Comments on About That Roads and Transit Proposal
Speaking of our state legislature, is ours as bad as Texas?
$18 billion? It's the Stranger reverting to its monorail days. Fine that you object to this measure, but get the price right - $47 billion is more like it, although it may cost a whole lot more than even that.
Don't forget our $36B maintenance backlog (PSRC estimate). Just a fraction of the RTID goes towards fixing the roads we already have that are in need of repair -- the rest is a splurge on new facilities.
The polar bears argument is bullshit. If we don't expand our roads, if we don't use all of that concrete and asphalt and steel and icky greenhouse-gas-producing gasoline, it's all just going to go to China or India. The polar bears are fucked, whether or not we pile on with our new car emissions.
Seriously, kill this bill, and then make sure TPTB understand WHY we did so.
@4
Sure -- let's kill the polar bears FIRST. That's the American way.
ECB, thanks for trying to make an honest carbon assessment of this package.
I don't see how you can possibly say you agree with Ron Sims and say you're for ST2 at the same time. Sims attacks the entire thing except for three stops to Northgate.
Leaving aside what construction inflation will do, the argument makes sense if ST2 coming back fast, and passing, is a done deal. I just can't be as sanguine. The polls don't seem to support the assertion that it will pass.
The idea is that you lose the pro-road voters and gain some of the environmentalists. But it sounds like a lot of the environmentalists (eg, Sims) aren't happy with ST2 as a standalone either.
And doing nothing is certainly worse for GW than Prop 1.
Kudo’s to Executive Sims – and his wife – for their political courage.
For what it’s worth, I don't know if Greg's urging for us to "Use it or lose it" is the finest application of the Golden Rule. You know, “do unto others as you would have done unto yourself.” However, I do know that the law governing the RTID forces consideration of projects largely based on their ability to move more vehicle more quickly.
You read that correctly, not more people and goods more safely - but more vehicles at a higher average speed. Talk about the cart leading the horse!
Those of us committed to gracefully and sustainably accommodating region's projected growth, in the wake of the wreckage of Prop 1, will quickly propose a King County Transportation Benefit District package. It will meet the County's projected/deferred maintenance needs while protecting and preserving the environment for future generations.
I’m looking forward to supporting that package next year, and so should anyone who cares about the region’s future…
Kind regards,
David
MHD,
You assume that if prop 1 passes, ST2 will be first to be built, but in fact there is no schedule promised. The Cross Base Highway may get constructed before ST2 breaks ground - Prop. 1 does not let us know what will be built first.
ST2 stands a better chance of getting built sooner if it is part of a stand-alone prop. where it doesn't have to compete on a long list of ugly projects.
@9,
I'm not assuming anything about the timing, but I figure they're separate revenue streams, so they should be uncorrelated with each other.
Ron Sims said Northgate by 2018, and I imagine the rest will come in just before 2027, East Link maybe a bit earlier.
Greg's comment is a new twist on the old proverb:
"Consumer locally. Kill globally."
As I have tried to state before, and as another commenter, MHD, has tried to think through on a recent thread, this package, even with its roads, likely has a smaller carbon footprint compared to the alternative—unless you truly believe that Olympia is going to suddenly stop being a hostile place for transit and allow Sound Transit 2 to come back to the ballot on its own anytime soon in some configuration that has not been drastically scaled down.
The thing to keep in mind is that, even though not building any new transportation infrastructure will cause our region to have a smaller carbon footprint, it won't make the people who would have lived here with that infrastructure disappear off the face of the earth. (It's odd that I should even have to point this out.)
***
Anyway, I have to make another point regarding this greenhouse gases angle. On some level, I have to give the Sierra Club and The Stranger credit for making this vote all about climate change.
Not that climate change shouldn't be a factor. With the possible exception of nuclear proliferation, climate change is the greatest threat facing the human race in the 21st century.
But what this region does with regard to transportation will have about as big an effect on climate change as my own individual vote will have on this election. That doesn't mean I won't vote, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't act to prevent global warming. But not only is what we do a drop in the bucket, without the United States as a nation leading on climate change and establishing some sort of broader controls, it may we be that the more we reduce our carbon footprint here, the cheaper and easier we make it for the next region and the next country to increase their carbon footprint.
However, while we don't have much power over what happens globally, we do have power over our own fate. And here's where I see this investment in 50 miles of light rail and a tolled 520 with HOV lanes having a huge impact:
Rather:
"Consume locally. Kill globally."
(it's really not as funny the second time...or the first probably)
Remember, even if cressona is in a drug-induced coma from all those choco-dildos, that there are some simple facts to consider:
1. Only funds 40 percent of the 520 bridge replacement - and you know the bill for that baby is coming down the pike.
2. Kills salmon.
3. Kills other wildlife.
4. Destroys wetlands.
5. Increases pollution that we will be forced to pay money to remove when we finally sign the KYOTO 2 accords.
6. Increases global warming gas emissions that we will be forced to pay money to remove when we finally sign the KYOTO 2 accords.
7. Debt. If you're a teen now you'll be paying for this until you're retired. No, that is NOT an exaggeration.
Still think it's good Cressona? Man, that must be one sweet dildo ...
@6 & 8
Look, we can be as environmentally conscious as we want. I think it's a great idea. But Puget Sound isn't big enough to singlehandedly turn the tide against global warming. Without a comprehensive, worldwide plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, voting against a Puget Sound roads project doesn't do jack. So go ahead and vote against ST2/RTID, but don't pat yourselves on the back for saving the polar bears. They're still going to die, and all you've done is wash your hands of it.
David Hiller @8:
However, I do know that the law governing the RTID forces consideration of projects largely based on their ability to move more vehicle more quickly.
