Times: "Light-rail debt a 50-year ride"
If Sound Transit wins voter approval to extend light rail far beyond Seattle at a cost of more than $23 billion by 2027, taxpayers would still owe an additional $14 billion in construction debt afterward.ouch. but:
Agency leaders say a more accurate number is $10.8 billion, representing the cost of construction and trains in 2006 dollars.The analogy to a home mortgage is absurd. Owning a home is a voluntary proposition and you can sell the home when you choose to. With the Sound Transit boondoggle, many of the people who vote for it won't be paying for it and vice versa. And if it doesn't suit our needs? Then it's a moneypit, from which there's no escape. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 04, 2007 11:56 AM | Email ThisAs with a home mortgage, it makes sense for voters to focus on the current sales price, said spokesman Ric Ilgenfritz. People who cite the long-term, inflated numbers "make the cost seem misleadingly high," Sound Transit says.
When I got my mortgage, duration AND rate were important because it set the payments I'd make every month. And how long it would take until it was mine...
I guess I could have switched to an interest only loan, but at the end of 30 years I'd have 30 years of payments and all the existing principal.
To say that it doesn't matter what the dollars will be like in the future is highly insulting. I guess Mr. Ilgenfritz figures we "commoners" who may ride the rail system only live in apartments!
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on June 4, 2007 12:00 PMThat's the deal that Sound Transit wants us to support at a cost of billions. Only an incredibly small percentage of the Sound's population would ever use or benefit from a mass transit system, yet we all must pay billions. That's not a wise investment of transportation dollars. The largest mass transit system on the US west coast is the Bay Area's BART. BART serves much less than 1/10 of the population in the Bay Area. And that's at an annual loss of $300 Millions, and a construction cost of Billions over 40 years.
Here, the geography is even more plagued by water and other difficult construction challenges, and yet we want to go dumping billions in to a system that will support very little of the population, and do very little to address any of the alleged issues with growth, environmentalism, etc.
Any serious approach to transit should focus far more on roads, buses, incentives and computer technologies and far less on building highly expensive trains that serve commuters only, and mostly for just 5 days a week.
Train envy is not leadership. The Puget Sound area could try something different rather than knee-jerk to mass transit that has proven itself of very little use for the cost. It's the irrational anti-car mentality that won't solve anything.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 4, 2007 12:09 PMThey have no freaking clue what this will cost- except that you can count on the actual cost ballooning.
This is the "low ball" wait until the actual numbers make their way to the surface 10 years from now.
Posted by: Andy on June 4, 2007 01:19 PMThey have no freaking clue what this will cost- except that you can count on the actual cost ballooning.
This is the "low ball" wait until the actual numbers make their way to the surface 10 years from now.
Posted by: Andy on June 4, 2007 01:19 PMWhat 'if' the terrorist towel heads try to pull off a stunt like the one that was in the planning stages for but over at Bangor instead?
Could that drive up the premiums of insurance for ongoing and future contruction for the state of Washington?
If so, what would that do to the total costs of getting this fairy tale train up and running?
Just wondering...
Posted by: juandos on June 4, 2007 01:34 PMIf costs go up, the taxes would stretch out to infinity. If costs go up, ST would just issue more bonds (again, with the tax costs going out to infinity). And ST's planners have EVERY reason to be lowballing those cost numbers now. There is no way to hold them accountable if they have low estimates. In fact, they have every incentive to be low - the point is to get voters to approve the ballot measure, if suddenly cost estimates increase, well no problem from ST's perspective.
The ordinance that will be put before voters has no protections for taxpayers. At least with the current ST plan, if the projected costs increased ST must scale back what is delivered, so that it stays within budget.
ST2 takes the WORST of the Phase 1 Sound Move plan(political appointees only on the board; highly regressive taxing of people who for the most part never will use it; no incentive to provide the voters with realistic cost estimates), and couples it with the WORST of the monorail plan (no dollar limit on spending on implementation; political appointee board).
Vote NO in NOvember. They'll come back with something better.
I grew up in South Snohomish Co. and spent a few years in the Bay Area. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) operates at a loss but provides a number of very positive externalities:
1. Whenever BART was shut down (once or twice in the three years I was down there), area highways ground to a halt. It was moving a significant number of people and keeping them off the highways.
2. BART remained functional during the 1989 earthquake. Remember this was pre-internet/wide-spread cell phone use and keeping the conduit to San Francisco open was one of the reasons the Bay Area economy survived the quake.
