The Seattle Times editorial board has published a correction today regarding a school scheduled for closure: “It is the Old Hay building, not John Hay Elementary.”
That’s okay. Mistakes happen, and it’s always good form to correct them. No biggie.
But as long as the Times’ editorialists are admitting their factual errors, it sure would be refreshing to see them admit their editorial errors as well. You know… those times when their opinions were just plain wrong.
For example, take this bit of oh-so-conventional wisdom from a February 13, 2008 editorial:
The transit-only folks delude themselves if they believe voters killed last fall’s “Roads and Transit” ballot measure because they didn’t want the roads. They do want the roads. And the idea of combining transit and roads was right. Both are needed. The ballot measure failed because the light-rail part was too expensive and created a tax that was too high.
Uh-huh.
In hindsight, with the subsequent passage of the transit portion of the measure, and by a comfortable margin, the opinion leaders at the Times look pretty damn out of touch. But it didn’t take much hindsight to pick apart the Times’ analysis, for as I wrote at the time:
Um… when the Times says voters “do want roads,” and the “measure failed because the light-rail part was too expensive and created a tax that was too high,” they’re basing those assertions on what? Polls? Intuition? Gentle assurances from John Stanton over foie gras and Chateau Lynch-Bages at the Rainier Club? A public opinion fairy they plucked out of their ass?
Yeah, that’s right, Prop 1 failed solely because of the rail portion of the package. All those polls that showed RTID dragging the measure down, and all that opposition from anti-roads advocates like the Sierra Club — that had absolutely nothing to do with Prop 1’s failure. Jesus… talk about deluded.
Of course, nobody’s perfect, and even I got it wrong on this issue, insisting during the months leading up to the 2007 measure that the powers that be would never allow a transit only measure on the ballot in 2008. My bad. But at least I admitted it.
Yeah, they were wrong and are too arrogant to admit it. Not much new there.
That said, I happen to think that if the exact same measure had been put on the ballot in the most recent election, it would have passed. The roads portion wasn’t that bad, and much of it was very necessary for maintenance of existing roads. It’s going to have to get funded at some point. The Times was correct in stating that (and that alone).
Arrogant politicians were to blame for putting a big project up for a vote in an odd-numbered year. The majority of the population doesn’t show up to vote unless there’s a presidential election, and if the people in charge had just waited a year, it wouldn’t have been a problem. cranks & whiners will happily vote down something that big & they’re the majority when there’s nothing else on the ballot.
I love mass transit and want as much of it as possible, but I’m also not foolish enough to pretend that the combustion engine is going to magically disappear anytime soon. Neither the roads nor the rail part of the package were the problem.
You do seem to live in your own little world…at least that would explain you getting lost in Renton etc (see post above).
Do you not like their opinion ? Do you not agree with them ? All this is fine…
As Websters defines:
Opinion
–noun 1. a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.
2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.
3. the formal expression of a professional judgment: to ask for a second medical opinion.
4. Law. the formal statement by a judge or court of the reasoning and the principles of law used in reaching a decision of a case.
5. a judgment or estimate of a person or thing with respect to character, merit, etc.: to forfeit someone’s good opinion.
6. a favorable estimate; esteem: I haven’t much of an opinion of him.
====
So if you want them to correct their “opinion” each time you don’t agree with them or don’t like it….are you then correcting your opinion each time we don’t like it ? Most certainly not…it’s your opinion…and that’s fine by me. But you seem to think the world revolves around you…or you just have a Seattle Times Fetish…
@2 Goldy’s point is the Times claimed voters didn’t want light rail and the voters proved the editorial writers wrong by passing it. Seems rather straightforward to me. Goldy’s point, that is. I’m still trying to figure out from your gobbledegook WTF your point is, if you have one.
The fundamental problem with the Seattle Times / Crusty Old Dinosaur approach to transportation (where roads are always favored at the cost of mass transit):
People who want transit are willing to pay for it.
People who want roads only aren’t.
So…when the Judy Clibborns, John Stantons, Kemper Freemans and Jim Horns of the world roll out their big pavement plans, they simply don’t have a constituency willing to back the taxes needed to build it.
This fundamental problem the dinosaurs have then leads them down the path of “regional transportation governance reform.” The idea being that a new agency would be created to shift priorities away from transit to roads, raise taxes on their own, and by-pass the voters’ to pay for it.
Goldy’s note is a good one. The Sierra Club helped Nickels get the 2008 measure on the ballot and passed. The next challenge is the Legislative debate over tolling. How fast will they move toward systemwide dynamic tolling of the limited access highways to manage demand, raise funds for the SR-520 project, and pay for maintenance? Gregoire is cautious, whether in Olympia or Iraq.