The [un]Sound Transit component of the RTID/light rail joint ballot measure has been approved:
The numbers might be enough to make voters dizzy: a full 50 miles of light rail, to be built over 20 years, at a long-term cost of $23 billion.But it's not the cost that makes this a boondoggle, it's the relative cost-ineffectiveness relative to other potential uses of the same dollars. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 25, 2007 04:27 PM | Email This
God LOVE government rip offs!
Posted by: Hinton (Former Seattleite) on May 25, 2007 04:25 PMThere's lots more to see about this plan. It will be interesting to see how detailed the press coverage turns out to be on really picking this apart.
Posted by: Stuart Jenner on May 25, 2007 05:15 PMI'm with Stefan....in the final analysis, the key measurement is "cost-effectiveness".....not how does it make us "feel".
However, Seattleites tend to vote with there "feelings" rather than looking a hardcore cost effectiveness/rate of return type analysis.
That's why I call 'em:
LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWNS!!
(underline the PINHEADED by all means!)
I call Okanogan County home, so direct impact on my fellow 40K residents of the largest (land area) county in the state may be muted; UNLESS of course KC starts lusting after State General Fund dollars... at which point I and my neighbors will be bending our Legislator's ears to fight that to the death.
SIDEBAR: Stefan is right: It is not just the absolute magnitude of the $ by itself that makes this so crazy (although we're talking real money no matter what): It's what you could do with $23B applied effectively to OTHER options.
Sheesh.....
Posted by: Methow Ken on May 25, 2007 07:06 PMNevermind that even 50 miles of light rail will only serve a small fraction of the actual transportation needs of the area, at a huge cost. It's the whole concept of a collective new frontier with trains and Fairness Doctrines that enthralls.
The money, in such a geographically challenged region like the Sound, would be far better spent on buses and roads, but that doesn't fit the enthralling Utopian vision.
It's like Nickels and the Hybrid SUV. There's probably an even more efficient vehicle that's not a hybrid that he could be driving if what really mattered was the eneergy savings, environment, etc.
But no. What matters is the enthralling collective vision and the feel-good, yet limited actions.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 25, 2007 07:57 PM$200 tabs x how many cars does your family own?
Ding Ding Ding Ding
Posted by: gs on May 25, 2007 08:39 PMand of course it won't be as low as their propagandists suggest at this point, so call it $10k per capital or $20k if only 1/2 of the 3mm are commuters..
"enough to buy us all a way bitchin' Camaro"
Posted by: righton on May 26, 2007 05:21 AMThe true subsidy we pay the energy companies so Americans can roll their obese asses around is probably well over $10 a gallon.
When we built freeways instead of mass transit like all the other industrialized nations, we screwed our future. We figured we could always use our military to secure our cheap petrol.
How is that working out anyway?
As soon as you can get around more quickly with mass transit than in your car, the numbers using it change. Till then let's just keep a killinn ayrabs right? They can't get to us right? Anyone that doesn't want the us military camped in their country is a terrrrrist right?
Posted by: observer on May 26, 2007 05:23 AMApparently the $23 billion figure is the aggregate of ST's annual capital expenditure and operations costs for Phase II, over 20 years, in YOE dollars.
That does not begin to describe the tax costs to this region from Sound Transit if the joint ballot measure is approved in November.
Let's leave the ENTIRE tax hit that would come from RTID taxes out of it, for the purposes of this posting.
ST's taxes relating to Phase II also would need to cover whatever security pledge terms the appointees on that board might take it upon themselves to impose. They'd be issuing long term debt over the next couple of decades, probably four times between 2009 and 2025. Maybe 40-year terms each time. The tax pledges would be like they always are for ST: "We'll collect all the tax as long as any of the debt is outstanding." That means that decades after the Phase II track is laid, massive tax collections still will be made by Sound Transit just to comply with the security terms of the bond sales contracts.
ST has not disclosed when it would issue bonds, or how much bonds it expects it would issue at each of those sales, if ST2 is approved. It wants voters ignorant of its bonding plans.
Passage of the measure in November also would give ST additional taxing power to continue the existing taxes. The ordinance approved last week says so. ST would get additional spending authority to spend local taxes on all the parts of Phase I it can not now afford (University Link is one example).
I might as well say it again, the measure in November gives additional, and unlimited, authority to ST to spend local taxes on the Phase I system elements it had to eliminate when it scaled back the light rail line in early 2001. Anyone disagree?
Here is what ST and its friends in the press are not telling the public: ST will be required to roll back the current taxes in short order if the measure is not approved in November. It could try to come back to the ballot for additional authority to spend tax money just on University Link, but that would be far better than the massive tax grab it is trying for now.
