Comments on Where I've Been
There was a debate on KUOW today by prominent members of both camps: Charles Royer, Tim Gould, Rob Johnson, and Mark Baerwaldt. Podcast available here:
Today, the Sightline Institute issued a volley of its own, releasing a nine-page report concluding that the highway projects funded by the package would actually increase net greenhouse gas emissions by 116,500 to 186,500 tons in the next 50 years—at a time when the region is trying to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 80 percent.
Um, isn't the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally? I mean the problem is global warming, not local warming. Even if this ballot measure were just Transit, sans Roads, its passage would lead to a major increase in greenhouse gas emissions in this region. Why? Because more people would be living and working here.
If the goal is strictly a narrow-minded one of reducing emissions in this region, then the most effective way of achieving this is to make this region as crappy a place to live and work as possible. That way people will move somewhere else or just never move here in the first place (imagine a combination Mr. X/Sierra Club vision of utopia). Now, this region will end up contributing more per capita to global warming, but hey, just so we can be self-righteous and feel good about ourselves without having to change our lifestyles one iota. And isn't that really all that matters?
*****
Global warming is the kind of problem that's just so enormous and so difficult to deal with, it makes one despair not just for the fate of the planet but for democracy. Global warming may be the kind of problem that our evolutionary inheritance as humans just hasn't equipped us to address. We've never encountered this problem during the course of evolution, and our powers of reason can only do so much against the rest of our evolutionary inheritance. Oh, if this sounds like a philosophical tangent, it's inspired as much by another story from today:
A Swiftly Melting Planet
P.S. Anyway, I'm writing this off-the-cuff. Perhaps my reaction to the report itself, rather than Erica's summary, will be a little different.
There's also some data out from the Urban Land Institute showing that the growth of auto-oriented development has the potential to wipe out projected gains in automobile efficiency.
New auto capacity, like the 150+ general purpose lane-miles in the RTID package, is a prime contributer to sprawl.
We need a package that moves us toward 80% emission reductions by 2050. RTID spends a generation's worth of transportation money to take us in the wrong direction.
ECB - wasn't that a ST/RTID piece the Sierra Club complained about? Not a campaign piece. Paid for by the gov.
I've got to give the Sierra Club and The Stranger –and perhaps even the Sightline Institute—credit (the way one would give Karl Rove credit) for making the entire debate on ST2/RTID about climate change. It's a bit like making the 2008 presidential campaign entirely about how the candidates voted on Iraq in 2002.
And I really do have to give these folks credit because the impact we as a region will have on global warming is infinitesimal, and it could be largely negated if whatever progress we as a region make on global warming is not backed up by progress by the United States as a whole. And let's not even talk about China.
The place this ballot measure will have a tangible impact is not the whole planet earth but this region itself, especially the long-term fate of this region. I'm thinking:
* How we deal with the effects of climate change.
* How we deal with peak oil.
* How we stay competitive economically.
* Our very quality of life, and how that is affected by transportation and land-use policy.
Inaction by others does not excuse us from our responsibility to act in the best interest of ourselves and the planet on which we live.
cressona @5
All four bullet points you make are valid and must be accounted for as we move forward. But we must also lead on the subject of climate change. Because if we don't, then someone else will. Or, like as not, no one will.
Cities like to follow, not to lead. So someone has to lead if we're to find our way out of the global warming mess. It might as well be us. If we don't other cities will just point at us and say, "see, if Seattle wouldn't, why should we?"
And that would not be acceptable.
It's time to be the Emerald City, the green city.
Not the city of asphalt and single occupancy vehicles choking us in brown clouds.
Not a city devoid of salmon but one that brings back salmon.
Not a region that adds to pollution - but one that reduces it.
RTID/ST2 means we are a brown choking region. Air, water, and ground. And island nations, vacation spots, and polar bears will pay for our decisions, in addition to salmon and rainforests.
Sounds pretty easy to me.
Green is good.
says erica: blah blah, bold blah blah...
Cressona really you are putting up a straw man argument. No one has said that we will solve global warming with this vote. What some are saying is that we should do the best we can to reduce GHG in our region regardless of the amount of growth. Your argument could be used by every effort every place in the world to rationalize whatever program they wanted. The psrc forecast has the transit share with ST2 at under 15% - 80% will be in cars. If GHG is a major consideration then we must invest in getting rid of ICE and the best way is to use electricity but to do that we need to make more green juice.
BTW I don't think 186,000 tons is really that much over 50 years - From a city doc "To reach a forty percent reduction target would mean that Seattle’s emissions would be 4.2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents in 2010." - but we need to spend wisely.
