Joel Connelly and the Seattle Times editorial board have voiced support for a "Regional Transportation Commission," to reform the chaotic, fractured "system" that makes for local, transportation planning. Based on how easily the bill moved through the Senate with Ed Murray's support, it seems likewise prone to passage in the House with Fred Jarrett's leadership as well.
The Times rightly voices skepticism for a new government agency in this arena, which we all should share. Yet, they fall back on this clear fact: "The central Puget Sound area needs a new transportation agency -- not to transport things, but to decide them."
Connelly enunciates that point as well, while castigating critics of the bill, whose defense seems to be "the status quo is working well":
"The bill starts with the flawed premise that the current system is chaotic and devoid of coordination," Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg wrote to state senators.Has this man been to Seattle lately?
Ladenburg listed the empires of which he is lord. He is chairman of the Puget Sound Regional Council, chairman of the Sound Transit board, and vice chairman of Pierce Transit. "I see examples of successful interagency cooperation daily," he wrote.
Have we seen that cooperation on the viaduct? Is everybody aligned on how to deal with the aging, overcrowded and earthquake- threatened state Route 520, the Evergreen Point Bridge?
Is there an accord on Interstate 405 upgrades? Do we agree on how to get light rail across Lake Washington?
Connelly also hones in on one angle of potential interest to many readers of Sound Politics: the potential of this Commission to restrain Sound Transit. Contrary to the irrational fears of some liberal bloggers (see another example here too) the Commission would still be transit friendly for the obvious reason that even the suburban areas from which Commissioners would be elected like transit - just not at the expense of roads like Seattle.
On the whole, the Commission isn't a perfect solution, and the bill could use some refinement in the House. Yet, the region's daunting transportation needs remain. As Connelly notes, this fall's pricey RTID/Sound Transit ballot is probably headed for defeat in the wake of the Viaduct soap opera. Voters are going to rightly expect a clearer path to accountability before considering coughing up the heavy piece of coin needed to fund the Puget Sound area's long list of overdue transportation solutions.
The Commission is a step in the right direction. The peculiar assemblage of its support from Murray and Jarrett, Connelly and the Times, plus John Stanton and Norm Rice speaks to its need. In contrast, those opposing it consist of liberal bloggers and defenders of the status quo.
Tough choice.
Posted by Eric Earling at March 18, 2007 10:32 PM | Email ThisCheck the regional project list. The Alaskan Way Viaduct is a state funded project, not a regional project.
This new mega-bureaucracy you're gunning for (with the power to tax billions out of regional voters w/out asking their consent) wouldn't have any effect in Viaduct decision-making, whether it was a tunnel, an elevated freeway, or a magic carpet ride. Say what you will about Sound Transit: at least with them, the voters get final say in whether their projects go forward or not.
As for the 'pricey RTID/Sound Transit ballot' - that was ALSO the product of Ed Murray's ever-changing moods (the Monorail's enabling legislation, too!). Now, Murray and others cite their own failures as a reason for why local decision-making is so screwed up.
Starting to see a trend? The state legislature is the problem - not the solution to the problem. And just wait until Sound Politics folks catch on to the fact Murray's environmentalist friends are also looking to attach Portland-style land use controls in to the mega-transportation agency's list of powers.
The status quo I'm against is legislators and politicians playing transportation planners, and clueless bloggers following suit.
Joel Connelly and John Stanton want to "restrain" Sound Transit because they're against light rail and want to transfer transit money to roads (each has admitted that). Kinda weird that the only moderately pro-transit blogger at SP would follow their lead.
Posted by: Benji on March 18, 2007 11:29 PMOkay, but I thought you should have said, "The central Puget Sound area needs a new transportation agency--- like it needs a new hole in its head."
I guess you have given up on ST then. Why not make those politicians elected, not selected.
Posted by: swatter on March 19, 2007 07:05 AMI'd hate to have Sims or Joni Earl run all transport
but
This area's transport solutions are so lame. Bus tunnel that they lied about, yrs to rebuild 520, how about Bellevue w/ dueling new bus terminals in different locations.
oh yeah, and demolishing rails to make trails....a real gem
Well, for good or for ill I wasn't blogging when my dad was at Sound Transit, and it's hardly newsworthy for me to go back to rehash where I agreed or disagreed with decisions made then.
More importantly, however, since I've already voiced support for the RTID/Sound Transit ballot measure it would seem you're barking up the wrong tree. Besides, all you're doing is whining about a proposed solution while doing nothing to address the problem itself.
Posted by: Eric Earling on March 19, 2007 07:54 AMWow--talk about a solution in search of a problem!
Voicing support for RTID/ST2 is unreasonable and premature.
The ordinances that will be presented to voters by RTID and ST have not even been disclosed yet. It is not rational to support new laws when you don't know what they will be and you haven't had any opportunity to think through practical implications of them.
