Pity

AND our supposed "progressive talk" AM1090, was shilling for Kemper's little playpen for quite some time.

"Known to" and "known for" are not the same thing.  This post doesn't say which accurately reflects the requirement in play.

Who is Mike O'Brien to say that he adequately represents the no position? Everybody knows that the majority of the no votes are going to come from people who are anti-light rail, not anti-highways, i.e. the very constituency Freeman et al represent.

And Talmadge has not been a vocal opponent of this package? That's an out-and-out lie, Mr. O'Brien, and you know it. Talmadge just had an op-ed in The Seattle Times opposing light rail across the I-90 bridge. What the hell else does he have to do to qualify as a vocal opponent?

Thank God I'm not a Sierra Club member. Because if I were right now, I'd feel like one of Custer's soldiers walking into Little Big Horn. There's got to be some kind of backlash among the Sierra Club membership over this aggressive opposition to the joint ballot.

ST chose friendlies: psuedo opponents. Those three are stiffs. They each have technical flaws making them unsuitable for that particular role, things like conflicts of interest, bad past acts, etc.

They'll pull punches, and take dives . . . It's how the game is played.

cressona,
No, everybody does not know that.

What exactly is it that you want out of RTID/ST2? Reduced congestion? RTID won't do that. Capacity enhancement does not reduce congestion; it induces demand. 50 years of road building policy have taught us that. Only congestion pricing can relieve traffic in a thriving metropolis like ours.

Climate mitigation? We need to make drastic cuts now: 80% by 2050. What will future generations think of us for adding 74 miles of new general purpose lanes at this critical juncture? More cars = more CO2. Hybrids/alternative fuel vehicle barely make a dent. ST2 is great but it does not suck CO2 out of the air. Its influence is overwhelmed by new residents and billions of dollars of new roads. We need to stop digging before we can get out of this climate hole.

Maintenance and safety? RTID makes a mockery of the "fix it first" ethic. It is a expansion bill. Out of the most at-risk bridges in the Puget Sound region, only one will be replaced by RTID. It doesn't even fully fund 520. We should be chipping away at the $30 billion maintenance backlog we have in the region before splurging on new, sprawl-inducing highways.

It's obvious that transportation is screwed up in this region. No one denies that. But we can't let our frustration cloud the reality of this bill's fatal flaws. The answer to our transportation problems is not a massive, regressive tax increase to build sprawl-bomb highways. It is to manage our existing resources better through congestion pricing, major investments in transit, and a policy shift toward compact, walkable communities. We need to send this bill back for some work.

"Who is Mike O'Brien to say that he adequately represents the no position?"

I second the concern expressed here. And I'd turn up the "volume" on it, if you catch my metaphor. I don't trust that "opposition" one iota.

Looks to me like Sound Transit selectively provided the Sierra Club with the voters guide content. ST wanted Sierra Club to sue, because it had worked out in advance exactly what Sierra Club would allege. How do we know this? Sierra Club has the voters guide statements and the ballot title befor anybody else. Sierra Club must have gotten those directly from ST, and NOBODY gets that kind of treatment from ST's lawyers unless ST wants it.

Sierra Club's lawsuit is a staged cream puff. There probably are real problems with the ballot title and statements for and against. Maybe attorney Townshend will post them?

ST's lawyers at some point in the past several weeks gave Sierra Club's lawyers the ballot title language, the RTID proposition terms, and the ST proposition terms.

ST has not disclosed that content to the public. That means this lawsuit Townshend is prosecuting is a staged sham.

Townshend should definitely post what he is alleging (copies of the complaint, any motions he's filed, etc.). He also should post whatever ST provided to him: ST isn't giving the public anything - ST must really like Townshend.

This lawsuit by the Sierra Club stinks - I'd be shocked if any of the real problems with the ballot title and the proposed ordinances are alluded to by Townshend.

Would it be too much to ask to see what the court filings both sides have submitted actually say, ECB? TIA.

Flabio - are you being intentionally dense here?

ST choose its opponent. The opponent they chose - the anti-transit guys.