This site give some good info on GHG in Seattle. And Cress don't you think with what the vast majority of climate scientist are telling us, that GHG impacts should be a major part of the decision making matrix for all infrastructure projects?
www.seattle.gov/environment/documents/inventory%20final%204-11-02.doc -
In re: whatever's comment about how 186,000 tons isn't that much:
That's 186,000 tons per lane mile, which equates to over 15 million tons for the RTID package. From Sightline's post: "So 100,000 tons per lane-mile is a fair bit of CO2 ... As I understand the package, the RTID will add over 150 lane-miles of general purpose roadways -- which, over the long term, could CO2 emissions by some 15 million tons."
Sorry my bad I just read the SLOG post not the Sightline story. Obviously much diferent than "highway projects funded by the package would actually increase net greenhouse gas emissions by 116,500 to 186,500 tons in the next 50 years"
it was bolded
JohnCToddJr @7:
All four bullet points you make are valid and must be accounted for as we move forward. But we must also lead on the subject of climate change. Because if we don't, then someone else will. Or, like as not, no one will.
I agree entirely. And the best way we can lead on climate change IMHO? By passing this ballot measure and then fighting like heck to make sure that not just 520 but most of the lane miles in RTID are tolled.
For the sake of perspective, though, I'm not sure we'd really be leading by passing this measure. We'd just be following Denver's lead in tying roads and transit together. Then again, Denver has already managed to build a heck of a lot of light rail.
Anyway, JohnCToddJr, JohnCToddJr. Where does that name ring a bell? Ah, yes PRT, as in "personal rapid transit." From the PRT enthusiasts mailing list page:
Why should Seattle and its surrounding municipalities look at PRT? How do we get the powers-that-be interested? What would be a good first stage PRT system? Which PRT system, of the several out there, should we interest in which Seattle-area market? Is there federal or Sound Transit money available for a demo system? Who in the Mayor's offices, on the various County and City Councils, at Metro, at the Ports, at Sound Transit is interested?
Perhaps Mr. Todd is less interested in seeing Seattle lead on fighting climate change, and more interested in seeing Seattle lead in replacing light rail with PRT.
OK, first of all as I understand it the 80% reduction in GHG is for the United States and not the world. The IPCC in its Fourth Assessment Report (released this year) is calling for a 50% worldwide reduction by 2050 in order to stabilize CO2 at the lowest of three levels studied. The US is a major emitter, so to meet targets we'll have to cut more.
It's not enough to say this is a larger problem than just this region, because if everyone takes that point of view we're all screwed. We should be prepared to cut our emissions proportional to the nation-wide reductions. So, we should aim for 80%.
This is where reality gets in the way. People drive unless they have alternatives, and we're set to have more people in our region. Even if we didn't add a single mile of driving in the next 43 years, we'd still be producing five times as much CO2 as needed to stabilize our climate. So we either need to cut driving 80% or find carbon emissions reductions somewhere else.
The IPCC's report takes a stab at mitigation costs and says that we can stabilize at the lowest of three studied levels for a cost in GDP that works out to one or two trillion dollars worldwide through 2050. That sounds like a lot of money (and it is), but to compare the cost of the Iraq war including VA treatment and pensions for soldiers is estimated to be the same amount. Compared to the costs of global warming if we do nothing, realize that the Clean Air Act saves one trillion dollars a year in environmental damages for a total lifetime cost of a little over a trillion dollars. It's likely that the benefits of stopping global warming will be much greater, so it's worth it.
But how are these numbers determined? They're based on estimates of converting to renewables and other technologies as well as instituting a global trading system, carbon taxes, better mass transit, congestion pricing, and so on. Our local solution will have to include all of this.
So back to RTID/ST2. It increases GHG. But not doing ST2 will increase GHG more and prevent us from doing all of the things the IPCC says we need to start doing if we're to avoid the worst effects of global warming. The reality is that keeping people from driving in the short term does nothing to tackle the scale of the problem. We need to shift away from emissions-producing transportation altogether. The new generation of plug-in hybrids that is on its way will accomplish a lot of that. In terms of reducing the amount of driving, the best we can do is institute tolls and carbon taxes and redevelop our cities so that driving is less necessary. ST2 gets us starting on that. But it's not just about cars. We need to shift to renewables, which in our region means shifting away from burning natural gas for heat (we don't use much oil or coal, so there's not a lot of room to improve there.) We need wind plants and solar energy investment where it works. We need better insulated houses. And we need to make sure that China and India are doing all of this, too.