You read that correctly, not more people and goods more safely - but more vehicles at a higher average speed. Talk about the cart leading the horse!
David, you may be working with some outdated information. I'm looking at page 7 of RTID's Blueprint for Progress:
The RTID recognizes that a comprehensive approach is needed to combat climate change and supports the state commitment to reducing vehicle miles traveled.... RTID will also work with the lead agencies it funds to encourage identification of opportunities to reduce vehicle miles traveled during design, engineering, construction, and operations phases of the projects referenced in the plan.
Reducing vehicle miles traveled. Sounds good to me.
Cressona said it WAY better than I did.
cressona, I think you're failing to see our role in affecting the necessary change.
without the United States as a nation leading on climate change and establishing some sort of broader controls, it may we be that the more we reduce our carbon footprint here, the cheaper and easier we make it for the next region and the next country to increase their carbon footprint.
I see this fight as part of the effort to force the US to be a leader on climate change. Things like this get noticed, in the region and nationally. Increasing greenhouse gases needs to be a political non-starter from here on out. We know the facts. It's time to make a stand.
unless you truly believe that Olympia is going to suddenly stop being a hostile place for transit and allow Sound Transit 2 to come back to the ballot on its own anytime soon in some configuration that has not been drastically scaled down.
Even if that's true, and I'm going to work hard to make sure it's not, that's still not a good enough reason to vote for a net-negative package.
Thanks, Greg @17.
Frankly, I deeply and intensely resent the smug insinuation on the part of the local Sierra Club that, if you're for this package, then you don't appreciate or care about climate change. Here's the first sentence from their "Why Vote No?" page: The problem of global warming is real.
Thanks for the news, guys. I wasn't aware of that.
These Sierra Club leaders have not even begun to think seriously about climate change. Why? To put it bluntly, these are not serious people. Climate change is a problem that's as far out of their league as international trade policy is out of the league of the average Lou Dobbs viewer. They have neither the intellect nor the integrity to speak to how climate change should influence public policy. And as is typical for people of this ilk, they haven't the humility either.
These Sierra Club leaders have not even begun to think seriously about climate change. Why? To put it bluntly, these are not serious people. Climate change is a problem that's as far out of their league as international trade policy is out of the league of the average Lou Dobbs viewer.
It appears that cressona is running out of rational arguments to support this thing.
Nothing RTID/ST2 could do possibly could impact global warming. What our region could do to help global warming is prohibit use of SEATAC Airport 12 hours a day (impacting how much Jet A fuel gets burned over US skies), and start taxing the shit out of the large aircraft manufacturer here. That would make those jets expensive, some wouldn't get bought, and jets would spew less pollutants.
You kiddies need to get a grip. Every goddamn heavy international and cross country jumbo jet trip sends out huge amounts of GHG pollutants.
Whatever GHG "reduction" we possibly could do by government regulation of SOV's here in Seattle, or building light rail extensions, would be peanuts compared to the effects of all the jet traffic every day. Get over yourselves.
While I'm at it, if you all like trains so much, PLEASE - move to Portland or Denver. You would make life a lot less expensive for the rest of us. And do not blame us for global warming - blame Boeing.
#2: $18 billion is the correct number to cite, as it uses current dollars. Citing the total amount of future dollars after financing is misleading, as most of those dollars will relatively speaking be worth much less than a 2007 dollar because of inflation. It is dishonest and misleading to measure in anything but current dollars.
$10 billion is earmarked for ST2, and the schedule is up to Sound Transit without having to clear things with RTID, so raising fears that light rail will be delayed to build roads first is also dishonest. It is enough to point out that ST2 won't be in place until 2027. That truth is depressing enough, but not as depressing as killing ST2 for the Sierra Club's version of light rail.
Global warming is a serious problem, but the local Sierra Club has no serious solution for global warming. People aren't going to get out of cars unless people have alternatives--that means rail and lots of it throughout the region, yet the Cascade chapter is suggesting the light rail investment should be smaller and broken into disconnected local segments. To reduce the problem further, we need a carbon tax and tolls, yet instead of getting to work on local implementation of that (or supporting a proposition that will institute the region's first tolls on highways), the Sierra Club is simply being obstructionist. We also need a commitment to electric cars running on renewable energy, because even with trains and tolls and carbon taxes, some people will still drive and we need to lower emissions on those cars.
Opposing Prop 1 does nothing to get any of this done. Instead, it blocks a partial solution just because that solution does not banish all of our old bad behavior. Blocking Prop 1 is more of the same--inaction because the proposed result wasn't perfectly acceptable to everyone. We need to do something new--commit to a long-term change that starts with what is politically possible now in order to create more possibilities for change in the future.
I've grown a bit weary of this debate. There are three basic points of fact on the anti side that we won't agree on:
(1) RTID is significant net minus for carbon.
(2) Light rail will come back very soon after a Prop 1 rejection.
(3) Light rail on its own will pass a vote.
and we won't know any of these things for sure until after they happen. Personally, I'm pretty skeptical of all three, and they all have to be true for the anti case to be valid. If you disagree with that assessment, then no amount of argument is going to dissuade you.
OR you might be arguing that RTID is SO negative that you'd rather have no light rail than RTID; that the status quo plus population growth is better than Prop. 1. I have a lot of trouble believing that, too.
I guess there's also a side issue of priorities: does solving a small piece of GW trump all the other economic and quality-of-life benefits, or not? I would say not, but that's me.
Patrick - if this dies this year, Sound Transit will die in the next legislative session - integrated into the PSRC or the RTID. The legislature has already made it clear that transit packages are not going to make it to the ballot without roads. This project is our last, best chance to build rail. We won't get another shot at electric rail transit - but we'll get more roads from the state either way.