3. When BART was built there were terrible cost overruns but most naysayers look back and count the Bay Area lucky that they built when they did. In 2040, will the operating deficits and taxes for ST have crippled the economy and will we regret it? Or will we look back and say "We're glad we have it and couldn't imagine trying to build it today"?
4. Cities like Walnut Creek, Concord and Dublin have been absolutely TRANSFORMED by the arrival of BART (almost like the Old West). Even though we might not want to live in a condo next to the train or have an office in a "transit village", enough people do. Cities like Lynnwood, Mill Creek, Renton, etc. will draw countless billions of investment from Wall Street.
5. As Puget Sound moves further down the road towards becoming a "service economy", whether or not our preference is for a couple acres and a big house, we can't forget that youngest members of the "creative class" like a little more nightlife, urban centers, and alternatives to cars. The Google's of the world want access to alternative transportation and access to bright minds. There's a lot of opportunity to do more biotech out in Bothell but many of those firms want to be in S. Lake Union. Nothing the government does can be rightly called an "investment" but ST brings a number of positive externalities.
By all means, if ST wants to enjoy my tax dollars they should be leading the way with transparency, efficient taxation methods, realistic cost estimating, etc. The fundamental idea of light rail though makes a lot of sense. In pitching for reform of ST, it's important to not lose sight of the benefits it will bring.
Posted by: nlde on June 4, 2007 02:10 PMPC- And you can say it 100 more times, but it's still nonsense. A single rail line is not for everyone, any more than a single road is. Duh.
Posted by: Bruce on June 4, 2007 02:17 PMReality is 85% of us have no ability to use buses or, even worse, ficedc route choo choo trains. That is because as our economy has developed over decades, economic activity is less and less centralized. Got that???
Granted, this renders road building necessary yet complex due to increasing value of land near population centers, where the people are.
Ergo, workable solutions include tolls at peak hours, and putting govt types on swing and graveyard shifts AND requiring govt types to use the idoitic buses and trains they so love.
Unworkable wet dreams produce idoicy like in Portland Light Rail at $25 cost/rider that is empty 20 hrs/day, and like this brainless SeaTac/Rainier Valley/Downtown light rail, which is nothing but safe environment for thugs to assault and rob the few passengers that ride it.
If we swapped the janitors and the planners at Sound Transit and WSDOT, traffic congestion would improve quickly and dramatically. L:et the dreamers push broom.
Posted by: Hank on June 4, 2007 02:42 PMIt's really important to remember it is the building of a larger system that is embarked upon, not a single purchase. The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District agency was created in 1957 and BART began passenger service in 1972. The total initial cost of the basic BART system including the Transbay Tube was $1,619,000,000. There have since been expansions to the system at additional costs. They will be paying original and added debt for some time as they will for other components of their regional transportation infrastructure. It's common sense that huge projects take a long time to pay off and to be paid off. BART currently uses about 1/3 of its capacity making it a viable service long into the future. Public transportation financials don't usually include figures on revenue generation to the businesses and homes serviced by the infrastructure. They mainly discuss debt commitment and fare boxes. In light of any charges of high expense, I don't think anybody there is gunning to decommission the services just because there are still payments to be made. On the contrary, it appears that they are repeatedly asking to have it expanded and are willing to pony up for the investment.
Posted by: Acid Brain on June 4, 2007 02:45 PMHow about we make trains self-supporting? Pay at the fare box to cover the costs... How many people would pay $80 per day round trip to ride that train?
Sure, talk about subsidies for roads. We PAY taxes for roads via the gas tax and tabs. DOT's supposed to be funded already with the taxes collected - I wish the same was true of trains.
If you want to do ANY transit in the Seattle area, buses are the only logical choice. You end up with billion dollar tunnels for trains because of the grades of our hills. Buses can climb the hills. And reroute when needed. Not like trains that shut down for a few days when there's a mudslide.
Transit trains in the Seattle area are a pipedream, and a way to soothe the inherent guilt of tax-and-spend liberals...
And this is coming from someone who's wife rides transit, and who uses the buses and subways in Shanghai and NY. Trains just don't work here.
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on June 4, 2007 02:58 PMAnd the key difference is that private money is free to do as it pleases. Public money should be accountable to a higher standard.
Any of us can think of tens of things more important than building mass transit in the greater scheme of Puget Sound needs. But these Utopian planners see only rail. They can't envision better bus services, and better funds distribution over the roads, which are by far and away the majority mode of transit for freight and humans.