That's a huge but achievable agenda, but it's only achievable if we get started now. ST2 and the HOV and transit improvements in RTID are a start, but if that's where we ended we'd be screwed. It's easy to dismiss the plan because it doesn't solve our regional piece of the global warming crisis, but no single plan does that. The problem is too big to be evaluated in those terms. We can only compare what each step does compared to doing nothing.
After ST2 passes, we'll have momentum for tolling, starting with 520 and expanding to I-5, 405, 520, and 167 as suggested by the recent study by (I think) the PSRC. We can follow up with efforts at tax reform that swap sales taxes for carbon taxes. The Sierra Club can stop playing obstructionist games and focus its efforts on a positive anti-carbon agenda. If we stop this now and stop the creation of a light rail system for another generation, as is likely if ST2 was voted down, we'll be in a much bigger GHG hole than we will be if we approve Prop 1.
Whatever:
Cressona really you are putting up a straw man argument. No one has said that we will solve global warming with this vote.
Whatever, if I may… I believe you're putting up a straw man by claiming I'm putting up a straw man. Let me explain. Obviously, no one is saying that what Seattle does with transportation is going to solve global warming. What the Sierra Club is saying—and to some extent I agree—is that this vote will have an impact on global warming. Here's where we differ, though:
(A) I would argue ST2/RTID will have an overall favorable impact in fighting climate change. The Sierra Club fails to honestly consider the realistic scenarios if this measure fails, and they fail to consider that nothing happens in a vacuum.
(B) While what we do will have an impact on climate change, this transportation package's impact on that global problem is dwarfed by its impact locally on local problems and the local effects of global problems. When it comes to affecting global warming, it's hard to say we control our own destiny. When it comes to how this region girds itself against threats like global warming and peak oil, we do control our own destiny.
Both these points are really points of perspective. And in a political culture where calling generals names (General Betray-us) and then demagoguing over your opponents calling generals names is what passes for debate, I'm sure this perspective stuff is just sailing over a lot of people's heads no matter how much I could dumb it down.
So, I just want to know. If we stop building roads where are we going to drive all these hybrid or electric or hydrogen powered cars? (Because, weather you like it or not, the solution to car emissions is not going to be to get people to stop driving and walk, bike or ride the bus, its going to be to get them to drive a different kind of car, and we’re still going to need the F’n roads.) Any one who argues otherwise either has significant mental challenges or is being disingenuous. So, which is it ECB, is it really that you just hate cars and the personal freedom they represent and believe that the masses should be oppressed and forced to ride the bus, walk or bus, or are you just a little bit tard-id?
Oh, and John Edwards just announced support for a plan, adapted from Al Gore, to reduce carbon emissions starting in 2010 by 15% through 2020 and 80% by 2050. The caps would decrease over time, with the auction proceeds for the credits going to alternative energy and mass transit. Those incentives, probably supported with carbon taxes over time, will change behavior and stabilize CO2 in our atmosphere.
If the Sierra Club wants to make a real difference with global climate change, they should take their money and energy and support Edwards, or get Obama or Hillary to propose the same thing, and then fight like hell to make sure the eventual president keeps his or her promises. Then we need to support that president in international negotiations with China and India. That's the scale change happens on, not a regional rail and roads project.
cressona @15,
When the nations in this world that are leading on the subject of reversing global warming and eliminating their dependence on foreign oil (Sweden, UK) are actually building PRT, precisely because it will use so much less energy and produce so much less greeenhouse gas emissions than existing large-vehicle transit modes (to say nothing of automobiles), as well as truly competing with automobiles in an urban environment on the criteria of fast transit time, safety, and convenience, then you are basically an enemy of sustainable public transit if you oppose including PRT in the toolkit of global warming solutions to be implemented here or anywhere else.
Would I love to see PRT built in Seattle? Absolutely. Frankly, you should, too. Would I love to see more and better options for bicycling, walking, large-vehicle public transit, and fuel-electric hybrid and plug-in electric vehicle usage? Absolutely. That's why I'm working on all of these issues.
It's not a question of *if* PRT will be adopted here (or in most other major U.S. cities), it's *when*. It makes too much sense not to.
If you have somehow convinced yourself otherwise, you really should take the time to learn more about it. Start here:
"It's time to be the Emerald City, the green city.
Not the city of asphalt and single occupancy vehicles choking us in brown clouds.
Not a city devoid of salmon but one that brings back salmon.
Not a region that adds to pollution - but one that reduces it.
RTID/ST2 means we are a brown choking region. Air, water, and ground. And island nations, vacation spots, and polar bears will pay for our decisions, in addition to salmon and rainforests.
Sounds pretty easy to me.
Green is good."
