Politics Roads/Transit Campaign Strikes Back at Sims
posted by on October 1 at 14:50 PM
The Yes campaign for the $17.8 billion roads and transit package is holding a press conference tomorrow.
I imagine the point of the press conference is to grab back the media spotlight from the No campaign, which got a lot of attention last week when King County Executive Ron Sims—a Sound Transit board member and longtime light rail supporter—came out against the project (which includes 50 new miles of Sound Transit light rail.)
Sims’s jumbled editorial in The Seattle Times didn’t make it exactly clear what his main beef was with the initiative—he talked about its reliance on regressive taxes (which is rich coming from a guy who used the sales tax himself to boost his bus initiative last year); he talked about ill-conceived light rail routes (which he himself voted for); and he talked about global warming.
It’s that last point that the Yes campaign will focus on tomorrow. The line-up of speakers comes from local environmental groups: Gene Duvernoy, Cascade Land Conservancy; Jessyn Farrell, Transportation Choices Coalition; Aisling Kerins, Futurewise; and Kurt Fritts, Washington Conservation Voters.
Said Aaron Toso of the Yes campaign, “There’s an environmental choice on the ballot. And voting for this is the right environmental choice.”
Sims disagrees. Here’s one cogent moment from his editorial:
We must not make transportation decisions without considering the impact on global warming.I have introduced several initiatives as county executive to combat climate change. We operate the state’s largest fleet of biodiesel-fueled buses, and we are pursuing a green-fleet initiative to bring more clean and climate-friendly vehicles to King County. We joined the Chicago Climate Exchange and developed a detailed plan to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. We’ve preserved more than 100,000 acres of carbon-absorbing forests. But all this progress on global warming would be negated by this plan.
The $7 billion roads portion of the plan includes, for example, four new general purpose lanes on I-405—capacity for 40,000 extra vehicles per day.
However, Aaron Toso, spokesman for the Yes campaign, says the new transit will spark a shift toward transit-oriented development—a side effect that will be good for the environment that hasn’t been getting any attention.
It’s a compelling point. However, it’s kind of wonky. Really, to diminish the impact of Sims’s announcement, the Yes campaign should be hauling out high-profile local Democrats like Governor Gregoire, State Sen. Ed Murray, Mayor Greg Nickels, and House Speaker Frank Chopp—headline grabbers like Sims—rather than enviro theory heads.
I asked the Yes campaign if any of those folks would be at tomorrow’s press conference, and while some Democratic leaders have been invited, the campaign didn’t know who’d be showing up tomorrow.
Amusing how they all blogged on SLOG this weekend - astroturf is always so obvious.
As is your predictable tripe. Methinks you been huffing the zoo doo near your home.
Who funds these groups? TCC and Futurewise. Any government money?
Yes, get Gregoire out front - she did win the tunnel vote.
Josh,
The flip side of the transit-oriented development coin is highway-oriented development.
We're being offered 50 miles of light rail and 152 miles of new general purpose lanes.
Knowing this, in which direction do you think this package will take us in terms of development patterns?
Pierce County Exec. John Ladenburg had an effective rebuttal to Sims in the Tacoma News Tribune yesterday. It contained practical arguments aimed at regular Pierce County voters -- not the kind of people who read Slog, but probably the kind of voters who the election will turn on.
When it comes to global warming, should Sims actually be touting the fact that some of his buses use biodiesel? There's quite an argument to be made that biofuels are actually worse on global warming because of the land they take up and take away from food crops, and because of the oil used to produce them. Corn ethanol is the worst. Frankly, I don't know how bad biodiesel is on that front. Perhaps some other commenter has more information.
Also, I would have thought that if Sims was coming out about the urgency of addressing global warming in the short term, he would start downplaying the importance of addressing it in the long term. And yet he's still using the 80% reduction by 2050 language. In the short term, building light rail doesn't help with global warming because it takes so long to build. And true, you don't build it without producing some emissions in the process. But in the long term, there's just no sane way you can achieve any kind of substantial greenhouse gas reductions without dramatic investments in a radically different transportation infrastructure.
cressona,
How does 152 miles of old-school general purpose auto capacity fit into our short and long-term climate goals?
For those of you who are interested in an op-ed on ST2/RTID that's actually cogent, check out the late Walt Crowley's op-ed from Sunday's Seattle Times. Titled "Last days of the ICE Age" --
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003913066_sundaycrowley30.html
The ICE in this case is the internal combustion engine. Key excerpt:
And historian that he is, Crowley does a great job putting all this in a historical context.
What gets me about this whole discussion is that it's between two different groups of environmentalists. Kemper Freeman Jr. and his highway-hugging eastside friends, along with their allies Niles, McIsaac, etc., are happily sitting on the sidelines watching rail transit destructing without their having to lift a finger. What a gift we are giving them! This is nuts!
Patrick @7:
Patrick, check out RTID's "Blueprint for Progress." I don't have it handy now, but on page 6 or 7, they talk about the various corridors they're looking to slap congestion pricing on. There's a great opportunity to congestion-price a lot of the new lanes coming in.
