City Cascade Bike Club Says NO on Roads/Transit
posted by September 26 at 12:29 PM
onAs we’ve written before, we’re ambivalent about the joint roads/transit ballot measure that will be on the ballot this November. In the plus column: 50 miles of light rail, including rail down to Tacoma and over to the Eastside. In the minus column: Hundreds of miles of new pavement, including a massive expansion of I-405 and a larger 520 bridge that will take out acres of the Arboretum and destroy much of Marsh Island. The measure has split the Seattle-area environmental community. We met last month with a group of folks from the pro-roads and transit camp, including Rob Johnson of the Transportation Choices Coalition; today, we’ll meet with folks from the anti camp, including representatives of the Sierra Club.
Today, one more environmental group, the Cascade Bicycle Club, announced it was joining the anti-roads and transit camp. In a letter to members, Cascade director Chuck Ayers wrote:
RTID has some really bad projects for cyclists; it allocates only 0.3% (not 3%) to biking and walking infrastructure; and on and on. Yet, it also has some great projects for cyclists – particularly the transit portions that would increase multi-modal commuting.In the end, the Cascade Board vote came down to that one question, “Does RTID support our mission?”
Their answer? “No.”
Cascade’s web site has more details on how and why the board reached a “No” endorsement:
Through a large, regressive sales tax increase, RTID will raise billions for new highways, which will increase the number of cars on existing roads. Consequently residents would find it more difficult to ride their bicycles for transportation in the region’s fastest-growing areas, due to increased local traffic. It also neglects the need for system preservation and safety – two principles that should be our top priorities for any new transportation spending.Our decision was complicated by the legislature’s forced marriage of the Sound Transit 2 light rail expansion to the roads package. The Cascade Bicycle Club generally supports investments in transit – as they extend the range and ease of bicycling trips. However, we cannot justify a “yes” position given the unacceptable consequences of the highway portion of this package. Fortunately light rail enjoys strong public support, and the legislature has empowered Sound Transit to propose an independent package to the voters should RTID fail in November. Cascade Bicycle Club will hold the Washington State Legislature accountable to its promise to offer voters a new chance to vote on ST2 in 2008.
Many, including the TCC, believe that prediction is optimistic. However, if the roads and transit package failed, pressure from groups like the Cascade Bicycle Club could make a re-vote on Sound Transit in 2008 a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Comments
Right on CBC! More environmentalists with guts! Where are they coming from? Usually in Seattle they just compromise themselves right off the map.
While there may be legitimate reasons to oppose RTID, I do have one question that it seems the Sierra Club and others have yet to answer.
If growth projections are to be believed, the cars are coming regardless of how we vote. How are we going to address this as a region?
Light rail, bike lanes, congestion pricing, etc. are not going to resolve this. And I can't see how several hundred thousand additional cars idling on crumbling highways is a net benefit to our air and water quality. Hold your nose and vote yes for more transportation options, even if the deal isn't perfect
TCC just says what Sound Transit pays them to say.
I can't believe you report them as objective when they are funded by the agency seeking the tax increase.
@2:
How does congestion pricing not solve this? It's worked everywhere it's been used. Look at the plan Ron Sims' commissioned:
http://www.metrokc.gov/budget/TIF/TIF_report_26April2007.pdf
And remember, RTID emphasizes expansion, not safety and maintenance. There's a funding gap of $1.3 billion on 520 replacement, so that we can spend the same amount on widening I-405 by 4 lanes.
If this package emphasized taking care of the roads we already have, instead of new suburban/rural capacity, the Sierra Club probably wouldn't be opposed.
Cascade Bicycle Club important?
hahaha just lol'd so hard I spit my diet mountain dew all over the guy next to me.
Oh No! We've lost the Cascade Biking Club!
The rest will fall like dominoes, now! We better bite down on our cyanide pills before the Ferret Fanciers Club issues their decision!
OMG, Patty Murray voted 'yea' on this. Really a disappointing surprise. Cantwell had some spine and voted 'nea'.
BREAKING: Senate Passes Lieberman/Kyl Amendment; House Vote to Condemn MoveOn
By: Nicole Belle @ 10:28 AM - PDT The Lieberman/Kyl Amendment has passed by an unbelievable 76-22 vote. Roll Call here
Biden’s Iraq Partitioning Amendment passed by a vote of 75-23. I’ll put up Roll Calls as they become available.
And the House of Representatives, evidently eager to show that they are as spineless and easily cowered as the Senate, voted to condemn MoveOn for the Gen. Betrayus ad, 341-79. Roll Call here.
MoveOn’s response to the House vote here.
UPDATE: Kudos to a Democrat who gets it. Tom Allen
“I respect General Petraeus and honor all of our troops. They have done a phenomenal job and done everything that we have asked of them. General Petraeus is a soldier who simply takes orders from the Commander-in-Chief, President Bush.
Unfortunately the President and his Republican allies in Congress have continued to order General Petraeus and the rest of our troops to continue fighting. What we need is a plan to bring our troops home.
I voted against this resolution today because I believe it is the job of the Congress to bring our troops home, not legislate free speech.”
Cascade Spawning Cycle, benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters teach me teach me
Cascade's an "environmental group"? I thought they were a bike club.
@7: off topic
Do Cascade Biking Club and the Sierra Club consider that delaying light rail for another year ALSO has adverse consequences? Not only will the Sound Transit proposal be scaled back for 2008, but a year's worth of inflation will reduce what can be done with the money collected. We'll also be competing even more with China and India for materials like steel and cement, raising the cost of the projects still further.
There are also environmental consequences. During that year while ST2 is on hold, the number of cars on the road will keep increasing, congestion will keep getting worse, and that congestion will be releasing countless tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
CBC and the Sierra Club can oppose the ST2/RTID package if they want, but it's bullshit to pretend that voting 'no' won't also have serious negative consequences for the environment.
i thought the stranger was funded by degrading women advertisements
What's the big picture?
If the intent ultimately is to wean people off the internal combustion engine, then why does any bill purporting to be a transit package include any stipulations to make automobile travel easier and more pleasant? I don't see the connection.
If the intent is to appease environmentalist with a few inconvenient trains and a bike path or two while actually wanting to satiate motorists, then call the bill what it is and name the new 16 lane road created by it The Tri-County Gas 'n' Grease Parkway.
It's been proven time and time again, you know. Building more roads, wider roads, only brings more cars and whatever benefit there may be will be very short-lived. Eight lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic soon becomes 12 lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic which in turn becomes 16 lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic.
All I'm saying is this: Can we make a decision please? Are we going to devote ourselves to public transportation or private transportation?
And stop all the Bushisms - calling projects the opposite of what they are (e.g., a Clean Air Act that actually eliminates regulations and standards).