Man, I wish voting "no" would make this ideal happen. That place sounds like the Seattle I want.
However, I believe that RTID/ST2 is the beggining of the realization of that dream.
This study is assuming much and revealing litte.
What if more people start living in more dense, transit oriented development? IE) Bel-Red, which will be a much more attractive hotbed for dense development with ST2's light rail.
What if the green technologies start getting implemented in cars soon?
What if we elect a democrat for president?
What if we implement tolling on the bridges and eliminate some unnessary trips?
It is what WE make of it people.
Highways don't increase carbon emissions, people increase carbon emissions. Seattle is full of people who want to decrease carbon emissions.
From the article-
"Just so, the long term impacts on land use are hard to judge. Building light rail could foster compact land use, and folks in compact neighborhoods tend to drive less. But this will depend in large measure on what happens to the land surrounding each rail stop: will it be up-zoned and surrounded by complete, compact communities?"
Well if we look at ST1, yes!
"And finally -- if the state of Washington (or the US as a whole) does adopt a comprehensive, aggressive greenhouse gas cap, the issue of CO2 from road building is more or less moot. A cap would force overall carbon emissions down, regardless of how many new lanes of highway are built. Sure, highway building could make greenhouse compliance more expensive. But it won't put it out of reach. That said: who knows how the politics of global warming will play out? We could wind up with no cap, or a phony cap that excludes transportation fuels. If so, extra roads could become a real problem."
Well, based on the political climate around this issue in Seattle, I'd say there is a very good chance we'll stay the course on our reduction of greenhouse gasses.
"Before Sightline took a position on the RTID overall, we'd want good, reasoned answers to many of these questions -- answers that we, regrettably, don't have time for."
Exactly, so stop parading these numbers as fact.
"We'd just be following Denver's lead in tying roads and transit together. Then again, Denver has already managed to build a heck of a lot of light rail."
Denver is ranked 11 worst annual delay per traveler Seattle was 19th. San Diego 6th - San Jose 8th - only Seattle is in the Very Large category the others are in the Large category and they all have been touted as light rail successes. Portland much smaller with 20 years of pretty intense light rail still trails Seattle for transit share though they do have 7 hours less delay per traveler. Denver with 2.4 mil vs. Seattle at 3.5 mil has 80% of the congestion costs.
The only city that really kicks is Phildelphia - 13th largest 38th in congestion.
Seattle, how could you?
The Sierra Club is right about roads and climate change. We need to reduce our emissions in this state (and everywhere else too), and building new, un-priced lane miles is only going to make that harder. Cleaner cars will help a lot, but it's still not enough. We need to cut vehicle miles travelled too.
However, as Cascadian @16 (who are you, anyway?) so eloquently points out, the problem with the Sierra Club analysis is that it undervalues the importance of building out our rail transit system. If we don't create viable choices for commuters to get around, our efforts to reduce VMT are destined for failure.
For a lot of both rational and not so rational reasons, people like trains. In most cases, they are better for regional transit. With a dedicated right-of-way, they don't get stuck in traffic; they're reliable and they drive the kind of compact, mixed-use, transit/bike/ped-oriented development needed to ensure that more people stay out of their cars when they get home from work.
Without a decent rail system, we're destined for a future where little of the growth gets absorbed by transit and more and more people get into a car and drive from their auto-oriented subdivision to their auto-oriented business park, and then on to a succession of strip-malls and big box stores to fulfill all their shopping and entertainment desires. And, it doesn't matter if that car-commute gets longer and longer. While some will switch to a bus or utilize existing Sounder service, many will just get in their cars and hunker down with their Starbucks drive-thru breakfast, their car stereo and their Bluetooth phone for a 90 minute+ commute, if that's what it takes. Hell, we're actually starting to see people buy houses in Rosslyn, Cle Elum and, even Ellensburg, to commute into Bellevue or Seattle for work. Lots of people are stupid and will do this no matter what we do on transportation, but we can minimize this effect by building lots more housing in compact communities, thereby increasing supply to drive down housing prices in communities around new light rail stations.
I know that most Sierra Club members agree. While some might nitpick over certain details, they generally agree that we need to invest in rail transit, and the sooner the better. But I do believe that in weighing the pros and cons of this package, many are underestimating the transformative impact a large-scale rail transit system will have on our ability to absorb inevitable growth in a climate-friendly way. And, as
And, we have a damn good shot at transforming much of the roads investments even after passage of the joint ballot. The ballot measure promises road improvements in corridors like I-405, but as more light rail gets built out, as our society comes to its senses on climate change, as state and federal caps get enacted on greenhouse gas emissions, and as we start to develop some experience with congestion pricing in this region, we have a damn good shot at getting these new roadways priced (in fact the RTID policy language encourages it), and even altering some of these project descriptions to rely on less asphalt and more rail (it would only take an act of the legislature in the late 2010s or early 2020s, or 20%+ cost overruns to force a new vote of the RTID board/or the people as required by the RTID legislation).