Another example of the sheer chutzpah of the Sierra Club and Ron Sims is how they keep talking about congestion pricing as an alternative to ST2/RTID.
But this package really lays the groundwork for congestion pricing. The new 520 bridge will be tolled, and there's a great chance now with those federal funds sitting out there to toll the existing bridge as a down payment. The passage of this measure would allow the political pivot point to turn on congestion pricing for those other routes on RTID's list.
If this package fails, nobody in Olympia is going to want to stick their neck out for congestion pricing or anything the least bit controversial. Instead of laying the foundation for the natural next stage of the debate, namely congestion pricing other corridors, everybody will be occupied just picking up the pieces.
It's like these guys want to kill our best chance at smart tolling, all in the name of tolling. (Just like they want to dismantle light rail all in the name of saving light rail.)
The enviro-wonks don’t have to care about who is taxed, and whether or not there are cost-controls in place to protect taxpayers. Sims is elected to represent those who would be taxed – the people and families that would have to pay the very regressive sales taxes. His views should, and will, carry much more weight than these groups’ views.
The Transit Now sales tax was one-tenth of what the sales tax impact would be if ST2/RTID passes. That is because ST2/RTID not only ads a new .6% sales tax, it reauthorizes the existing .4% ST sales tax. It is entirely appropriate for Sims to support the modest increase in sales taxes for Transit Now and oppose the massive sales tax increase for the transportation system upgrades of marginal utility that ST2/RTID would provide.
There is NO good argument that voting for this particular ballot measure will do ANYTHING good for the environment. Impose high variable-priced tolls to reduce road use, raise the gas tax, impose a dime-per-mile tax on drivers that is collected when tabs are paid for, shut down SeaTac Airport for 10 hours a day, and prohibit ships from docking at the Port of Seattle facilities two days a week – those things will reduce GHG’s. Giving unlimited additional taxing rights to Sound Transit will Not Do Anything for the Environment like those steps would.
Look who Transportation Choices Coalition is a front for:
All Aboard Washington
Amalgamated Transit Union Legislative Council
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1015
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587
Bicycle Alliance of Washington
Cascade Bicycle Club
City of Kirkland
City of Redmond
City of Sammamish
City of Seattle
Community Transit (Snohomish)
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Intercity Transit
King County Metro
Kitsap Transit
Pierce Transit
Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans
Sound Transit
Tacoma Wheelmen's Bicycle Club
Washington Public Interest Research Group (WashPIRG)
Washington State Ridesharing Organization (Board)
Washington State Transit Association
http://www.transportationchoices.org/partners.asp
A bunch of those unions, municipalities, and transit agencies would make millions from ST if the measure passes. ST pays TCC about $17,000 every year. That’s hardly an unbiased source of advice.
@ 10 - "Patrick, check out RTID's "Blueprint for Progress." I don't have it handy now, but on page 6 or 7, they talk about the various corridors they're looking to slap congestion pricing on."
Nothing in the ballot measure would authorize any local government or the state to impose tolls, anywhere. The only reference to tolling in the "Blueprint for Progress" is conceptual. Tolls are mentioned in the following context: "IF tolls are approved and imposed, THEN there might be enough money for the SR 520 work."
Again, although the Blueprint for Progress talks about tolls, it does not authorize tolls and the legislature may not ever authorize tolls (because some public employee and labor unions are dead set against them). That points to a massive shortcoming of RTID - it leaves a huge funding gap for the SR 520 work. If tolls can't close the gap what would? Nobody's saying - but the answer is pretty clear: they'd just bump up the sales tax some more.
Don't believe that? Look at SB 5146, from last session, sponsored by Sen. Ken Jacobsen (D-sales taxes). More sales taxes, without a vote, is EXACTLY what we'd get if RTID/ST2 is approved.
That would be a terrible thing for the least well off in our community, and Ron Sims knows it.
About 10% of trips are done by bike and on foot. RTID allocates about .3% of its package to nonmotorized modes. Does that sound like a bill that's tipping the balance away from cars?
We'd get 50 miles of transit, but what good does that do when you're building 3x as many lane miles of highway? New highway lanes means more cars on the road. Google "generated traffic" for the data. Futuristic car tech is still out of reach for most, and will be for decades.
With all due respect to the late Mr. Crowley, the tipping point for the internal combustion engine will not occur until we resolve to stop deepening our overinvestment in automobiles. RTID would have us re-upping that investment at precisely the wrong moment in our history.
Cressona - agree on bio-diesel - don't like depending on crops for food and energy. Palm oil prices will have plantations growing the palms after chopping down what was there. Some small amount of it will be good.
And I agree he shouldn't be using the 2050 date because the consensus seems to be that we need level GHG out within twenty years. But as Walt alluded to electric cars may be an answer or I think, the answer. We could drop transportation GHG by 50% in 20 years or maybe even better. Sim's put on a
clean car conference
http://www.metrokc.gov/exec/cleanvehiclesnow/agenda.aspx
maybe it changed his thinking.