I think the Cascade Bicycle Club NO endorsement is a valuable part of the no campaign.
The Sierra Club leadership believe real, high-end, grade-separated mass transit is too ritzy for the residents of Pierce and Snohomish counties. So what can be their alternative? "Let them ride bikes."
Potential campaign slogan, I must say.
@10:
The Sound Transit website lists 4-7 years as the lag time between funding and construction of light rail lines. It's going to be a while no matter what before they start buying materials.
But more importantly, what's the point of approving transit if it's part of a net-negative package? More roads=more cars, pollution, traffic, fatalities, sprawl, obesity, and global warming. We can't even afford to repair the roads we have and RTID would have us expand the network. Irresponsible.
I'll vote for ST2 in a heartbeat -- when it's not shackled to RTID.
More Bicycle Prostitutes in the backpages!
Greg @10: Do Cascade Biking Club and the Sierra Club consider that delaying light rail for another year ALSO has adverse consequences?
Greg, it's really worth having a serious discussion of what happens if this bill fails. If you look back through history at what happens when hard compromises between bitter political foes fall apart, it doesn't look too pretty. (Hey, if someone can share an example of how such a failure to compromise worked out pretty well sooner rather than later, I'd be happy to hear it.)
It's really hard for me to imagine that, if this bill goes down to defeat, Sound Transit 2 is going to re-emerge in 2008. I'm inclined to think the next step will be the dreaded governance reform, or the legislators in Olympia will figure, "Hey, my job is safer if I just do nothing."
But let's at least get Sierra Club's cause-and-effect straight. They are not opposing this measure because they believe Sound Transit will come back in 2008. They're saying Sound Transit will come back in 2008 because they're opposing this measure.
to clarify, that's 4-7 years until the beginning of construction. Then it's an additional 4-6 until completion.
I still advocate funding it (solo), mind you, but if we're going to be forward-thinking in regards to transit investments, we need to think about the long-term consequences of new highways too.
Roads and Transit endorsers. Enough said.
ENDORSERS
Environment
Washington Conservation Voters
Transportation Choices Coalition
Washington Environmental Council
Futurewise
Tahoma Audubon Society
Environment Washington
Cascade Land Conservancy
Business
American Council of Engineering Companies – Washington
Architects and Engineers Legislative Council
Associated General Contractors of Washington
Auburn Chamber of Commerce
Bayliss Architects
Bellevue Chamber of Commerce
Bellevue Downtown Association
The Boeing Company
Carter & Burgess
CH2M Hill
Covington Chamber of Commerce
Downtown Seattle Association
Everett Area Chamber of Commerce
Federal Way Chamber of Commerce
Fife Area Chamber of Commerce
Greater Redmond Chamber of Commerce
Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce
Issaquah Chamber of Commerce
Kent Chamber of Commerce
Kirkland Chamber of Commerce
Marysville-Tulalip Chamber of Commerce
Microsoft
Mirai Associates, Inc.
National Association of Industrial Office Properties (NAIOP)
PEMCO Financial Services
Perteet, Inc.
Pierce County Association of Master Builders
Puget Sound Energy
Puyallup/Sumner Chamber of Commerce
Renton Chamber of Commerce
South Snohomish County Chamber of Commerce
South Sound Chambers of Commerce Legislative Committee
Southwest King County Chamber of Commerce
Tacoma/Pierce County Chamber of Commerce
Tacoma/Pierce County Association of Realtors
Washington Association of Realtors
Washington Mutual
Washington Roundtable
Washington Software Association
Labor
Aerospace Machinists Industrial District Lodge 751
AFSCME Local 109E
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1576
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587
ATU State Legislative Council
Coalition of Labor Union Women Puget Sound Chapter of CLUW
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 89
International Association of Machinists, District Lodge 160
International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, Local 17
Iron Workers District Council
Iron Workers Local Union 86
The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 5
Local Labor 440
Laborers Union Local 252
LADS Local 1144, Seattle
Local IUOE 302
Local Union 191 IBEW
Machinists District 751
Martin Luther King Jr. County Labor Council
Northwest Washington Building and Construction Trades Council
Pacific NW Regional Council of Carpenters
Pierce County Building and Construction Trades Council
Pierce County Central Labor Council
Puget Sound Pilots
Seattle/King County Building and Construction Trades Council
Snohomish County Labor Council
Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, SPEEA, IFPTE Local 2001
United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 131, Seattle
United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 562, Everett
United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 1797, Renton
Washington and Northern Idaho District Council of Laborers
Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council
Washington State Labor Council
Municipal
City of Auburn
City of Bellevue
City of Burien
City of Edmonds
City of Fife
City of Milton
City of Puyallup
City of Renton
City of Tukwila
Port of Seattle Commission
Civic Organizations
Lake Washington GreenMap
Snohomish County Committee for Improved Transportation - SCCIT
Regional Access Mobility Partnership - RAMP
Washington State Alliance for Retired Americans
Political
King County Democrats
Pierce County Democrats
Snohomish County Democrats
2nd Legislative District Democrats
11th Legislative District Democrats
27th Legislative District Democrats
29th Legislative District Democrats
33rd Legislative District Democrats
34th Legislative District Democrats
37th Legislative District Democrats
38th Legislative District Democrats
41st Legislative District Democrats
44th Legislative District Democrats
45th Legislative District Democrats
Endorsements from all of the right Corporate Washington mucky-mucks impress me not.
Doesn't the 520 bridge have to be replaced anyway? And can't that replacement help transit with the addition of HOV lanes? Basing a no vote on the 520 plan is a little short-sighted.
Figuring out the feedback effects on demand for cars -- and therefore the net impact on global warming of this package, makes my head hurt. Maybe it's a net plus, maybe not. It would be great if experts from different political viewpoints could reach a consensus number on net carbon emissions of ST2/RTID vs. doing nothing, but it's probably too much to hope for.
But I do know that getting light rail as fast as possible will dramatically improve the quality of life in this region in every dimension except the sales tax itself.
Hell, I'm not wild about RTID, but the road expansion may benefit people that are going to have to wait 50 years for rail -- like those commuting on 405. I don't know for sure, but I know those people are more likely to vote for something that does something for them in the foreseeable future.
I know everyone wants to keep on saying "no new roads!" over and over again but the roads are going to be improved and rebuilt, I absolutely guarantee it, whether the East Shoreline Tricycle Posse approves or not. 405 is going to be widened. The 520 bridge is going to be rebuilt. Vast sums of cash will be dedicated to these projects eventually. There is far too much at stake economically for it not to happen. The question is whether or not the ST package will happen. People seem to be awfully sure that ST2 will magically reappear on its own in 2008. I wouldn't be quite so sure.