Transit Rail is an expensive fantasy.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 4, 2007 03:10 PMI will vote no on this package and encourage others to do the same. We have a mega transportation crisis in the region; more of the same is not the answer.
Posted by: AP on June 4, 2007 03:25 PMThe argument that transit is not valid because it is serving too small of percentage of the population is weak, because that can be applied willy nilly to many transportation infrastructures and corridors that function for specific needs. (The Narrows bridge comes to mind - is it expendable because I don't use it?) Taking daily trips off the road into alternative services is a benefit to even those who don't use them.
The trains just don't work here argument is not accurate either. Seattle had up a rail based transit system that was operating 410 streetcars on 26 routes and 3 cable car lines along 231 miles of track. The system was dismantled against the voters wishes in the 1940s and replaced with a federally funded fleet of diesel and electric buses.
Rail works for moving people and goods, it's not window dressing, it's a part of the foundation of any good multi-layer transportation system. It's not a magic bullet, but we are running one-legged without it being part of the solution.
Posted by: Acid Brain on June 4, 2007 04:36 PMThe Roads Package is close to 17 Billion
The Sound Transit is around 38 Billion
There are about 3 million people in the area
That means 55 Billion divided by 3 Million
Ding......Ding.......Ding
$18,333 per every man woman and child in this area!
Family of 2.....$36,666
Family of 3.....$55,000
Family of 4.....$73,333
Family of 5.....$91,666
A few other tidbits:
We all know that these estimates are all low balled...HA
Sound transit when finished will haul 4% of the daily trips
You are not being told the total costs of this project
Sound transit will eat up 70% of available $$$ to haul in their best estimates about 5% of the people.
This is nothing short of insane spending, and it is a Big Hell NO from this family!
Posted by: GS on June 4, 2007 05:43 PMNow matter how many times the left states otherwise: Trains are not, AND WILL NEVER BE, an economical, strategic, viable alternative to either the automobile, carpool or bus. Where is the choice? To have $$$ sucked out of our pockets that could go to better schools, better healthcare, more parks, so that an insignificant few may ride a train?
Running one-legged? How many goods or groceries will a commuter be able to transit with on a train? This is not NYC and we don't all live w/in a block of a grocery store. Because of our geography/topography (read: EARTHQUAKES) we NEVER will.
We need roads. New roads. More roads. To bring the food to the stores. To bring the clothes to the stores. To deliver the goods and services necessary to enable the high standard of living we currently enjoy in this country. ST will deliver NONE OF THAT. Neither will the RTID until and unless it is stripped of the hideously archaic train system.
Now, let's get to a meat-and potatoes legal issue: How can a H.S. student of today who purchases a car in a few years be expected to pay *any* of the taxes for RTA/ST? *They* were excluded from the decision process, therefore they should and must be excluded from paying.
Posted by: cmiklich on June 4, 2007 05:53 PMRocker imagined riding the city's Number 7 subway train through Queens to Shea Stadium, "next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing."
Bill H
Posted by: Bill H on June 4, 2007 06:31 PMThe dirty little secret is that although they are not required to give up their cars, WA state employees can buy a bus/train FlexPass for a mere $50/year... yes, suckers, we indeed are subsidizing the state to screw us.... another group with those special CUT rates...good ol' Boeing... isn't that special?
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on June 4, 2007 07:06 PMHow would you like to schlep your luggage from your home to a bus, to ST into Seattle, then transfer to another train to get to the airport? Puhleeze! I also have ridden with druggies, souped up teens, psychos, & homeless on local buses. After those experiences, I decided to never ride a bus again in the Seattle area.
If others have had similar experiences, it's no wonder that most people opt for driving no matter what the cost & no matter how long it takes.
We do need better bus service for those who want to ride the bus & buses have far more flexibility than rails. We do need more roads with congestion pricing & bus lanes, not diamond lanes for a soccer Mom who just wants to get somewhere faster.
Here's another family that will be voting "no" on the ST proposal. It's too much cost for too little return.
Posted by: Clean House on June 4, 2007 07:15 PMIf buses were allowed to meet the needs of the customers and not the bureaucracy, they would be full, and percentage of ridership would move beyond the 4% level.
Instead we get stupid projects like a train from downtown to a mile from the airport. I predict that this boondoggle will be mostly empty most of the time.
Posted by: janet s on June 4, 2007 07:16 PMLets follow your logic and just build more roads. OK? While we are at it, howsa about making the roads pay their own way too?
1. Lets double deck 405 through Bellevue.
2. Lets add 606 and to prepare for the future double deck that too.
Of course these double deck roads will be toll roads.