Do we need to radically change the transportation system or radically change the power plant. Walt's point after ICE - internal combustion engines - while going electric doesn't solve congestion but then nothing does - keeps it difficult to get too far out thereby stalling sprawl. Add tolling and zoning and we can transform the way we live.
Josh if NoRTID is correct you are seriously remiss in not doing a story on TCC and any other group supported by government agencies that then does their bidding. Rossi's group at least was privately funded although I agree with you that donors should have been made public. But come on hep cat - TCC is nothing but a tool for those that will cash in on these projects.
"Do we need to radically change the transportation system or radically change the power plant.'
Neither. We need to discourage driving by financial disincentives. The ICE improvements will decrease GHG emissions. If the State just bough the most-polluting 3% of vehicles and scrapped them it would reduce the area's emissions by 20%. Tax the rest of the heavy polluters heavily.
Massive new spending on a few dozen miles of train tracks will accomplish exactly nothing from an environmental perspective.
. . . and as others have mentioned, taxing the general public is bad fiscal policy. In Portland the only taxing is just to subsidize MAX light rail. And that is a payroll deduction tax that businesses pay. Use that - sales taxes bear absolutely no relation to either the amount of pollution generated, or the extent the roads and/or transit is used by the taxpayer.
Sims is spot on: there has to be less reliance on regressive general taxes, and more use-based taxing, to make the funding of transportation investments fair to people.
oh tiptoe and all you astroturfers ... you think I can't see the print edition Seattle Times "Letters to the Editor" are all pro-RTID/ST2 and the online-only "Letters to the Editor" (and many more of those) are anti-RTID/ST2?
You think we can't add up a fake grassroots campaign by the Powers And Funders That Be?
Grow up and realize the Internets not only let us buy Wood over the Tubes, but they make it obvious when you cheat the system.
Comparing rail miles vs. lane miles as Patrick does is misleading, because many of those lanes will improve bus transit, and the passenter throughput on rail is potentially much higher per mile. But still, even with those numbers, 25% for mass transit (and over 50% in terms of funding)? That's much better than the historical ratio. It's not where we need to be, but it's in the right direction.
To change things completely, people (particularly those who drive from the suburbs to cities) need alternatives. Light rail, complete HOV/transit lanes on major highways, and other ST-funded amenities provide these alternatives. There is no other plan that will provide those alternatives if people vote no, unless we want to take the vague Bush-like proclamations of eventual success by the Sierra Club on faith alone (and if we are willing to ignore their apparent opposition to regional light rail.)
Ron Sim's new transporation identity: We need a 'Commuter Toolkit'.
Real catchy...NOT!
Why not a 'Transportation Action Agenda' or a '5 Point Plan for transportation mobility' or a "Blue Ribbon Commission report'.
Blah,Blah blah.
I can't speak for any of the other supporters of ST2/RTID, but I'm not associated with any organization (except as a dues-paying member of organizations on the other side of the issue) and have no agenda except my own as an ordinary citizen and taxpayer of the Seattle metropolitan area.
I will note that most of those who have been posting in favor of ST2/RTID are users who have been posting to this site for a long time on a range of issues, so if they're suddenly astroturfers then they've been really clever at spending months perfecting their online disguises. I don't doubt that many posters on all sides of these political issues are active for one organization or another, but that's out of committed belief and not because of some secret, orchestrated campaign.
Can you tell me what Ron Sims is smoking? I would really like to get my hands on some of that.
Cascadian,
RTID will fund 152 miles of general purpose lane miles. That's more than 5 times the number of HOV lane-miles in the plan.
RTID is a vast subsidy for single-occupant vehicle trips. Why should we keep doing this to ourselves?
Look, I support light rail for a reason: it encourages compact development and helps move people out of their cars. But when you simultaneously make a gargantuan investment in sprawl-inducing highway capacity, it's pointless. It moves us further from where we need to be, development and climate change-wise.
@ 5 wrote: "Pierce County Exec. John Ladenburg had an effective rebuttal to Sims in the Tacoma News Tribune yesterday. It contained practical arguments aimed at regular Pierce County voters"
Ladenburg’s piece is a joke:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/othervoices/story/167974.html
He tries to pit voters in Pierce County against Ron Sims based on their inferiority complex. It is sick:
“Sounds like another example of a leader from up north knowing what’s best for us down here.” And, “I know Sims well. He wouldn’t suggest changes to the Roads & Transit package if he didn’t think they were in the best interest of his constituents.”
Then he tries pandering to get “yes” votes. Speaking of adding light rail down to Tacoma in addition to Sounder, Ladenburg writes: “If you’re one of the thousands who commute to Seattle, wouldn’t that make your life better?”
Bear in mind, Sounder already provides that service, at great cost to taxpayers.
And then the capper: “Hundreds if not thousands have told me it’s time to stop arguing and start working.” That is exactly the same pitch monorail used to sell itself to voters. “Doing Something” is NOT better than doing nothing in this case, where too much would be spent to do too little, and major repairs and the SR 520 project are left unfounded.