I'll take the Sierra Club and the Cascade Bicycle Club- accountable only to their members- over this self-interested group any day. And if I found myself on the same side of an environmetnal issue as MS, Pemco, the Chambers of Commerce and Boeing, I might think again.
The legislature has made no such promise to allow Sound Transit to the ballot alone in 2008. And when you look at the importance of a presidential election to end eight years of Republican rule in the White House, a governor's race we won last time by 132 votes, and the strong desire by Speaker Chopp to continue to win Democratic legislative seats in the suburban crescent--it appears there is good reason to believe that there will be no big tax vote in 2008.
The legislature controls the terms under which Sound Transit operates. They came close to disbanding ST and forming a mega-transportation commission last year in the session. There is every reason to believe that Olympia would look at a ballot loss on Roads and Transit as a sign that a new approach would be needed. State government doesn't do transit. WSDOT builds roads. Period.
I respect the Cascade Bicycle Club, but their membership mirrors that of the Sierra Club in being Seattle-centric. So, you need to examine whether their reading of the political tea leaves in this state is accurate. The Sierra Club barely has a presence in Olympia or outside of Seattle. I believe that causes them to believe that Seattle is the state. That is the type of thinking that led us all to believe John Kerry was a lock in 2004.
Keshmeshi: Yeah, but the 520 plan preserves capacity for single-occupancy vehicles instead of replacing SOV capacity with HOV. Some enviros think a bridge the same size as the current one, but with two HOV lanes, would be a better option.
@22:
Don't you think we should maintain what we have first before building more stuff? Would you remodel your bathroom when your roof is leaking?
RTID's not a maintenance bill. It's an expansion bill at a time when we don't have enough money to fix what we have. Take a look at the project list: http://www.rtid.org/blueprint.html
tiptoe tommy - The bulk of the Sierra Club's membership lies outside Seattle, as well as a large chunk of its leadership. Check your facts before hurling accusations of Seattle-centrism.
Wrong again--if it is true that the bulk of Sierra Club membership is outside Seattle, than prove it. I assume that with all of the active Sierra Club posters on this and other forums that if what I was saying was wrong they would have posted the membership profile.
Yet...silence.
MHD @21:
This is a great, great point. It's incredibly simplistic to say, "We're building more roads with this package, ergo we're adding to global warming." It's a statement that is superficially true, but outside of any context it doesn't mean anything.
It would take some serious economic analysis to try to figure out the global warming impact of this package vs. the likely scenarios if this package fails.
One thing is for sure, though, our metropolitan area does not exist in a vacuum, and just because we refuse to build doesn't absolve us of responsibility. Those people who would have lived and worked here will live and work somewhere else, and chances are that that somewhere else will not allow them to live with as small a carbon footprint as they would have with 50 miles of new light rail and a tolled 520 with HOV lanes, albeit with the "bad" roads in the package.
@26
I ride the 545 bus every day from Redmond to downtown, and every day 520 is PACKED with single occupancy vehicles coming from Seattle to the eastside at 4 MPH bumper to bumper. It's way too late for maintenance. The bridge cannot handle all the people coming and going from Seattle everyday, and the only fixes to this problem are 1) more lanes to 520 and 2) another way to move people across the lake. I would LOVE for light rail to be that way, but if this measure fails, I have zero assurances that anything like this will be up for vote ever again. The roads will be rebuilt because they have to; I can't say the same for light rail.
Make no mistake: I'm supporting this because I support ST2, and because I believe that it will will not come back in similar form in 2008 if this measure goes down.
However, I'm trying to think about the real impact of RTID. As I noted before, it makes my head hurt, but please chip in if you have any constructive feedback.
I'd hoped that the Stranger, or somebody, would talk to some experts and report on this, but I guess I'll have to do it myself.
(1) The type of road project that is most destructive to the environment is probably new roads through virgin territory, like the old I-605 proposal. What's most bad about this is that sprawl develops around these highways because they provide easy access to everything else.
As far as I can tell, the only RTID project anything like this is the Cross-Base Highway. While this will reduce travel times (see below), the ability for developers to add parking lots and strip malls is severely limited by the fact that it's, you know, across a base. And I'm fairly skeptical that that project will ever get really started.
(2) The type that's almost certainly good for the environment is HOV improvements, because they encourage bus and carpool use. A significant chunk of RTID falls in this category (SR 520, BRT on SR 99 in Shoreline, 167/405 interchange, etc.)
(3) That leaves the great middle: projects that increase capacity and/or improve traffic flow of general-purpose lanes, which amount to two sides of the same coin. The net effect of doing this over doing nothing is:
- Somewhat more people move to the Puget Sound region. I think this is a net plus (?), given the relatively high proportion of carbon-neutral energy production here.
- Car capacity increases: it takes more cars to get to bad congestion, shifting the equilibrium point where people shift to transit. Almost certainly a net minus.
- Growing suburbs: favors lower-density development in existing outer suburbs, rather than more density in inner suburbs and Seattle. A minus for the environment, but the neighborhood movement will like it, and probably results in more affordable housing.
- Less idling in traffic: congestion isn't binary; there's slow traffic and very slow traffic. Wider roads result in more cars, but quite probably a shorter commute for each of those cars. Probably a net plus.
Taking all this together (and I wish I had numbers to make this more certain), I can't conclude anything other than that RTID is a mild net minus taken in isolation. Throw in 50 miles of light rail, and it's a no-brainer.
What no one addresses is what happens (well really how many more years will we wait for rapid transit) if this fails to pass? How many more years will be added to the wait? Two, three ten? Seriously, if there is a chance this will get through the voters I say we should just vote for the damn thing. If this fails light rail will be dead for another decade at least. (a decade an overstatement? no not in the least) I have yet to see a politically feasable option proposed by the opposition that voters will pass and pay for.
Interesting news from yesterday. Elway Poll shows joint ballot support down a bit but still at 54%.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/332946_poll25.html
I'm wondering if that was 54-46, or if there was an undecided in there as well.
Interestingly, according to Eric Earling at Sound Politics, the separated roads and transit measures each fail individually, unlike the combined package:
link
@21 and @2
There's a simple way to think about it: Is it more effective to gain road capacity by building new lanes or reducing the number of cars on existing lanes?
The first solution has been tried repeatedly and failed. New lanes = more cars = more gg emissions and even bigger traffic problems.
We cannot keep up with population growth by building highways. No major metropolitan area ever has. If it's congestion relief you want, you're wasting your money.
So there's the second option: Reduce car trips. We cannot prevent newcomers from bringing their cars here but we can send a strong message by voting down this RTID package: Don't expect us to subsidize new space for your car with taxes. If you drive, you pay a toll. That toll will pay for transit and other transportation options, so this is not socialism -- the market gives you choices.