The reason why the current taxes would need to be reduced is a function of two separate spending limits spelled out in the voter-approved ordinance. The ordinance the voters approved in 1996 had a fixed dollar limit on how much taxes ST can spend on Phase I capital expenses ($1.98B, 1995$). The ordinance approved by the board that ST will ask the voters to approve in November has no such tax expenditure cap. Similarly, Sound Move has a bond sale cap ($1,052B); the new ordinance has no such cap.
The dailies are covering ST's butt on this. From Lindblom's story: "A rail line under construction from downtown Seattle to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is to open in late 2009, and Sound Transit says it can afford to tunnel north to Husky Stadium without the ballot measure." Notice how no one from ST would be quoted? That is a lie by omission. What is omitted is the fact that if the ballot measure in November is not approved, there would have to be another ballot measure where voters give ST authority to spend more than $1.98B in local taxes on Phase I (otherwise, there would not be enough revenue to pay for University Link).
What ST can NOT say is "We have the right under Sound Move to spend as much local taxes as we need to pay for University Link." One reason we know ST can't say that is that it scaled back the light rail line in 2001 precisely because of that revenue spending limit. That limit did not just suddenly disappear.
Here's the thing - there is absolutely NOTHING from Sound Transit that suggests it could pay for University Link AND stay within the revenue caps set out in the binding local ordinance the voters approved in 1996.
The taxing plans and practices of ST are kept opaque. It wants the voters ignorant running up to this vote. Because of the revenue limits in Sound Move, ST most certainly does not have a "blank check" to collect taxes now. But it would get a HUGE blank check to collect taxes if ST2 is approved.
Whether or not you like trains or understand how cost ineffective the new train extensions would be, voting down an unlimited tax grab by political appointees that would burden this region for AT LEAST another half-century absolutely is the right thing to do.
They are not going anywhere, that is unless you want to see that every client of the Attorneys on their 'white list' takes responsibility for the folks they have hired that are now running their lives, as well as just about every public servants.
I had hoped that the regional dynamics of business would help to bring the Greater Seattle Commernists to heel. Unfortunately, the reverse has occured. Witness the hiring of disgraced former Snohomish County Exec/Dem Machine man Bob Drewel as chief five year planner at the federally mandated PSRC.
Our only hope now is a statewide reaction spurring some stronger voices in the greater regions of Seattle - either that and/or Federal Prosecutions.
Posted by: Douglas Tooley on May 26, 2007 07:57 AMJust more transportation mismanagement that wants a continuing increased amount of taxes from you.
The initial price is too high and the final number will be at least double that estimate.
Posted by: Norm on May 26, 2007 08:39 AMHowever, what is it with the political class that keeps pushing these boondoggles?
Posted by: MGCC on May 26, 2007 10:09 AMI will always go back to this:
When the King COunty council, Ron Sims, Seattle Council and Nichols all give up their tax funded cars and parking, and adapt to what they are trying desperately to sell us, I will then consider it. Not a day before.
Posted by: GS on May 26, 2007 02:25 PMIn 20 years, Seattle and the Puget Sound will have succumbed to further economic and social distress. Housing will fall 90% and the former Emerald Gem of the Pacific will be a haphazard shanty down of drunks, crooks and the impoverished.
Smart people will have moved to Idaho, where you can still "buy the farm" for under $100,000.
Posted by: John Bailo on May 26, 2007 03:54 PMThe operating costs of ST will not be great at all. Even when light rail comes on line, the operating costs will be small.
Minneapolis has a light rail line that is similar to ST's Phase I line. The net annual operating costs of it are only about $12 million. Given that ST took in $330 million in taxes last year, any taxpayer subsidy of operating costs will be relative peanuts.
"Operating Cost: Annual budgeted operating cost is $19.85 million in 2006 dollars. This cost is offset in part by annual fare revenue estimated at $7.2 million. Hennepin County funds 50 percent of the net operating cost."
http://www.metrotransit.org/rail/facts.asp
Wrong tax choice folks, the people of this state have spoken twice about this tax, and overwhelmingly hate it.
Try as hard as you and Gregoire will, the people will not vote for it because they hate this Car tab tax. It will fail on that premise alone.
Good luck, we won't be seeing this monster pass this year.
Posted by: GS on May 26, 2007 05:06 PMTo much for them to handle?
*CHICKENS*
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on May 26, 2007 05:29 PMI'll be retired and living in Idaho when you fools are paying for this boondoggle and its overruns.
I'd rather spend the 23B on a second deck on 405 for regular single person vehile traffic.
