James Vesely's longer than normal editorial column today expends a good deal of print space discussing the roads-transit package up for a vote this November. Much like Goldy, I was left not really clear with where he was going with the piece.
Either way, one key point remains: the picture is decidedly mixed for the measure. It has roads some people want, and others hate. Ditto that with the transit component, especially light rail. And we're discussing them all at once in no small part because the state and the region have done an atrocious job - going back many, many moons - of planning and executing transportation solutions.
Speaking of planning, credit must also be given where credit is due to Will at Horse's Ass. He recently pushed-back with vigor against the jihad being waged by Josh Feit at the Stranger against new roads. Will quite reasonably argues that Feit and like-minded urban liberals are out of touch with the needs of non-urban dwellers.
Simply put, the closer one gets the heart of urban Seattle the more transit-centric options become a popular favorite. A more balanced mix of roads and transit is likewise favored in the smaller urban areas of Everett and Tacoma. More established, suburban cities ringing Seattle such as Edmonds, Bellevue, and Tukwila frequently find themselves in that camp too. But even at that the inner ring of suburbs supports road construction (like 405). And farther out in the exurbs of Marysville, Monroe, Sumner, and Puyallup roads projects are a must.
Will correctly understands, and Feit doesn't seem to grasp, that's just the reality outside the urban, liberal cocoon. If you pay attention at least.
For pure political sport it's worth watching how much mileage groups like the Sierra Club try to get during the coming campaign out of errant notion's that general-purpose roads are inherently a bad thing. Speaking of campaigns, here's a website for the pro side of the debate.
I'm not aware of any website speaking against the package as a whole, just the goofballs at the Sierra Club opposing the measure because of global warming and the Washington Policy Center's long-standing opposition to light rail. If anyone is aware of a group formed specifically against the measure could mention as much in the comments I'll post it in an update.
Posted by Eric Earling at June 17, 2007 08:28 PM | Email ThisDoes he mean if the measure(s) fail, then there's a tax decrease of 14.6 billion? I think the fine print is authorizing an extension of current Sound Transit taxes, but I don't think that part is 14.6 billion.
I think Mr Vesely does raise some good points about tolling and just how much that will really bring. In other words, RTID would be a step towards 520, but there would still be a large financial gap left to fill. So one of the big questions is when do we fill that gap.
Another big question he raises is "who's in charge." Ultimately, if there are cost overruns, who makes the call on what gets postponed and what gets done first.
It seems the next steps if this fails are 1) governance reform, eg follow the Stanton / Rice recommendations , 2) a smaller package or 3) tolls as reported recently in Crosscut, or 4)put the measure back, but with a 2 vote option instead of 1 vote, where the votes are on the 2 parts separately. Or maybe 5 is Olympia does something unilaterally on 520, which along with the viaduct seem to be the two critical priorities. We can live without 509, or another lane on 405, but we'll be in a world of hurt with no 520.
The other big challenge is: where are people actually going to be able to afford to live in 5 - 10 years? There is simply nothing being built anywhere within 20 miles of downtown Seattle and Bellevue that's under 200K, and even 300 or 400K is unusual. What this means is very long trips to where there's something somewhat affordable. Yet the long-distance trains from Everett and Tacoma don't seem to be huge successes at attracting riders, probably because on either end there's still some time-consuming commuting.
So, how many park and ride spaces are being built with this measure to help long-distance bus riders? I think the ST claim is 10,000 park and ride lots, but where are they?
There are definitely a lot of questions, and a lot of fine print to go over.
Posted by: Stuart Jenner on June 17, 2007 09:12 PMOkay, then. Why is it, the most critical area of need in the FETID proposal doesn't address how to evacuate the folks in the way of the (inevitable) Rainier lahar? Back in the day, the same folks said St. Helens would never blow.
When, not if, Rainier pops her top, the poor folks in Orting, McMillin, Alderton and surrounds, will be so many Pompeii statuettes because 162 doesn't have any increased capacity scheduled. This oughtta be a sin to the Democrats (and Rinos like Bunney). Why wasn't the (moral) widening of 162 included? Didn't the developers give enough bribes to the P.C. Council?