Do you think that:

A) They chose the STRONGEST opponent to write the opposition statement in the voters guide, or...

B) Their WEAKEST opponent?

Right. They chose their weakest opponent.

Hmmm....why again?

Oh right, they want to win the election.

The question the Sierra Club is asking is whether whether it makes sense to spend billions on mega-highway projects...with everything we know about global warming.

Sound Transit doesn't want to have that discussion.

ST does much better arguing against the anti-transit guys....THAT'S WHY THEY THOSE CHOSE THEM.

Flabio-

You wrote:

"ST's lawyers at some point in the past several weeks gave Sierra Club's lawyers the ballot title language, the RTID proposition terms, and the ST proposition terms.

ST has not disclosed that content to the public. That means this lawsuit Townshend is prosecuting is a staged sham."

Hmmm....maybe the Sierra Club did SECRETLY get the ballot language from the Sound Transit.

Or maybe they simply got it from ST's website: http://www.soundtransit.org/documents/pdf/about/board/resolutions/2007/Reso2007-15.pdf. This is from July 12, 2007.

Love the conspiracy theories, Flabio. Keep 'em coming.

Cressona @ 4

You wrote: "Everybody knows that the majority of the no votes are going to come from people who are anti-light rail, not anti-highways, i.e. the very constituency Freeman et al represent."

And then you link to an op-ed that starts: "Most people think light rail would be an improvement over our existing modes of travel."

Were ya just hoping that people wouldn't follow the link?

These are matters of extreme public importance. Where's the Stranger's Public Intern? That guy could set up a webpage with links to:

- the RTID and ST ballot title,

- the proposed local laws the ballot title refers to that voters actually will be voting on,

- the statements for and against,

- the .pdf's of the court documents the Sierra Club is filing ("phase 1" and "phase 2"), and the response court filings from ST and RTID.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Remember, ST1 in 1996 had a lot of hidden terms that the voters never saw, and that allowed ST to reduce the light rail line, drop stations, etc.

There are some issues about how much tax ST and RTID actually would be able to collect. It doesn't sound like the Sierra Club is arguing that is a problem. Sierra Club certainly does not represent the interests of taxpayers in full disclosure.

Again, if the Unpaid Public Intern posts the underlying documents it would be a good public service.

"Climate mitigation? We need to make drastic cuts now: 80% by 2050. What will future generations think of us for adding 74 miles of new general purpose lanes at this critical juncture? More cars = more CO2. Hybrids/alternative fuel vehicle barely make a dent."

What will they think about us having spent $30+++ billions on a light rail extension that will barely be GHG neutral by then and will have induced more extensive sprawl? We could build billions of dollars worth of green power and convert thousands of internal combustion cars to electric,subsidize new ones and really do something about GHGs, but the anti car bent of most enviros has blinded them to what really is bad about cars - pollution. BTW the only way to stop sprawl is zoning while congestion will slow it down.

Current technology allows for eletric cars to provide enough range for about 90% of commuters without a recharge - I'm guessing 95%+ people wouldn't have a problem waking up tomorrow and finding their internal combustion engine had been replaced by an electric motor. On board generators allowing greater range could use bio-diesel or ethanol, at the end of the day remaining charge could be sold back to the grid at high use and value evening time and then charged up in the middle of the night during lower demand and lower valued times which could make money for the car owner while reducing capacity requirements.

As transit people have been saying, rail provides alternatives for a relatively small number of people. It will promote some density around the stations usually that is thought to be within one mile at most.

An aggressive, subsidized and coordinated effort to make the region's vehicles non-polluting biggest downside would be the loss of gas tax revenues to keep the road infrastructure working.

Let people keep their cars just make it so that they don't pollute. Zone the region for growth management. Let people have their way while enviros get the cake. No one wants to burn oil, they just want to freely get around and enjoy their lives while pursuing happiness. As Dad said "pursuing happiness is in the Declaration of Independence, its catching it that not" so they may not get it but let them try.

