1. Because they are fun to ride,and you don't have to pay for a ticket.

Posted by: Publicbulldog on September 11, 2007 02:33 PM

2. That was a nice article and was somewhat different than most opinion pieces on this issue. Nice take and I really liked the history references of how I-5 ended up where it did.

Can we get MacIsaac to do an opinion piece on SP in the future?

Posted by: swatter on September 11, 2007 02:40 PM

3. That was meant to mean he should post an article on SP about the tax initiative and not an opinion of SP.

Posted by: swatter on September 11, 2007 03:00 PM

4. The Roads and Transit proposition is like the Pillsbury dough boy - bloated and half-baked.

This will not even pay for the SR 520 bridge - they will raise taxes even more to cover those costs.

Let's see what the final price tag for light rail to the airport is first. Could be we aren't getting the whole story there . . . wouldn't surprise me a bit if the measure passes and then "suddenly" there's a need for another five billion just to cover those costs.

This ballot measure is just some lazy politicians wanting massive piles of taxes. Make them work for it - VOTE NO and let's see a better plan, one that is leaner and not overweighted to trains.

Posted by: Warfield on September 11, 2007 03:06 PM

5. Because the federal govt. will bail you out when the earthquake strikes / bridge collapses. That way the tax burden is spread across the entire country rather than the local taxpayer base who will actually use it.

It's simple economics. =)

Posted by: Cato on September 11, 2007 03:24 PM

6. Cato - Hopefully the smiley face at the end of your post indicates a joke, which I can appreciate. Otherwise, you are one sick dude. And if Socialists hadn't demonstrated historically their willingness to kill (via assassination, genocide, and/or genetically random mass killings) to achieve economic equality and expand the power of central government, I would not have had to ask.

Posted by: srogers on September 11, 2007 03:59 PM

7. Bundy's article at Crosscut.com is one of the best yet on transportaion politics and policy. Not known as a bastion of conservative thought, Crosscut nevertheless is willing to publish contrary to the conventional wisdom articles, with this being one.

Yet it's garnered few (a dozen or so) comments, including one form yours truly. A whole host of additional, "Amen's!" and "Attaboy's!" to Bundy posted over at Crosscut certainly wouldn't hurt...

The Piper

Posted by: Piper Scott on September 11, 2007 04:16 PM

8. This will not even pay for the SR 520 bridge - they will raise taxes even more to cover those costs.

Absolutely. That's a well known fact to the people here, problem is that so many people voting on this thing won't know that, and the well funded 'yes' campaign won't mention it. It won't widen I-405 along the S-curves either without a whole lot more money.

#5 - Sadly, I think there's alot of truth to what Cato posted. There's a whole lot of infrastructure, especially in the hurricane areas of the south, that would completely fail with another cat 5 storm. And it's the federal government dollars that are going to bail them out when it happens.

Posted by: Palouse on September 11, 2007 04:18 PM

9. Again, most federal grants are based on need. Therefore, it behooves the municipalities not to keep up.

Backwards system, indeed.

Posted by: swatter on September 11, 2007 04:24 PM

10. Bundy's article is dead on. But don't expect any sanity from transportation planners here in the Sound, or from Democratic politicians. They are wedded to trains. They like the fantasy of increased ridership, even if every other city that has implemented light rail has ridership of only 1 to 2%.

One of these days, we'll get our MN bridge fiasco, and then maybe voters will wake up and challenge the Train Fantasy.

Until then, expect lots of expensive ads pushing RTID/ST2.

Posted by: Jeff B. on September 11, 2007 05:48 PM

11. #6 why the complaints?

Cato's just describing the same wealth transfer principal that's at work when Western WA's tax base pays for Eastern WA's infrastructure - or when New York pays for Alabama's.

It makes me laugh when I hear so-called conservatives foam about the evils of wealth transfer and socialism even as red states and counties mooch off the blue.

Apparently, cognitive dissonance requires cognition.