It is not more important to add light rail to Tacoma (or build a half-billion dollar light rail tunnel under downtown Bellevue for Kemper Freeman, Jr.) than it is to fully fund SR 520 or repair the pavement of I-5 through Seattle – both of which are multi-billion dollar items that grow more expensive every year.
Approving Roads + Transit would be a step backwards for rational planning of how to spend taxpayers’ dollars.
----Look, I support light rail for a reason: it encourages compact development and helps move people out of their cars.------------
Then tax the developers that make money off it. And tax the businesses that want employees dropped at those rail stations. And tax the businesse that profit from general vehicle lanes. But no more general sales taxes.
Lost in this little dustup over Sims' newfound backbone is the fact that more than a million more people will be living here by the time most of these projects are online. That's according to the PSRC, who usually does their forecasting on the conservative side of things.
So, to think that some additional road capacity won't be needed for all those people is to have your head in the sand. Why not focus the road growth on the most crowded and needed areas while also laying light rail tracks and building new stations that can drive a lot of that growth around the areas that can handle it.
sierra club and kemper freeman $r have no back up plan for the event that RTID (god forbid) fails. sc fails to understand that unless people have an alternate mode of transportation to get from place A to place B, they will have no choice but to resort to drive and increase global warming causing emissions. No amount of road reduction or congestion pricing on its own is going to prevent that. However if folk do have a choice (aka transit) then that along with other "get people off the road" initiatives will have an effect. So lets get step A of the process in place.
Vote YES for RTID
"Mother Earth":
Congestion pricing revenues can fund transit.
Aghast:
I agree about the sales taxes. Why should walkers, bikers, and transit users subsidize sprawl? How about a variable user fee for highway users instead. That's much more rational.
Unfortunately RTID commits us to no such plan. It does, however, have plenty more business-as-usual, unpriced SOV capacity. And we see how well that's worked in the past.
Vote no on RTID.
Patrick,
We need transit sometime this century and blocking it now is just going to hurt people who really care about the environment.
This is 2007 for crying out aloud, 11 years since the last light rail package went through. I want to be able to get off my car sometime in my lifetime. Just making me pay congestion tax is not going to do that if I dont have some other mode to travel.
I fear that this might be our last chance to get this through for a while. There are NO guearantees or alternate plans in place other than a few wishy washy statements by folk here and there.
Lets get RTID passed.
whatever @15: “TCC is nothing but a tool for those that will cash in on these projects.”
There has been a lot of spirited debate on this site over RTID - some of it meaningful, and some of it vengeful. For the Sierra Club to take a stand opposite some of our allies is tough, but sometimes you have to do that when you are fighting for something as critical as global warming.
It is important, however, to remember that ultimately all the environmental groups are trying to achieve very similar objectives. I don’t know who whatever is, but the environmental community has enough work to do without calling each other names.
The Sierra Club opposes this package because it makes global warming worse. We can’t pretend to be doing anything real about global warming in our region if we are investing $18 billion in a transportation system that overall will lead to more roads, more cars, more congestion, and more greenhouse gases. We need transit improvements and we need them yesterday, but we can no longer accept them with roads packages that will bury them in more emissions. We clearly think TCC and others are wrong in their decision to support RTID.
That said, regardless of what happens on November 6, the environmental community will need to come together on November 7 to continue our united work on smarter, better, cleaner transportation. If you truly care about the environment, let’s argue the merits of the package but not call each other names.
(Now, you may proceed to call me names….)
Walkers, bicyclists (I am one too and an Ex-Cascade bicycling club member) and everyone benefits with having alternate modes of transportation. Do you realize that from a pure bicyclist's perspective there is goign to be a nice wide dedicated bicycling lane on the new 520 plan. The number of people in King County is goign to increase by 40% (according to certain sources) in the next few decades. What are all these folk going to do for transportation?
We need transit and we need it NOW.
Vote YES for RTID.
Mike,
Can you, the head of the sierra club please enlighten us as to how many miles your Pathfinder gives? Perhaps as much as the big ass cadillac Ron Sims used to drive before trying his new savior of the environment role.
Hypocrites! Its easy to talk but can you walk the talk.
Stop listening to such folk who just spout for their two mins of fame.
Hobo,
I support transit for its ability to reduce our reliance on automobiles, support compact growth, and reduce our global warming emissions.
This package makes all of those things worse by linking transit with massive highway construction.
Why do you support transit?
Mike O'B.
Thanks for posting.
Would you still support extending light rail if the financing package included a greater percentage of federal grant money, less regressive taxes, less taxing overall, and no sales taxes? In other words, would the TriMet model in Portland work for you? They've got 50+ miles of light rail either built or under way, and only $94 million in debt outstanding for example. Portland's businesses pay a payroll tax of about $380 million a year, vs. in five years under ST2 it would be $1 billion in sales taxes.
So I'm curious if it is just the train extensions that the Sierra Club cares about, or does your organization also care about taxing in a fair way, keeping the local tax costs at a minimum, and not adding to the regressive tax burden in our region that already is in the top five worst in that category in the country?