They should have Sound Transit staff (like me) write the opposition statement--who better knows where the bones are hidden?

Not everyone within agrees with ST2 or how we've failed to deliver Sound Move on time, or budget, or anything...

But we have the best media marketing politicos money can buy and the greater Puget Sound area laps it up...you get what you believe...then pay for it...

Otter Pup @12:

Cressona @ 4
You wrote: "Everybody knows that the majority of the no votes are going to come from people who are anti-light rail, not anti-highways, i.e. the very constituency Freeman et al represent."
And then you link to an op-ed that starts: "Most people think light rail would be an improvement over our existing modes of travel."
Were ya just hoping that people wouldn't follow the link?

Oh, so you're saying Phil Talmadge wrote a pro-light rail piece? If you can't get that most basic piece of information right, good luck to you. Please, keep the lies coming. They really serve your cause well.

Too bad I'll be voting yes and telling everybody else to do so well.

Besides the usual anti-government, OMG cost overrun from the usual group, you'd be much the fool to think by voting no you'll get something better.

I think the word "zealot" comes to mind. You guys are like the F/OSS zealots; to blind to see the forest from the trees and refusing to compromise. I can only hope, like the F/OSS idiots, you guys are a vocal minority that in the big scheme of things get generally ignored.

BTW: Don't even tell me the highway to spanaway is a bad thing. There is *no* good way to get to anything on the other side of that base.

Patrick @6:

It's obvious that transportation is screwed up in this region. No one denies that. But we can't let our frustration cloud the reality of this bill's fatal flaws. The answer to our transportation problems is not a massive, regressive tax increase to build sprawl-bomb highways. It is to manage our existing resources better through congestion pricing, major investments in transit, and a policy shift toward compact, walkable communities. We need to send this bill back for some work.

Patrick, could we please stop mistaking earnestness for actual plans? Ed Murray, Frank Chopp, Judy Clibborn, Mary Margaret Haugen, and Chris Gregoire aren't going anywhere. Well, with the exception of Gregoire, if you prefer that big-time light rail booster Dino Rossi (yeah, sure). The rest of the state beyond King County -- yes, there actually is a rest of the state beyond King County -- isn't going anywhere. Billionaire John Stanton isn't going anywhere, and he isn't getting any poorer.

We may think we're doing good by killing a plan that is 85% good because it isn't 100% good. (And I dare anyone to explain why the minority RTID component of this package is 100% bad.) All you're going to do is delay ST2 at least another five or 10 years, perhaps another generation. And then when it does come back, it probably still will be tethered to an imperfect roads package.

And in that meantime, will you be doing a favor for the environment? Well, if you believe that all those people who otherwise would have lived and worked here are going to -- poof! -- disappear off the face of the earth. No, they're going to live and work somewhere else, and that somewhere else by and large is going to be a lot more sprawling and a lot less perfect than the somewhere you wanted to kill.

But hey, hold onto that Orthodox Jewish dream of Eretz Israel. Hold onto that Hamas dream of driving the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea. Hold onto that dream, and after another generation of Jews killing Arabs and Arabs killing Jews, you're going to come right back to deciding on the reality you had to decide on before. Of course, by then your dream is going to be that much more expensive and painful.

Congestion pricing isn't going to work until/unless there's a non-car alternative.

@Whatever

Good luck finding a car that doesn't pollute. Electric, biofuel, hybrids all contribute to greenhouse gas pollution.

Most electricity comes from polluting sources: petroleum, coal, hydropower. It will take decades to switch to renewable sources assuming it's even possible to get 100 percent of our power from renewables.

Most biofuels consume almost as much petroleum as they yield in energy. The only exception is sugar biofuel which has to be produced in the tropics. I'd rather that we not pour the last of the tropical rainforest into our gas tanks.

Over the lifetime of the car, hybrids really don't save all that much energy.

We need drastically better efficiency now. Then, mass transportation networks across the country. Then, congestion pricing. Then, maybe we'll start seeing our fossil fuel consumption decrease.