Posted by: redstatetaxmooch on September 11, 2007 05:56 PM

12. "when Western WA's tax base pays for Eastern WA's infrastructure - or when New York pays for Alabama's" - eastern Washington's wants and needs are not expressed by the votes (legal and extra-legal) of Seattleites who force gubmnt programs on them that they neither want or need and that they would never vote themselves. Liberalism is expensive and to say that eastern Washington has imposed a "cost" on Seattle is bullshit. What Seattle subsidizes, if anything, is their own want and need for control. So shudupabout what eastern Washington "costs" King County.

Posted by: JDH on September 11, 2007 09:35 PM

13. Red @ 11

You just might want to ask our Guv about the viaduct that was falling down YEARS ago when She NEEDED to pass (a) GAS TAX......

Get a grip red.....

We already know the sky is falling. Don't you?

Posted by: chris on September 11, 2007 09:46 PM

14. Yeh the 9 cent gas tax emergency was to fix the viaduct and 520, and all they have spent that money for is padding their neverending DOT Pit of a bottom line.

Where's the Emergency's?

Posted by: Gs on September 11, 2007 10:02 PM

15. Our taxes should go into the original corridors.
I could land a small plane during rush hour in certain locations on the original corridors.

Entirely to many local people,including transit are using the interstates when they should be using the original corridors.
Take 167 for example.
Heading south on 405 there should be a benson hwy exit before the 167 interchange.
The renton exit should be a split between east valley headed South and rainer avenue headed North.
This would separate east kent valley traffic and east hill trafic from the 167 choke point.
Subtle investments like these ,along major investments like high speed rail along the original corridors will allow by pass traffic to use the interstates.
Every choke point in our region is caused by to much local traffic using the interstates and the lack of performance of the original corridors.
We need to stop cop out planning,and other bad planning by WSDOT.
THEY DON'T HAVE CLUE ON HOW TO SOLVE OUR TRANSPORTATION.
Get out of there Dig Macdonald.
Dont let the door hit you on the way out.

Posted by: Publicbulldog on September 11, 2007 11:59 PM

16. I see major waste of money in planning a project. The costs of the new project is about a third of the total cost being spent on enviromental studies. SO you need to repave I90 you have to do a new enviromental study from scratch. WHy do they not do a update of existing studies and save money to do the road work.
I have asked friends in other states on the cost of doing highway work. North Dakota lots of small hills lots of ponds to work around. They too have enviromental studies. Yet they can build a 78 mile 4 lane highway for under 600 Million dollars.
The bottom line is I want to see an audit of DOT without legislature blocking investigating certain areas from the auditor.
Then do get any money to do road work you have to pay Mass Transit the majority of the money. In some places that is called Black Mail. KC will not do road repairs or improve our current roads unless they can divert a majority of the money to Mass Transit. THe problem is they sell the public on a set of goods that they know will need all the money and somehow there is not enough money to do the projects promised.
Lets look at 520 bridge. Two years ago it was just over a Billion dollars to build the new bridge today it is over 4 billion dollars to do the project. INflation really must be bad to cause the cost to grow so much in such a short period of time.
Then you get the people taking any road project to court that costs a lot of money to taxpayers. INcreases the cost of the project.
520 bridge design is still a mystery. The latest design is that we will spend 4 Billion dollars and have a bridge that is about 80% of current capacity. Billions for less. The excuse will be well Mass Transit like like rail is more important than cars. the 3% get all the money and a new choke point will be produced that will make rush hour traffic even worse. I thought the idea was to build up capacity. SPend billions of dollars to improve driving conditions and minimize Rush hour traffic issues.
Lastly if Mass transit would charge the cost to make it run to the users. No one would ever use it. Each new system placed on line at least 50% of the operating costs have to paid by the tax payer. OK this makes sense add a project to mass transit and we can tax the people more. Divert more money from road projects to run the mass transit projects. Because Mass Transit will be paid first and the maintenance of the infrastructure will be funded last. So they can ask for even more tax money to fix a problem that was promised to be fixed in the last tax increase. And Blame inflation for the reason road work never seems to get completed.
ANd yes Maintenance of they infrastructure is the last thing politicians want to do. Not in just KC but in the whole state. I remember every road bill they talk about the backlog of repairs to bridges throughout the state. I guess they want the bridges to be like Minneapolis. Let them fall down. Unfunded maintenance is a major problem. But if you have no roads how can busses use them. I just do not get the politicians on this one.