Posted by: SeattleJew on June 4, 2007 07:34 PMSounds good to me !!!
Posted by: Chris on June 4, 2007 07:48 PMDon't you mean $50 per month?
When I was taking the bus two years ago I received a $50 voucher every month from my employer (actually from King County - they passed it through my emplyer (a state gency)), otherwise it would have cost me $108/month to come in from Snohomish County. Even with today's gas prices, it does not cost me $108/month to drive to work, and not that much more then $50. For a little more than $50/month in gasoline I can have the flexibility I need to go where I want to go, when I want to go there. You won't catch me on a bus or train anytime soon.
Posted by: Michael H on June 4, 2007 07:54 PMYou bet! Let's double up the State's gas tax, that should fully fund DOT (see this link for the real source of DOT funding - gas taxes which include payments for debt and bond servicing), between gas taxes and tabs. And of course, that's not counting the DOT funds spent
Now, let's let transit FULLY FUND itself from the fare box. Let a bus ride on Metro cost $11. Let a ride on the Sounder train run $40 one way. Let the light rail cost $100 each way.
Which do you think people will take? You sure you want to go down this path?
We're paying a LOT of money, and hundreds of millions - billions - more to come, to move a tiny percentage of all commuters.
You know, with the $300 MILLION spent on just the Sounder North, we could have FULLY FUNDED 600 riders to NEVER WORK AGAIN. At the median income for Everett, no less. And that's about 3 times the number of people we'd take off the road...
So, I'm game for paying twice the gas tax if you're willing to take the bus/train and pay the actual cost of that mode.
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on June 4, 2007 07:59 PMAll the people driving out there, right now. Have you noticed that there are a lot more drivers than people who take the bus? The rest of us have.
Posted by: Michele on June 4, 2007 08:27 PMWhen calculating the cost of bus service, don't forget to include the cost of building the transit lanes. If you do, light rail looks much more affordable. As well, the operating cost of LRT is much lower per passenger than bus. Operating costs of buses rise with inflation while dept servicing cost of light rail does not. As a result, at some point in the future, even with debt servicing costs, light rail will be cheaper than buses.
Posted by: Richard on June 4, 2007 09:14 PMThis is an insane amount of money to spend on Choo Choo trains........That go nowhere and take nobody!
It's also a Hell of a time to rethink about voting for Mr Dunn! I like to call him Mr Done after his support for this massive boondoggle.
King County is spending like drunkin sailors (actually It's not fair to compare drunkin sailors to King County, it would give them a bad name) and it is damn time to tell King County HELL NO!
Posted by: GS on June 4, 2007 09:25 PMNOPE! My son worked at the AG's office in Seattle... $50/year deducted from his paycheck for a FlexPass... and even though he was there only a short time (less than a year), his WA pension more than covers that $50 outlay
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on June 4, 2007 09:53 PMAlso of note is that the streetcar lines were active back when relatively few had cars. News flash for the Luddite commenters: Cars are cheap and getting cheaper. New fuel sources will be developed and cars will become almost disposable. You can get a a great Honda or Toyota commuter car now for about $10K, and they get great mileage. With outstanding warranties and mostly maintenance free designs, cars are far, far cheaper to operate than even the subsidized fares of mass transit today. Let alone in the future. And they take us exactly where we want to go, not within a mile or so. And have you looked around in our terror oriented world? Who wants to volunteer to ride a bus or train with fools like Acid Brain? Not I. Most people are more than happy to stay in their cars away from the riff raff in our always growing and always less civil world.
Also Acid, you are wrong on your roads argument. You do benefit from the Tacoma Narrows bridge, and all of the other roads in this state that carry goods, services, and or other people that provide those goods and services to you and live where they want to live on the Kitsap peninsula. The bridge provides that to all, and will be paid for by its users and tolls baked into the cost of goods, and paid in its entirety. Whereas Sound Transit will be subsidized at a millions of dollars lost per year, and still only serve a relative few, and only commuters for five days a week and the occasional train to a sporting event.
Mass transit based on rail is a fantasy boondoggle to end run around the tax laws, provide more revenue for the state, and line the pockets of construction firms that are in tight with the current Democrats in Olympia. The trains are not the solution to transit in the region. There are much better ways to accommodate freight, goods and commuters, and still provide plenty of mass transit at a far lower cost.