Cressona @ no.18

This political analysis is a predictable one, but wrong. The problem described in ECB's post is that Sound Transit has rigged the voters guide to present only the anti-transit argument opposing the package and not the anti-roads rationale. Why would they do this? Because voting history in this region shows the majority won't approve highway-building projects. Sound Transit is trying to hide the highway component because what "everybody knows" is highways are not popular in the urban regions that dominate the voting.

So your contention that RTID opponents face a wall of resistance and should just accept the compromise is based on cynical fear, not fact. What people who actually work on these campaigns and talk with elected officials know is that (with the exception of Eastsiders like Clibborn) most are not really for new highways -- they just don't have the guts to oppose them, bad as they are for taxpayers and the environment. Same with so-called environmental guardians such as Transportation Choices and Futurewise who endorse this package -- they know they're backing a turkey but fear falling out of favor with the powers-that-be if they don't go along.

Fortunately, the Sierra Club proved these irrational politics could be beaten by digging in on the viaduct when what "everyone knew" was that a highway was inevitable. Now it's much more likely we'll get a responsible solution that includes transit and trip reduction strategies. If other enviro groups and transit advocates were able to learn from that lesson, they'd realize that a united front against RTID would sink it and we'd be talking about a transit-only proposition on the ballot next year.

What's unfortunate in this city's perversely navel-gazing and cringing political scene is that those who claim to "know" what's going on are often those whose premises are most corrupted by the very government agencies and politicians they purport to oppose. They're willing to be put in a box and accept false choices because it's safe and warm in there (just like the farmed bunnies in "Watership Down."). If our environmental advocates and other leading citizens who say they support "green" and progressive things didn't require this high comfort level, the hackneyed RTID package would never have seen the light of day.

I've posted the motion on the NoRTID.org website for all to see.

I want to be clear that our issue is that the no committee contains pro-roads, anti-transit members. We think it should include anti-roads viewpoints as well. Read the motion for our reasoning.

K-Full @20:

So your contention that RTID opponents face a wall of resistance and should just accept the compromise is based on cynical fear, not fact. What people who actually work on these campaigns and talk with elected officials know is that (with the exception of Eastsiders like Clibborn) most are not really for new highways -- they just don't have the guts to oppose them, bad as they are for taxpayers and the environment.

Hmm, I find it remarkable that the more apt someone is to use the word "fact," the more dubious their claims are. I've talked to my share of people in Olympia myself, and people with experience in Olympia, and I've read my share of news that's accessible to anyone else. And it's pretty obvious, to paraphrase your dubious statement, that most electeds there are not really for light rail -- they just don't have the guts to oppose it. There's a reason Link light rail is the only light rail line in the country that is not being paid for, even in part, by state taxes.

But for argument's sake, let's measure this alleged lack of support for new freeways from Olympia:
* Ed Murray: Mr. Governance reform and Mr. "Let's not be too hasty about light rail across I-90." It's pretty obvious 520 is his baby.
* Chris Gregoire: Ms. "Shove a new viaduct down Seattle's throat" and Ms. "No way is light rail going to the ballot on its own without my freeways piggybacking."
* Frank Chopp: Mr. "Shove a new viaduct down Seattle's throat." His concern is maintaining a Democratic majority, and supporting freeways, not light rail, is a lot easier means toward that end.
* Mary Lou Dickerson and Helen Sommers, who'd say "over my dead body" before the viaduct gets torn down. Hmm, last I checked the 36th legislative district was in Seattle, not the Eastside.
* Dave Upthegrove. Hmm, last I checked the 33rd legislative district was south of Seattle, not east. And how about all those other suburban legislators just like Upthegrove who wouldn't dream of saying no to a new highway?

To start with, to say that with the exception of Eastsiders, they're not really for new highways is a bit like saying, with the exception of my heart, I'm in excellent health. But in truth, when it comes to supporting freeways over light rail, we're talking Eastsiders and Southsiders and much of Snohomish County and Pierce County and the rest of the state, as well as a substantial part of a very divided Seattle delegation.