Such signals make people think twice before making a car trip, particularly at peak travel. Is it cheaper to go later, or shop locally instead?
Study after study shows that when you're shoved in among traffic at rush hour, chances are the driver next to you is not going to or returning from work. He/she is making a discretionary trip, one that could be prevented if the cost were high enough. If these trips are prevented, traffic volumes go down. And you begin to make progess on gg emissions.
Rail service alone will not have the same impact because even if some trips transfer to rail, those free highways will stay full, meaning total car trips will not decrease, and will even increase if we build more lanes.
So total driving goes up under this plan; you don't have to take the Sierra Club's word for it, the Puget Sound Regional Council says so. And that means more greenhouse gases.
The solution? Vote this plan down and send environmental groups and politicians back to work crafting a package that accomplishes what this one fails to do: relieve congestion and reduce gg emissions through rail and tolling.
MHD @31, excellent post. This is very much the kind of analysis I would love to see on a more formal level. I appreciate your trying to make a sincere attempt at it. I mean it makes my head hurt too.
Another factor is that, aside from 520, we don't know whether a lot of these road expansions will be freeways or congestion-priced. Is there such a thing as a good road expansion if the expansion is tolled? I dunno. But I believe that, if this package does pass, that's one front to which this battle will shift.
K-Full,
Virtually every statement by elected officials indicates that there will be tolling on the Lake Washington bridges. Good luck getting political support for adding tolls where no additional capacity is being built.
I'm 100% for your proposal, but I don't see why passage of ST2/RTID in any way prevents congestion pricing.
Why should light rail wait for that political battle to be resolved? And what makes you think it'll be resolved in our favor?
I'm a CBC member, but I disagree with their position. As MHD says, it's not easy to figure out the net impact of this proposal without serious study. The Cross-Base Highway is probably not going to happen, and the other questionable road projects involve increasing capacity on existing corridors with no clear way of weighing the pros and cons.
I look at 405 expansion and besides the cost it doesn't bother me that much. That corridor is already developed and expecting the expansion to cause secondary sprawl in far-flung suburbs not along the corridor is speculative. The number of new lanes seems to match expected population growth within the corridor, so it's not like it's going to make it easier to commute to Bellevue from Duvall or Snohomish. It will accommodate people who move to the already-developed areas close to the highway. The same goes for the extension of 167 to Tacoma. That completes an existing connection and might just well ease surface congestion, again without creating significant new sprawl. There are less extensive highway projects, particularly in Snohomish County, that will induce sprawl, but looking at the details I think the opponents are exaggerating the amount of additional sprawl RTID will produce.
It does bother me that this doesn't fund bike projects at a rate proportional to bike use, but that's hardly new.
Finally, what's the alternative? People like Will in Seattle say that ST2 will be back in 2008, but they're the same types who still think Al Gore is running for president. Excuse me if I don't trust that judgment. I also have serious problems with the Sierra Club's opposition to an integrated regional network in favor of isolated urban systems in Everett, Seattle, and Tacoma. This misses the point that rail efficiency is improved when built as a network even when a particular line doesn't have high ridership projections. Because people who ride those sections are also going into the high-ridership parts of the network, building an integrated rail network increases overall ridership compared to building isolated lines based on isolated ridership numbers. It seems like only a short distance between their current position and opposing light rail entirely because trains are only slightly less icky than cars, or whatever.
HOOAH!
First Sierra Club, the largest pro-environmental group in not just the US, but also WA, and especially Puget Sound.
And now Cascade Bike Club!
RTID/ST2 and their pro-pollution anti-environment pro-global-warming-emission anti-wetland anti-net-transit (do the numbers by adding new single occupancy cars trucks and SUVs and subtracting new transit riders) are going DOWN!
Don't bring a knife to a gun fight, you Republican-created RTID fools!
K-Full @35:
See, this is the kind of patently simple-minded logic that makes me want to pull my hair out. I feel like I might as well be debating international trade policy with your average Lou Dobbs fan. Of course, greenhouse gas emissions in this region will increase. Because there will be more people living here, and yes, because of induced demand as well. But does that mean greenhouse gas emissions in the whole scheme of things will increase?
The problem is not that RTID builds roads, but that it builds bad roads!
We have an ongoing problem in this region where we fail to actually plan for the future. Instead, we just continually make temporary fixes and solve short-term problems.
--If we don't adequately address our maintenance backlog, we are just going to have to spend even more money down the road.
--Building a 4-lane or 6-lane 520 bridge, with or without HOV lanes is really irrelevant if we don't fix the bottleneck at either end. What good is a new bridge that simply allows more cars to sit on top of the lake?
--Why are we funding transit with a sales tax?
oh, and @10 - they're not delaying it "for another year" unless you call a February 2008 vote "another year" from November 2007.
In my book that's three months. So we still get to vote - and approve overwhelmingly - ST2.1.
@10, 21 & 32 With prop 1 there is no guarantee which project gets built first. All the roads could go in before they even start ST.
Working to let ST go alone is the best way to make it happen sooner.
K-Full @ 35 says, "Vote this plan down and send environmental groups and politicians back to work crafting a package that accomplishes what this one fails to do: relieve congestion and reduce gg emissions through rail and tolling."
Which environmental groups? The Sierra Club was totally absent from ST 2 planning and didn't lobby over the last eighteen months to decouple roads and transit. Are they suddenly going to develop credibility where they have none in Olympia?
And which politicians? Ed Murray, who co-authored the marriage of roads and transit in the first place? Seattle's pathetic legislative delegation who can't even agree on not building an elevated viaduct on our waterfront? Suburban Democrats in close races having to defend no roads improvements?
Seattle is only one third of King County, one-sixth of the Puget Sound metro area, and one-tenth of the state. To believe that our muddled politicos can deliver anything is a pipe dream.
so, @18 - I notice that the RTID/ST2 prop doesn't include the three largest Dem districts in Seattle - what gives? Did you LOSE THOSE ENDORSEMENTS? Like in ... oh, say, the 43rd 36th and 46th?
Not looking good for the RTID.
tiptoe tommy,
The Cascade Chapter of the Sierra Club has 30,000 members in WA. Approx 10,000 are in Seattle.
And, if it is "fantasy" to believe that we can fight to bring back a better package or a transit-only measure later...
Why isn't it "fantasy" to think that we'll be able to successfully lobby against the Cross-Base Highway?
Why isn't it "fantasy" to think that tolling will be approved for I-90?
@28 - actually, most of the Sierra Club membership in King County reside outside Seattle.
But you'd know that if you were a member.
In the end, ask yourself this:
What other supposedly pro-environment measure has been either actively opposed or not supported by the Sierra Club, Cascade Bicycle Club, and the 43rd, 36th, and 46th District Dems?
