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Friday, August 12, 2005

I-912 and the Monorail.

Posted by on August 12 at 7:27 AM

The conventional wisdom among timid, self-hating Seattle Democrats and their consultants right now is this: The Monorail debacle is giving Seattle a bad name statewide and so, it’s fanning the gas tax repeal movment. Oh dear me, we better scrap this monorail thing pronto as a way to defuse I-912.

Setting aside the messed up logic here (hello? the gas tax is exclusively for roads, while the monorail is mass public transit), Seattle’s leaders should start looking out for Seattle, not looking over our shoulder. The response to the disapproval we’re getting from the rest of the state shouldn’t be to cave. No, I-912 should actually inspire us to stand up for ourselves and stand by the monorail. The very fact that we can’t fund transportation in concert with the rest of the state is the reason we should turn to our own mass public transit solutions. I say come up with a new finance plan, and show the rest of the state that we’re serious about transit.