Fortunately, the Sierra Club proved these irrational politics could be beaten by digging in on the viaduct when what "everyone knew" was that a highway was inevitable.

The Sierra Club didn't prove anything. The only thing that was proved by the viaduct election was that Seattle's mayor and City Council can deliberately rig a ballot to prevent a highway from getting built. And I'm glad they did rig it, because it's obvious that, even in Seattle (by far the most environmentally conscious place in the state), a plurality of voters supported a new viaduct. Based on the results, if it had been a straight vote between a new viaduct and the surface option, the new viaduct would have won.

The reality is that, through a combination of FUD and voters who never want to pay new taxes for anything and the illusion that "the grass is always greener" with the next ballot, it's infinitely easier to get an electorate to say no to something than it is to get an electorate and electeds to say yes. Throughout the history of this region, we've been very successful at saying no to transit. And maybe the 2% of voters that Sierra Club sways will be enough to kill this joint ballot. The "no" is the easy part.

What I find amusing is that this grass-roots environmentalist left has suddenly latched on to global warming as an excuse to oppose a package that is overwhelmingly light rail and good roads projects. But really, when you get right down to it, this is no more about climate change for them than the Iraq War was about making Iraq safe for democracy was for the Bush administration. Much of Seattle's grass-roots environmentalist left has always been opposed to mass transit.

Here's a memorable quote from local historian Walt Crowley from a P-I story leading up to the viaduct vote:

"The local leftist distrust of big capital and land use projects goes back to Metro and Forward Thrust. The counterculture left actually opposed light rail in 1968 and 1970, proposing bridle trails instead (I kid you not). The aim of creative government should be to expand the commonwealth for all classes."

They'll never admit it, but the issue for the Sierra Club's leadership isn't so much climate change. It's a combination of:
* Sticking it to the establishment.
* Saving Old Seattle from New Seattle.
* Preserving a granola hippie way of life that actually has a much greater carbon footprint than the way of life that, to some extent, would be replacing it with light rail.

Believe me, if global warming were not an issue and Al Gore had long since disappeared into obscurity, these same people would be finding some other excuse to oppose a ballot like this. And the more you know these people, the more you know in your heart how true this is.

hey kevin fullerton. you guys at the sierra club need to stop talking shit on other folks in the environmental community. sierr club, tcc, and futurewise have had the EXACT same position on almost every transportation measure in the history of Washington, so spare us the "sierra club is so enviro and tcc and futurewise are sell-outs." that's crap.

the real reason you shouldn't be so outspoken is because it's not like sierra club are the real climate change people and the rest of the enviro community are fakers. you just see things differently. for you, the most important thing to do for climate change is to stop RTID. for them, the most important thing is to build light rail.

to put it simply, they believe in the transformative power of light rail, and you don't.

so stop calling your friends sell-outs. and stop acting like you guys are the only one's really concerned with climate change. you haven't seen any numbers on which will have a greater impact on climate change - building light rail or stopping RTID - any more than anyone else has.

hey kevin fullerton. you guys at the sierra club need to stop talking shit on other folks in the environmental community. sierr club, tcc, and futurewise have had the EXACT same position on almost every transportation measure in the history of Washington, so spare us the "sierra club is so enviro and tcc and futurewise are sell-outs." that's crap.

the real reason you shouldn't be so outspoken is because it's not like sierra club are the real climate change people and the rest of the enviro community are fakers. you just see things differently. for you, the most important thing to do for climate change is to stop RTID. for them, the most important thing is to build light rail.

to put it simply, they believe in the transformative power of light rail, and you don't.

so stop calling your friends sell-outs. and stop acting like you guys are the only one's really concerned with climate change. you haven't seen any numbers on which will have a greater impact on climate change - building light rail or stopping RTID - any more than anyone else has.

Erica,

Thanks for posting this story.

I hope the Sierra Club suit succeeds.

ST wanted to select patsies to represent the opposition. Freeman represnts the highway group who wants to build even more general purpose limited access highway lanes. Knedlick is flawed. Talmadge is brilliant, but an outlier. His op-ed made some good challenges to the ST2 plans on I-90, but missed the mark on some others.