Posted by: cmiklich on June 17, 2007 09:44 PMI will vote Hell No on every new damn tax these idiots want.
They've correctly called Goldy out on the "doing something today, even if it is excessive is better than doing nothing" argument.
Here's the dirty little secret that Sound Transit Rail folks don't want you to know. Buses run far, far more frequently than the trains, and they get you almost fully from point A to point B. And they can go anywhere, are cheaper to implement, and allow for a simultaneous use of the major transportation mode.
There's no reason the Puget Sound needs to have train envy and guage itself with respect to the other major west coast cities who have dumped billions in to rail, with not all that much to show for it. Why not think different and make a state of the art bus rapid transit system with boarding tubes and other enhancements, which would then allow for all of major project money to build up the road choke points, failing bridges, etc. which need to be fixed anyway? The reality is that California may have blown a lot of money on transit, but they have also fixed and grown their road infrastrure massively. And they can somewhat afford to do both because they tax the hell out of their citizens with income, sales, property, gasoline, etc. taxes.
The Left Rail Transit fantasy types don't consider the cost of living portion of the equation. If the Puget Sound becomes another overly expensive Bay Area due to high taxes, what good are the fancy rail show-and-tell tourist projects to the average Joe who lives in the greater metropolitan area, outside of the rail corridors? All it will do is keep pushing that urban growth boundry further out where people can still afford to live, and support all of the high-tax fantasies.
Seattle spent a lot of money on the beginnings of this system, and now that initial investment is being corrupted by rail fantasies that will support only a tiny percentage of the Puget Sound, but at an enormous cost. Vote No. Stop the madness.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 18, 2007 05:57 AM>>>If the Puget Sound becomes another overly expensive Bay Area due to high taxes, what good are the fancy rail show-and-tell tourist projects to the average Joe who lives in the greater metropolitan area, outside of the rail corridors? All it will do is keep pushing that urban growth boundry further out where people can still afford to live, and support all of the high-tax fantasies.
San Jose has a trolley system that goes into the surrounding area too. It has not made a dent in traffic on the freeways. A lot of people are commuting from points way east because that's the only area they can afford to buy anything at all.
Here's a HUGE reason to vote NO in NOvember - Greg Nickels.
He is a trainwreck when it comes to transportation leadership, and he is the individual most responsible for the details of RTID/ST2.
Nickels was Finance Chair of ST when the decisions of how to finance which capital projects were made in the 'nineties. What did we get? Costs that are way out of line with benefits, a tiny amount of bus and commuter train service, and a light rail project that ST can not get up and running. That light rail line will provide negligible economic benefits.
Nickels was largely responsible for shoving Seattle Monorail Project down our throats. He got on his pedestal and shouted about how great it would be and how it was financially prudent for his constituents to vote yes. He made sure the city gave SMP money to keep it going in the early days, and made sure the city gave SMP the transitway agreement it wanted. After two years of lies about how well the DBOM negotiating was going, SMP released the true, completely unreasonable costs to taxpayers (two and a half years AFTER the vote). Nickels still backed it publicly - for about three months. It is fair to say Nickels is directly responsible for reaming the citizens of this city to the tune of $180 MILLION in completely wasted taxes.
Nickels can't manage the city's transportation finances worth a fig. He somehow couldn't find money in the general fund to pay for pothole filling and bridge repair, so he had to get the voters to buy off on a property tax increase for those maintenance costs (Bridging the Gap).
Nickels, pandering to developers and oblivious to tax impacts on his constituents, pigheadedly stuck to his SR 99 tunnel tax-grab plan despite its unpopularity and a fed-up public. He doesn't care - he doesn't have to.
The transit benefits of monorail won't come to the city. So what does Nickels do, in his role on ST's board to make up for that in ST2? Absolutely nothing. No changes to ST2 to provide transit to West Seattle, Ballard, or points north and west.
What protections does Nickels insist on in ST2 to make sure his constituents don't get ripped off like they did with Monorail? NONE.
What has Nickels done for his constituents to make sure RTID is a good deal? NOTHING. He sold out the citizens of Seattle with RTID. The cost/benefit ratio of taxes to projects for Seattle residents is atrocious: Seattle taxpayers literally ship billions of dollars out to Bellevue/Renton/Factoria road projects under RTID.