I'm just trying to guage whether you folks value "trains uber alles," or whether you look at the cost and fairness of those trains as well.
Maybe whatever ST come up with works with you, even if it is unduly expensive and based on horribly regressive taxing?
Thanks for your thoughts on that.
Mother Earth:
Federal law requires that a 520 replacement have a multiuse path if it is to use federal funding, RTID or no RTID. Also, RTID does not fully fund a 520 replacement.
Meanwhile, in the fastest-growing parts of the region we'd be exacerbating sprawl -- the type of development least favorable to walking and biking.
Perhaps you'd like to read your ex-affiliates' analysis of the matter.
ps. your handle is inappropriate considering how low you rank climate change on your list of transportation priorities.
"Amusing how they all blogged on SLOG this weekend - astroturf is always so obvious."
So, Will DisAffected-Asche, when you were out there with Martin Selig, pushing for a re-built Alaskan Way Viaduct (70% larger than the existing facility, casting a 50% larger shadow over the waterfront) were you on the cutting edge of grass-roots green environmentalism?
It's no wonder you started mimicking the loopy Sierra Club line this time around. They hitched their wagon to a guy who wants to get rid of light rail once and for all, and lay a bunch of pavement for his soot-spitting buses to run on.
Back in the day, if you were an ideologue, that usually meant you stuck to your values going in to battle. WillInSeattle and Sierra Club prove that values are no longer the driving force behind their swerving political moves.
Nothing like embracing and aiding a bunch of pavement fanatics to bolster your green creds.
There's a reason right wingers eat these clowns for lunch whenever they get a chance - and there's a reason Sierra Club has decided to abandon their mainstream past in favor of self-imposed isolation inside the famous Seattle bubble.
#17 ". . and as others have mentioned, taxing the general public is bad fiscal policy. In Portland the only taxing is just to subsidize MAX light rail. And that is a payroll deduction tax that businesses pay. Use that - sales taxes bear absolutely no relation to either the amount of pollution generated, or the extent the roads and/or transit is used by the taxpayer.
Sims is spot on: there has to be less reliance on regressive general taxes, and more use-based taxing, to make the funding of transportation investments fair to people."
How is income tax more use-based than sales tax?
Not to mention with any tax on business, it's going to come back and bite you somehow. There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you tax sales, it's obvious how much you are spending. However, if you tax the businesses, they can pass the cost off in any number of ways: pay employees less, raise prices on goods, hire less employees...
So yes, you don't have the sales tax to worry about, but you are paying for smaller paychecks, less employment, and possibly higher prices. Benefits and drawbacks for sure.
hobo@30,
You're right that, if Prop 1 fails, there are no guarantees that light rail will pass next year. That's a short term risk; long term, there will certainly be more rail. On the other hand, if Prop 1 passes, all the new highways that come with it are inevitable: that is a certain short and long term failure.
Some have argued that those highways are inevitable whether or not RTID passes. But this ignores evidence from beautiful countries around the world, especially in Europe, where much higher population densities are served by much less highway than we have here. It also assumes that we simply cannot help ourselves. For me, this sounds like giving up.
For climate reasons, we know that less car dependence is where we have to go, and we also know we have to start now. Voting down Prop1 and coming back with something that makes sense is a good start.
I am sorry I am an idiot. I cant help it.
RTID sucks. Why do we have a transit portion in it. Trains suck!
This is going against good old american values. We should not give this up for some Europeanish ideals
I am glad Sierra Club is standing up for us. NO RTID NO RTID.
"Hobo,
I support transit for its ability to reduce our reliance on automobiles, support compact growth, and reduce our global warming emissions.
This package makes all of those things worse by linking transit with massive highway construction.
Why do you support transit?"
Well I don't know about Hobo, but I support it for better travel times (compared to busses or bikes), better reliability, higher frequency in trips, a more comfortable ride, better development opportunities for places wanting to become more urban, better neighborhoods (in my mind), and more convenience in planning trips.
I support roads for places that require too many transfers (the travel time starts to get ridiculous when you think about driving from Wallingford to Sammamish vs bussing), shopping trips for large items or lots of groceries, camping trips, fun self tours of the city, 2am runs to Dicks for cheeseburgers, and the sheer joy of being in control of your own vehicle.
I don't think most Americans, myself included, would ever want to give up their cars completely. I truly believe that gas guzzling cars will be replaced by another autonomous vechicle that runs on green and renewable energy. There are many things on a national and internation level that are affecting that and will push for that change. A no vote on prop-1 will not push for that change. If the east side wants to spend their share of the money on expanding car capacity to a reasonable extent, fine by me. I don't think they will like the results ultimately, but that's not really for me to decide for them is it? And it's not like it's that bad, I mean we are talking about expanding 405 here, that place is a mess.
However, I like cities that are pedestrian friendly (one reason I support Mercer Corridor project), and where mundane trips are replaced by mass transit. Seattle happens to have a fantastic bus system, but on many routes it takes FOREVER compared to a car. I love being able to bus and bike most places in Seattle, but light rail would make the vast majority of trips I make SO much more convenient.