By voting for the roads and transit measure now, we get going on the the viable transportation choice we will need to make a reduction in transportation GHG emissions possible. And, by taking advantage of the electorate's growing concern about climate change and growing favorability toward transit, we can alter the RTID projects as they get planned, built out and begin operations in ways that get us almost all the way to realizing the principle that Sierra Club and most of the rest of the environmental community agrees on - more high-capacity transit to get people out of their cars, and no new un-priced general purpose highway capacity.
How about we just defeat these bad roads now? And then invest in transit? If the joint ballot measure is defeated because of the public's concern with global warming, the politics of transportation are changed now, not in 2020.
Bill,
I am sympathetic to the idea of getting started on light rail investments -- but this package doesn't open any new light rail for at least 11 years. The roads start opening much sooner!
Frankly, I think you underestimate of the power of the environmental movement to insist on transportation solutions that don't make global warming worse. We won in 2002 on the gas tax, and the legislature responded with a new package that prioritized HOV lanes.
I think the Sierra Club will win this time and we'll get a package for their efforts. And you guys that wavered on your principles to grasp at the dangling carrot of light rail more than a decade from now will look like you were co-opted by the road lobby.
cressona @15,
On re-reading your previous post, I just noticed an unusual claim you made in it:
"Perhaps Mr. Todd is ... more interested in seeing Seattle lead in replacing light rail with PRT."
I have to say, this is a rather random and disturbing claim, and not one I've seen before, though it might explain a lot.
To be clear, nothing could be further from the truth. Despite it's lamentably large cost overruns, I regard the Central Link light rail line scheduled to open in two years or so as being a big benefit for our region, and I want to find ways to make it work better, especially by giving more people access to it than can simply walk to the nearest station. Or worse, drive to it or to a Park and Ride co-located with it. I voted for Sound Move enthusiastically when I had the opportunity to do so in 1996, and do not regret doing so.
One of the best operating models for Personal Rapid Transit is in connecting transit hubs with people who would like to be able to conveniently use it, and to their destinations. In Daventry, England, city planners intend to connect a large rail station at the city's edge with multiple destinations downtown. This approach has already been validated by a prominent English transportation consultancy, which concluded that such a system, which builds on and more fully utilizes existing long-term public transportation infrastructure (rather than replacing it as you claim), would remove 22-33% of traffic from Daventry's roads at the same time that city grows 60% over the next 20 years. The approach has many obvious applications in Seattle with Central Link, which I've worked hard to ensure become reality.
This is the sort of managed growth and quality of life that our Puget Sound leaders should be striving for and leading the way towards: an integrated and multi-modal public transit system that's cost-effective, energy super-efficient, and sustainable, while being fast, safe, and convenient enough to entice people from their cars. PRT can be an important part of the toolset required to accomplish that, here just as is now becoming the case in Sweden, England, and other places.
Bill,
Thank you for outlining the crucial issues so thoughtfully. It's a good argument, but premised on two major assumptions that are hard to swallow.
1. Shifting money from highway projects to transit service will be easier than putting a rail-only proposal on the ballot in the near future.
What we keep hearing from the pro-Prop 1 side is that Sound Transit has no friends in Olympia, but then they turn around and say they'll get the Lege to overturn the will of the voters and give money programmed for highways to Sound Transit instead. That will raise quite a ruckus, giving the anti-transit crowd many opportunities to draw their swords. Meanwhile, Sound Transit is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars it's already raised for Phase 2. Its board can't just retire and put the money into a CD. They have to keep coming back to voters.
2. Commuters will just keep making dumb decisions to drive.
Well, there's dumb, and then there's so dumb that it can be averted with a little financial pinch. It's easy to think that rush hour traffic is full of long, work-related commutes, but traffic studies say it isn't. The majority of trips are people going only a couple of miles, and in many cases not to work but for a coffee and doughnut, or some other discretionary errand. These are the trips that congestion pricing can reduce, and reduce at much less cost than new rail service.
I'm not saying the rail isn't also vital. But the evidence seem to indicate you can't BUILD your way out of congestion with either highways or rail. As with progressive energy policy, you build capacity first through conservation.