Nobody knows yet how long the taxes would stay in place. No one knows when those taxes would be rolled back (there will be rollback provisions spelled out in the two ordinances). Is this one of those deals where the project list can be reduced AFTER the vote?
Eric, what lessons learned from Monorail will be incorporated into the ordincances the voters will be asked to approve?
The RTID/ST measure would provide some money toward the SR 520 project. But there would remain an over three billion dollar shortfall. The state would then come in and impose more taxes on people to make up that shortfall. What taxes would those be, and for how long? Nickels, Sims, Chopp and Haugen are not saying. Do you have any suggestions for that Eric?
The RTID and ST2 measures would add a .6% sales tax burden on top of our 9% rate. That would put us near the top nationwide on sales taxes. That is the most regressive form of taxation. Why would you want to experiment on our economy with that kind of regressive tax, which hits families and those of modest means by far the hardest?
The RTID proposal is a huge net loser for Seattle: billions more in taxes would be raised than would be spent on projects.
I must have missed the post where you explained why you already decided to support the RTID/ST2 measure.
Posted by: Lance Bickersham on March 19, 2007 09:52 AMAre you in a complete denial or something? Give me one example of any tax transportation package where it actually expired without a renewal or revision to make it a permanent one.
I already don't like what I am hearing about RTID/ST, and it will never ever expire as it would be proposed.
Posted by: DopioLover on March 19, 2007 10:48 AMThe new RTC created by Senate Bill 5803 would have budgetary and taxing authority.
In theory the new governance structure would not add to the number of bureaucrats because creating the RTC entails organizing some existing government planning offices out of existence -- such as Puget Sound Regional Council, parts of Sound Transit, parts of WSDOT.
Lance:
The Sound Transit taxes would be forever. Once this ST2 Phase 2 part gets going, the railroad builders will really, really need that money for a long, long time. The Phase 1 Sound Move part of the program from 1996 has now run out of money. Lots of things in ST2 are carryovers from Sound Move Phase 1. Hold on to your wallets. Sound Transit's work will make WPPSS seem like a hiccup. By the time Sound Move and ST2 30-year bonds are scheduled to be paid off in 2057, Sound Transit would tax local citizens $144 billion--$67 billion for its Phase 1 Sound Move Plan, and $77 billion for ST2.
The RTID road-building taxes would start out with a sunset, but who knows what happens later.
Everybody:
A key Olympia source who tells me that there are mixed feelings among legislators as to whether passing transportation governance reform in some version of Senate Bill 5803 hurts or helps the chances of the $38 billion RTID/ST2 spending package (over the first 20 years) winning or losing in the fall. (And of course this attitude toward 5803 interacts in a complementary fashion with whether one thinks the big RTID/ST2 package is a good or bad deal for regional transportation and its tax paying customers.)
My own research indicates that the $38 billion package is a very bad thing to do ... that most of its billions are for expanding the passenger railroad system -- symbolic of a "World Class Urban Region" (?). However, this light rail and commuter rail system costs too much, and does too little. "Never have so many paid so much to move so few."
Expanded light rail and commuter rail would allow a few more lucky passengers to look out the train windows to observe everybody else stuck in traffic ... but not until over a decade of tunnel construction has taken place, plus scraping concrete off the I-90 bridge so it won't sink with the addition of steel rails and the overhead catenary.
Those still stuck in traffic despite "World Class" light rail would include the majority of transit riders who will still be aboard buses, since trains can't/won't go to most of the places that are everyday origins and destinations of the 20 million daily trips expected in 2040.
For the sake of transit as well as freight interests and everybody else, we need to make the roads work better.
I view implementing a new, directly-elected Regional Transportation Commission as the best opportunity on the horizon to shake up the existing planning bureaucracy, a gang that has managed to create an official Metropolitan Transportation Plan ("Destination 2030") that costs billions and billions while letting -- actually making -- traffic congestion get worse.
As the Economist magazine observed a few years ago, Seattle "probably has the worst transport planning in North America."
The RTC reform report of January (www.psrtc.wa.gov) let the cat out of the bag, albeit more gently than it could have. Because of what the report says, backed up by observed experiences like the Green Line Monorail and Viaduct, the $38 billion next-phase plan that the Old Order has created will likely be smashed flat next November by voters no matter what the current legislature does about implementing the RTC recommendations. Transportation reform will not have gone far enough by November even if Bill 5803 passes both houses and is signed by the Governor.
That said, I'm in favor of the legislature moving forward now via 5803 with a version of the recommendations made by Stanton and Rice.
It's time for all of us to read the Senate version of that bill closely and begin sounding off.
Posted by: John Niles on March 19, 2007 07:41 PM