If you live in Seattle, you are probably here because you like density and walk-ability: light rail supports that in many ways.
If you live on the east side, you are probably there because you like spending quality time with cars and living in a McMansion.
However, I do believe that if we have to pay a user fee (boarding tickets) for mass transit, we should implement a user fee for highways.
What none of you geniuses calling for a NO vote seem to have considered is that if this experiment in regional planning fails, whatever happens with the light rail vote (Northgate, Bellevue & S. 200th if youre lucky), the roads WILL be back.
However, with the failure of the regional approach, they will be back via another legislative package, ala the "Nickel". The inevitable result of representative democracy: an even distribution of pork statewide.
Look at the N-S expressway in Spokane or any project in Clark County where WSDOT is busy undermining Oregon's land use policies, and tell me that isn't worse than extra capacity on 405 or other projects serving the existing (sub)urbanized Puget Sound...
"check out RTID's "Blueprint for Progress." I don't have it handy now, but on page 6 or 7, they talk about the various corridors they're looking to slap congestion pricing on. There's a great opportunity to congestion-price a lot of the new lanes coming in."
Cressona, you don't get it, do you? The Sims/Sierra Club plan cannot comprehend nor endorse such common sense. The humans must atone for their sins - which means they must pay, never receive anything for their tax dollars, and - most importantly - they must be punished by the morally pure 700 Club, and Reverend Ron.
Selling voters and taxpayers system-wide tolling was going to be a big challenge from the get-go. Voters have been able to stomache tolls in the past when new bridges were built, but they still didn't exactly cherish the opportunity, and looked forward to the day those fees went away.
Enter the Sims/Sierra Club plan where you pay - through the nose - and get nothing for it: no new roads, no new bridges, nothing. What you get is a bill for old roads which work a little better because the government just priced you right out of the neighborhood.
And you get Ron Sims' crappy bus service, which shows up on time...75% of the time. Oh joy.
I think what these government-control freaks are really trying to do is revive Tim Eyman's career. Can you imagine the shelf life "congestion pricing" would have, should some benign dictator put it in place while the voters slept?
Naïve earth mother hippies don't really take such political realities into account.. That's Ron Sims' job. (except he lost his mind this time). So who tells Ron Sims he's batshit crazy? (well, just about everybody outside the permanently disgruntled and professional unemployed activist class). What does Sims care? His credibility and career are gone.
"Kemper Freeman Jr. and his highway-hugging eastside friends, along with their allies Niles, McIsaac, etc., are happily sitting on the sidelines watching rail transit destructing without their having to lift a finger. What a gift we are giving them! This is nuts!"
Frequent voter: try telling that to the Sierra mixed-nuts... to their faces. You get the same response Nader and his band of zealots delivered in 2000. Blank stare. They are so ideologically bent, ACTUAL results and implications don't matter. Making their (supposed) enemies happy is just like a passing cloud overhead. Nader actually welcomed his right wing business lobby support (usually in the form of cash)
This proposal has $$$$ billions for roads to help create more congestion, more sprawl, and more CO2 -- and will melt the ice shelf more swiftly.
Seattle, how could you?
#45 I'll have some proof, sir.
All Sims has offered on global warming is symbolism, not progress on reducing GHGs. 50 more miles of light rail that runs on clean electricity is called progress. Sims has untested ideas, but no plan.
BTW - I don't recall Sims supporting light rail in 1996 either. He's a bus guy - which means he's for more carbon emissions than light rail by any measure.
@47, if you believe the PSRC's projections, then the benefit of light rail in Prop1 is swamped by the highways.
By 2030, they project that the result of Prop 1 will be an overall 45% increase in vehicle miles traveled from a 1998 baseline. Unless trains can suck C02 out of the air, the total result of the package is more GHG's. We need to be sharply decreasing GHG's, especially from transportation, as it is the single largest source in WA.
tell me #48-
how much more pollution will arise as a result of a 40% polulation increase in the next 30 years, and letting all those cars idle in traffic rather than building a more efficient freeway and 50 miles of rapid transit spurring better urban growth patterns in already developed areas?
i tend to agree with “There’s an environmental choice on the ballot. And voting for this is the right environmental choice.”
Cale hits the nail on the head. Scotto uses a PSRC number out of context like his fellow Clubbers. He fails to mention that the increase in emissions is largely due to the doubling of population in the region. To assign it to Prop. 1 is misleading.
I will remind you that almost everyone drives. A poll on the Sierra Club's own website lists the auto as the main mode of transportation for over 50% of Club members. The only way to start giving people real options is to start building light rail as soon as possible.
Instead scotto and others want us to start all over. The roads lobby won't go away if Prop. 1 loses, they will just find other ways to build those roads. But the rail component is likely to be much smaller just like 1996. This is the best chance for 50 miles of light rail.