This can't happen "faster" some other way. ST2 is the best project available to get 300,000 people a day out of their cars. If we want it faster, if we want it built in ten years, we pass this package and then accelerate it later. If we shoot this down, we can't do that.
Cressona has reached its final stage of evolution: ad hominem attacks on the Sierra Club that, as an added bonus of sorts, also employ circular logic.
MHD - WHY do you believe ST2 can come back next year when the board has been dissolved? Did you miss this year's legislative session? Sound Transit lived by only a handful of votes - a "no" vote will give the legislature the political clout to kill it entirely!
@8: "Those of us committed to gracefully and sustainably accommodating region's projected growth, in the wake of the wreckage of Prop 1, will quickly propose a King County Transportation Benefit District package."
Really? State law delegates the authority to create transportation districts to the Cascade Bicycle Club?
Ben @26,
I agree with you. Read the post. I state that I disagree with all 3 tenets of the anti position.
Cascadian:
Is the Yes on Prop 1 campaign strategy to bash the Sierra Club now? Remember that they have some partners, including Mr. Sims. Don't forget them when you're leveling your attacks.
The solution is not more pavement, it's better management of the roads we have, with major investments in transit, including rail. Congestion pricing is proven to maintain traffic flow, and it raises billions in transportation funding without regressive sales taxes. Users pay for other finite resources. Why force pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users to subsidize sprawl?
Opposing Prop 1 clears the way for a real solution like congestion pricing and sets the tone for all local investment packages to come. If you get your way and it passes, well, our electeds will know we're not yet ready to get serious on global warming. I think THAT's "more of the same."
Ben,
I hope that's not true (I don't have a crystal ball), but in a way it's beside the point. Like I said to cressona, as long as ST2 is part of a net-negative bill, I cannot support the combined package. Net-negative. That is the bottom line, and that's what's so tragic (to borrow Sims' word) about this situation.
We have to take a stand on global warming. If our electeds are not with us, then it's incumbent upon us to change that. I believe that united, the environmental and transportation communities could bring sufficient pressure to bear on Olympia to change the "political reality" that's been bandied about so often on these boards. That's how major policy shifts happen, and it usually involves holding people accountable to the voters.
@21 - wrong. Americans, per capita, are the second highest carbon-creating individuals in the world (Canadians, sadly, are number one, but they're trying to change that).
Now, it's true, the more Boeing 787s and retrofitted planes that use HALF the jet fuel they crank out, the better.
But when you get down to it, the major impact here is from ... cars, trucks, and SUVs.
Yup.
See, we have pretty much mostly green energy already around here, so our big impact comes from just one place: out our tail pipes.
You can stick your head in the ever warming sands all you want, but YOU are still having the biggest impact on global warming.
Not some schlub in China creating 1/10th as much global warming per capita as you - nope, it's YOU.
Which is why RTID/ST2 is dang important.
#24 ST claims 74,000 additional transit trips in 2030 and only a percentage of those will be from cars. This would amount to about .005 of total daily trips.
#22 "We also need a commitment to electric cars running on renewable energy, because even with trains and tolls and carbon taxes, some people will still drive and we need to lower emissions on those cars."
yes and we should be investing in alternative energy instead of this package.
@33 - I was kind of hoping to use the money currently wasted infIraq for investing in alternative energy personally.
Yes Will that would be great.
Chrisona,
Sorry, don’t think we’ve met – but I understand your confusion. I was referring to the state law (RCW) that goverms the RTID. The offending section is here: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.120.060
Though some of the statutory mandates are undeniably well intentioned, it’s the hanldover’s from ex-State Senator Jim Horn (a.k.a the “Road King”) that doomed the project list.
36.120.60 (a) Reduced level of congestion and improved safety; (O.K., sure!)
36.120.60 (b) Improved travel time; (i.e. Faster? Why?)
36.120.60 (c) Improved air quality; (Great! But, how’re you going to do that with more vehicle miles travelled? The U.S/ EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality has research showing the while congestion relief via increased capacity generates emission reductions in the primary zone, added trips more than erode that benefit in the secondary and tertiary zones. Adding capacity is a net loser for air quality.)
36.120.60 (d) Increases in daily and peak period person and vehicle trip capacity; (Why do we care to accommodate people choose to hog our public assetts in SOV’s? I, for one, am done subsidizing their antisocial behavior.)
36.120.60 (e) Reductions in person and vehicle delay; (ibid)
Maybe it’s a vision thing? I just envision us arriving at a better conclusion through these deliberations and not coming to a juncture where the nominal “chair” of the Environmental Caucus of the Washington State Legislature, Dave Upthegrove, tells me, “If we put these measures forward seperately, Seattle will get it’s transit (ummm… Dave? The new transit is OUTSIDE of Seattle.) and we won’t get our highways.
Blackmail never really worked for me.
Regards,
Take care,
David Hiller
@31 wrote: "Americans, per capita, are the second highest carbon-creating individuals in the world (Canadians, sadly, are number one, but they're trying to change that)."
It is not people that create the most GHG's, it is businesses. Around here it is businesses associated with the Port of Seattle, Boeing, and the other large employers whose employees drive. Tax them. Lay off people (unless you are talking about tolling for using certain roads, gas taxes, or comparable user fees). Sales taxes are high enough, and saying "Americans" produce the most GHG's misses the point. Cattle produce huge amounts of methane: tax beef producers, and we'd have a lot more vegetarians.
