1. The figures are astounding!....the annual cost per rider is totally off the charts...we need another initiative!

Posted by: R.W. Nut on May 6, 2005 04:19 PM

2. This is what happens when environmental nut cases get in to politics. There is this irrational fantasy that by building trains, all of the cars will must magically go away.

The reason why cities like Paris, NYC and London have good rail systems is because they started over 100 years ago, and their density characteristics are good for rail based transit. Here in the Sound, as much as we like to think we are a dense urban area, we don't even hold a candle to the really big cities. And when you add all the water that we have, it becomes very hard and very costly to build rail infrastructure.

Hopefully this will jump start the public into pulling funding for these boondoggles that serve so few people.

And when we are done with that, we should target HOV lanes as soon as possible.

The best thing we can do is acknowledge our current auto capacity problems, fix those by widening key choke points, and then cautiously and slowly plan for future rail. Building a workable rail system will take well over 100 years when you factor in all of the ridiculous environmental studies needed.

If this is a real goal, it needs to be accomplished in a fiscally responsible way.

Posted by: Jeff B. on May 6, 2005 04:35 PM

3. Unsound transit;

I think my math, say for taking the 900k or so the trains claim per year, is about 1500 people in total, and we're spending 1.3 billion or so to pull that off. More than an nice house, per person!!

Posted by: righton on May 6, 2005 06:09 PM

4. I was in the Bay Area when BART started up - I cannot vouch for the routes now - but the intitial routes served all the main bedroom communities and the main business areas -- they did not go within a mile of a University campus - an airport or pro sports playpen or any other type of 'amusement park' - too damn many crapheads around here to come up with real solutions --

Posted by: Bill on May 6, 2005 06:17 PM

5. I hope Dave Irons Jr. jumps right on this and pushes these facts hard, because Ron Sims is hip-deep in Sound Transit, and even a lot of democrats won't be happy when they find out, come election time.

Posted by: Michele on May 6, 2005 06:37 PM

6. ..and to think Sound Transit gets bigtime funding from that new 9.5 cent gas tax! Pull the plug on the tax AND Sound Transit!

Posted by: Michele on May 6, 2005 06:38 PM

7. WHAT I DONT GET IS EVERYTIME I HEAR ABOUT SOUND TRANSIT THE PROBLEMS ARE BLAMED ON RON SIMMS.

SIMMS HAS BEEN GONE FOR SOME TIME NOW AND PROBLEMS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE.

HOW ABOUT WE PUT SOME HEAT ON KEVIN "ASPIRING" PHELPS TACOMA CITY COUNCIL MEMBER AND FINANCE DIRECTOR FOR SOUND TRANS. ALONG WITH HIS PARTNER IN CRIME JOHN LADDENBURG PIERCE COUNTY EXC. & DIRECTOR OF SOUND TRANSIT.

WE WHO LIVE IN TACOMA HAVE HAD TO PUT UP WITH THESE TWO CLOWNS FOR 10 PLUS YEARS. THANK GOD FOR TERM LIMITS. KEVIN PHELPS WAS JUST VOTED MOST HATED TACOMA CITY COUNCIL PERSON EVER.

Posted by: TACOMA PHLASH on May 6, 2005 09:03 PM

8. I have been in contact with 'KEVIN "ASPIRING" PHELPS TACOMA CITY COUNCIL MEMBER AND FINANCE DIRECTOR FOR SOUND TRANS. ALONG WITH HIS PARTNER IN CRIME JOHN LADDENBURG PIERCE COUNTY EXC. & DIRECTOR OF SOUND TRANSIT.' Regarding 2,500+ service hours of express bus service dedicated annually to duplicate the Tacoma Link Light Rail. Both of these 'public servents' who by the way stand to benefit personally by having every possible means of transportation serve their bussiness interests are unresponsive. It would be a different matter if these service hours would not be much better allocated where they actually served a population which has no service. Tacoma's elected officials are thoroughly SELF SERVING and TOTALLY REPROBATE in this regard.

Posted by: JDH on May 7, 2005 08:53 AM

9. "The reason why cities like Paris, NYC and London have good rail systems is because they started over 100 years ago, and their density characteristics are good for rail based transit."

But - where's the perspective within that glowing appraisal? Shouldn't the author tell us the cumulative capital costs and operating expenses and ridership that enabled those 'good' rail systems, so we can see at what cost those 'goods' were procured?

The problem with such undocumented appraisals is that they are used by the priests of public rail systems to tout the building of new systems like Sound Transit. Worse, they are used by polititical commissars practicing social engineering to support undemocratic tyrannies against citizen choice of living circumstances - in this case, by forcing the urban densification that would fail without the imposition of the (also undemocratic) Growth Management Act.

Given free choice for buyers, a large part of new home sales would occur in exurban subdivisions. The GMA, and all the parroting of leftie slogans like 'smart growth', and all the media bias expressing horrible descriptions of life in such subdivisions, are aimed at denying home buyers any sort of free choice of living situations.

Free choice should not be limited to the exercise of one's gonads, or the suppression of the results of that exercise.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on May 7, 2005 11:54 AM

10. Look at 'Transit Oriented Development' and what do you see. Property tax exemptions, ten years of no local taxes. These people are FREE LOADERS, they get free fire, police in fact all government services and who pays? Why the residents of established neighborhoods, of course. Not only have these 'new' arrivals contributed NOTHING they are sucking resources out of YOUR neighborhoods. And round and round it goes and where it stops nobody knows.

Posted by: JDH on May 7, 2005 06:26 PM

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