Well?
I'm waiting ....
Will @ 39,
That comparison only makes sense if you assume ST2 comes right back in 2008, which you seem to firmly believe. Otherwise, you should be comparing ST2/RTID vs. doing nothing, where I'm sure doing nothing has more drivers than the package.
At this point, you and the pros are simply talking past each other, because of your firm faith that the ST2 will return. In the absence of some firm evidence one way or the other, there's little point in debating it further.
Unless you would oppose the package even if ST would be dead,dead,dead.
Will in Seattle @49: and the 43rd, 36th, and 46th District Dems?
Will in Seattle (or anyone), quick question. What were the numbers on the 36th, 43rd, and 46th District Democrats endorsement votes?
What other supposedly pro-environment measure has been either actively opposed or not supported by the Sierra Club, Cascade Bicycle Club, and the 43rd, 36th, and 46th District Dems?
Well gosh, this is a package that actually has tradeoffs, as any mega-project does. That's a bit different from putting in a bike path. I wouldn't expect the usual suspects to understand political reality outside their cocoon...
Cressona,
You like to play at being clever, so you avoid obvious truths: Total greenhouse gas emissions will increase. Period. There is nothing in this plan that decreases emissions, so they cannot but do otherwise. Make other arguments for the plan if you want, but you will lose this one every time. Sorry if simple reality bores you. But $20 billion for a plan that makes the climate worse apalls me.
K-Full @53:
K-Full, yes or no. Will greenhouse gas emissions in this region increase if we build 50 additional miles of light rail?
(Here's a clue. The answer is yes.)
Does that mean we don't build light rail? Let me think...
Y'know, I'm not trying to "play at being clever" any more than someone who has studied economics would try to dispute some of the potentially self-destructive populist notions out there about trade and legal immigration and taxes.
I give credit to MHD above for at least making an honest layman's stab at assessing the global warming impact of a yes or no vote. And I'd appreciate it if some folks on the no side had the intellectual integrity to go beyond these cartoonish, black-and-white pronouncements on global warming impact.
K-Full,
Doesn't moving people to using electric light rail reduce net emissions? Don't HOV lanes that encourage bus and carpool reduce emissions?
@52 Global Warming is changing the "political reality." RTID is already behind the times. It was crafted when ex-senator Jim Horn (R) was in charge of transportation in our state's senate. The political reality then is not the political reality now.
Will, I have been a member of both the national and Cascade Chapters of the Sierra Club. I stopped giving the national organization money over their racist anti-immigration policies. And I will no longer contribute to the Cascade Chapter either. I prefer to support organizations that are involved 365 days a year in making public policy and working with elected leaders. The Sierra Club has been utterly uninvolved in the regional debate until a few months ago.
As for their membership, your anecdotal claim that most members are from outside Seattle is just that. Still no proof. I have worked with many progressive non-profits in this region and I know most of them are heavily weighted towards Seattle. I do know that Tim Gould, Mike O'Brien, and most of the Sierra Club's Transportation Committee are happy Seattle residents.
tiptoe tommy - call the Sierra Club office- their membership numbers aren't secret.
And your claim that the Sierra Club has been uninvolved in this is simply untrue. The Sierra Club's lobbyist has been part of these discussions for years, and its transportation committee has been commenting on the process all along. Don't mistake not being accommodating for not being involved. No other group is as active on as many issues at as many levels.
And be careful about the allegations you're slinging- don't think for a minute that your shit don't stink. Stick to the issues- you're clearly losing there so you're taking wild shots.
Unhooking Roads and Transit was not part of the Sierra Club's legislative agenda or even mentioned in their session roundup from last year. So it must not have been a very high priority.
You are asking us to trust the Sierra Club's judgment on what is best for the region. Therefore it is fair to examine their involvement in the process to get us here. The comments on the ST 2 package are public record. The Sierra Club hasn't done much except to say any light rail outside of Seattle is a waste of money in a few letters. They didn't even pay enough attention to know that the ST board was debating the "no" committee for three weeks in open board meetings. Then they complain about not getting a statement in the voter's guide.
Frankly, the poor victim posts here and on other forums are tiring. The Sierra Club is asking us to gamble that they are right and rail will return in a better form alone. If you want to ask us to trust you, let us examine you and your assertions.
I actually heard Mike O'Brien say in a debate a few weeks ago, "The Puget Sound Regional Council--whoever they are..." Well, Mike, the PSRC is the governmental agency that must approve all of our regional transportation and growth management plans.
This doesn't reassure me that they know what is going on politically in this region. Nor do their totally wrongheaded critiques of the ST 2 plan.
@55
MHD, you ask a fair question. But the answer is, no -- electric light rail and HOV lanes do not decrease greenhouse gas emissions when combined with new highway lanes. Why? Because light rail by itself, no matter how much we build, will not prevent our roads from filling up. They are free, people have already invested in cars, and they're going to use them. Rail can mitigate the impact of new traffic, but it can't suck away the CO2 put there by the cars we've already got. (A light rail train in fact produces its own emissions, but we'll set that aside.)
If you build new highways, you put even more cars on the road and produce more CO2, tipping the scale even further toward the red.
As for HOV lanes, same story: they are a less harmful way to add lane capacity, but they don't create any emissions reductions.
In fact, nothing in this package creates any greenhouse gas reductions. If rail were on the ballot by itself, it would only slow the growth of future emissions caused by increased traffic volumes. But by adding highway lanes, the package loses even that advantage, and actually digs us deeper into the hole.
So what happens if we do nothing? Traffic worsens, arguably increasing greenhouse gas emissions. But we'll have saved our limited tax dollars for a plan that can actually reduce emissions over the long germ, i.e., investing in even more rail than offered in this plan and implementing congestion pricing mechanisms that make it expensive enough for drivers to re-assess whether it's worth it to use their cars. That's how you reduce emissions.
But if we pass this measure, we're locked in for the next 30 years to a plan that will not create emissions reductions. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really blow it.
K-Full,
I'm all for congestion pricing, but I think that's orthogonal to this debate. If anything, the SR 520 tolling plan will "break in" the region to paying to drive.
If you mean that new residents (who will drive, in general) will create more GHG than any feasible number of riders moved to rail, you're right. But doing nothing probably makes that worse.
Once a system is extensive enough to have been experienced by a large proportion of the region -- which is not something we'll see without ST2 -- the region will move away from building highways, as other major metropolitan areas have. That's how you break the driving paradigm.
I'm skeptical that if you save the $7 billion we're going to spend on roads, take out the stuff that'll get built anyway (SR 520), and then factor in construction inflation between now and whenever, that you will actually get more rail than what's currently on the table. And I'm not even convinced that something ST2- like will even pass, given that many road lobbies and construction unions will drop out of a transit-only plan, to say nothing of anti-transit types.