But don't try guilt tripping people into imposing general sales taxes, either on the grounds that we need to pay for the sins of our fathers in not approving Forward Thrust money in the 60's (lame, lame rationale) or by saying "we" pollute. We don't pollute: businesses pollute - they should be taxed. And no, none of them are going to leave if we impose a payroll tax like TriMet does down in Portland to fund that light rail system.
" building both the roads and the transit components of the plan will lead to a net increase in vehicle-miles traveled of 43 percent. Because vehicle-miles traveled translate, roughly, to carbon produced (a mile traveled works out roughly to a pound of carbon in the air), that’s approximately a 43 percent increase in carbon emissions—at a time when we’re supposed to be reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent. "
How INCREDIBLY misleading!!!
Terrible reporting, I'm disappointed in you Erica.
You make it sound like our net emissions are going +43 when we are trying to go -80
problem is CARS ARE ONLY PART OF THE PROBLEM.
from http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003667136_challenge15m.html
"The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency estimates that about half of the region's greenhouse gases come from cars, trucks, ships, planes and trains. The second biggest contributor is electricity production, at about 17 percent."
HALF of the greenhouse gases come from cars... and trucks... and ships.... and planes... and trains!!! That's 50% that is shared with trucks, ships, planes and trains.
To put 43% together with 80% is RIDICULOUS.
People.. RTID WILL NOT KILL POLAR BEARS
SMALL MINDED ATTITUDES TOWARDS A GLOBAL PROBLEM WILL!!!
We need the infrastructure now. Global warming is being researched and if you ACTUALLY want to help go research solar technology or hydrogen fuel cells.
RTID is utterly out of step with the moment. Right now voters are just getting their heads around:
* peak oil risk (may be near term, may not be, but we'd better figure this one out before we commit)
* new evidence of the risk of catastrophic climate destabilization (from the ice core atmosphere samples it's now clear that things can change really rapidly - and no it's not about polar bears it's about a billion bin ladens)
* and the links between transport planning and development (building more roads this way just causes more sprawl - there are better ways)
Once they do that (will take a few years, but they'll get there), we'll get a much more cost-effective and lower risk plan for getting folks from A to B.
Big Ideas have to start someplace. To all of you defeatists who say that working on global warming solutions here is a waste and Prop 1 is the best thing we can get so we all should shut up and vote yes I ask:
• Why can’t our region be a leader in GW solutions?
• Why must we look to others to solve the problem for us?
• Why must we keep on accepting “political reality” and acting from a defeatist stance?
• Why not stand up to our electeds and say we demand a better plan that does not rely on ideas that gray old men thought of before the 1900’s?
We are supposed to be innovative and yet here we are being asked to just sit back and accept more of the same. It is sad.
#38, that's "a few years" of my life where nothing is being done to solve this problem. wasting precious years of my life knowing that light rail could have been started now is something i can't vote against.
#39,
Because forcing one transit option on people is not a viable solution to global warming. Not one person in America would want to forgo their cars completely, nor should they, nor would that be good for a free country.
RTID is about OPTIONS and building better places. Not about solving global warming in one sweet package. There are much better solutions that YOU and everyone else who is complaining here could be doing to curve global warming. Green technology, looking into global solutions, carbon taxing.. these are all viable options that truly help the cause.
What you are proposing is saying NO NO NO and that helps NOBODY. When you say "we" need to stop looking to others to solve our problems for us, I sure hope you include yourself, because a no vote on RTID/ST2 won't help anything unless YOU have a better solution. Because this IS the solution our elected have come up with FOR US. Otherwise we are twiddling our thumbs waiting for someone to invent some crazy new, unproven technology that may be great for the environment, but terrible for the economy.
Gotta look at the big picture.
Big ideas don't start with a no-vote on a well evolved project like this. They end.
You weren't around in 1994-1995, but I'll clue you into one thing you neglected to mention:
After Sound Transit's Sound Move package failed in '94, it came back in '95 much reduced. Light rail got cut in half, and the suburbs got more buses.
If ST/RTID fails, I don't think we will see another package for years. This isn't because light rail isn't popular, it's because Sound Transit is going to die next year in the legislature. People like Ed Murray and Judy Clibborn will gut it and parse out the pieces to the PSRC.
Will we ever see 50 miles of light rail put back on the ballot? Probably not. Definitely not? No. But I do think that our grandchildren will wonder why passed on a transformational transit system. How do I know? Because I'm still pissed that my grandfather passed on the 80/20 money for medium rail back in the 60's.
Cressona,
I know I speak for my Sierra Club colleagues when I say we've learned much about humility from you. Never have we seen someone work so hard to put aside intellectual pretensions and get to the bottom of an issue -- nobly abstaining from personal attacks or sophomoric sarcasm.
We're awfully sorry we've been such boors on this global warming thing. While you creatively conjure a million ways to argue this package isn't bad for the environment, we just keep pointing to the same boring facts: Every calculation available says it is.
So rude of us not to believe your personal theories. So rude of us to question whether the pork-barrel politics that created the measure you spend hours of your(presumably) spare time supporting perhaps failed to weigh global warming impacts. It's not nice to just assume that because our political leaders didn't do any greenhouse gas impact studies before asking us to vote on this that they aren't 100% committed to reducing them.
Good government isn't served by our actions. We should know better than to question the authorities -- it slows things down and makes politicians uncomfortable. How serious could we be about our convictions, anyway -- we don't even get paid!
After we lose this quixotic campaign to defeat Prop 1, we'll console ourselves knowing that more serious advocates for the environment like you are out there making sure those new trains suck so much CO2 from the air our houseplants can scarcely breathe. Or at least -- blogging about how they might be able to some day.
#43 Ahh yes I see... Intellectual pretensions and sophomoric sarcasm vs intellectual saracasm and sophomoric pretensions.