Cressona at 4: O'Brien well represents "a" no position, not "the" no position. There are several reasons to oppose the joint package.

As you assert, the plurality of negative votes will probably come from fiscal conversatives who do not want to pay the additional taxes or who do not trust government. The base of no voters on most tax propositions may start out with about 30 percent.

The fight will be over the swing voters who want better transportation, but are skeptical about these packages.

As Cressona and Bill LaBorde slogged earlier this week, the joint ballot measure is a political compromise.

Some would term it a log rolling exercise.

The Legislature tied them together. They are like two wounded albatross.

There are other good reasons to vote no. I disagree with the Freeman position and the fiscal conservative position. It is not the absolute scale of the joint ballot measure that offends; it is the choice of projects and the tax used by RTID.

RTID should be defeated for the following reasons:
1. The Sierra Club is correct about global warming and sprawl; the expansion of unpriced limited access highways would lead to additional sprawl, traffic, and global warming gases.
2. There is inadequate teeth in the policy language regarding tolling. That authority rests in Olympia. The highway mega projects should be designed with dynamic tolling included. The capacity build should reflect the trips demanded under priced conditions. The region dealt with the electric power issue and WPPSS nuclear plants by increasing rates and that induced conversation. The same use of the law of demand was used in solid waster and water and should be used in traffic. The roadway network is congested. It suffers the tradgedy of the commons. It needs pricing.
3. The RTID was a government was designed to expand highway capacity. If we spend this huge amount of funds on expansion, where will the funds for maintenance, bridge replacement, and sidewalks be raised? The RTID projects are not the most important. I-5 will take about $2 billion. The entire premise of RTID is offensive. The existing highways were built with a high portion of federal funds. Our challenge is to raise enough state and local funds to maintain them. It is unreasonable for local taxpayers to build expensive highways. The affirmative campaign will show pictures of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. But the RTID funds largely go to expansion and more traffic.
4. We should not widen highways with sales tax revenue. It is both unfair and inefficient. It is unfair because it is both regressive and unrelated to each household and firm's use of the roadway network. We should be using a tax related to use (e.g., odometer tax, parking tax, gas tax).

Of course, there are several critical or very useful projects on the RTID list, but they represent a small minority of the propsed expenditures (e.g., the South Park Bridge, replacing the SR-520 bridge, SR-99 BAT in Shoreline, Industrial Way center access ramp, South Spokane Street). Several were only added in the last year after the AWV project stalled. And, Seattle-based County Councilmembers had to work too hard to get them moved up in the phasing plan.

In addition to the Sierra Club positon on RTID, the ST2 package is deeply flawed and should be defeated. They want the revenue stream from five-tenths sales tax. They should select better projects and programs for that much funding. Please consider the opportunity cost and the many much better transit projects that ST2 could provide more quickly than long Link LRT extensions.

The North King County Link LRT extension to Northgate is very strong. Most of the new transit ridership forecast under ST2 is due to this extension. It would greatly improve transit mobility between several dense congested urban centers with many pedestrians. On the other hand, the First Hill streetcar is weak and silly.

ST2 would spend the Pierce County subarea funds extending Link LRT from about the Kent-DesMoines interchange to the Tacoma Dome. The south line would make a very poor long-distance service, as it has a 10 or 15 minute deviation to the Rainier Valley built into it. Link LRT is not a good mode for intercounty trips. The forecasted travel time between the Tacoma Dome and Westlake in 2030 is 72 minutes. The bus takes 45 mintues in the midday today. ST assumes that I-5 will congest. But our future includes tolling.

Instead, the Pierce County funds could improve transit within Tacoma. It has a good street and sidewalk grid. Intercounty trips could be taken on express bus and all-day commuter rail. The high capacity of Link LRT is not required for the transit market between the Tacoma Dome and SeaTac.

