore, even if the “gridlock is good” crowd decided to ignore the numbers, and forge ahead with HOV lane conversion, what do you do with the additional hundreds of buses once they leave the highway? Well, one thing you can do is spend hundreds of millions on pavement for dedicated ramps (also in the RTId). But how’s about cities like downtown Bellevue, where there are no lanes to give up for huge, fossil fuel buses? Got a “simple and cheap” answer for that? The big elephant in the room here with Kemper Freeman/Sierra Club BRT enthusiasts is something called “right of way.” They don’t have it, but since they don’t care to study-up on the issue, it’s way too easy for them to pretend the elephant is actually a mouse.
It’s too be expected the Sierra Club “solution” = gridlock. They love that stuff!
” And can be done while we work on getting rail lines built. That light rail line to Tacoma wont be operational until 2020 or something like that, why not use BRT in the meantime?””
Finally we can agree on something. Sort of. You just gave a good pitch for why we need to pass Prop 1: lots of new bus service for the interim. And lots of HOV lanes to enhance existing bus service – you know, to speed them up, thus encouraging people to ditch their cars for the bus.
Oh, I forgot. The extremist position ALSO considers HOV lanes to be evil, because they free-up a fraction of general purpose capacity as all those buses, carpools and vanpools get their own lanes.
You just can win with these guys. But I think they like it that way.
Look, NoToProp1 folks can wallow in your ignorance all ya want. What (obviously) bugs me is that you’re trying to drag us all down with you. And to make things worse, you really have no idea where you’re taking us. Do you?
Of course, the broken record “you believe in global warming, don’t you” gives you full license to pull that crap. Same way W & Rove answer every tough questions about their f’d up policies using the following phrase: “the world changed on 9-11…”
Do the people against mass transit have any clue as to how many people have moved out of the Puget Sound area, taking their tax dollars and spending money with them because it is hell to get around the area? Do they know how many businesses might have decided to go elsewhere because their workforce does not have an efficient way to get to and from work without spending so much time stuck on the roads? Buses are fine, but the few times I venture into the Seattle or Bellevue area, the buses are stuck in backup right next to me.
“The elites are driving this thing. Look who is paying for it. It’s too bad their four million dollars will be wasted on TV ads and consultants, instead of doing something useful.”
Oh, you mean the exact same crowd you Sierra Clubbers were on board with when $8.5 worth of freeways were on the chopping block, rtidstinks? That elite? Looks like the same group from 2005: business, enviros and labor. The horrors there should be consensus aimed at actually getting something done!
And who is funding your campaign, and citing the Sierra Club’s name at the end of each anti-transit commercial? Well, we have sugardaddy Mark Baerwaldt, who started his anti-government campaign when King County sanctioned him for filling in wetlands for McMansions at his suburban sprawl development over Lake Sammamish. There’s a green warrior for you! And how’s about No campaign funder Kemper Freeman, who wants to pave Lake Washington, and build a brand new freeway through rural farmlands? Just like Nader taking more shots at Gore than he did Bush, you Sierra Clubbers have really dug a deep hole for yourselves with this hysterical finger-pointing.
Isn’t it awful we now have suburban politicians and business leaders pushing for 50 miles of light rail? That’s blasphemy, right? Should be stopped!
“I guess I still believe in this quaint thing called democracy — you know, where the politicians listen to us, not the other way around.”
Rtidstinks meant to say “politician”. Singular. As in Ron Sims, the guy nobody will ever talk to again, and the guy who will be blamed should Prop 1 go down. Good idea putting all your eggs in that basket, Sierra Cub Scouts.
“Let us know if you ever want to join us.”
Tell us how the Green Party fared after Nader helped take Al Gore out, Rtidstinks? Their ranks really swelled afterwards, didn’t they? No, what happened was, they attracted a bunch of mixed nuts afterwards, and collapsed from within. Also a great model to follow!
Best of luck to you.
@73: Of course they don’t see this, because that doesn’t enter into their calculus. They believe that the status quo is just fine and not causing any problems, and that Prop 1 will only make things worse.
But we’ve been going easy on them, because the status quo is going to change – for the worse. Either traffic will get worse, strangling economic activity, or the cost of oil will rise rapidly, strangling economic activity. The antis do not have any solution. And “no solution” is worse than the imperfect solution that Prop 1 offers. They have no vision of the future. No response to the crises we know we will face.
That’s Seattle’s problem, really. Folks do not want change, and will latch on to any flaw, any impurity, with a proposal to argue for its rejection.
@74: These people who argue against Prop 1 are not liberals. This is no left-right coalition. Instead it’s a bunch of people whose true colors are being revealed in the heat of battle. Faced with a choice between a massive project that will create good jobs and allow people the option of getting around the region without a car – thus helping the poor – or maintaining the status quo which only benefits the upper middle class and the wealthy, well, look which side these faux liberals have chosen.
It speaks volumes.
@74
That was good, I enjoyed it. A nice mix of ad hominem attacks, guilt by association, and misleading arguments. But very well done.
I voted for 912 to repeal a gas tax that financed too much new highway construction. Because I was concerned about its global warming implications. It is just taking some time for the rest of us to catch up to what it really means to take on global warming. But I am not claiming any high ground here. Al Gore and Ron Sims were leading on this a long time ago, and a lot of us weren’t really paying attention. An Inconvenient Truth, ice-caps melting, recent reports that atmospheric CO2 levels are reaching levels beyond the worst case scenarios, mean that a whole lot of us are catching up. Really, it is okay for us to now say that building all those highways was a mistake and we need to change our ways.
As for getting something done — let’s get something done on global warming. RTID, ST, the Legislature gave this issue the backs of their hands.
As for the anti-ST folks using the Sierra Club name on their ads – they shouldn’t do it, their reasons are not the Sierra Club’s reasons for opposing. But it does demonstrate how potent the Sierra Club name is, and how potent the environmentalists can be. The Sierra Club does not need to invoke Kemper Freeman in support of its message, but Freeman and others need to try and hijack the Sierra Club’s good will if they want to be effective. Elected leaders would do well to recognize that paying attention to Sierra Club objectives, not blowing them off, would be a pretty good electoral strategy.
As for the Sierra Club’s reputation – it is a democratic organization that has built its reputation by taking this type of stand. It will continue to do just fine.
Prop 1 hurts the poor, and not just because of the tax structure. We are part of a world community and making global warming worse will hurt the world’s poor worse than the wealthy. Drought in Africa, flooding in India – what we do matters and we need our politicians to change with the times.
We can fix the roads that need fixing, but adding capacity for cars is wrong. We need to make it easy for people to get out of their cars and away from this polluting lifestyle – that is the best way we can help the poor here and everywhere.
@78: So in order to get people out of their cars…you’re going to kill a proposal that would fund the buses and trains that are required to get people out of their cars?
Tell me how, exactly, that makes any sense.
@79
That’s simple. You don’t get people out of their cars by expanding highway capacity. The number of trips is not fixed, it responds to supply. The plan before the voters will creat more transit users, and more people driving. And therefore more global warming pollution
A plan with light rail, other new transit and congestion pricing would shift drivers out of cars and into transit. Those still in cars would have less congestion without building any new highways. Also, buses would be more reliable. Better for mobility, better for the planet.
That is the type of plan we need, and won’t get if we pass RTID.
“KS says:
Why would anyone in their right mind want to vote for Prop. 1.. Let Julia Patterson have panties in a wad with her tantrums and storm out of the room”
One always senses enlightenment when the Sound Politics goons enter the room.