Got it.
@41 Cale,
You are right. RTID is not about solving global warming. It is about perpetuating the patterns that make global warming worse.
Did I mention forcing 1 transit option on people? No. I mentioned innovating - we want transportation OPTIONS that will allow us to travel freely without dragging 3,000 lbs. of metal with us wherever we go.
We need a paradigm shift in the way we think about moving people and goods that protects water quality and the air we breathe.
Paradigm shift? Helllooo. The pie-in-the sky ideologues couldn't even stop free trade in the early part of this century - how in the world are they going to stop people from going to work? Get out of TheoryLand, Glacier Hugger, and try out some solutions which are more reality-based.
Like connecting the car-obsessed suburbs with light rail. Oops - let me guess, you're against that, too. Not "perfect" enough to just give people great alternatives. We gotta PUNISH THEM for their sinful ways.
Sweet Jesus. WillinSeattle, catch a clue. As we speak, old facilities like 520 and 405 dump oil-saturated water into Lake Washington. New roads treat every ounce of water.
In other words, the STATUS QUO KILLS FISH...and how stupid is it that Mr. Elevated Viaduct goes on this anti-freeway rant? No doubt, Will just supports freeways he likes to use. Typical. Welcome to the land of self-righteous car-loving Seattleites.
"Proponents of the ballot measure say if we reject it now, it’ll be years before we have another chance to vote again on light rail. They say the governor “won’t allow it” on the ballot in an election year and predict the following year will be too soon. Feh."
Uh, yeah, if ECB had been paying attention to the goings-on in Olympia, she would know the legislature is openly hostile to light rail, including OUR VERY OWN SEATTLE DELEGATION. Putting your faith in "greens against light rail" and state legislators who have no interest in letting Sound Transit go it alone, has got to be one of the most naïve things I've seen come off ECB's keyboard. Amazing. Maybe ECB could try checking in with the suburban-dominated D's (you know...like research) so she can find out for herself she's flying blind, right along side the space cadets at the Sierra Club and the brilliant minds at Critical Mass (aka Cascade Bike Club). But that would require some effort, so - nevermind. Better to get you info from inside the Capitol Hill bubble, right?
"First of all, the governor would be wise not to alienate transit-loving King County voters, who provided her slim margin of victory last time. "
Oh, sure thing. The Gov will be right there, making sure the governance reform bills ready to go won't delay delay Sound Transit another 5 years. The whole point of a future elected Regional Transportation Board is to delay and hopefully stop light rail extensions. Back in '95, RTA opponents were pushing for it - and have been pushing it ever since. Look it up.
"Moreover, the last time Sound Transit was rejected, in 1995, it came back the very next year—and won. Light rail is popular now, and will be even more popular once it opens in mid-2009. We should be willing to wait two years to get it right."
Oh, so by "getting it right" you mean the flakey and contradictory Sims and Sierra Club position, where Seattle gets it's light rail expansion, and the surrounding communities (5/6ths of the region's population) gets nothing? Can you really be this removed from reality? The Sims and Sierra Club position was cooked up by an ideologue Metro bus planner (who likes to post here as eddiew and mormot whistle) who hates rail and streetcars, and feels like we should all be forced to ride his crappy, slow diesel buses for the rest of time). Sims has the gall to call the south line "slow" - but guess who MADE SURE light rail would travel through the Rainier Valley back when they were debating whether to go down MLK or the faster route, down 99. Eddiew and his hapless Sierra Club friends also have the gall to complain the faster I-5 route north "doesn't achieve needed land use changes (ie, like their slower MLK example). Only problem with this critique: ST hasn't even picked these alignments yet, and have only identified route options for the east Link project. Listening to these clowns - rather than getting the straight scoop from somebody who knows what the hell they are talking about. While you're at it, how's about throwing in a little question about their "all diesel bus + tolling" plan, and ask how it compares to carbon-neutral electric light rail in regard to ghg emissions. If the loopy and swerving Sierra Club thinks ANYBODY is going to listen to them (or to Ron Sims) after a failed Prop 1 ballot, they are more deluded than I thought. So long as the voters are in a position to approve -or deny- transportation plans via the ballot box, we'll all be in nursing homes by the time a majority of the electorate buys-in to a full-blown tolling plan, complete with government issued transponders on your car, and tolling stations at every on-ramp and exit. Plan B is such a joke, it's a waste of time to go into it. One thing that's clear, it was hatched in a Seattle-centric echo chamber. Tolling the 'burbs to build light rail in Seatle-only, and giving the middle class suckers outside the urban utopia more slow buses: a sure-fire winner!
If ECB actually thinks defeat in '95 is a positive example to follow, how's about considering the fact the ST2 plan being proposed now could have been close to completion by now. In other words, ECB has no problem with a 12 year delay. Boy, that's reassuring.
Ironic how Erika was back in Denver a year ago, touting the benefits of their expanding system, and talking about how 50% of their riders were competely new to transit. We'll, guess how they did it? Through vision, consensus and a forward path. What ECB appears to be buying in to is the exact opposite: the Seattle method, complete with endless "we can do better" whining, hand-wringing, re-thinking basic realities, and believing the tooth fairy can deliver the "perfect" package.
C'mon, guys. We're talking about basic infrastructure here.
And it really doesn't help Ron Sims and the Sierra Club when they comes out against light rail, too. We need rail, we need buses, and we need HOV lanes to run those buses on.
How fucking tough can this be?
I do agree with you glacier. I must say though that I believe that cars have a green future-- be it electric, hydrogen, biodiesel, or whatever. The technology is there in many cases, however the oil companys have been snatching up the rights to any innovative idea they can find so they can continue their profit structure. If we can get the oil companies, and other polluters to pay for green research with carbon tax dollars, we could have non-polluting cars for sure.