But Seattle Utopian planners don't want to maximize our tax dollars, create efficient transit systems, or anything else that would make common sense. They just have their eyes fixed on the Collective Utopian Rail Fantasy.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 4, 2007 10:21 PMYou didn't really get my Narrows bridge comment, we totally agree on that, we do not disagree. And btw building rail doesn't mean the end of improving roads or car travel. If anything it is an improvement to those concurrent systems by making the surface load lighter - especially at commute times. But 'car haters' like me don't like to talk about that benefit for drivers, or do we?
Thinking that you are doing any good by not investing in multi-faceted transportation systems that include components like rail is truly living on Fantasy Island. At best it's myopic and provincial. If you want to hide in your car and not interact with all those scary people out there, it's your option, but you should know there is a diagnosis and treatment for what you are suffering from. K?
Posted by: Acid Brain on June 4, 2007 11:58 PMwhy do I feel like some mean looking, slick-back-haired goon wants to loan me money for "only xxx a week." watch your property tax knee caps!
dealing with ST? remember those investment ad caveats: "remember, past performance is no guarantee of future performance"
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on June 5, 2007 06:14 AM
Replacement?
Since 1993, I have been advocating a system of publically subsidized taxi's. We need to rapidly expand and support taxi's in the Puget Sound. They are the one "mass transit" scheme that meets all the criteria of a multi-point to point transit system.
Taxis (or even ShuttleExpress type van service) have many many advantages over linear transport systems. If you're worried about pollution - these taxis could all be powered by hydrogen fuel cells, with Metro building our area Hydrogen Highway (similar to what Governor Schwarzenegger is doing).
Posted by: John Bailo on June 5, 2007 09:24 AMThanks for the history lesson, but that's really the whole point. The car is king now. You say rail does work, but what you really can only say is that rail "worked." Regardless of how the history played out, that the change from rail to roads occurred is now fact. And that's the trouble with trains. There is a wholly different transportation world in place now. And obviously roads must be public at this point because they are the majority mode of travel that we all share. Anyone can see the fairness in collectively funding roads. But that's not the case with rail anymore. Rail would be used by only the few, and when the fares are shown to consumers in light of what they pay in auto transportation, and even parking, they are too high unless subsidized.
I can see how you might think it would be nice to have some rail in the mix. But it is so expensive per mile considering we also have to maintain roads, as to be inviable. We would be better off with any other scheme of rapid board tube buses, taxis, shuttles, anything that we could grow, while putting the majority of dollars in to the roads. Instead, we fixate on trains, which even in the most Progressive tax loving scenario, will only solve a tiny portion of the transportation problem. And at an enormous initial and future cost. We already have sunk massive capital into roads, why not support our initial investment, rather than embark on an ambiguous and costly new infrastructure that would only serve a few?
You can diagnose me as you will, but I can guarantee that you're not gonna find the average Joe riding the train to the airport in significant numbers. Or commuting, etc. Check out the mugging statistics on Portland's MAX. There is an element of crime opportunity on mass transit that is mostly absent in car based trips.
There will always be a few that will ride trains, but most people won't live that near to trains, no matter how many billions we spend. And those same people will do the math and find that even with high gasoline costs, it's still cheaper, faster and more convenient to drive. And that's why they do so in numbers above 90% in the Bay Area and Portland where they've already dumped Billions in to trains. Pretending this is not the case is a much graver diagnosis.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 5, 2007 09:57 AM
In the region where you claim your 90%, at the heaviest points of congestion would you suggest depositing that 10% back on the street in their own vehicles? Like on bridges maybe? By Bay Area do you mean cross bay commuters coming in and out of San Francisco or the entire multi-county region? It's not exactly traintopia, it is California after all, but it's a more adaptive multilevel west coast system like Seattle needs than a Chicago or New York model is.
The crime on trains thing? Boo. Who does drive by shootings from a train? Who steals the rims off of a trolley at night in the lot? DUIs? Speeding? Incidents of car related crime and accidents far exceed anything experienced on rail or bus. You don't need insurance to ride public transportation for a reason.
So we can agree that trains are appropriate in some cases for some customers then? That's a start. You just don't want the DOT spending any more than its current next to nothing on rail, even if that rail serves as much as 10%? If we can assume that you are asking rail to actually be more effective for the money than roads are, which is tough but not unreasonable, we can both get to demanding more transparency and less creative cooking from our officials on transportation. Especially on the financing, I'd say we agree on more important points than we differ on.
Posted by: Acid Brain on June 5, 2007 11:38 AMIf you can do trains for the price per commuter mile that you can do roads, you've got a strong case. Unfortunately, that's nowhere NEAR the case right now.