So why not get a congestion pricing system implemented now and start planning to bring Sound Transit back to the ballot by itself as soon as possible? If the congestion pricing goes first, we adhere to a basic fundamental now entrenched in NW energy policy: Avoid as much demand as you can to avoid costs, then build what's needed in response to the re-shaped demand.
But if we hit taxpayers for new highways now, it's less likely they're going to have the stomach for new tolls anytime soon.
ECB - was that an update or a correction? :p
Chris @ 26:
The experience of R-51 and what followed in 2002 (and beyond) does not give me a lot of hope. Yes, there was a stronger emphasis on HOV and safety and infrastructure replacement in the nickel and 9.5cent packages that followed the defeat of R-51, but there was still lots and lots of huge, CO2 spewing road projects funded by those packages. In fact, some of the worst RTID projects, like the I-405 funding, only complete what those packages started.
Also, remember, in R-51 there was a pretty significant commitment by the state to get back in the business of helping fund local transit systems (Before I-695 passed, the state provided about a 1/3 of every transit agency's funding). Now, except for some small grants for paratransit service and rural transit systems, there is little state funding for bus transit systems. Neither the 2002 nor 2005 transportation packages restored much state funding for local transit.
I'm actually a lot more optimistic than a lot of my colleagues in the environmental community about what follows a defeat of this joint ballot. I think the likely scenario is that the legislature provides authorization for another joint transit and roads measure to come to the ballot in 2009, but the locals don't get their shit together to actually put it before voteres until 2010. That 2010 package will still be both roads and transit because we still have the need to at least replace the 520 bridge. The locals that pushed for SR-9, I-405, SR 509 and SR 167 expansion will still be pushing their projects as strongly as before (remember there is virtually no local opposition to these projects - maybe some cells of opposition to I-405, but not much). Still, the roads portion will likely end up smaller and with a stronger focus on safety and infrastructure replacement to avoid the intensity of opposition that came from Sierra Club on the roads side. So, as with the 2002 state package compared to R-51, we'll see some progress on the roads side.
But, the transit piece will also likely be smaller. Remember most of what the public is hearing in opposition to this measure (radio ads, voter guide statement, etc.) is from people who hate light rail. And the legislature will still hate Sound Transit and light rail. But, because the first 14 miles will open in mid-2009 and the popularity of it will continue to grow, there will still be a significant portion of this 2010 measure that will fund light rail expansion. But, again a lot less of it, which means that with the delay of 3 years, the increased costs and smaller scale, it will take significantly longer to build out our light rail system than in the timeline of the current proposal you complain is too long (we start seeing additional service in 2018 with the current ballot measure).
Having lobbied the legislature on transportation issues since 1999, I think this a pretty damn optimistic scenario. In some ways the legislature is more hostile now to transit than it was when I started. We still have the same Senate Transportation chair who doesn't give a rat's ass about the needs of Puget Sound, and now a House chair who likes roads a lot more than she likes transit. And, as good as the governor is on most other environmental issues, she doesn't live in the central Puget Sound area, doesn't really understand transportation policy very well and understands our region's transportation needs even less. Remember, this is the same legislature and governor that wanted, and still wants, to rebuild the viaduct.
Oh, and please don't tell me that voters are going to support a proposal to fund all the roads stuff with congestion pricing. We'll get there, but not in the near-term future. Our chances of getting system-wide congestion pricing by the late teens/early 2020s are much better with the current package, which gives us a strong foothold for advocacy of congestion pricing than if we force the issue before voters now.
We can definitely change the political reality -as Walt Crowley pointed out, we are changing the political reality - but it doesn't change overnight. I think the experience of R-51 and the state packages that followed are good evidence of that. I think we'll be much better off in 2020 or 2025 if we grab this opportunity to build out a light rail system that will total 70 miles by 2025 while we exploit the changing attitudes of voters to climate change and mobility, the global warming caps that will come at the state and federal levels over the intervening years, and the glacial but certain evolution of the legislature, to price and/or alter the road projects. In the process, we may well find ways to start pumping some state money into speeding up light rail construction with new sources of revenue like carbon taxes, congestion pricing proceeds or proceeds from auctioning carbon credits.
K-Full @28: It's a good argument, but premised on two major assumptions that are hard to swallow.
If there's anyone who has expertise in arguments that are premised on implausible assumptions, it's the Sierra Club leadership. How about that premise that if we the Sierra Club join hands with Ron Sims and Kemper Freeman and Tim Eyman and the Seattle Times editorial board and defeat this measure now, then the legislature is going to let Sound Transit 2 waltz right back on the ballot by itself unharmed? (Of course, the Sierra Club leadership doesn't really want Sound Transit 2 to come back to the ballot unharmed. The Mike O'Briens and Tim Goulds and Jack Whisners want to see ST2 come back to the ballot crippled and gutted so that it can never have any hope of serving as a regional system that might actually help this region combat global warming and oil scarcity.)