“Light rail strikes me as 19th-Century thinking for the 21st-Century. Fixed, unyielding, inflexible, unresponsive to rapidly changing conditions, and breathtakingly expensive beyond belief,”
If you want expensive and inefficient, try building new freeways which match the people-moving capacity of rail in a dense urban environment for your “eco cars” Piper. The new interchange (alone) at 167/405 is pegged at well over a billion dollars.
” it’s more suited to a time when society was relatively immobile and homogeneous.”
Cars will always be part of the big picture, Piper Scott. That’s why so many park and ride spaces are provided in suburban areas, diverting drivers from crowded freeways and providing a reliable trip to work, the ball game, etc. But during ever-expanding rush hours (s) one person per car (needing 1500 square feet to operate at 30 mph – a lot more at 50) simply doesn’t cut it over the long run. Your argument may have held water over a decade ago in Pugetopolis, but it’s simply pie-in-the-sky and wishful ’60s-era thinking now. And 25 years out, your “vision” is a joke.
Piper, I appreciate your intellectual curiosity here, but try taking down you ideological blinders for a moment, and make an attempt to contact somebody in the Denver business community. (or, look up the Denver Transit Alliance – a branch of their chamber) Or Salt Lake, on of the most conservative regions in the US. None of your cold war thinking resonates in either region – for good reason. Your untested whims and theories just don’t play out in the real world.
Which may explain why you feel such kinship with Sierra Club theoreticians lately. But don’t let me stop you: armchair transportation planning is a lot more fun than reading some 100 page ridership evaluation, or state-mandated growth plan. You can just thumnail all that stuff on your own.
“Any number of commentators have questioned what will happen if things don’t pan out as light rail prognisticators have predicted…what if people don’t choose to ride it or live near it? What then?”
Yeah, they used that same dumb argument in each and every city across America before operations began. Guess what happened to all the hardcore anti-rail doubters in Red Salt Lake when their short starter line began carrying passengers? Yep, the Piper Scott’s disappeared.
Sure, you can say these regions built their rail on the cheap. But it’s all relative. Freeway construction is even cheaper out there.
To answer you overall question, Piper: it took me a long time to come to this point, where I’ve become such an advocate for light rail. The simple version is – quite frankly, I have yet to hear someboday come up with a better plan. And yes, I ride the bus regularly, so I see some benefits, as well as a heckuva a lot of limitations. Take the long-term operations and maintenance subsidy for buses – one driver, 30 people, and a lot of moving parts to run the engine and transmission. Two attached light rail vehicles can move 400 people using a relatively maintenance-free electric motor. The ride is smooth and quick, so many people don’t care if they’re standing, thus using interior space more efficiently. Ever tried standing on a bus? Good times.
Take a particularly expensive light rail proposal, like the downtown-capitol hill-UW-Northgate run. I have been asking rail critics for years if they could design a better all-bus alternative. None will take me up on it. One reason: if you wanted to even TRY matching light rail speed and reliability, it would mean removing a bunch of I-5 lanes which are currently under duress, and building hundreds of millions of dollars of ramps to get two-way buses on and off I-5 north lanes. And then what do the buses do once they hit parking lot/roads like 45th in the U District? Is there anybody willing to take 2 of 4 already jammed streets, and make them bus only? (the “punish the sinning humans” at The Sierra Club might be willing to give it a whirl – but nobody listens to them)
And keep in mind, it’s actually the “fixed” nature of rail that makes it so popular, attracting a lot more private capital (you know, the people who keep your party afloat) than any “unfixed” bus route will. Plus, rail attracts all demographics (even rich Republicans), unlike the bus which tends to attract the transit-dependent, possibly because of the poor quality of the ride and poor reliability.
Last point, Piper (we could debate this stuff for days). Your “green car” concept does nothing to solve congestion. In fact, a cheap to operate eletric car could easily make congestion a lot worse, because it’s cheap and green!
Again, it’s the right of way we’re lacking. The vehicles are secondary. What is the most efficient way to move large numbers of people along very, very expensive right of way? One person per car requiring 1,500 square feet, or somebody on a train requiring 50 square feet? (I forget the actual number)
Pretty simple math, really.
Did I mention those trains will run on hydropower?
Piper, it’s good to have a conservative around who can pose the tough questions, and show some intellectual curiosity. I hope I was able to answer at least a few of your questions/comments.
Just in time for the ballgame!
@76…Eugene…
You’ve nailed a huge reason why Prop 1 is a boondoggle: “good jobs.”
Movers and shakers in the construction business are pimping Prop 1 because it’s a cash cow for them from here to eternity, and the building trades unions are joined at the hip with them for exactly the same reason.
But that cash and the pay for those jobs will come out of our pockets, and since we’re the ones being asked to pony up, we should be able to say, “No!”
Transportation policy shouldn’t be be a jobs program! That jobs are created is secondary to the need to move area citizens effectively and efficiently.
That so many different people from radically and diametrically opposed POV’s all combine together to oppose Prop 1 speaks volumes. We’d have common cause on probably no other issue under the sun, but on this we all smell a big, bloated, misplaced, frighteningly expensive, and very ugly RAT!!!
Just because it’s today’s rat doesn’t mean we have to support it or the sky will fall. Nobody has moved away from the central Puget Sound region because we don’t have light rail. If anything, they moved from one part of Pugetopolis to another.
The class of folks who’ll really be screwed on this deal are those on the cusp. Adding the cost of Prop 1 to already strapped budgets may well tip the balance against a struggling family. Prop 1 is no friend to those of limited or fixed means. It’s reverse Robin Hood because it takes from the poor and middle income to give to the rich.
Here’s a prediction: No matter the vote on Prop 1, Olympia will eventually take over the whole transportation planning program. Whether it’s the inevitable collapse of RTID/2 because of its top heavy weight on spindly little legs, or its abject failure to actually make a difference in anything, Olympia – I have few friends there, BTW – as the central governing authority in the state, will be required to wrest control of regional transportation planning from the gang of angry chimps currently running it.
Call it tragedy on the level of the Greeks or Shakespeare, or just call it fubared to the enth degree…if the people buy into Prop 1, they will suffer and suffer badly.
You cannot take what’s an unworkable and expensive mess and flog it to life just because you want it to work. This ain’t a Jimmy Stewart movie because with Prop 1 it won’t be A Wonderful Life.
The Piper
Sims’ thinking makes sense if one assumes that there’s a coming economic and social upheaval that’s going to clear a lot of the private cars off the roads. Then all those buses are going to get around really, really well. If you’re still too proud to ride ’em, that’s your own problem. Walk or stay home.
28 “ArtFart – if we lose 520, we will lose Microsoft from the region”
Boy, oh boy….I can hardly wait!
82 Piper, you’re starting to get it…
Our entire economy and social structure have come to depend on persuading people to live in one place and earn their livelihood somewhere else, and get from one to the other in the most wasteful, grotesque, perilous and chaotic manner possible. This is simply unsustainable, and not just because it’s befouling the planet. Sooner or later it’s going to collapse of its own weight.
You cite Los Angeles where they’ve build hundreds of miles of freeways in the last few decades. Well, guess what? They’re already so jammed up that more and more people are choosing to drive on surface streets instead. Meanwhile, they have managed to put in some rail transit, but it still doesn’t serve a lot of areas, and more recently they’ve adopted Seattle’s modus operandi of studying the issue to death while Rome burns. It’s really too bad, because LA is one place that’s managed to figure out how to accommodate a gigantic population and still be a pretty cool place. They’re going to have to do more “thinking outside the box” to keep it that way.
Artfart,
Don’t forget RTID does nothing to fix the 33 teetering bridges with a lower safety rating than the bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed.