Posted by: David Anfinrud on September 12, 2007 05:58 AM

17. North Dakota lots of small hills lots of ponds to work around. They too have environmental studies. Yet they can build a 78 mile 4 lane highway for under 600 Million dollars.

See the prior discussion about home values in Washington to see why Western Washington can't build a 78 mile 4 lane highway for under 600 Million dollars.

Posted by: Cato on September 12, 2007 09:10 AM

18. @12:

No, the Seattle metro area subsidizes eastern WA's infrastructure. Period.

But since you blame mean ol' liberals for building roads you never wanted in eastern WA, I wonder how you'd account for the national balance of payments where every year money is siphoned from "liberal, big-government" blue states to "conservative, self-reliant" red states. The mean ol' liberals who controlled the presidency and the congress for six of the last seven years? Or was it those darn activist judges, passing and signing spending and appropriations bills and bypassing the other two branches?

@13: Gregoire's an idiot. She, Nickles, Chopp, and the viaduct all need to go. Irrelevant to my point that Republican dogma about small government is grossly at odds with Republican actions.

Posted by: redstatetaxmooch on September 12, 2007 09:57 AM

19. No moron, the cost of everything is ratcheted up due to policies which originate, for the most part, and ate voted in by liberal enclaves. If it costs them then they are not paying for the wants of people who are were responsible for voting big gubmnt libs into office in the first place. They are paying for their own desire to control others period.

Posted by: JDH on September 12, 2007 02:06 PM

20. TEA 21 policies dictate that we create more jobs.
The living wage unions have control over our planning.
Loot rail creates more work and gentrification so
that is where our money goes.
Building new lanes does not create enough work for the prevailing coneheads.

Posted by: Publicbulldog on September 12, 2007 06:32 PM

21. mule skinner,

Our transportation money has to tear up the streets enough to raise the square footage rates of the intercity condo's,in order to get that gentrification that the visionary ,draconian ,seattle centrics desire.
Read
http://www.transact.org/ANTC/1_28_04_jobs_alert.asp
http://www.apta.com/research/info/online/dont_slow.cfm
http://www.apta.com/research/info/online/documents/tea21rec.pdf
http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/novdec98/tea.htm
http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org/archieve/august21/filner.htm

LEARN MULE SKINNER.

Posted by: Publicbulldog on September 12, 2007 06:52 PM

22. Here is why we do what we do.

Tell Congress To Fund Transit and 'Fix it First' Policy for Greatest Job Gains
ith the Senate starting floor debate on TEA-21 renewal early next week, STPP is releasing a new analysis that shows the greatest job gains for each transportation dollar result from investments in public transportation, safety and road repairs. This brief report responds to the recurring public debate that TEA-21 renewal is a jobs bill. It shows that road and bridge repair creates 9 percent more jobs per dollar than building new roads or bridges, and public transportation spending creates 19 percent more jobs. Further, the analysis reveals that the oft-cited figure that an investment of $1billion creates 47,500 jobs fails to account for a mandatory 20 percent state match, meaning that a public investment of $1.25 billion would be required to create those jobs. For more details, visit www.transact.org for the full text of the Decoder.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION CREATES 19 PERCENT MORE JOBS.
Listen to Joni Earl talk.
She puts me to sleep,then at the end when I wake up she says sound transit creates jobs.
Jobs and investments,and gentrification.
We are not trying to save a whale salmon or frog.
Are you listening sierra club,Are you listening 100 friends of Greg Smith.

Posted by: Publicbulldog on September 12, 2007 07:03 PM

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