It's like the Eyman conceit that reducing taxes will "send a message" that politicians should make government more efficient. It didn't work out that way; because government is inherently inefficient, it just led to deferral of maintenance and cuts to other important programs. Similarly, "sending a message" here won't do anything but kick the can down the road for years.
True, K-Full.
And, to answer Cressona, you KNOW that I KNOW about the backup plan for ST2.
The amusing thing is none of the media has had the guts to force a FOIA search for the documents and memos.
In our nice little dance, don't let anyone get away from answering the following:
Will the vote INCREASE or DECREASE global warming emissions?
Will the vote INCREASE or DECREASE air pollution?
Will the vote INCREASE or DECREASE net transit (added single passenger cars/trucks/SUVs minus added utilized transit capacity)?
Will the vote INCREASE or DECREASE local salmon and other fish stocks?
Will the vote INCREASE or DECREASE local wetlands?
And now, bonus question:
Will this do much - at all - to REPAIR our EXISTING CRITICAL bridges and highways that REQUIRE repair?
The answers are simple and none of them are good for the environment or Puget Sound.
Will in Seattle (or anyone), the only question I'm waiting on an answer for is the numbers for the 36th and 46th District Democrats' endorsements. If I recall correctly, the 43rd District Dems were 44-38 in favor of ST2/RTID.
Well, also any more details on that recent Elway poll that seemed to fly under The Stranger's radar.
I don't think you can say that HOV lanes never reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A complete HOV system enables buses to move large numbers of people much more quickly. Given the gas mileage of buses that's a significant impact, particularly if it leads to higher transit usage and fewer people in cars. Sometimes, HOV lanes are converted from general purpose lanes, and depending upon what happens to the other lanes, it's quite possible that reduces emissions over all. In many if not most cases, HOV lanes are new lanes and add emissions. But you have to compare vs. actual alternatives and not ideal absolutes. Anyone who says they can give a definite answer on comparative GHG emissions without a detailed study is lying to somebody--either their audience or themselves.
Light rail produces its own emissions, but in the long run the per passenger emissions are lower. As fixed infrastructure, light rail also produces less sprawling development, so even if its operations didn't produce an advantage in GHG emissions its long-term effect would be positive. It's also not possible for people to choose not to drive if they don't have alternative means of getting around. Simply taxing roads won't work if people don't have alternatives. So the long-term view requires building light rail and starting now. It means building an integrated regional network rather than isolated local systems. The 50-mile expansion is the minimum we need to start changing things, and polling suggest the only way we get that 50-mile starter network is to make a deal with the highway devil one more time and vote for the combined ST2/RTID package.
But that package and other funding proposals still only comes up with about half of what our region needs according to the PSRC. Regional congestion pricing is the only way to make up the bulk of the remainder, some 40 billion dollars over 25 years. There's no other source of money available, because the federal government is funding less and less and the state and local sales taxes are near a breaking point (particularly after passage of ST2/RTID). What this means is that either most of the roads won't be built, or they'll be built with tolls paid by drivers. To implement that system will require governance reform, which is where the next battle is going to be whether or not ST2/RTID passes or not. If mass transit advocates and environmentalists take the long view, the best thing we can do is lock in ST2 now, and then organize for a regional agency that is funded by regional tolls and that prioritizes transit over highways. If we do that, ten years from now we'll have ST2's network well under construction with growing public support for rail, an integrated regional transit agency funded from highway tolls, and a commitment to prioritizing mass transit. All of that gives us the foundation we'll need to tackle global climate change, just in time to make a big difference.
If we shoot down the combined proposal now, then it's likely ST2 gets punted down the road, the governance reform will cripple Sound Transit and kill rail for another generation, the highways will grab the funding that would otherwise go to rail, and we'll have done nothing to combat global climate change.
@59
Tiptoe Tommy,
I don't know if you're really that out of it or being deliberately disingenous. You claim to know about the process by which this package was formed and who our members are but don't get it right even once when describing Sierra Club's involvement. It's beginning to smell fishy.
For one thing, any member of the Cascade Chapter would know that the Sierra Club never had an anti-immigration policy. Outsiders carrying that agenda tried to get elected to national board positions and were trounced by 80% margins.
For another, the Sierra Club made it plain to the governor very early on in the process that created this package that yoking highways to Sound Transit was a loser for us and we would not support the compromise. We fought linking the two all through the 2006 session. It was a big deal -- you must have heard about it.
For another, the Sierra Club has never said light rail outside of Seattle doesn't make sense. It has said that some routes are more cost-effective than others, citing Sound Transit's own numbers, and questioned why one particular route that shows low ridership projections was given higher priority than others promising better ridership. Would that some of you so-called political reality gurus would save some of the vitriol you direct at the Club for the politicians who have set light rail up for future attacks from anti-rail folks if riders don't materialize.
We certainly know who the Puget Sound Regional Council is -- we've cited their Vision 2030 report in about a hundred posts on this blog. You're deliberately taking O'brien's quote out of context.
Finally, it is one thing to "know" that RTID / ST boards are discussing ballot language and another to be invited to submit that language. You must know that if you have even a superficial knowledge of political process.
I'll add that even if the Sierra Club was not able to bring as much pressure on this package as we would have liked early on, we alone among certain environmental groups in this town (excepting People for Puget Sound) were busy crafting a surface and transit solution to the viaduct replacement that is now the solution of choice. Paid staff from other organizations, I remember, were regularly at City Council meetings bowing to the mayor and his plan to build a tunnel -- a plan that made no environmental nor political sense --while Club volunteers advocated a plan that gave us a better plan when that idea imploded.
You're either very naive about political process and the Sierra Club's involvement or pretending to be to attack the Club.
@63 - you have the numbers backwards from the 43rd. The No side got more than the Yes side did for RTID/ST2.
As to the numbers from 36th and 46th that's a good question. But since the local media don't seem to report on things like this, all I know is the final decision. Based on what their members said.
http://washington.sierraclub.org/documents/political/Endorsements/Index.htm
Given the falsehoods told and missing funds that occurred with Sierra Club member Michael McGuinn (who is more interested in being a toadie for Ron Sims and Paul Behredt than being an environmentalist), how do we know that Mike O'Brien is playing it straight?
Hopefully non-controversial question for the Sierra Clubbers out there. Josh Feit had written: Looking at the $7 billion that’s going to roads, which includes good things like repairs and bad things like pure expansion, the Sierra Club says that about 75 percent of that money is for the “bad” kind.
Where does that 75% estimate come from, and does it include 520?
is this where we will talk about walt crowley?
Kevin Fullerton, how many times did you meet with Julia Patterson over the last 5 years?