-Impose high variable-priced tolls to reduce road use, raise the gas tax, impose a dime-per-mile tax on drivers that is collected when tabs are paid for, shut down SeaTac Airport for 10 hours a day, and prohibit ships from docking at the Port of Seattle facilities two days a week – those things will reduce GHG’s. Giving unlimited additional taxing rights to Sound Transit will Not Do Anything for the Environment like those steps would.-
Randomly shut down SeaTac and the Port of Seattle? Another typical NoToProp 1 kook. Of course 'No Rtid, Thanks' also likes Sims' Plan B: congestion pricing. He's all about giving the public what it doesn't want.
Ron Sims should get acquainted with his new disgruntled axe-grinding "base." Ron, shake hands with No RTID, Thanks.
This guy is the stereotypical basement-dwelling nutcase who has spent the last four years spinning insane conspiracy theories about Sound Transit purchasing Supreme Court Justices; 'No RTID, Thanks' bases his inane conspiracy theories on the precept that mass transit is not built for the benefit of the public: it's all for big business, big unions, and...the Illuminati. Call it intellectual laziness, and the death of common sense, which too often defines Seattle transport policy.
And since he doesn't ever leave his basement, 'No RTID, Thanks' (known as BH on the P-I forums, and known as a bunch of different names when he's feeding Sharkansky's paranoid and twisted mindset at Sound Politics) won't ever get the chance to discover light rail is actually not a tool of the Illuminati.
It's a way to get around town, and a chance to build better communities.
Ron Sims: 'No RTID, Thanks' just spent the last 5 years calling you a corrupt, unaccountable, fascist dictator. And with one op-ed, this stunted moron changes his mind. Doesn't that tell you something about the sheer lunacy of your decision? That the only people who agree with you now are totally detached from reality?
We don't pay politicians to make emotional decisions based on dinner table siscussions with their wives. They're supposed to make the right policy decisions based on sound research and rational evidence.
-The Transit Now sales tax was one-tenth of what the sales tax impact would be if ST2/RTID passes. -
No Rtid, Thanks: that one tenth brought Sims' Metro up to nearly a penny sales tax, the same amout the evil Sound Transit will collect after a positive votr this November.
While you're celebrating Ron Sims' deathbed confession, take a look at his support for a full penny sales tax hike *statewide* in 2004. And multiple property tax hikes (it's progressive to tax people out of their houses) in the past couple years, including two this year alone. How's about taking a peek at the 'save the Sonics' legislation Sims pushed the last two legislative sessions. If you can't find those bills, do a search on "selling long-term bonds for profitable professional sports franchises." Let me know if you need help with your research, No RTID, Thanks.
Oh, and I almost forgot: that 'congestion pricing' thing you like? If ever enected, the revenue stream will someday pay for light rail, too. Know why? Because that's what the public wants.
Furthermore, if 'No RTID, Thanks' was actually honest with himself and others, he would admit congestion pricing is even more regressive than sales taxes. You can choose how much cheap crap you buy from Chinese sweatshops.
What you can't choose is whether or not you go to work each day. Unless, of course, you don't work, like 'No RTID, Thanks.' and due to inflated housing prices in Seattle and King County, The Sierra Club+Sims plan gets even more regressive: the further away you live, the more you have to pay.
But this doesn't bother 'No RTID, Thanks'. He's got his basement in Seattle. Plus, he doesn't have a job. Or a family. Or friends.
Behold, the prototypical light rail hater. And Lame Duck Sims' new political base.
Sierra Clubbers: sign this kook up! 'No RTID, Thanks' sets the standard for obsessing over new, bizarre method for fighting that evil light rail. You guys could learn something from him.
"Instead scotto and others want us to start all over. The roads lobby won't go away if Prop. 1 loses, they will just find other ways to build those roads. But the rail component is likely to be much smaller just like 1996."
Exactly, TipToe Tommy. I'll bet the Sierra Club is too slow to notice the rail plan we're voting on now is virtually the same plan floated in '95.
If they were actually supportive of the ST2 plan, distinguishing themselves from their new hero, Ron Sims, this group of marginalized calendar salesmen would be joining the rest of the environmental movement in supporting Prop 1.
But you just can't buy this kind of attention and media when you do the right thing.
"So, to think that some additional road capacity won't be needed for all those people is to have your head in the sand."
gblanston: having your head planted firmly in the sand is the #1 qualifier for fighting Roads and Transit. Just ask the vast majority of hysterical opponents here.
"If the State just bough the most-polluting 3% of vehicles and scrapped them it would reduce the area's emissions by 20%. Tax the rest of the heavy polluters heavily."
Impractical Al, it doesn't matter what you drive - it's how FAR you drive. Look it up.
". . . and as others have mentioned, taxing the general public is bad fiscal policy. In Portland the only taxing is just to subsidize MAX light rail. And that is a payroll deduction tax that businesses pay"
Jesus F'ing Christ you are stoopid, Impractical Al.
First off, Ron Sims currently takes .9 sales tax for his buses, the most heavily subsidized form of transit. So, do you still have a problem with Sims' "bad fiscal policy?"