Posted by: Marmstro on May 26, 2007 06:39 PMAnd a constiutional amendment to lower the ball in school levies to make it easier to float bloated school budgets
And a parks expansion tax
And a parks expansion tax
You Libs got any more new massive taxes to throw in, at this point whats a few more Hell No's to pen in.
Posted by: GS on May 26, 2007 09:27 PM
Given that ST took in $330 million in taxes last year, any taxpayer subsidy of operating costs will be relative peanuts.
OK, I just HAVE to ask... Doesn't the $330 million in TAXES qualify already as a subsidy? I mean, the extra "only $12 million" you talk about would be on top f that, for a total of $342 million.
Given that there are approximately 3 million people in the Pierce/King/Snohomish counties, that means ST took in $110 per person. And that "only $12 million" is just another $4 per person.
So that means the "extra subsidy" will take us to $114 rather than $110... What a bargain!
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on May 26, 2007 11:28 PMThe background is this - in 1995 voters rejected ST's first tax and spend ballot proposal. So ST slimmed it down, and came back in 1996. That measure passed. What the voters approved was an ordinance (a local law). There are spending limits in that ordinance. In the Paying for the System section there is a table that sets out, in dollar amounts, how much tax revenue ST can spend, and how much bonds it can sell, to put what it can of a train/HOV lane/bus "system" into place. During that implementation period (which the Supreme Court said can last more than 10 years), ST can not spend more than $1.98 billion (1995$) in local tax revenue.
That is a revenue spending limit. Sound Move has it, ST2 does not. Big difference. Read about that in the PI or the Times or the Herald or the News Tribune? No, you didn't.
Now, does the ordinance require ST to stop taxing after it takes in the first $1.98 billion in taxes? No. But that's OK, because taxes taken in after that amount is reached ONLY can be spent to retire outstanding debt ($772 million or so), and subsidize four other relatively modest categories of operational expenses. In light of the experience with MBTA running a similar light rail program, those should be rather modest.
In that sense it is fine that ST has "permanent" taxing authority now. The spending limits on what ST can spend tax revenue on now function to limit how much tax ST can collect. Although the taxing can continue forever to subsidize Phase 1 operations, those are so limited ST's need for taxes will be relatively modest.
Now, let's look at that $330 million in tax revenues ST confiscated last year. That is all taxes collected POST the first $1.98 billion in local taxes collected since 1997. The aggregate of local taxes collected by ST through the end of 2006 is approximately $2.6 billion. So, under the terms of the voter approved Sound Move, at least some of last year's revenues, and all of the taxes going forward, only can be spent on retiring debt or the ongoing operational expenses ST identified.
Does Sound Transit like this? Uh, no. If the measure in November is not approved, ST would need to comply with the terms of Sound Move. That would mean allocating all the taxes collected after the initial $1.98 billion to retiring debt and subsidizing operational costs (which are not that great). That would mean that it would HAVE to reduce the existing sales tax and MVET rates, and soon. Otherwise it would be collecting more than it has the right to spend, and that's an arbitrary and capricious abuse of taxation authority.
ST must have a second set of books in-house. Otherwise it is flagrantly violating taxpayers' rights now by not making sure it stays within the revenue spending limits set out in the governing ordinance.
What would ST do if ST2/RTID is not approved? Probably whip out Plan B immediately. What is that? My guess is they'd put a modest ballot proposal up seeking authority to tax enough to 1) complete the capital expenditures on University Link, and 2) not breach the tax covenants in either the 1999-series or the 2005-series bond sales contracts.
ST let go its long-time CFO last fall, quite unceremoniously. Hugh Simpson didn't have quite a bit of this in focus. The guy in there now, McCartan, was promoted from within because ST couldn't even risk interviewing outside its' walls. It is a totally messed-up financial situation at ST. Nobody will answer questions relating to how it intends to comply with terms in Sound Move limiting its spending authority.
It would be great if somebody from ST would post here, and answer a couple of questions regarding how much tax ST expects it would haul in if ST2 is approved, how those revenues would be allocated between Phase I and Phase II costs, what kinds of taxpayer protection provisions are in ST2's ordinance approved last week, what lessons ST learned from the monorail debacle and then addressed by terms drafted into the ST2 plan, and how quickly we could expect the tax rollback if ST2 is not approved.
Sound Transit fully intends to keep the public completely ignorant about all those issues before the vote.
Thanks for the additional information. There is a 3rd option: they do internal cost-shifting on budgets so they can justify the operational costs to keep all the money. Much how like the DOT is completely defunded by the "general" budget so all the gas tax is used for it.