In RTID territory there are 34 dangerous bridges. RTID fixes only one of them. We have more to lose than 520. The RTID investment package is a cobbled-together mess.
@80: That assumes a static price of oil. Which, as I’ve tried to explain, is the assumption that explains why you antis are so wrong on this.
The expansion of highway lanes, in the end, will have hardly any effect at all on the shift to transit. People will turn to transit 1) when it is there and 2) when it is a more affordable option than driving. We’re almost at #2, we just need #1 to catch up.
The failure to consider the matter of Peak Oil is the fundamental flaw with the anti-Prop 1 crowd. It is the main reason why your stance is insane.
@82: You have no conception of how transportation affects a low income family’s budget. The cost of car ownership is FAR higher than the taxes and fares that buses and light rail will cost them. Orders of magnitude, really.
What Seattle’s struggling working class – and its middle class, squeezed by high housing costs – craves is affordable transportation. They WANT to get rid of their cars. Have you not seen the money that Flexcar is making? The yearly records in ridership that Metro sets? Hell, even Amtrak has been setting records in ridership every year since 2002.
When you total the cost of a new car, of interest, of insurance, maintenance, repairs, and of course gas, even the RTID taxes are a bargain in comparison.
When CenterLink opens in 2009 it is going to shatter ridership expectations. And folks will clamor for it to be extended to their neighborhoods. And they’ll wonder why we were so stupid in 2007 to reject the expansion plan.
@85: Huh? LA has already found the answer. They have countless light rail projects proposed for the region. What they lack is funding – and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the most recent budget slashed funding for those projects in order to ram a wider 405 down people’s throats.
As someone born and raised there, I can assure you that LA has not solved or figured out a damn thing. Its problems are immeasurably worse than Seattle’s – but Seattle is doing its damned best to repeat LA’s mistakes.
“Prop 1 hurts the poor, and not just because of the tax structure. We are part of a world community and making global warming worse will hurt the world’s poor worse than the wealthy. ”
Oh God, more generic gobbeldy-guk from yet another Sierra Clubber. Can we talk something besides bumpersticker slogans for once? Piper Scott did it.
Tell that to India and China, Glacier Hugger. Better yet, leave your Seattle bubble and get a Sierra Club chapter in a developing country. We could punish ourselves to the point where we’re riding our Sierra Club approved bikes (made out of sticks – not carbon-causing metal) down Interstate 5, and the result would be but a blip on the screen.
Get real, and cut the fundamentalist religion overtones.
Also, check your Cascade Chapter talking points. The “Congestion Pricing” plan SC and Ron Sims have in store for us punished the poor, working poor and middle class to a MUCH greater extent than sales tax does (gas taxes are almost as regressive).
So, if you’re a Sierra Cub Scout happily living in your $650,000 Ballard Craftsman, you pay zilch because you’ve got neato buses, and no limited access freeways to travel on. If your the person cleaning the Sierra Club’s toilets, or delivering the granola to their overpriced “co-ops” you’re NOT living in Wallingford, you’re in Lakewood, or Burien, or any number of other neighborhoods – and, depending on what time of day you HAVE to go to work, the Sierra Club plan will be tolling the crap out of you.
The further away you live (ie, the more affordable the neighborhood) the more you are punished.
With sales tax, which does not apply to food or drugs, you have a choice as to how much crap from China you consume. Given the comments from many of the so-called greens here, who worry how much paying sales tax on that $3,000 Yakima Rack will cost them, it’s clear they’re really concerned about the plight of the working class.
Which raises another point: I thought massive consumption was supposed to be a BAD thing. I thought the Sierra Club preaches that our throw-away culture is killing the planet ?
Now, all of a sudden, the talking points get switched out, and we find folks are encouraged to buy as much crap as possible. 60 cents on a hundred dollar purchase is really going to kill people, especially when you consider that money will be going directly to community jobs, and a community transportation system which will serve this – and future – generations.
But, no, you say. “That’s $18 for my Outback’s Yakima rack! I NEED that rack so I can go climb mountains!”
@33 “If anyone thinks that voting no will produce solutions sooner or cheaper than the one on the ballot this year, they’re just not looking at facts.”
The facts, as I understand them, is that the taxes I pay next year under Prop. 1 will fund transportation improvements that won’t be completed in my lifetime.
So it takes 6 years for a new board to starting building anything. That’s an improvement over 20 years by a factor of three! But why would we need a new board? We already have existing agencies responsible for roads — they’re call WSDOT and county raod departments. And I doubt Sound Transit will go away if Prop. 1 fails.
Roads define a civilization. They define its ability to commerce, to educate and be safe.
Trains were a huge step up from the horse and buggy. They are a giant step backwards from the near total freedom created by the car that has enabled America in the 20th Century to become the economic world leader. The ability to transit to and from stores and businesses has created an economy here in America that is the envy of the world.
A train system cannot be all things to all people. A roads system can. Auto trips are as scaleable as the roads. On a train system, the schedule is not individualized, route length is pre-determined and fixed. Even bus routes can be scaleable (a train can’t turn around mid-route).
ST doesn’t have, can’t have anywhere near the stations needed to be a flexible system. Because it is fixed. Stuck. Without stations every 1/2 mile (absolute maximum walking distance, especially for children or elderly), it is unusable as an alternate to busses. And saying that folks must ride the bus to the train is not gonna cut it. On several levels.
Talk about energy? Every source pollutes somehow. We’re not running out of oil anytime soon. And the left doesn’t want any more dams so there goes inexpensive electricity for the rails (or busses).
Sounder trains are an excellent indication of light rail use. In the S end, usage is little more than half of what was expected by 2002. In the N end: Forget it. If folks can make it around the frequent mudslides (think light rail won’t have physical and mechanical malfunctions?) they choose not to ride it anyway. Period. Ridership is horrific.
Now, I’m sure that all of the advocates of ST have sold their cars, moved downtown, and wouldn’t think of commuting by personal vehicle. Otherwise you’d be hypocrites, right?
This isn’t to say that conservatives are against taxation. Not common sense taxes. That’s why the gas tax is such an excellent idea. Pay for what you use. It’s where vehicle taxes need to go: Pay by weight and length of vehicle.
Somebody posted above that all of life is subsidized. Man, that’s some whack thinking. Somebody, usually those of us in our prime taxing and earning years are doing the subsidizing for those usually too lazy or greedy to work for themselves.
Sum it up: ST2? Hell no.
There’s really been only one party in power in WA for 40+ years (last time the Republicans were in power they built the freeways system, thanks Fiorito!). That’s why the Viaduct isn’t being replaced (remember that emergency?). It’s why the schools, roads, court system, DSHS and every other gov’t agency in this state are f***ed up beyond belief.
We don’t need them building an antiquated train system to slowly shuffle us around to our highly taxed jobs.
The Yakima rack provides a good example of how the sales tax is a lot more progressive than it seems (certainly a lot less regressive than “toll the poor”) – if you need need more examples, visit the clothing section at WalMart and check the price tags and note the kinds of folks shopping ther; then visit the “Couture” section at Nordstrom’s, and repeat your observations. The clothes each demographic purchases essentially have the same function – the price difference is HUGE.
Next stop – price tag checking / people-watching at the Kia dealership. Then off to Barrier Motors in Bellevue…..
Need any more examples, Glacier Hugger? Trying to calculate the tax on that Audi 4-wheel drive you guys had your hearts set-on yet?
I kid…
“Don’t forget RTID does nothing to fix the 33 teetering bridges with a lower safety rating than the bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed.”