However, I prefer to live in a city that is navigable by rail, and I have lived in cities where it has worked, and I believe it will work for Seattle too.
If the people on the east side want to spend their portion of the money on roads, that's fine. I think the economic forces coupled with foward thinking policies on green living will create personal automobiles that don't pollute.
But I do want to see light rail in the city I love within my life time!
Patrick @20:
It appears that cressona is running out of rational arguments to support this thing.
BB @25:
Cressona has reached its final stage of evolution: ad hominem attacks on the Sierra Club that, as an added bonus of sorts, also employ circular logic.
K-Full @43:
Cressona,
I know I speak for my Sierra Club colleagues when I say we've learned much about humility from you.
I do have to admit that I did make an ad hominen attack when I described the Sierra Club leaders as lacking intellect, integrity, and humility. I do admit and that I wasn't being entirely rational I was writing that. I was writing out of anger.
It's the anger of someone who has wasted too much of his time fighting for transit and against freeways in this region. It's the anger of someone who has been to Olympia and who knows what a hostile place those halls are to transit. It's the anger of someone who knows that, if this package gets defeated, the future of mass transit here is bleak. If it's expensive now, it will be that much more expensive whenever we finally get around to wanting to build more. At some point, history takes charge and a city and a region simply lose their ability to do ambitious projects. Opportunities pass for cities, just as they do for human beings.
Seattle is having its salad days now. But there's no guarantee those days will last. I love Pittsburgh. It's a beautiful town. Pittsburgh used to be a boom town like Seattle, but it failed to leverage its moment and the moment passed. Pittsburgh has been rebounding ever so slowly, but it takes momentum to build momentum, and Pittsburgh's not going back into its old league anytime soon. Don't think Seattle's on a perpetual upslope, although I'm sure a lot of people here would be just fine going back to a "lesser Seattle" kind of place.
As for me, well, if this ballot measure fails, that will probably be it for me in Seattle. It may take a year, or two, but I'll probably move on. It was always my dream to live in a progressive city and a city that had a mass transit system I could actually use. You only live once, and I don't really want to spend the prime of my life and put down roots in a city that's hopeless.
Maybe I'm showing a lack of perspective now. We will have our little starter line in 2009. But all I've seen is monorail get killed, and perhaps next I'll see the light rail extension get killed, and the only thing that has prevented another viaduct from being built is our sheer inability in this region to actually do anything.
cressona, i couldn't possibly agree more.
@41, I don't see how voting NO on Prop 1 is forcing people to use one mode of transportation. If Prop 1 fails (as it should) there will still be roads and people will still have cars -- even if the Sierra Club gets its way on everything, there will still be cars.
The point of voting NO on RTID highways is to reduce discretionary trips.
Right now, we price highways the same way the Soviet Union used to price bread. Roads are built at great public expense, and at great cost to the environment. Yet, if you are rich enough to own a car, there is little incremental cost to driving on them. In the same way that too-cheap bread was once fed to farm animals, our expensive roads are being used for casual trips to the drug store that could have been combined with another trip to the dry cleaners, etc. Study after study shows that when you make driving easy, there are more trips that could have been easily avoided.
The other point of voting NO on RTID is to increase mass transit use.
With Prop 1, slow trains -- that you have to buy a ticket for, and that don't go exactly where you want them to go when you want them to go -- are placed next to fresh new highway lanes that you can drive on for free, and that connect your garage directly to your office; it is clear what people will prefer.
We can be empirical about this: Studies show that when we add road capacity at the same time we build transit, transit systems get lower ridership than they otherwise would have. So not only do we have more cars on the road, but we also have a transit system that’s not working to its potential. (Source: Transportation Research Board, Expanding Metropolitan Highways: Implications for Air Quality and Energy Use, TRB Special Report 245, Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1995, p. 162)
So, from a tightwad point of view, building a bunch of highways at the same time as light rail is a waste of money. But really, I'm less worried about my wallet than I am about my future, so my vote against Prop1 will be primarily environmental.
A NO vote may risk delaying light rail (although I think this is exaggerated) but there is really no "risk" voting the other way because -- wait for it -- RTID highways will make global warming worse.
I'll take my chances with a NO vote, thus avoiding a certain loss.
Cressona is right. Thanks for making it so those of us supporting the mainstream environmental viewpoint (that's right, Washington Conservation Voters, Futurewise, and Transportation Choices Coalition support RTID) don't have to waste energy on this.
#50 He was talking about a paradigm shift in transportation and I wanted to avoid utopian discussions.
As for tolls, I don't see why we can't lobby to implement them as we install the new roadway?
I'm not going to get started on the global warming argument again, I really believe it amounts to precisely a drop in the bucket.
And as for roads being the devil's manifestation, have you ever driven on the east side? The traffic really is horrific and underdeveloped from my experience. I don't think extra lanes will hurt anybody. This isn't just about what Seattle wants. It's about what everybody who pays for it wants. We all want better transportation and we have different ideas how that will work.
Of course the lanes will make people happy for a few years, but then they will fill up and they will see people zooming by in light rail and will vote to build lines of their own. By this time the east side will be more built out thanks to the convience and saleability of the new roads, and the population density will be much more suitible for light rail.
Sustainable communities are already fasionable around here without light rail. Look at what they are doing in Woodinville, or Everett. Light rail isn't the only component to a walk-able, sustainable neighborhood.
Those who wanted their roads want it for a reason. They will ask for light rail when they are good and ready. It's downright arrogant of us to force it on them.