Anyway, to give a serious response to someone who is probably not interested in a serious response -- I'm not as sanguine as Bill about "altering some of these project descriptions to rely on less asphalt and more rail." What I do agree with Bill about is that "we have a damn good shot at getting these new roadways priced."
Here's the pretty obvious choice when it comes to congestion pricing:
(A) This ballot measure is not only our only shot at 50 miles of grade-separated light rail, it's our best shot at establishing real coordinated congestion pricing. The passage of this measure shifts the debate squarely in that direction. 520 will be tolled. The RTID legislation doesn't mandate tolling on other routes, but the RTID "Blueprint for Progress" envisions tolling as a funding mechanism and a way to keep traffic running smoothly on 520 and other specific corridors. If this measure passes, responsible groups like Transportation Choices will shift their focus to getting those other corridors on the list congestion priced.
(B) The defeat of this measure kills any talk of congestion pricing. How is any constructive discussion of congestion pricing going to take place when legislators will be busy picking up the pieces and possibly pushing through the insidious governance reform? Look back through history after a tough compromise falls through. There's not exactly much progress made on any front for a while afterwards.
But there you have another example of the sheer Sierra Club chutzpah. Just like with light rail, they say they want congestion pricing, but then, when you get right down to it, they can't help but fight against it.
Go play with your train set, Cressona. Bill has finally elevated the pro-side argument to an adult level and this should continue.
Bill, you're right that congestion pricing won't be immediately popular. But it's hardly unprecedented in this region, with acceptance of new bridge tolls and HOT lanes. And if voters turn down a tax increase for new highway lanes (again), what other mechanism do the highway warriors have to fund their projects? I agree that they'll keep trying -- but the bar for justifying new lanes will be raised considerably. On the other hand, if we pass Prop. 1, we'll have sent a signal that taxes for highways are still acceptable -- so why not wait and see about those tolls?
As for Sound Transit -- the light rail opponents swarmed it in 95, and it passed a plan one year later. Yes, smaller. But how much difference did that make in terms of how soon projects get built out? (this is not rhetorical -- we could use your observation here). We're already back voting for new service before ST has even finished the first segment, so how much time did we lose?
And even if a 2008 or 2009 rail package is smaller than this one, won't the speed at which we can add new service increase as ST builds a satisfied customer base beginning next year?
Reduce GHG: Roads don't pollute, cars do. Switch over to non-polluting or little polluting vehicles over the next 15 years and produce green power with the tax revenues.
Reduce congestion (why exactly?): put on tolling, parking taxes, and increase the cost to drive.
Reduce sprawl: Zoning, zoning, zoning.
Increase density: Zoning, zoning, zooning
Look at the TTI report on congestion. The best rail cities have the most congestion. What rail does is incourage more people to live in a metropolitan area. Rail induces sprawl. Without rail would people live as far away from NYC - no way. How far away from the center of employment should we as a society support people living.
PSRC estimates that only 12% of people will be using transit if ST2 passes - most of the rest will be in cars. Bill are you still part of PSRC? - please correct my numbers.
As I recall, the revised ST plan, which involved this radical concept of a hybrid bus/light-rail tunnel (an idea I was promoting the evening the ST plan died in the first go-round while they were all despondent), mostly got rid of a lot of chrome added by politicos.
Same will happen with ST2.1 when it comes back in Feb 08.
Same will happen with RTID when it gets fractured into a two-county plan for the transit-friendly King and Snohomish counties (which can't be ignored politically, since they are the bulk of the D votes in this state).
Sometimes you have to wake up and smell the oncoming 80 percent global emission carbon reductions and the fact we taxpayers are going to have to pay for those - so adding more emissions now increases what we will pay for.
Treaties have a wonderful way of clearing the air. And getting rid of anti-transit and pro-roads naysayers.
@32: Bill didn't say "congestion pricing won't be immediately popular" he said it won't happen under any circumstances for at least another decade, probably more. Quick review: How many votes for congestion pricing do you see in the Seattle delegation? Chopp? Sommers? Pettigrew? And how many votes from legislators outside Seattle? Maybe two or three.
The Sierra Club folks don't have a viable alternative to the Roads and Transit package and they refuse to learn from history that a failed tax vote always comes back smaller. The opponents have no plan, except to screw up the best deal on light rail we'll ever get a chance to support.