Is there a machine over at the Sierra Club’s Queen Anne/Fremont offices that just cranks these generic talking points out? Are any of these “green warriors against transit” prepared to ever spend a minute or two trying to go a bit deeper into the subject – beyond just “cut and paste” the bumper sticker sentence?
Boring.
@35 “If you’re having difficulty making ends meet, try getting a job and not wasting your remaining years on this fucking blog.”
I have 4 responses:
1) Why do you assume I’m healthy enough to hold down a full-time, steady job?
2) Why do you assume employers are willing to hire someone of my age?
3) Why do you assume I haven’t tried?
4) Why should I? After 40 years of hard work, why shouldn’t I be able to retire?
5) And what’s so unreasonable about expecting to live on the retirement income I was promised, without having other people take it for things THEY want?
6) If you want this so badly, why don’t you pay for it with user fees, or why don’t you get the taxes from people who will use it and can afford to pay the taxes?
Actually that’s 6 responses. Thre’s ifnlation for ya …
@88…Eugene…
You blithely assume that mass transit is an equivalent substitute for a car, and you’re wrong.
Remember…50 measly miles!!! You have to drive to the train station or park-and-ride; not everybody will choose or be able to live right on the line.
So, those with marginal incomes will have to pay for both Prop 1 and their clunkers. In the meantime, the well off who can afford the expensive condos close to the transit lines will also have light rail plus their Beamers or Lexi or Hummers…and they will.
The family unfriendly nature of Prop 1 is staggering. I’ve asked this question beaucoup times: how does one schlep home a half-dozen sheets of 4X8 sheetrock, wallboard mud, a box of sheetrock screws, and tape? Or pick up the cleaning, get the kids from soccer or ballet practice, visit mom at the assisted living center, run lunchtime errands or all the rest?
The people who are expected to give up their cars and go exclusively to light rail won’t and can’t. Their lives are too individualistic and diverse.
Can you take light rail to Snoqualmie Pass to play in the snow? Or up to the Stilley to wet a line for steelhead? How about down to NW Trek? People will continue to need cars, which means moderate income people will be stuck paying for both.
@85…AF…
I never cited LA…you must have me confused with another poster.
I operate on a fundamental premise that whatever inhibits the freedom and liberty of the people must be opposed, while whatever enhances it should be supported. Done right, a mass transit proposal can be supported. Prop 1 isn’t done at all right; it’s a killer of freedom, and, for that alone, it deserves itself to be killed.
The Piper
I pay sales tax on toilet paper. I don’t see why I should pay more to wipe my furry butt so commuters living in Belltown condos can ride trains across Lake Washington to work in Bellevue highrises. If they put in for a transfer to their law firm’s downtown Seattle office, they could walk to work, and I could afford to take a shit.
@40 “This is what Roger Rabbit meant to say: You pesky kids get that light rail off my lawn!”
No, I’m only bitching about the money.
“Al Gore and Ron Sims were leading on this a long time ago, and a lot of us weren’t really paying attention.”
Bad example, rtidstinks. Ron Sims put out his own Roads & Transit plan in 2004 (because he was “tired of delay”).
That plan was 53% roads, and something like 20% for light rail. I assume “a long time ago” includes 2004?
You guys are being taken for a ride. Hope and desperation do make for an interesting mix.
“That is the type of plan we need, and won’t get if we pass RTID.”
Wrong again, rtidstinks. You won’t get that plan because the public strongly opposes it.
Once the public figures out your highly regressive taxes will deliver NOTHING (in fact, it will remove lanes to make way for Ron Sims’ diesel buses) and people will be asked to “pay to be punished” the small band of Congestion Pricing social engineers (all 5 might be present on this thread right now!) will get laughed right out of the room.
Would be the first time, either, would it?
Why don’t you try reading the Sims “alternative route” congestion pricing plan, rtidstinks. It says, right down towards the bottom, that you essentially need a viable rapid transit system in place BEFORE embarking on your little experiment in social control (no, the mandatory gps transponder isn’t free).
Get it? No Roads & Transit, no “punish the suburbanite” plan.
I would be so critical, rtidstinks, if our arguments weren’t so weak. and just plain wrong.
Now I know why you guys dodge the details, and stick with these pointless and lazy talking points.
Not seeing a lot of intellectual prowess coming out of the Cascade Chapter.
Did you guys merge with the Discovery Institute, or something?
@43 “The reason why everyone from Crackpiper to Roger Rabbit opposes this thing is because we’ve become a nation of spoiled brats who think that everything in life should be easy and free and that we don’t have to sacrifice for anything.”
You haven’t read a fucking thing I wrote on the topic, have you?
I ask Prop. 1 boosters to refut my objections and get #43 … c’mon, do you really think calling me a “spoiled brat” will persuade me?
@ 100
Considering just how much comment pollution you generate, reading everything you’ve posted is not only hard to do, but it’s warned against by the Surgeon General.
@92: “We’re not running out of oil anytime soon.”
Hahahahahahaha. Classic. The Oil Drum should be your first stop after reading my comment. There you will see that, yes, we ARE running out of oil – but more importantly, before we run out of supply, the cost of the oil we do get will soar. We are already at $3/gal. Next year or 2009 will likely see $100/bbl oil which will push prices at the pump to $4 or $5/gal.
Suddenly roads and cars aren’t so scalable. And before you mention “biofuels” go to Safeway or QFC and tell me how much basic food prices have risen lately – thanks to the biofuels vogue.
“And the left doesn’t want any more dams so there goes inexpensive electricity for the rails (or busses).”
The Pacific Northwest has a massive excess electricity capacity. We built more dams and more nuke plants than we needed. Cheap power will be there for rail and busses.
“Now, I’m sure that all of the advocates of ST have sold their cars, moved downtown, and wouldn’t think of commuting by personal vehicle. Otherwise you’d be hypocrites, right?”
I sold my car months ago. I relied on Metro and my two feet to commute from Green Lake to work.
And if you don’t think that freeways and housing have been massively subsidized, then you’re not informed enough to continue this conversation.
“Sounder trains are an excellent indication of light rail use. In the S end, usage is little more than half of what was expected by 2002.”
cmiklich: you came to the right place – the land of misinformed people.
Writing in from Vantage, Wa?
Sounder is not light rail, it’s a commuter rail line; and if you bothered to think before you posted, you would know that in 6 years of operation, the trains are full to the point they just added three more – after adding several cars earlier in the year. Don’t take my word, drive (don’t actually ride the train) to Puyallup station at 5:30 or 6 on a work day, and tell if those are workers (or propaganda models) flowing off the trains headed for home.
Your comments about cars and roads being more efficient than transit might indicate you’re not from Vantage at all. Too much activity there. Maybe Othello, just up the road a piece?
@103…Eugene…
Everyone is entitled to whatever lifestyle suits them…subject only to their ability to support it and their mutual respect of the lifestyles of others.
Selling your car (to someone who needs a car???) so you can commute from Green Lake to work by bus and on foot is great for you and you should be commended for living consistent with your values. But does that mean everyone must sell their cars, move to Green Lake and take the bus or walk?
What if your employer up and reassigned you to, say, Duvall or the company shut down and the only job available to you was in, say, Orting? Or the boss said, “Eugene, we want you to go on the road for us as a sales/tech service rep, you’re such a good guy!” What then? Foot and Metro?
My brother’s job entails him going to his customers to repair their boats. Should he do that now by Metro and on foot? From Green Lake?
Your vision is limited to the end of your nose. And you seem to want everyone to be just like you. Thank you, no!