How did Nickels do for Seattle in negotiating ST2 light rail work? He got completely out-negotiated by the Snohomish County contingent. They would get light rail much further north than originally planned, and Seattle's expansion of light rail to Northgate wouldn't take place until 2025 (much later than planned).
Vote No. RTID/ST2 is a monument to Nickels' proven inability to plan and execute transportation projects.
'the courts here in Washington (including the State Supreme Court) have ruled that words have no meaning when it comes to what Sound Transit says the vote will provide for. When they are involved in a ballot measure, should you be inclined to vote for the measure consider that they can basically do what ever the hell they damn well please and charge taxpayers what ever the hell they damn well please.'
JDH is flat wrong when asserting the Supreme Court at some point held "that words [in ballot measures ST put before voters] have no meaning." JDH will not be able to cite any examples of that.
Moreover, JDH makes the following COMPLETELY FALSE statement. JDH implies something the Supreme Court held means that ST "can basically do what ever the hell they damn well please and charge taxpayers what ever the hell they damn well please." No Supreme Court ruling has come close to holding that. There are limits to the amounts of tax ST can collect, and the December, 2006 I-776 opinion says that in so many words.
For whatever reason - it may be unintentional, it many be intentional - JDH is spouting off two completely false messages.
OK JDH - let's see you back your stuff up. What are the cases you are referring to when you make the statements I've quoted in this post? What is the text from those opinions you are referring to?
Post it, and we can show you how your head is somewhere the sun doesn't come close to shining.
There you go again. The Bay Area has now had BART for about 40 years. In that 40 years, countless billions have been spent, and still system only serves less than .1 of the total population daily. The Puget Sound should not follow that bad example. I'll grant that if the light rail only went from downtown to the Airport, that might be a useful one time large expense. It would work for tourists, conventions, etc. and it would be a nice to have. But to extend the system for commuter use is a large waste of money given all of the other massive infrastructure projects that are needed, and the largely distributed nature of today's commutes and workforce.
You outline a lot of really expensive stuff, but you make no explanation of how that would be paid for. Even ST2 is having a lot of trouble justifying where it would get the funds to do just a small segment of what would ever be needed to make the system viable, and most of that funding is not in existence, but simply wishful thinking. Meanwhile, there are real road improvements that are needed like the 520 bridge, that are actually responsible for most of the travel and distribution at key points in the region.
Raising taxes to the point that it creates a massive middle class burden will have the unintended effect of moving the growth boundary even further out where homes will be affordable. This will in turn cause even larger transit problems than the more inner suburban and urban rail transit schemes as proposed now. That money would simply be better spent on Bus Rapid Transit and other schemes that make use of the roads, and if done properly, it would cost less, and make for a much lower tax necessity, that ultimately benefits everyone.
Quality of life is in large part determined by tax burden, property values and location, etc. We will all have a better quality of life if there is fiscal sanity in the approaches that we take to large wide problems.
There's no reason not to run regional infrastructure more like a business with a maximization of return on investment. Unless of course you are a left leaning tax Utopian that is content to tax and legislate the future out of existence and turn the US into a European like socialist state.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 18, 2007 11:38 AMThis irrational fear of public travel manifested as outdated commie finger pointing and red wolf crying comes from a resistance to change. There is no red scare in the tracks bud. Maybe you are really implying that every public transit supporter and rider across the country is a marxist whackjob - I'm sure that will get you a lot of laughs at the farebox from people on their way to go make money.
Your BART rhetoric is simply not supported by facts other than those conveniently cherry picked for you to apply in your completely phony "no taxation without representation" grammar school textbook pose. You are going to have to fish for conflict on that with better bait.
Posted by: Acid Brain on June 18, 2007 12:27 PM
"And yes the State Supreme Court bought off on ST's contention that they owe NOTHING to the people" What ST promised to do in the 1996 meausre is "spend tax money." That is just like with ST2. If the mess in November is approved, ST will "spend tax money." The voters will get what they voted for, just like with ST #1!!!!