Whatever 'they' say,
the measure will NOT provide enough money.
The proposed projects that will use the funds are so thinly described, you can be assured that there will be further requests for MORE MONEY.
When it comes to money, there is only one rule.
That rule is, no matter how much there is, it is NEVER ENOUGH.
pretty sure state funding will kick in for most of those road projects.
"The other point of voting NO on RTID is to increase mass transit use.
With Prop 1, slow trains -- that you have to buy a ticket for, and that don't go exactly where you want them to go when you want them to go -- are placed next to fresh new highway lanes that you can drive on for free"
700, er, I mean, Sierra Clubber scotto proves - once again - that opponents to Prop 1 base their opposition on sheer ignorance. It's like the far left decided a couple weeks ago that they wanted to replicate the Rovian model, where hapless ideologues lap up and repeat talking points they can't even defend.
Try to get an evangelical christian to inform his opinions with supporting evidence or reality-based examples, and watch them sputter, and resort to "I don't really care in the end, it's in the Bible" With global warming - a serious issue, which deserves a rational, long term and systematic response - enviro hysteria has been granted carte blanche. No argument or intellectual discourse allowed. Watch how these guys make their theology up on the fly, spread some serious urban myths along the way, and finish their idiotic diatribes with "you must not believe global warming is real." At least the rednecks are proud of their ignorance. The sad thing about these Sierra Club and Bike Club ideologues: they consider themselves to be intellectually AND morally superior in their latest jihad.
I'm not a climate change skeptic, by any means. But these Nader Raiders make me want to become one. I never would have guessed Intelligent Design would spread into green circles.
I'll swing back to my original critique of scotto's idiotic statement about "fresh new freeway lanes placed next to slow trains": WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? In the roads and rail plan, I can't - for the life of me - find the train nobody will ride along side these "fresh freeway lanes". Or, were you just trying to pull the usual dittohead scam, where it's not necessary to actually defend your own statements?
Maybe I'm just wrong. I see light rail extensions are planned along I5 north, south and I90 east of Seattle. So, according to scotto, that means the evil RTID is planning to widen those three corridors, right?
Or, is it possible scotto and the rest of the Nouveau 700 Club are confusing HOV expansion on 520, 405 and 167 with general purpose lanes.
Yeah, making buses faster and more reliable sure will induce a lot more Polar Bear-killing SOV trips.
I'm still waiting for Sierra Clubbers to tell me how Ron Sims' new-found opposition to light rail is good for slowing climate change. I won't hold my breath, though.
Whoever wrote that column for Sims in the Times must have been smoking some GREAT weed.
So here's your challenge, scotto: just for this one time, back up your position with some facts. Ready, set, GO.
"pretty sure state funding will kick in for most of those road projects."
You're wrong, Cale. But don't worry. By being wrong, you fit right in at the Sierra/700/Cascade Bicycle Club.
Hint: never qualify your ignorant statements with "I'm pretty sure". Just because you have no idea what you're talking about, there's no need to do a disclaimer. We already know your opinion is based on pure conjecture.
Just because proponents of a ballot measure say it will provide environmentally-friendly transit infrastructure does NOT, and I repeat does NOT, mean you should support it.
Exhibit A - Seattle Monorail Project.
The lawyers representing some self-serving interests drafted Prop. 1. The lawyers representing some self-serving interests drafted Eyman's initiative on the ballot alongside it this November.
Do yourselves a favor. Vote no on both. Neither was drafted to further the best interests of the public.
Both were drafted to allow the self-interested proponents to build marketing campaigns around them (ie, "hold government accountable," and "earth-friendly trains + no bridge collapses").
Those above touting train system construction around here out as some kind of panacea against environmental degradation probably have financial interests in those projects proceeding.
If Ron-freaking-Sims, MR. ST, says the ballot measure that emerged a couple of months ago should not be approved THEN HE IS RIGHT. None of the rest of you could POSSIBLY know what he knows about what is going on behind the scenes. He is speaking for everyone representing us who knows the real score.
Stand back, take a deep breath, vote no, think how you want the future of transportation planning to play out, and make good arguments for what you believe is best. RTID/ST2 ain't it.
If this thing sinks, no one would be crazy enough to put anything back on the ballot and subject it to all of the crazy stupid rhetoric that's in air in this silly campaign.
All Kemper Freeman would need to do to kill any new Sound Transit ballot measure next year is quote Ron Sims and the local Sierra Club loons and paste their words into TV spots.
Earth to people: light rail runs on clean power here, it grows the place better, it is there for everyone (if we build more of it). That spine is needed before anyone can seriously propose congestion pricing.
As for the roads on the ballot, they will be build regardless. For the most part the money on the ballot just completes things most people around here voted for when they opposed the KVI initiative to repeal the gas tax a couple of years ago. In many cases, the money is used to clean-up old road systems that are polluting Lake Washington and Puget Sound.
These local Sierra Club guys and Ron Sims are grasping at straws. They aren't serious about global warming - otherwise they'd do serious things and not tout what amount to silly stunts. They are also energizing any future light rail ballot measure using unfounded words and positions that will come back to haunt them if they ever really do support expaning light rail.
In 2000, we faced a similar choice. After eight years of a centrist Bill Clinton who disappointed us with his corporate, militaristic policies, many of us decided it was time to draw a line in the sand. No longer would we vote for the lesser of two evils. So many people chose to vote for Ralph Nader to send a message. They thought, what is the difference?
Well, after eight years of George Bush, we now know there is a big difference. This package is not perfect, just like Al Gore wasn't in 2000.
It all depends on who you believe. The Sierra Club says rail will be back by itself and we can have better alignments for light rail. They criticize most investments outside of Seattle as not being dense enough.