The Piper
@44 “Here is where the lack of public knowledge of Peak Oil (which will make driving VERY expensive, very soon – already $3/gal gas is the norm) becomes such a problem.”
The only thing that’s peaking is production from the aging supergiant oilfields where oil is easy and inexpensive to obtain, and which until now, have supplied about half the world’s production. Those fields are still busily pumping away, although their lifespans are definitely measurable, but demand has grown to the point where expensive oil from hard-to-get sources now has to be a growing part of the mix.
The truth is, the deep offshore and Arctic provinces, underdeveloped third world provinces, and Canadian tar sands and Orinoco heavy-oil deposits contain many times the world’s original petroleum reserves — enough to keep the Petroleum Economy going for a hell of a long time. There’s still plenty of oil, if you’re willing to pay $60 a barrel for it — way more than is good for the environment or our long-term economic health.
Global warming, of course, is another thing altogether. A couple years ago, National Geographic Magazine quoted a scientist as saying, “The world is going to run out of atmosphere before it runs out of oil.”
My guess is human civilization won’t end when the oil and bitumen run out … there’s probably post-petroleum energy technology out there waiting to be discovered, or invented, or built, or whatever. The problem is oil is still too cheap to create the incentives to build it, and probably will remain so for a long time to come.
@103
Where I work food costs are up 15% over 2 years ago.
@92: At least these are reasonable concerns, but they can be dealt with.
“You blithely assume that mass transit is an equivalent substitute for a car, and you’re wrong.
Remember…50 measly miles!!! You have to drive to the train station or park-and-ride; not everybody will choose or be able to live right on the line.”
No, but people will be able to live near it – OR near a bus line that connects you to the rail system. Light rail lines alone won’t suffice for an alternative to driving, but with light rail lines taking the place of buses on the major routes, there will be new resources to get bus service to the parts of the Puget Sound region that it does not currently serve adequately.
“So, those with marginal incomes will have to pay for both Prop 1 and their clunkers. In the meantime, the well off who can afford the expensive condos close to the transit lines will also have light rail plus their Beamers or Lexi or Hummers…and they will.”
This is why the line through South King County is so important – and the extension north to Lynnwood/Everett. Already MANY folks living there rely on Metro, or Community Transit, to commute to their jobs in the Seattle core. Light rail can help them get there more quickly and free up the buses to get to the neighborhoods it doesn’t already serve.
Those with marginal incomes will now have many more options than they currently have.
“The family unfriendly nature of Prop 1 is staggering. I’ve asked this question beaucoup times: how does one schlep home a half-dozen sheets of 4X8 sheetrock, wallboard mud, a box of sheetrock screws, and tape? Or pick up the cleaning, get the kids from soccer or ballet practice, visit mom at the assisted living center, run lunchtime errands or all the rest?”
Alan Durning of the Sightline Institute tackled that very question by going carless, along with his wife and family: The Year of Living Carlessly. It was not easy. I do not claim it will be. But it IS possible. And only with added transit capacity can Seattleites make the shift away from the car.
“The people who are expected to give up their cars and go exclusively to light rail won’t and can’t. Their lives are too individualistic and diverse.”
We’re just going to have to disagree here, because I believe there IS a demand in Seattle to move beyond dependence on cars. I don’t think it’s a matter of individualism – it’s instead that government policy for 50 years in Washington has favored the automobile. Provide the alternatives and they will get used.
“Can you take light rail to Snoqualmie Pass to play in the snow? Or up to the Stilley to wet a line for steelhead? How about down to NW Trek? People will continue to need cars, which means moderate income people will be stuck paying for both.”
That is where carsharing programs like Flexcar come in to play. For the last year I lived in Seattle without a car. I lived in the Green Lake neighborhood. I still went on trips to Leavenworth, camping outings to the Olympic Peninsula – by basically renting a car. I could still make those getaways, but I did not need to own a car for that to happen.
Light rail will not immediately obviate the need for cars. But my providing people with alternatives for their commute and basic errands, it CAN obviate the need for folks to own their own vehicles. And THAT is an enormous savings.
To reduce social dependence on cars will require more than light rail alone – it will require a shift in housing and retail locations. But that shift will not work without light rail. Light rail is the necessary first piece.
And remember, that shift WILL happen. Driving is only going to become less affordable over the coming years. The question is, will we develop the necessary alternatives, or will we let folks fend for themselves? Marginal income families will be totally screwed if, in 2017, gas costs $10/gal and they have no other options.
“Now, I’m sure that all of the advocates of ST have sold their cars, moved downtown, and wouldn’t think of commuting by personal vehicle. Otherwise you’d be hypocrites, right?”
I live and work in the burbs. I’m 2.5 miles from work and I ride my bike to work and the store when I can. I have a car (Ford Focus, nothing fancy), supports of ST aren’t telling everyone to sell their cars. You’re making that shit up.
@55. OK, have it your way… you believe global warming exists, and that we have to do something about it (not so sure about the latter, but I will spot you one). I’ll take your points one by one. We’ve been over most of this before, but here we go again…
a) All the roads (and probably more) planned out by Prop 1 will still be built, but the transit will have a much less chance of getting done
You are arguing that roads are more likely to be built without the locked-in money that Prop 1 will give them (you are aware, aren’t you, that if Prop 1 passes, the law is written so that the road projects are irrevocable without another public vote, while the light rail does not have this protection). If you really believe this argument, then please expand it, because as it is, it makes no sense at all. In addition, you are arguing that if a roads measure is shut down because progressive voters had the courage to vote against roads that will make global warming worse, then somehow, the road lobby will be encouraged to build more roads. Again, this is incredibly hard to believe.
b) The lack of rail transit will continue to prevent Seattle from effectively increasing its population density, which leads to more sprawl
This assumes that Prop 1 is the only chance in the world to get light rail… ridiculous.
c) Even more roads will need to build to handle the increased sprawl caused by a lack of transit
You need the roads to get the sprawl, right? No roads, no sprawl. And again, you’re trying to argue that once Prop 1 fails, it will be impossible to build transit.
You are more than welcome to convince yourself that the support for transit is so great that it will just get done later, but that ignores the reality of what the legislators in Olympia hear from their constituents. Many people don’t recognize the value of transit until it’s too late. It’s been too late here in Seattle for decades and we still haven’t learned that lesson.
You are more than welcome to convince yourself that if the road lobby gets away with using transit as a hostage for more highways, that it won’t try that trick again. First rule with bullies: you lose when you let them win.
You sound no different than the people who made the ridiculous argument that if we get rid of Saddam, Iraq and the entire Middle East could only get better. The reason you can’t envision the problems down the road is because you simply close your eyes and imagine that they won’t happen.
Of course, I claim this is actually true of you!
You know, you’ve gone from being someone intelligent here to being a complete embarrassment. You know full-well that we’re not arguing that we’re “doomed” when it comes to global warming. We’re arguing that these decisions aren’t as cut and dry as you want to make them out to be.
I’ve been saying the same thing all along — still saying the same thing. But actually, I owe you an apology. Thinking back to the last time I posted here, you were fairly reasonable, and did come close to conceding that Prop 1 will make global warming worse. It’s the other yahoos who didn’t.
Anyway, let me run this by you again:
The PSRC’s own numbers say that the result of the passage of Prop 1 will be a 45% increase in driving at a time when we know we need to decrease our greenhouse gas emissions by 80%. This is a known loss, correct? (if, as you claim, you believe that we have to do something about global warming, then your one option is to nod your head “yes”). A vote for Prop 1 is certain to make global warming worse, and therefore, by voting yes, you are saying that we’re screwed either way. A logical person who didn’t believe that we were screwed either way, you would not pick the certain loss.
