* Traffic jams this morning on I-5 when a Metro bus caught fire.
* Yet another cost overrun on the light rail boondoggle:
Sound Transit is adding $100 million to its cost estimate for a future tunnel from downtown to Capitol Hill and Husky Stadium, for a new figure of $1.6 billion.Nevertheless, "federal Transportation Secretary Mary Peters has praised the three-mile project, which might break ground late next year", giving us fiscal conservatives another reason to be disappointed with the Bush administration. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 20, 2007 12:47 PM | Email This
You'll be watching your money get flushed down a black hole for the rest of your lifetime, and then if you have kids, they can watch it too.
Posted by: Palouse on September 20, 2007 02:43 PMSims is as much as calling for a "no" vote at this point - time for the other shoe to fall. He knows that is our best hope going forward.
Where's Big Daddy Nickels? Let's get him weighing in on this. KING-TV should send Robert Mak over to find him, and start firing questions up in his face.
Nickels is the financial guru behind ST. He's been on the board since 1995, and he was the Finance Chair during the first six years (when a bunch of mistakes were made). Nickels is more responsible than anyone for the mess festering there.
Let's see if Greg Nickels can give some cogent reasons for supporting this particular measure. I doubt he could.
He is supposed to be representing the people of Seattle. Why should people here vote to hurt their families and neighbors for decades with steep sales taxes for this pile of pork?
Maybe Nickels will be smart enough to say what Sims said: "no comment."
Posted by: melchior on September 20, 2007 03:15 PMCheck with BIAW about contractor and raw materials price increases.
Posted by: Bill Anderson on September 20, 2007 03:53 PMBut just wait until some guy with a backpack steps onto a bus and screams, "Allahu Akbar!" Anyone want to calculate the effect that would have on the already-dismal ridership numbers that transit enjoys around here? And the usefulness of billions of dollars' worth of transportation "investments" would vaporize as quickly as the Goretex that the backpack was made from.
Posted by: TB on September 20, 2007 06:05 PMThose overruns help increase the jobs per billion. Posted by: Publicbulldog on September 20, 2007 06:12 PM
They would just spend it on more mandated dog and pony shows to tour around the districts.
Our create another District. Posted by: Publicbulldog on September 20, 2007 06:14 PM
Thanks, Shark, to you and your writers for keeping us enlightened.
Posted by: R on Beacon Hill on September 20, 2007 06:17 PMHow much has your property increased on bacon hill thanks to the mass gentrification of the Rainer valley.
You are a Stakeholder with a chip in the game.
Your property and your job stands to be effected by these cop out social engineering schemes.
So here you are,ready to jusify your personal apple cart to those of us that think your Job,and your property,are benefiting from a bad policy.
So lets hear how gentrification of the intercities has helped your employment,and your property values,because you obviously have two chips in the game.
I should have bought some property in Bacon Hill so I could take advantage of the property value increases caused by the mass gentrification and utopian socialized mass transit system that pays your wages.
Your posts mean nothing here R Pence.
We should all realize that Sims is right on this one. No Comment! Well at least that's what he says as he votes for the boondoggle.
We voted hell no on the Big Dig, and we can vote hell no on this neverending $$$ sucking unsound transit.
Just Vote no on the whole damn thing.
As bad as the "Mon-no-Rail" project was -- at least they just stole the front money and never built the stupid thing (leaving us to pay for it for years on end).
Sound Transit doesn't have the wherewithal to cut and run, so now not only are they building the thing, but they want to grow it.
Posted by: John Bailo on September 21, 2007 04:36 AMYou know some people might interpret your smug, sacastic responses as offical policy of your employer. I think it reflects more on the character of anyone who would hire you as a spokesperson. Organizations usually try to hire people who "fit in" with the others that work there. Sound Transit obviously suffers from a dangerously inbred institutional lack of self-awareness. You ST folks should receive a No vote in November.
Posted by: Huh? on September 21, 2007 06:40 AMNo contractors are signing those kinds of contracts today. The contractors and builders won't take that risk because they don't have to.
Posted by: Bill Anderson on September 21, 2007 10:39 AMWell, the Hudson-Bergen light rail project was done as a DBOM, but that was a couple of years ago:
[link]http://www.transportation1.org/tif1report/expansion_cont.html[/link]
Let's say you are right, and at this point it would be impossible for ST to get a DBOM, or any kind of public/private partnership for light rail extensions. Then the question would be, how to protect taxpayers from massive cost overruns.
As you know, there are no tax revenue spending caps or bonding caps in ST2 (and that ordinance would remove the spending limits on Phase I that are in the 1996 ordinance). Assuming the measure in November is not approved, what would you suggest ST do to protect taxpayers with its next ballot offering?
My suggestion would be for Phase I to be completed, with a tax rollback as required by Sound Move. Let's see if ST can get that puppy up and running first! Then a system expansion could go on the ballot, which would have implementation-phase spending limits in it comparable to those in Sound Move.
Would you agree that would be a good way to protect the interests of taxpayers?