I believe that is based in a incomplete view of our state's politics. The legislature gives ST and RTID the mix of taxes, gives them the ability to exist, and also creates the terms under which counties operate.
Seattle has less and less control over regional and state politics. I know this is hard to accept if you live here. But we are now only a third of the county, a sixth of the region, and a tenth of the state. Most people can't afford to live in Seattle anymore. I couldn't afford to buy the house I own if I were to buy it now. Seattle is 70% single family zoned. The same people who say we should build rail to Seattle neighborhoods also fight to keep them single family.
This region will double in population in by 2030. What ECB and the Sierra Club don't mention about their widely quoted PSRC study is that the 45% increase in emissions also factors in 100% increase in the people living here. So it is an almost meaningless statistic. If the elitist neighborheads like Will in Seattle have their way, Seattle will still be dominated by single family neighborhoods. Prices in the city will continue to rise just like San Francisco. So the real opportunities for accomodating growth and affordable housing are outside Seattle. It is light rail that will make it possible to build dense, livable, walkable communities around station areas in suburban cities. To criticize rail to the south because it doesn't promise immediate ridership misses the point.
We have an urban growth boundary that limits where growth can occur. So most growth in the region will be in suburban cities. It makes sense to build rail to reduce their dependance on cars. But make no mistake, whether RTID is built or not, people will drive until they have an alternative. Even Sierra Club members in a poll on their own website list the car as their main mode of transportation by a long shot. And these folks are the creme de la creme of Seattle enviro society. Hypocritical if you ask me.
I prefer to pass this package, build 50 miles of light rail, and then fight like hell to make sure the new lanes in the RTID package are managed and congestion priced.
If you vote this package down, you just might get something better. But history suggests you will get a package that offers far less rail. And politics suggest that we will build most of those roads projects sooner or later. Their constituencies will not go away. State government does not do transit--never has--and our state constitution makes it difficult to envision them doing more.
So vote no if you feel you must. But do so knowing that you may end up dissolving Sound Transit, setting rail back years, and giving the state legislature carte blanche to create a new regional transportation agency to build roads and transit--with even less control and power to Seattle.
But at least you will have your ideological purity, just like those who voted Nader in 2000. The rest of us will be stuck on Ron Sims' buses waiting for rail.
Speaking from Tacoma, I would drive a lot less to Seattle if there was light rail connecting us to the airport and Seattle -- Sounder trains have limited hours, and will continue to since they have to defer to BNSF freight traffic. It would also foster more density and vitality in downtown Tacoma, slowing sprawl in suburban Pierce County.
I'm also a lefty enviro, but see the roads part of the RTID as pretty minor in the overall scheme of things -- and most of the road projects will help make HOV/transit lanes a viable option on currently gridlocked freeways. The global warming argument is a joke -- nothing in RTID alters either the need or value of congestion pricing, etc. in the future.
Do your homework #56.
From the WSDOT website-
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/SR520Bridge/
"State, regional and local lawmakers are working to develop a finance plan to address the region's need for a safe and reliable SR 520. Lawmakers will present the finance plan to Governor Gregoire by January 2008.
Recently, the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID) proposed a funding package that includes:
Funding Source
Amount
Federal sources
$311 million
State gas taxes
$560 million
State pooled fund
$600 - $1,000 million
RTID "Roads & Transit" package
$1,100 million
Tolling
$700 - $1,200 million
Finance costs savings & sales tax transfer
Up to $340 million
Total Funding
$3.3 - $4.5 billion*"
I think you're wrong.
I'm going to support this package. You won't shift people away from cars until you build alternatives, and those alternatives won't be built without a compromise with the "car only" folks who are the majority at the state level.
Folks in the Tri-Cities and Moses Lake and Spokane don't want to fix 520 and 99- how fucking much do you think they want to build light rail in King County?
@22
If you believe the real cost is $18 bil, you must believe the real cost of the monorail was $2.3 billion. No one else did, and that's why it was sunk. If and when they begin collecting taxes on Prop 1, it will be for the REAL cost - financing and interest included. OK, fess up, you're a used car seller, right?
Las Angeles is a pretty good example of how more roads helps get traffic moving. They have loads of roads and still have terrific traffic troubles. We should definitely emulate their example.
Yes our roads are clogged and yes prop 1 makes us more like LA. I grew up here and we have lots more roads and lanes than we did when I was a kid. We keep adding roads and lanes, but their capacity is outstripped by people with cars moving here.
We can keep adding roads and lanes, but we will run out of space before we run out of people with cars. At some point we will be forced to stop this pavement paradigm. Now is the time to come up with superior solutions that move us forward and set an example that other regions will want to follow.
Dump the delusional concept that we can cure traffic by adding capacity. It does not work and we shouldn't waste money on a harmful projects.
Cale @47
I love light rail and subways and monorail and electric cars and whatever alternatives technology can provide to reduce GHG and save wetlands etc. There is an excellent concept car that seats 2 people and you can fit 2 of them side by side in 1 lane. If we are going that route with future vehicles, we won’t need to widen our roads.
The current road package does not take into account new technology or ideas that are in the pipeline. The current road package was dreamed by people looking to the past not the future. We shouldn’t let ourselves be tricked into putting so much money towards roads that will waste resources and pollute our air, water and temperature.
Bobo @ 63:
When you quote the price of your house, do you quote the sale price or the price after financing with all interest? If you do the latter, you're pretty much the only one in the world who does, and the average house in King County costs a couple million dollars. Bond-financing of infrastructure projects is more or less analogous, with the difference being that you're in for the full terms of the loan and can't sell your liability to anyone else.
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