Now, let us see if we’re screwed if Prop 1 fails. The nightmare scenario you love to paint is that all hell will break loose of Prop 1 goes down. Improbable events will occur, such as more roads being built when guaranteed funding is taken away, or that the message Olympia will take from the fact that Seattle liberals killed a highway package is that Seattle liberals don’t want transit. I’ll grant you that Olympia will not ignore the Kemper Freemans of the world, but the highway lobby people are dinosaurs on their way out, as polls on highways vs. mass transit will tell you. And, if I grant you that, then you will have to grant me this: polls also show that the public is increasingly concerned about global warming, and increasingly believes that we must act urgently; as the Freemans go down, the majority who will pay for transit goes up.
Given the trends, Prop 1 is probably the last chance for the highway lobby to lock in a guaranteed funding package of this size. If it goes down, it is crazy to assume that highway funding goes up — worst case is that it’ll stay flat, or perhaps we will get the increase we would have gotten regardless of this November’s result, when it comes time to repair all the broken bridges and roads that Prop 1 does not actually deal with. For sure, sprawlways like the Cross Base Highway are dead for good.
It is true, that a failure of Prop 1 may delay transit funding by a year or two. Not forever. But, rather than weighing risks and practicing delayed gratification, you prefer to panic — to grab at those shiny trains just as highway lobby intended, and in the process, make global warming worse for sure.
Can’t ya just feel the love in the room!
The conventional wisdom on Wall Street is that oil prices will come down in a couple years … all the way down to the Saudis’ purported nominal price target of $28 to $32 a barrel. I think that’s wrong. Nobody in the oil industry believes this, judging by the number of multi-billion-dollar bets the industry is making on ultra-expensive deepwater drilling platforms that don’t turn a profit on oil worth less than $40 a barrel at the wellhead. One of the things I have to decide is whether to hold onto my stocks in the companies that build and rent those platforms, which have tripled over the last two years, or sell my shares and grab those capital gains before oil and share prices crash. I’m holding, because I see another triple. $28 oil is a pipe dream. Ain’t gonna happen, folks. $3 gas is here to stay, in fact, in a few years it’ll look cheap. Why? Because world consumption, even at these lofty prices, is above 86 million bpd and rising; and there is no way in hell the industry can supply that much oil without tapping into expensive deepwater, arctic, and tar sand sources. The instant market prices drop below what it costs to produce from those sources, that production shuts down. The only thing that can possibly bring down crude prices is a demand crash, the kind you get from a global depression or a nuclear war.
@105: I’m not saying people should live the way I did. I *am* saying that they will soon have little other choice.
There will be a continued need for cars, based on oil – whether someone works in Duvall, brings food from a farm in Enumclaw to market in Tacoma, is a lineman for Puget Sound Energy. But because oil’s supply is finite and its cost is rising – and Roger Rabbit is simply wrong to dismiss the issue – we need to ensure that those folks who really have no other option can get the oil and roads they need.
For the mass of people who commute across 520 or I-90, up I-5 and Aurora Ave, across the West Seattle Bridge, etc, they CAN be coaxed out of their cars. And I think climate change, energy concerns, and economics all suggest we begin the effort to do that. If people can drive less, they should. And we should make it easier for that to happen.
@103…Eugene…
As an aside…and since I work in the “jobs” business, perhaps the fastest growing career opportunity for technical and operations people coming out of traditional manufacturing is in bio-fuels.
Whether the trend continues or ends up being a fad remains to be seen. But the current fact is that bio-fuel jobs – jobs that didn’t exist five years ago – are hotter than a two dollar pistol.
I know a guy who managed plants for several companies in the soft disposables industry, rising eventually to become a director of supply chain management. He’s now with a firm that recycles booze (spoiled runs, past pull date) into biofuel.
That alternative fuel source will prolong the life of the individually owned and operated motor vehicle, for which there will be a need for roads upon which to operate it.
Don’t think that what’s a good plan for your works for everyone.
The Piper
@113…Eugene…
I’m sorry, but free choice is at the essence of market driven economies, and this will continue to be a market driven economy, even in the area of transit and other transportation opitions. Free people will demand free choice.
The Piper
“I operate on a fundamental premise that whatever inhibits the freedom and liberty of the people must be opposed,”
Geez, The Piper, do you feel free when caught in a big traffic jam, surrounded by a bunch of other freedom-seeking Americans? The folks in Denver and Salt Lake voted to tax themselves so they could actually achieve that freedom, mobility and choice rather than just sit around and make self-centered proclamations about it.
Another thing which ties together the loopy left ideologues with the self-serving righties (aka, NoToProp1):
notice the frequency of “I ride my bike” “I want my freeway widened” “I don’t want to pay.” Me, me me – I, I, I.
Too bad all these disaffected, provincial and self-centered bubble-boys on both political fringes couldn’t all go off and duke it out on an island somewhere.
They could sit around and argue about which one TRULY sits at the center of the universe:
The self-sacrificing (so everybody else must sacrifice) greenies,
vs.
the self-centered (blame everbody else for my own problems) rightists
They leave, and the rest of us in the middle can finally move forward, together.
One can dream…
I just want to point out something to the pro-transit folks who are planning to vote No on this. The following was written in comment #66 by someone else planning to vote No on it:
Light rail strikes me as 19th-Century thinking for the 21st-Century. Fixed, unyielding, inflexible, unresponsive to rapidly changing conditions, and breathtakingly expensive beyond belief, it’s more suited to a time when society was relatively immobile and homogeneous.
Now that’s not a joke. Crackpiper is a real person who is writing things this stupid because he really believes it. He’s not just someone who is being paid to troll here and feign retarded. He really is retarded, and his vote counts every bit as much as the votes of people who don’t think global warming is sham.
Think about what you’re doing by siding with folks as stupid as him. You’re not going to come out ahead in a year or two.
@115
That’s not the point of what Eugene is saying. He actually has the correct balance. You can’t make people’s decisions for them, but you can change the options that people have. Just because you’ve read Milton Friedman does not mean that you understand it.
@117…Lee…
Oh, gee, now you’re engaging in the politics of comparative embarrassment.
“Hey, true blue lefties and HA regulars…Do you want it known that you and The Piper had something in common? That you were on the same side of an issue as that wingnut?”
You’re getting desparate, Lee…
The common cause here isn’t pro or con transit per se, but the inane and insane nature of Prop 1. Everything I said about light rail is true. Yet there are those who take exception to that who still think Prop 1 sucks. It is a free country!
Light rail has serious limitations, and its advocates ought to at least acknowledge some of them. And in Prop 1 it’s breathtakingly expensive beyond belief.
@116…LTSKA…
It has nothing to do with selfishness and everything to do with stupidity. Prop 1 is stupid, and those who support it are the selfish ones since they want their way supported irrespective of how foolish their way is.
Read my posts! I’ve said every opponent of Prop 1 acnowledges the need for a transportation package. What we don’t like is this package for lots of very sound reasons.
Part of this package’s problems is the process by which it was created. That has to be scrapped before anything decent can take its place.
Both you and Lee, out of data and legit arguments, now drop into ad hominum attack mode. No matter how nasty you get, Prop 1 still sucks.
The Piper
Re: Lovin, et al.
Sorry. Live right here in the Zone. Very well aware of what Sounder is (and is NOT). It is a mode of transportation I would have leave my house earlier for, drive 180 degrees the wrong direction to get to, pay more than what my CLEV econobox uses (total costs/mileage: Gas, Maintenance, Ins, Purchase, etc…), get to work more than a half hour later and do the reverse in the evening, all for more money.