Cascadian writes, “It's easy to dismiss the plan because it doesn't solve our regional piece of the global warming crisis … ”.
I agree that no single plan will get us to our necessary GHG reductions, but Prop 1 doesn’t even carry its own weight.
How good is good enough and how do we get there?
My take is that the urgency and uncertainty of climate and other ecological outcomes require a greater rate of change in thinking and in policy making than that represented in the design of and subsequent cultural shift predicted from Prop 1. While it is a step that would have been entirely acceptable a couple decades ago, today, it is too small a step forward. Prop 1 is also quite likely to tie our hands for a number of years when it comes to major infrastructure investments.
My question is, how do we change political reality so that it catches up with scientific reality? I don’t think Prop 1 is sufficient. How many of us are, for example, trying to change the cultural landscape in our own communities?
K-Full @32:
Go play with your train set, Cressona. Bill has finally elevated the pro-side argument to an adult level and this should continue.
I appreciate Bill LaBorde's willingness to engage the Sierra Club puritans diplomatically. But to engage in a discussion seriously and at face value about what happens after this ballot fails is to accept a misleading bit of bass-ackwardsness. You, Kevin and the Sierra Club, are not opposing this ballot measure because you have made the reasoned calculation that something better will arise in its wake. You are making the claim that something better will arise in its wake because you are opposing this measure. All your speculation about what Olympia will do afterwards is merely a rationalization after the fact.
18 million and 28 million tons of new carbon emissions over 50 years
That's nothing. 70 million tons get thrown up into our atmosphere every day. Let's just pass this thing and deal with other issues (adding HOV lanes and enforcing congestion pricing and tolls) later.
Not much time for commenting right now, but a couple clarifications:
-I agree that congestion pricing of the GP capacity is more likely than a shift of capital dollars from asphalt to rail, my only point is that with binding caps on GHG emissions, voter and elected officials evolving in their outlook, diminishing revenue from gas tax, inevitable cost overruns and a little bit of neighborhood opposition that emerges as more people discover a lane of I-405 will be paved through their $700k back yards, and more shiny trains whishing by drivers stuck in traffic, a lot can change in the next ten years.
-I don't know if it'll take 10-15 years to get to system-wide congestion pricing. A lot could happen to make it more viable sooner. But, I'm sure it ain't gonna happen in the next 5 years. JR@35 is right about the politics and that doesn't even factor in the popular revulsion to tolling. There's a lot of popular resistance to overcome. Tolling 520 (and I-90), HOT lanes on SR 167 and even tolling on the Tacoma Narrows will help change attitudes, but not overnight.
-I'm not sure the '95 and '96 votes on Sound Transit are instructive here. First, the scaling back of the plan between those two votes was huge, although that may have been a good thing since ST had such a difficult time getting started - they may well have choked on tackling a bigger plan from start-up. Voters may have been smart to push toward a smaller start-up plan. But ST has sort of figured it out. There will still be bumps in the road, but they've learned how to plan, construct and operate (via local transit agencies) major transit projects. They're ready to move forward with a big plan, and any scaling back will be a lost opportunity in terms of increased costs over time and sucking regional growth into to transit ridership instead of new car trips.
@39
All fair points -- I don't think either side can claim to predict the future with any more certainty than you describe.
The Sierra Club's calculation has been that the quickest way to evolve popular acceptance of rail and congestion pricing is to get new, tax-subsidized highway lanes off the table for good.
If this measure fails, the giant sucking sound of failed leadership (and both sides must admit this will be the glaring reality) is bound to pull new questions to the fore: What do we do next? What WILL the public vote for? I don't think the conclusion will be: Oh, well, we give up.
When answers are demanded to those questions, we hope politicians and voters will be more willing to learn about solutions that better address congestion and greenhouse gas emissions: rail + tolling.
Will politicians listen? Don't know, but the Club would rather fight for the positive solutions rather than spend the next few years fighting off the negative components in this package. At least we'll be a little more certain that the public is on our side.
I listened to the KUOW debate and understand the importance of building light rail as Bill points out as well. What I DO NOT understand is the constant notion that Seattle is only a small part of the world, and therefore somehow we don't need to do our part for global warming by changing the way we look at transportation. This is a line being given by respectable people who would otherwise and under other discussions hold our city up as a place to become a world leader. And, the idea that every city is able to individually decide that it will not act on global warming until the entire world holds hands to do it is insane. We should act on climate change, and transportation and voting NO on this package is just one way to do so. Also to Cressona, you seem to mock the notion that climate change has taken over this debate. I would argue that climate change should truly be a large part of every debate as it is the elephant in the room on the future of economics, environment, and let's hope politics.
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