Remember, we're paying $300 MILLION in capital/upfront costs, and $80 per round trip to move 600 people from Everett/Mukilteo/Edmonds to downtown Seattle.
Over 20 years (about how long a major freeway lasts before it needs resurfacing), you'll have $100 per commuter in capital costs (assuming ZERO additional capital money paid in), and still have that public funding of $80 per trip.
Compare that to a Viaduct replacement. Say it costs $3 BILLION to do the replacement - over 20 years, at today's commuter rate, you're at a capital investment of $5.72 per commuter. And zero public funding per trip.
Trains just don't make economic sense, at least how they are deployed here in the Puget Sound. If ST was serious about trains, they'd run commuter trains regularly on all tracks they could find, and finance the crap out of buses to get people to and from the rail terminals.
Building new light rail that doesn't go where people want to go (I still can't get over missing Southcenter!) is a folly and tremendous waste of taxpayer resources. Go bus rapid transit, more buses, and more roads. Trains - as they are done here - are an albatross on the scale of WPPSS.
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on June 5, 2007 11:51 AMGo ride the trolley service in LA and tell us about crime. Many women there don't wear their wedding rings (that might give you a small hint)
The Gangs just love the service.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on June 5, 2007 11:52 AM-As rails utility in transporting people decreases, so should it's funding. Rail's utility in transporting people has been decresing for at least 80 years as prosperity creates personal mobility. Deep down, rail advocates utterly dispise economic expansion as it lessens the ability to control people.
Rail is brutally expensive, even more so when lots of water and hills are around.
Great rationale: people going to the airport to go to hundreds of destinations will flock to a fixed route to get there. The stupidity of that logic is mindboggling, and arrogant. Likewise, no, even more insane, the logic of a downtown to UW rail route. Or, the whole MaryAnne, airport to UW. Cuckoo.
Let us pray the public gives rail such a thorough thrasing in this upcoming vote that even cretins like Doug MacDonald and The Queen will get the message.
Posted by: Hank on June 5, 2007 11:58 AMI fear that the average intelligence of a King County voter will be shown to be below average and the RTID will pass, because they are stupid enough to get sold on this blank check for light rail. The light rail may show a respectable ridership in the future - due to theoretically higher population densities, but if it happens, it won't be until all those currently living are pushing up daisies (in other words - not for > 150 years). Too much money for light rail and not enough for roads - I will vote this down ! That's my story and I am sticking to it.
Posted by: KS on June 5, 2007 12:01 PMSound Transit should be shut down and ended. It is an insane waste of taxpayers money!
Posted by: GS on June 5, 2007 03:10 PM
The ferry system plying the waterways was also built and managed by private enterprise and many of them are still owned and operated by private companies in the NYC area. What a concept.
Why oh why do Washington folk rely on government agencies to solve problems better handled by private enterprise? Vote NO to government waste and mismanagement and demand a private enterprise solution for mass transportation alternatives to roads. Start by privatising the ferry system and commuter rail-lines. Think lease. Check out the NYC subway web sites. The plan is there. It worked in at the turn of the last century. It will work now. There are alternatives to government transportation.
Posted by: Snuffy on June 6, 2007 08:08 AMsame reason for the school levies. renters do not get property tax levies & confiscations if they do not pay. we do. they vote for every benefit--school lunches and all the goodies.
"let the homeowner shoulder the burden--who cares--i'm outta here anyway" this is why SnoHo county cities ought to limit ratio of total apartments. i was an apt dweller too if that matters, but they are not invested as we are in the long term results and local costs and risks from bond levies.
apts. may make environ. sense (density) but do nothing for protecting those homeowners who actually foot the local tax bills and are exposed to lose their properties if they do not. (can you say 'emergency room illegal alien costs'?)
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on June 6, 2007 12:51 PMHow come?
Because Southcenter serves the people of this ware.
The Burrowcraps in this state only service themselves and their own pocketbooks.
If the Sound transit board is so wise, then how did they choose and I do mean choose to run right by Southcenter, where many many people go, without stopping there?
Because they service themselves.
Southcenter will prosper, because the people will no longer need or for that matter even want to go into Seattle
I say to hell with the Sound transit board!
The Monorail was shot down by city and state democrats for trying to budget 50 years into the future.
Now Sound Transit comes out with pretty much the same junk bond funding ?
Whats the difference? Other than Sims and his buddies are doing it this time.
Posted by: DaveD on June 10, 2007 09:25 AM