And, yes I am right about Sounder travel. ST quoted over 9,000 folks riding each direction by 2002. They’ve barely made half of that. Because of time constraints.
And costs.
And taxes.
And inflexibility.
Etc, etc, etc.
Point for point, cost for cost, time, any method or item you choose, when it comes to moving people (not talking freight) rail sucks. It sucks bad.
@116
notice the frequency of “I ride my bike” “I want my freeway widened” “I don’t want to pay.” Me, me me – I, I, I.
Too bad all these disaffected, provincial and self-centered bubble-boys on both political fringes couldn’t all go off and duke it out on an island somewhere.
Exactly! This issue has been maybe the greatest illustration of how when it comes to the nuts and bolts of society, the lunatics on both the left (enviro-nuts) and the right (Crackpiper) end up standing in the same place because they demand oversimplicity and a free lunch in a complex world where nothing is achieved without hard work and sacrifice.
@119
Oh, gee, now you’re engaging in the politics of comparative embarrassment.
“Hey, true blue lefties and HA regulars…Do you want it known that you and The Piper had something in common? That you were on the same side of an issue as that wingnut?”
You’re getting desparate, Lee…
I didn’t write that you dumbfuck, so don’t use quotes.
The common cause here isn’t pro or con transit per se, but the inane and insane nature of Prop 1. Everything I said about light rail is true. Yet there are those who take exception to that who still think Prop 1 sucks. It is a free country!
No, nothing you’ve said about light rail is true. And yes, you have a right to your opinion on Prop 1. And I have a right to point out to the environmentalists on this thread that you’re a retard who doesn’t believe that global warming is happening.
“the frequency of “I ride my bike”
Too bad all these disaffected, couldn’t all go off and duke it out on an island somewhere.
Exactly! This issue has been maybe the greatest illustration of how when it comes to the nuts and bolts of society, the lunatics end up standing in the same place”
So, when I say that I ride my bike to work when I can to show that biking is a viable form of transport over short distances I’m a provincial and self-centered bubble-boy on the political fringe.”
Never mind that you don’t actually know who I am. Nice.
@103 “The Pacific Northwest has a massive excess electricity capacity. We built more dams and more nuke plants than we needed. Cheap power will be there for rail and busses.”
Eh? Then why are fossil fuel generating platns being built in Wshington and Ortegon? No, the PNW doesn’t have excess electricity capacity.
@123
So, when I say that I ride my bike to work when I can to show that biking is a viable form of transport over short distances I’m a provincial and self-centered bubble-boy on the political fringe.”
Never mind that you don’t actually know who I am. Nice.
No, Michael, I’m not referring to you. I know you well enough to know that you’re an intelligent person who uses reason and understands the complexities here (and I think SeattleJew and Roger Rabbit have illustrated some more valid criticisms of Prop 1 and I think I’ve erred in lumping them in with the crazies). But there are a large number of people out there whose opposition to Prop 1 boils down to complete irrationalities and outright (and misguided) selfishness.
@108 “This is why the line through South King County is so important – and the extension north to Lynnwood/Everett. Already MANY folks living there rely on Metro, or Community Transit, to commute to their jobs in the Seattle core. Light rail can help them get there more quickly and free up the buses to get to the neighborhoods it doesn’t already serve.”
There’s nothing in the downtown core except office jobs and a little retail. Why is it necessary to transport so many people such long distances to sit at work stations in cubicles? Why not bring the office jobs to where the wrokers live?
@122…Lee…
No, those weren’t your exact words, but they are a distillation of your sentiments.
The Piper
@126…RR…
“…bring the office jobs…”
Not all employers are keen on telecommuting. Some want their people together for a variety of reasons. And the workers live all over the place, so the office is where they all interact.
Not all homes are equipped to be work-at-home environments.
While some employees – mostly non-exempt types – can telecommute and have the set up to do it, most can’t, so they have to old-fashioned-commute.
The Piper
@113 “But because oil’s supply is finite and its cost is rising – and Roger Rabbit is simply wrong to dismiss the issue ”
How do you figure I’m dismissing the issue? Oil fundamentals are changing. But let’s be clear about HOW they’re changing … the world is transitioning from cheap oil to expensive oil, not from cheap oil to no oil. The suburban American car culture, and the commuting lifestyle built around it, now has an anchor around its neck — expnsive oil. That’s going to change how Americans live, work, and play. Developing more efficient transportation than a 5,000-lb. vehicle occupied by one person is just common sense in the brave new world of expensive energy.
@129…RR…
Tell the truth, Rabbit…don’t you secretely pine for a candy apple red, deep metallic, ’57 Chev with baby-moon hubs and the 283 cubic inch engine with a twinCarter four-barrel carb option and a solid lifter camshaft (270 hp)? Then you could cruise for bunnies at Dick’s or the old Zesto’s, RTID/2 and ST be damned!
You could zip around Green Lake like a madrabbit with your quadrophonic speakers blasting Jan and Dean tunes from now until the SPD busts you.
The Piper
@117 We either need more mass transit, or we need to disperse jobs to where people live. I don’t see the latter happening, so that leaves us the former.
At the same time, even if you don’t believe in building more roads to accomodate a growing population and the cars they add to existing traffic, we either must maintain the roads and bridges we already have or suffer a net loss of trafic capacity.
I’m not against common-sense mass transit. However, I see damned little common sense in where the regional transportation planners are taking us:
1) Committing tens of billions to expand light rail before the 520 bridge and other necessary R&R (repair and replacement) of existing transportation infrastructure is funded;
2) Giving up a third of Seattle’s through highway capacity by allowing SR-99 through downtown to revert to a boulevard intersected by cross streets and pedestrian crosswalks;
3) I do not see the region’s big employers being asked to chip in toward the enormous costs of moving their workers to their plants and offices;
4) I do see general tax increases being piled on top of rising costs for food, utility bills, medical care, and just about everythng else that household income has to stretch to cover.
What is so hard for some of you to understand about the concept that when you ask people who are not in a position to increase their income to shoulder large tax increases to pay for something they don’t need and won’t use — pushing them to the wall for their necessities — they’re not going to cooperate with you?
You can build all the roads you want if you pay for them with gas taxes and tolls. Not having to commute to a job, I drive so little that a 50-cent local gas tax is something I could live with. I’m not saying it would take a 50-cent gas tax to pay for all this stuff. But getting the money for transportation by taxing fuel consumption makes a ton of sense. It puts the greatest financial burden of these projects on the people who use them the most. It helps reduce traffic congestion by discouraging frivolous driving. It exacts a larger contribution from motorists who insist on commuting in large, heavy vehicles. To the extent it reduces driving, it also reduces vehicle emissions.
Prop. 1 does everything wrong. It includes low priority or unnecessary projects for the sole purpose of buying votes. It funds a very expensive expansion of a light rail system that isn’t even operational yet without paying for 520 replacement. Arguably, it puts too much emphasis on the wrong public transportation mode, although I’m not entirely sure of this. It gets too much of the money from the wrong people and in the wrong way, which for me is a deal-breaker. And despite the huge burden of new taxation it imposes, it’s not even close to providing a comprehensive solution to our transportation needs — it’s only a down payment, with more projects and more big tax increases to come later.
The media tells us the Puget Sound region’s transportation lobby has a $100 billion wish list. They seem determined to get all of it, and to hell with the average citizen’s ability to pay. I see absolutely nothing happening in terms of prioritizing, economizing, or paring back. Everything is gold-plated, and they want the whole Godzilla package.