But I just thought it was funny that a "yeah we need more empty trains and routes to nowhere!" supporter would have the gall to say "ignore the $330 million per year they tax, it's just an extra $12 million a year we're talking about"...
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on May 27, 2007 08:01 AMThen they turn around and ask for the rest again next year!
Posted by: GS on May 27, 2007 11:29 AMAs a non-driver, I'm sick of subsidizing your asphalt. The day your gas taxes and car tabs cover the full cost to the public of your car-centric lifestyle is the day I'll start taking you seriously when you complain about transit spending. Of course, you'd probably be looking into living within range of effective transit if you were paying $8/gallon instead of driving downtown from North Bend every day.
Seattle's constrained geography actually improves the argument for transit over asphalt, but some of you seem to want to turn Seattle into LA or Houston or Atlanta.
Posted by: getmine on May 27, 2007 03:10 PM- ST train riders pay the actual $120/ride that it costs, if you include the subsidies
- ST and Metro bus riders pay the actual $20 it costs, if you include the subsidies
- You're willing to pay the extra money for all your groceries and other things brought in by truck
See, I drive about 150 miles a week (50 miles a day, 3 days a week), and my car gets around 25 MPG. So I spend $20 per week on gas. Which is about right, as I fill up twice a month, for around $45 per stop. My commute takes 30 minutes each way.
To replace that with buses I'd pay $120 per week (6 times what I pay now), and it takes 2 hours (I've done it twice, just to see what it would be like).
So if you want to complain about subsidies, go for it! I take it we can stop paying subsidies for buses, trains, light rail and the like as well? You're more than willing to pay the full costs of your own transport, right?
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on May 27, 2007 03:20 PMTransit Rail is only for commuters. Roads bring all of the goods services, food, etc. in addition to carrying commuters. So if you were to get rid of roads, you would starve to death. Roads serve the whole populace every day. Commuter trains serve a fraction of the the populace, and mostly only five days a week.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 27, 2007 08:54 PMBye Bye DOT - Don't need em
Bye Bye City hall - none of them ride mass transit - Don't need em either
Bye Bye Mayor Nichols - His three cars and drivers.
Bye Bye Ron Sims - His cars and drivers.
Bye Bye Governor - What's the need if there are no roads falling down to create emergencise.
Starting to sound better all the time...
Posted by: GS on May 27, 2007 09:25 PMSeattle's geography isn't just constrained like NYC. If that were the case, yes it would lend itself well to transit. But what we have in the region is a lot of water and a lot of hills, and there is still a lot of land. This makes for massive tunnels, bridges, etc. just to run a useable amount of transit rail. The price per mile is totally outrageous, and only to serve a very small portion of the population. This makes no fiscal sense.
Leave it to Seattle Utopian dreamers to bring the citizenry to its knees in taxes and debt, to serve only a few.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 27, 2007 09:43 PMUsing that as a base construction cost figure, how close should Seattle be able to come to that in building our elevated citywide monorail rapid transit system?
Did the SMP then pursue a re-bid of the Project, or make a move to independently build a la MTans as reasonable options?
No.
Is the SPMA currently attempting to illegally shut down the Seattle Monorail Project and overturn a lawful public mandate to build the system?
Yes.
If the SMP turned into a boondoggle, it is because that is how the crooks on the SPMA were going to play it to sink the project, and anybody that fails to grasp that reality is either seriously comprehensively challenged; has an iniquitous opposing agenda in the matter, or both.
The SPMA embezzled all of those SMP funds never intending to build the monorail system the people mandated be built. You tell me why the SPMA is not guilty of official misconduct, fraud, and racketeering.
P.S. Check out SB 5412 - recent legislation to foster dissolution of the SMP and shield the SPMA from legal prosecution for their illegal activity.
Is $23 billion to much to ask so that the denizens of muskatel meadows can have some new places to urinate on?
Posted by: juandos on May 28, 2007 11:40 AMHow do you spell Stupid Sitting Duck? SSD
I suspect there will be no vacant seats as this will become the newest rolling edition of their self flushing drug and prostitution outhouses.
What goes on on ST after 10pm stays on ST after 10pm.
You'll never hear a whisper until the billions have been collected well before the ride starts rolling.
This is one ammusement park ride I'm staying far away from!
C'mon guys, of course the cost of transportation is built into the cost of goods and services. I thought conservatives were supposed to understand economics.
Unfortunately, right now we're subsidizing our oil addiction with military deficit spending instead of paying the true cost at the pump as we go.
Posted by: economics on May 29, 2007 02:35 PM