East Link LRT would be wonderful, but not as quick or as helpful as alternative investments. The several ST express routes could all be improved to BRT service levels. Adequate reliability could be provided for millions rather than the billions for East Link. It could include a streetcar between Bellevue and Overlake; it could fund diesel LRT on the dinner train ROW (this is the right of way that ST2 funds should embrace). It could fund addtional BRT lines. East Link will probably slow transit service to Eastgate, Issaquah, and Issaquah Highlands by kicking buses from the center roadway.

Even the north extension is strained. The stations north of Northgate will all be in the I-5 envelope and could never become pedestrian-oriented as they will always be noisy and congested.

There are many transit needs. The long Link extensions that will attract little ridership and promote slight, if any, change in land use, and will take many years to implement, do not seem prudent.

The ST Board and RTID could have asked for changes in the RTID project eligibility, but they did not. They could have pursued systemwide HOT lanes and fast reliable intercity and intercounty bus service, but they did not. They could have funded more projects to speed buses and help pedestrians, but they did not. The first phase of ST has several bus-related center access ramps that ST2 largely ignores, rather than build upon (e.g., Lynnwood, Eastgate, and Federal Way).

Each three-county government had their own focus: extending Link and widening freeways.

They are antithetical governments in a shotgun marriage.

So, there are multiple reasons to vote NO.

The voters will speak to three governments: the state, ST, and the RTID.

eddiew: Cressona at 4: O'Brien well represents "a" no position, not "the" no position. There are several reasons to oppose the joint package.

Again, folks. Please stop being disingenuous. No kidding the Sierra Club represents a no position. What's ludicrous is to suggest that theirs is the preeminent or most popular no position.

Anyway, good to hear from eddiew here, who never met a transportation project he couldn't improve on himself.

Ashley at 25:

I did not read any criticism of TCC or Futurewise in the K-Full posts. What are you asserting he wrote?

From what I have heard, the Sierra Club suports LRT.

The transformative power of LRT projects is strongly correlated with their ridership attracted. The line between Northgate and UW stadium station will be very strong. The others will be fair at best. The south extension is a waste of transit tax revenue.

LRT ridership depends upon what alignments are chosen. the best ones penetrate pedestrian-oriented centers. The main objective is to extend the range of pedestrians.

If LRT trains go north and south between the Tacoma Dome and Rainier Beach with many empty seats, how transformative would that be?

If LRT stations are built next to I-5 in Shoreline and Snohomish County, how transformative will that be? Can a pedestrian center develop next to freeway noise and traffic congestion? The opportunity cost of the LRT guideway is that those transit funds are not doing other useful things.

eddiew @28: "I did not read any criticism of TCC or Futurewise in the K-Full posts. What are you asserting he wrote?":

K-Full @20:

Same with so-called environmental guardians such as Transportation Choices and Futurewise who endorse this package -- they know they're backing a turkey but fear falling out of favor with the powers-that-be if they don't go along.

OK, eddiew, so Kevin here accuses TCC and FutureWise of being fake environmentalists and you don't see that as a criticism. So it's apparent you wouldn't do very well in the reading comprehension section of the SAT, and we're supposed to accept your wisdom about the future of this region?

But hey, let's kill ST2 because there's this dude who's got better ideas, and if ST2 fails, y'know, we're all going to realize how brilliant this dude's ideas are and go ahead and adopt them. Hurrah for eddiew and "bus rapid transit."

from kevin fullerton:

Same with so-called environmental guardians such as Transportation Choices and Futurewise who endorse this package -- they know they're backing a turkey but fear falling out of favor with the powers-that-be if they don't go along.

i don't think i need to "read" too much into that. it's blatantly inslulting and absolutely false and misguided.

sierra club has made no secret about how they feel about the rest of the enviro community on this one.

we're just going to have to agree to disagree. i think st2 is great, i think it will tranform the region, i think we can fight the RTID road miles we don't like later, and i think if we don't take this opportunity we're fools. but, i think people need to be a little bit more respectful than they have been.

what's that saying, with friends like these....

ashley and cressona:

my SAT scores were good. I just skimmed past that passage. It is a slog going through this stuff. It is unfortunate that K-Full took that swipe. He is making a rash guess about their motiviations. But it may be partly correct. even so, it would be better if he played more nicely.

both TCC and Futurewise do much good work. I belong to both. I strongly disagree with their support of the joint package. The three groups agree on more than they disagree.