She is the Vice Chair of RTID and a long time member of the Sound Transit board.
Did you ever meet with her yourself?
Did Sierra meet with her? When and how many times?
And which "paid staff" are you refering too? Are you now turning on the rest of the environmental community?
You are loosing it buddy.
And this one is just for fun, but what kind of cars/suv's do you all drive?
What is Mike O'Brien rolling in these days?
Rick,
I've met with Julia Patterson multiple times over the past 5 years. Julia Patterson drives a black mercedes SUV.
But that is beside the point. The point that you keep getting away from is that you want us vote for a plan that will do more harm than good on the greenhouse gas front. End of story.
nice slog today.
Let's see, there have been several questions.
Seems the 32nd, 36th, 43rd, and 46th Legislative District organizations all failed to reach their respective thresholds for endorsement of either the affirmative or negative positions on the joint ballot measure. I witnessed the 36th and 43rd discussions. slight majorities were for the negative in the 43rd and for the affirmative in the 36th. The 43rd is ground zero for the SR-520 project. I do not know the answer on the 32nd and 46th districts.
It demonstrates that this is a difficult issue for progressives. These four districts are key to the ballot measure, as they have active memberships that doorbell and relatively high voter turnout.
The use of the sales tax for highway expansion offends Democrats. They know it is regressive, alredy too high, and unrelated to highway use. They wish the Legislature and Governor had the courage to impose higher gas taxes. This point arose this afternoon in the Metropolitan Democratic Club discussion. The negative side won there.
Democrats also sense that the RTID project list is not the most important highway projects, but only the expansion projects that made it through that unique process, that was designed by Republican State Senators McDonald, Finkbinder, and Horn to fund an expansion of I-405. The RTID is an expansion agency, not a maintenance agency. They only added the South Park bridge to their list after the collapse of the AWV project.
ST seems to be enpowered to go it alone if they want to in 2008. The Legislature and Governor would have to change state law quickly to prevent them from doing so. Note that the 1996 affirmative vote followed the failed 1995 vote.
The numbers do not support the apprehension of Speaker Chopp and Governor Gregoire on a 2008 ballot measure. In 1996, the RTA was on the ballot and passed and the Democrats gained seats. In 2008, turnout will be very high. That will be good for both the Democrats and ST.
There are other approaches. Sims, MacDonald, the Federal Transit Administration, the PSRC, the Sierra Club, and TCC all advocate tolling. The Legislature will discuss tollling policy in 2008.
the Narrows SR-16 is tolled now. SR-167 will be tolled soon. It is beig used increasingly around the world. Technology is no longer an obstacle to tolling.
It is reasonable to use the demand management aspect of tolling in the design of the mega projects. The RTID could have assumed more toll revenue, as it was among those allowed, but they seemed afraid of it.
If RTID is defeated, under state law, the three counties of RTID will gain the authority for single county RTID; that authority has already been granted to the other 36 counties.
Also, in 2008, the counties will gain use of the Transportation Benefit District fundraising tool. TBDs may toll. They may fund both roads and transit. They may be all or parts of counties.
Yes, the Legislature may discuss governance reform. But that is very difficult. The most likely outcome is always no change. And it might be positive change. That topic could be discussed later.
@64
Buses on HOV lanes are a good example to raise. They're a great thing, but still don't create emission reductions because when those 30 or so riders leave their cars behind, 30 more cars will take their place in the general purpose lanes. Highway lanes are not going to sit empty in a region where they are already over-burdened and more people arrive every day. So now you've got 30 cars plus a bus. Better than 60 cars, but still not an emissions reduction.
As for your political scenario -- fine, but do you really think we can accomplish all that while trying to prevent highways we will have just programmed money for? Why not just get highways off the table now and put the onus on our leaders to do the right thing? Because once we pass this behemoth, they're going to declare victory; enviro groups will have to expend thousands of hour and dollars trying to change what the voters approved. Why pick that fight when we can fight the one that puts the right rail plan on next year's ballot? Much easier, in my estimation.
@31
Noble of you to work this out, MHD, and you may have some things right, but here's the point: Why haven't politicians and others supporting this package already done a greenhouse-gas impact study? GG emissions are, after all, the number one criterion for evaluating progress on the transportation front. You'd think they'd guarantee us net reductions and have numbers to back it up. But they don't. So who failed here? RTID supporters, or those trying to point out this proposal might be creating a big problem?
Let me rephrase this question for the Sierra Clubbers out there.
Josh Feit had written in an earlier Slog post: "Looking at the $7 billion that’s going to roads, which includes good things like repairs and bad things like pure expansion, the Sierra Club says that about 75 percent of that money is for the 'bad' kind."
Does that percentage accurately reflect Sierra Club's assessment, and does it include 520?
Well, that's a lot of words. Let me boil it down.
Cars. Are killing. The planet. Don't. Build. More. Roads.
That's all. Argue THAT down, Sandeep, Cressona, whoever else. Make sure to tell your grandkids where you stood on this.
Says Grant from Portland, where they have fucking light rail...
Says Grant from Portland, where they have fucking light rail...
Well, it certainly doesn't help RTID, but it's probably a bigger deal that Ron Sims is against it.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003905815_ronsims27.html
Good catch, Ebanezer. Sims is against light rail now, I see. And he seems to have taken his entire op-ed straight from the Sierra Club's rail-bashing letters Cressona posted a couple days ago. Charming.
I think Sierra Club and Sims have a brilliant and consistent message to share: stop global warming by stopping light rail. Diesel buses stuck in traffic is the new way to go!
You don't like crappy buses, you say? Well that GPS device we suck in your car acts like a taxi meter, so the second you leave your driveway, the meter starts running. Makes you want to jump on the bus, doesn't it? And since less affluent people are forced to live further and furher away from Sierra Club's elite city center club, could somebody tell me how 'congestion pricing' is supposed to be less regressive han sales tax? Sheesh. These guys are all over the map.
Interesting Sims complains the south line is too slow, since he's the guy who wanted to slow it down through the Rainier Valley. And he doesn't like the light rail line to Bellevue and Microsoft because...well, it's tough to tell what he's trying to say there. Oh, light rail from Seattle to S Everett is a bad idea, too.
Sims instead wants to build rail from Everett to Lynnwood? Tacoma to PLU? Come again? Is this where the traffic messes are? Is this "regional transit?"
I think the Sierra Club slipped Sims a roofie. Or, maybe Sims just doesn't want to play ball when he's not team captain?
Lemmee get THIS straight.
So, we're supposed to be taking advice from WillinSeattle-disaffected-Asche and Grant Cogswell, who both actively opposed light rail a few short years ago...but now they claim to be against this plan 'cuz there's not enough light rail. And Kevin-Full erton, who organized to kill the South Lake Union Streetcar - THAT guy is now the dude who likes rail all of a sudden.