Now let’s add the $50 billion we’re going to be asked to pay for cleaning up Puget Sound, and another $50 billion to replace Seattle’s century-old water and sewer infrastructure, not to mention deferred maintenance in public parks let alone acquiring new parks for a growign population …
Does anyone here besides me know how to do basic math on a calculator? That’s $200 billion, and when you divided that up among 2 million people, it works out to $200,000 per person over 20 years, which comes out to $10,000 per person per year in NEW spending and taxes on top of the already unaffordable cost of living.
What is missing from this picture is a sense of reality and even one iota of consideration or sensitivity to people who are going to get crushed by the extravagant tax burdens our regional visionaries intend to impose on us.
Saying “no” at the ballot box is the only defense you have.
“Point for point, cost for cost, time, any method or item you choose, when it comes to moving people (not talking freight) rail sucks. It sucks bad.”
Yes, that’s why rail transport has been eliminated in Europe and Japan. No “Europe on $5/Day” for you.
@130 “Tell the truth, Rabbit…don’t you secretely pine for a candy apple red, deep metallic, ‘57 Chev with baby-moon hubs and the 283 cubic inch engine with a twinCarter four-barrel carb option and a solid lifter camshaft (270 hp)?”
No. But if you’re pining away for an early-eighties-vintage Chevy Blazer with a brand new 351 V-8 and Holly 4-barrel that you’re willing to pay $5,000 for, send a private message to Goldy and ask him to forward it to me.
@133…RR…
No wonder you drive so little; it’s a wonder you can drive at all!!!
I almost bought one of those for my twins when they were 18 (they’re 22 now, with the twin boy in the Marines and the twin girl the hardest working senior at the UW currently at the Univ. of Nantes in France), but I was knocked to my senses by a mechanic I knew.
Good luck selling it! What’s the $$$ to carrot exhange rate?
The Piper
cmiklich: thank you for cementing your status as a nitpicking crank. Actual ridership is 7,000 per day, not 4,500.
Come back when you have a better grasp on reality.
“It has nothing to do with selfishness and everything to do with stupidity. Prop 1 is stupid, and those who support it are the selfish ones since they want their way supported irrespective of how foolish their way is.”
Ok, forget what I said earlier about you being intellectuall curious, Piper Scott. You sound just like an idealistic Young Republican who got all his intellectual prowess from Pops and Limbaugh, Dear Leader.
I notice how you never made any attempt to offer up an alternative (new lanes on I-5, etc) to meet future growth in population and traffic.
We’ve read all the cliched Libertarian talking points many times before. My challenge to you (same challenge for the Sierra Cub Scouts): come debate us in reality, and give up on your absurd theories.
Bush was the guy who got into office espousing those lazy phrases about “freedom” and “less guvment”.
See the light yet? Stupid slogan only work on right wing talk radko / Sound Politics.
If you got nothin’ to say, or are unable to defend your bland statements and talking points, why waste our time in the first place?
135: Actual ridership is closer to 8,000 per day. :)
And as I’ve said elsewhere, those ridership projections were for 9 round trips per day (south line). To cmiklich: What you said was about as dumb as claiming that light rail ridership is low right now.
Roger Rabbit – we can’t catch up with road investment, because it snowballs. LA has learned that. We will always “need” more roads than we can afford, as long as all we build are roads. We can move more people for less money with rail. We can’t fix congestion, no matter what we do. And this package contains 1.1B for 520…
By the way, how about signed paperwork, regarding what we discussed earlier?
115 “Free people will demand free choice.”
They can demand all they want, but they ain’t gettin’ it. You can’t possibly harbor some delusion that we have “market driven economies” here, do you? We have legally empowered and heavily subsidized oligopolies in control of nearly every major commodity we use.
Wow, this scene seems so like something from the old Westerns! People standing in line to buy from the Snake Oil Salesman at a carnival, jeering other folks who weren’t so willing to buy the pig in a poke. Jeering because the reluctant folks’ common sense said it just didn’t wash and they weren’t plopping down their hard earned pennies just because everyone else was chomping to do so.
ArtFart, Michael, Piper, Roger Rabbit [alpha order here] are giving some downright reasonable reasons that make sense to me, frankly. If so much money is needed, WHY not totally take care of the basic stuff that truly needs to be taken care of first? Like fixing risky bridges before they fall in an earthquake? Surprising that Prop 1 didn’t offer a few new sports stadiums into the mix to truly make everyone happy campers!
When I saw the glossy, expensive advertisement flier for this pig in a poke, it reminded me of the ones hammering for the new bus tunnel in downtown Seattle some years back. State of the art, just gotta HAVE it NOW NOW NOW! If we don’t do it NOW, it will cost so much more and everyone will regret not having “vision”. Well, okie dokie, we got that state of the art, World Class bus tunnel. How long ago was it that they had to tear that same bus tunnel up (and how many millions more spent) because the rails (opps, so sorry) the rails just didn’t work right for the next part of the vision. Well, uhhh, the ‘vision’ might have been a little murky, you just gotta understand. It was just an ‘opps’ kind of thing here. Nevermind the millions to bring it up to speed or the rerouting of downtown and more construction. Nevermind fool taxpayers, we’ll figure out some new ways to tax and cover that later!
I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people/taxpayers who have lived through and paid for past “visions” to say “Hey, let’s slow down here and make sure the project is viable and workable and affordable for what we’re going to get in the long run!” Me, I’m one of those folks Roger Rabbit keeps describing. Living on a fixed income (don’t get no overtime) just scratching to afford the medical insurance. Needless to say, my medical insurance don’t cover Snake Oil neither!
Hey, I’ve got a ‘vision’ to offer. Let’s build a new monorail from Ballard to West Seattle. Doesn’t THAT sound fine?
Lee @125
Thanks for taking the time to clear that up.
From Will’s original post: “an organization [ST] with no friends in Olympia, will get the lion share of the blame.”
Every bill ST’s lobbyists have pushed during the past four legislative sessions has passed. Every bill they opposed has not passed.
Got any contrary examples? I didn’t think so. ST will do just fine in the lege if this thing is not approved.
@33 ..”Generally, construction inflation is about 4% per year. Anyone with basic math skills can calculate what the cost is on a 4 year delay for a $10 billion program..”-
Sure… if, inside the 4% figure, you’re including the materials that come from Far Away (eg steel in the new Narrows Bridge, etc), in light of a dollar that was quite a bit more valuable 6 years ago than one finds today. As long as the U.S. is cheapening the dollar to boost exports and take the Sting out of oil prices (until the oilproducers opt to fix to the Euro), construction/bldg materials are gonna keep increasing more rapidly than they have done previously. ^..^
@66 ..”Prop 1 doesn’t represent democracy or political compromise; it’s the worst of the opposite. Tossing bones to every interest group, POV, and constituency save those who commute by whaling ship (watch Prop 1 drafters quickly amend the deal to toss them a whalebone now)…”-
I’d be part of the “whaling ship” lobby, myself- if there were one around. Why hasn’t “multi-modal” thinking included the widest, least-crowded roadbed, with the most efficient form of group mobility around? A look back to “mosquito fleets” may also be a look forward. Where are Boeing’s hydrofoils? A run to/from a premier Park-n-ride site like the old ASARCO smelter could take pressure off the main highways, the technology’s still being refined (by the French, these days), a 40 minute run-time with a 300-400 pass. capacity boat… what’s not to like? (And there’s still plenty of parking on the Tacoma tide flats, if that’s a better link-up, regionally.) If the RTID concrete lobby were willing to swap this in, in place of x-base, it’d have my vote… ^..^
@141
Thanks,
I had missed that little gem.