I it hard to gauge why any group takes any particular position.

Most groups and elected officials know that the joint package is a complicated compromise on many fronts. The assembly of the packages was a combination of the technical and the political.

my point is this - it is unfair to say that any group who supports the package is motivated by pure politics and a fear of retribution from the so-called establishment. they weighed the bad of some of the rtid projects with the good of the st projects and decided the good outweighed the bad. sierra club weighed the facts differently and came up with a different answer. that does not give them license to insult other groups and suggest that their motivations are not genuine.

i think the sierra club needs to think long and hard about being hateful to friends in the enviro community. there is absolutely no reason that all the enviros can't be on the same message on at least some things. they shouldn't be using each others messages to undermine the others.

Ashley,

In 31, I agreed that the slog of K-Full was regrettable.

In 32, you stretch a slog from one guy to be an official Sierra Club slam on the other two groups. That has not happened and to assert that has is unfair in itself.

As we both stated, the three groups will want to get along later.

let's not kid ourselves, jack.

Ashley is it the case that on this thread of the three insiders K Full, eddiew and ashley two are paid transit advocates and one is an unpaid environmental advocate and it is the unpaid one that opposes the vote? Is it also the case that the employers of the other two are either agencies that support the vote or get their funding partially from transit agencies that will benefit from a yes vote?

Does the Sierra Club really think that voters are so dumb they can't read numbers in text? Screw him and their stupid lawsuit.

If they wanted to play with this, they would have been at the table.

Ashley and eddiew,

I am speaking for myself, not the Sierra Club. It wasn't fair to imply that other environmental groups don't have solid values because of their endorsement of the RTID package - I regret my hasty word choice.

However, I contend that the most effective way to defeat the roads component would have been to say no to the Faustian roads/transit bargain and then work to get the environmental community behind a different strategy to pass Phase II. The strategy now being employed -- to take the bad with the good and then hope the bad won't be so bad -- is dubious. It seems to have been chosen because it makes the inside game easier, but does little to change the terms of the public debate. So in that respect, TCC and Futurewise have allowed all of us to be put in that box -- though perhaps the more limited game plan will work.

Which brings me to Cressona: You're right that public officials publicly state support for road projects. But what else are they supposed to do when people are crying out for congestion relief and the roads+transit compromise mindset is so predominant? Our political leaders don't believe that we're capable of seeing reality any other way, so they advocate support for transit -- a high-minded ideal we all support -- and roads - a supposed inevitability. But what many really want is a public opinion change that would get them out of the box. They know transit is less expensive per person served than highways, and that continuing to use tax dollars for highways instead of transit is not a long-term solution to greenhouse gas emissions or financial sustainability. But so long as they see the public so fixated on car dependence, of course they're going to hitch their wagon to road proposals.

And by the way, you have to bracket off politicians' support for the 520 bridge and viaduct from their transportation views in general. Those have their own specific political contexts. The viaduct debate was as much about whether you were with the mayor or against him. The 520 debate is colored by neighborhood impact.

In summary -- our leaders are waiting to see if the environmental community can get the public to let go of their knee-jerk belief that new highways are inevitable and truly believe that mobility can be achieved through transit and other alternatives. But they're not going to step out with that message themselves. That's why I find it regrettable that the environmental community is missing the chance to buck the public up for the solutions we really need by going along with the combined proposal. I think a little more grit would have gone a long way.

While I disagree with much of the Sierra Club's arguments, they are right that Sound Transit should not be picking the people to write the opposition statement. That smells of cronyism, and it will only lead to corrupt transportation policies.

The public needs the smartest (not just the loudest) opponents of transit and roads to pick apart the ballot measure, so that RTID and Sound Transit have to work their asses off and start giving us good proposals.