Jesus H Christ. The Sierra Club members in this town act like a bunch of whitey lost boys who never found their niche when they moved from State A / Canadian Province; and make up for their shortcomings through sheer flakitude.
And ECB, don't drink their cOOl Aid. Removing two lanes from 520 doesn't pass the blush test, and you know it.
I love this phrase from Ron Sims's op-ed: "In a region known for our leadership efforts to reduce greenhouse gases,…" Uh, let's see:
And we're known for our leadership in combating climate change? The only leadership this region has shown is in getting national media attention for signing meaningless, feel-good pledges.
Ron Sims has already checked out politically from King County. He's already sizing up that sinecure he's planning to get in the next Clinton administration in exchange for his endorsement.
But Ron, thanks for the lovely parting gift. Coming from the same guy who worked behind the scenes to kill the monorail project and then decided to replace that by slapping a phony "bus rapid transit" sticker on the same, old conventional bus service, I would expect nothing less.
Yeah, that Ron is really anti-transit.
But go ahead and say he has checked out. Voters trust him on transportation, and you're going to have to actually refute his criticism to compete. So even if you've sold out, don't expect this turkey to pass in November.
Cressona
"We've got some of the worst traffic congestion in the country. "
14th biggest metro area 19th worst congestion source Texas Transportation Institute. Better than the big transit metros and smaller areas like San Diego, San Jose and Denver that have the holy rail.
Maybe Ron believes that GW and GHG are the number one things to consider when spending on large capital projects.
Unless you tear down the piers the waterfront is only scenic from something elevated - but we're not talking about RTID funding a new viaduct and your enemies (Sims and Sierra Club)opposed it while your friends (TCC, Futurewise) backed the tunnel. So why bring it up?
Did you attend the clean car conference?
Sims did. Maybe he sees the fastest way reducing GHG is to covert people to these vehicles, you know my magical dream cars.
http://www.metrokc.gov/exec/cleanvehiclesnow/agenda.aspx
The light industry touts here and elsewhere either can't or won't see that we need to be very selective in what major capital projects to build if we want to reduce GHG in the next 10-15-20 years.
No matter what we do (except tolling) we will have congestion. No matter what we do (except growth management zoning) we will have sprawl. The holy rail will use up huge amounts of capital and give a very small percentage a "choice". And the rational for rail is that a better class will ride it but not buses so how does this DT - Overlake spur help the poor?
I couldn't take it anymore, so I took a buzzsaw to Ron Sims's essay.
link
K-Full @73:
Buses on HOV lanes are a good example to raise. They're a great thing, but still don't create emission reductions because when those 30 or so riders leave their cars behind, 30 more cars will take their place in the general purpose lanes. Highway lanes are not going to sit empty in a region where they are already over-burdened and more people arrive every day. So now you've got 30 cars plus a bus. Better than 60 cars, but still not an emissions reduction.
In your model, the only thing worth doing is to convert general purpose lanes to HOV. I'm fine with that, if you can get it approved. Do you really think that people are going to accept one general purpose lane in each direction SR-520?
If your high-risk strategy fails, you have 60 cars on the road instead of the 30 you could have had. Great.
I'd be fine with ST2 going to the ballot by itself in 2008 and passing, but I'm not exactly certain that those events will occur.
MHD - I notice you had no comment on the Artic Ice being gone by 2030. Those that believe GW is a real threat see that projects that do nothing to reduce GW in 10 to 15 years are not those that we should be pursuing now.
I don't have any financial interest in the vote or its outcome but I can't believe that at least some of you holy rail touts don't.
Stop yelling at those not on board and explain how this vote gets us reduced GHG in a time frame that fits with the bulk of climate scientists' call for action.
Whatever @87,
I work for Boeing, so there's no direct interest there. I live in the Rainier Valley, so I'm getting my rail regardless of what happens this fall. I just happen to believe in the power of rail to improve quality of life, because I've lived in cities where I saw it in action. I can't speak for any other supporters any more than you can speak for Kemper Freeman, Stefan Sharkansky, and the others that you're effectively in bed with.
I guess you're looking for a regional package that solves Global Warming for the entire world all by itself, and reject any less. Good luck with that.
Leaving aside various quality-of-life issues that are also important, nothing builds support for transit like transit that works. The more rail we have, the more that others will want it.
The anti-prop 1 crowd keeps wanting to compare 2030 emissions with Proposition 1 vs. emissions today. Well guess what: due to population growth, no politically feasible transportation plan is going to pass that test. At comment 31, I did try to explain why I think RTID is close to a wash in terms of GHG, before the benefits of moving tens of thousands of commuters to rail is even considered.
As a region, what can we do to reduce emissions?
- Embrace renewable, hydro, and nuclear energy;
- Pass a gasoline and/or carbon tax;
- Build as much transit as possible, as fast as possible; and
- Support urban development that minimizes car use and increases density.
Prop. 1 addresses the third and fourth of these. I think that's an important and useful step.
The notion of a 2008 light rail-only vote is just that--a notion. The Sierra Club is not trying to win an election, they're trying to piggyback on the efforts (and numbers) of transit opponents. So, even if the Sierra Club can stop mass transit this time, the club represents only a small minority of voters and isn't in a position to dictate anything. Don't promise things you can't deliver, greenies.
The opponents of ST2/RTID would rather add 60 cars than 30 cars and a bus, on a wild hope that they might be able to prevent any additional cars at all.
But the reality is that people are moving into this area and without light rail they will drive cars. So those cars are being added whether or not any lanes are built. The question is whether there are alternatives (both HOV-riding buses where that helps and light rail) to encourage people to get out of their cars (and reduce relative increases in emissions, because absolute reductions cannot happen until there are transit alternatives and a sea change in urban development).
ST2 cannot pass in its current form by itself. The proposed cuts to ST2 that the Sierra Club, CBC, and Ron Sims all now seem to advocate will make light rail less popular because they will screw anyone who doesn't live in the city limits of Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett (that is, a majority of people voting on transit projects). The most popular proposed light rail expansion project is the one through Bellevue to Microsoft, and as far as I can tell the opponents of ST2/RTID want to get rid of that part completely. This is so insane it conjures a strong temptation to start coming up with conspiracy theories about the real agendas of these so-called prominent environmentalists.
But no conspiracy theories are necessary. The reality is that CBC and the Sierra Club are deluding themselves, as often happens with even the most well-meaning ideologues. As for Ron Sims, I have no idea what's motivating him, because his position makes the least sense of any of the opponents. This was a guy who six months ago was looking like a regional leader on transporation, and now he's just looking confused, trapped between conflicting audiences for shameless pandering.
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