Moreover, Portland's Max receives hundreds of millions from lottery revenues. Now you tell me - are gambling revenues a good example of "progressive user fees." You can tell RTID opponents are mostly new to the transportation debate: they have no idea what they are talking about.
"(Now, you may proceed to call me names….)"
Ok, no problem, Mike O'Brien. At that City Club debate, you fulfilled my worst fears regarding Sierra Club opposition to Prop 1: your opinions are naïve, clueless, elitist and poorly informed. It's no wonder you didn't get involved with this issue until the 11th hour. That way you could blame everybody else for painting yourselves into this corner.
NoRTID, Thanks @12:
So you're making the argument that Olympia's a tough place. And yet, the whole premise of the "vote it down for something better" Sierra Club is that – drumroll, please………. – Olympia is a pushover. Yeah, "When we the Sierra Club singlehandedly strike down ST2/RTID, we're going to have a mandate to just steamroll Olympia."
So which is it? Olympia is malleable? Or Olympia is not malleable? (My own guess? Let's just say, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting to see Frank Chopp bow down and kiss Tim Gould's ring.)
Actually, a few other questions come to mind…
I could go on. These Sierra Clubbers are weaving such an elaborate web of contradictions, they're going to have to start quoting Walt Whitman.
Wait, there's more:
Is there an absolute legislative mandate to help pay for a 520 rebuild with tolls? I guess not. Will 520 be rebuilt partially with tolls? Obviously.
Tell me where there has been any political traction for upping the sales tax even higher and avoiding tolling; tell me when Frank Chopp is going to let that one slip by without a public vote. Then tell me where the rest of the funding is going to come from or how they're going to sneak that past the state treasurer when he has to sell bonds.
Anyway, we get back to the original contradiction. Should the joint ballot pass: be cynical about the legislature. Should the joint ballot fail: the legislature will greet the Sierra Club as liberators.
Winfield @24: (Ladenburg) tries to pit voters in Pierce County against Ron Sims based on their inferiority complex.
Winfield, it's not that Pierce County has an inferiority complex; it's that Ron Sims has a superiority complex about King County. Sierra Club and Ron Sims to Pierce and Snohomish counties: "Let them ride buses." (Or bicycles. Or my suggested third "b" in their transportation toolkit, bridle trails.)
Mother Earth @27:
Thanks, Mom. The average suburbanite could witness global warming turning the Arctic Ocean into, well, an ocean, flooding all of south Florida in the process; they could witness global warming killing off millions of people in countries Bill Gates and Bono try to help, and killing off hundreds of species; and you know what? They'll be very concerned and saddened. But unless they have a viable alternative, they're not going to change their behavior.
Why? Because there are a few things the average suburban voter cares about more than the future of the world and all the suffering in the world, and those few things are themselves, their spouse, and their children.
Patrick @28 back to Mother Earth: Congestion pricing revenues can fund transit.
Slap my forehead. Dude, why didn't I think of that? To quote the Guinness beer commercial, "Brilliant!"
Tell you what, Patrick, while you're working with your peeps in Olympia implementing that brilliant idea, I'm going to work on implementing my own brilliant idea: to marry Jessica Biel! Patrick, feel free to give me a progress update on how your plan is working out for you, and I'll make sure to do the same.
@49, The "do nothing for the next 20 years" scenario is not going to happen... but it is an obvious scare tactic if you want to frighten people into voting for Prop 1...
@50, It's not 80% reduction per capita. It is 80%. Period.
Physics and chemistry don't grade on a curve. It's misleading to pretend that a 45% increase in VMT is OK.
The truth is that avoiding the worst consequences of global warming is going to be hard; we won't get there by hanging onto the old ways. Prop1 highways are more same old same old, and it will not do the job. That's why I'll be voting against it.
of course not #57, that's why we have things like light rail, efficient freeways that keep traffic from idling, green technology research, leeds certification, emissions standards, eating locally, shunning bottled water... along with so many other national and international trends.
and actually the 45 percent you refer to is just for car increases, which along with trucks, ships, airplanes, and rail account for about 50% of total emissions in the seattle area. not to mention that percentage would be much higher over the next 30 years without added efficiency from more lanes and 50 miles of light rail / transit oriented development spurred by light rail (which isn't taken into account in the 45% number). it's really very misleading to tell people a 45% increase in VMT (a very shaky number indeed considering environmental impact studies are incomplete) and then they associate it with a 45% increase in total carbon emission.
besides, based on current trends in real estate, urban planning, and marketing- sprawl is out, and transit oriented development and urban infill are the future.
rtid/st2 contains many great ideas, and has huge potential to make living here even better. congested roads and diesel busses won't make global warming better. efficient freeways and light rail in conjection with transit oriented development are a small step. national and international trends in energy research and development are a huge step. having the will to make it happen, and staying dedicated to the ideal while looking at the big picture, is the key.
The only good thing Blake99 said was "it's not how many miles are built it's far you travel".
Exactly.
Building RTID new freeways increases the effective distance commuters will be willing to travel to work.
Since it won't improve congestion, it's just plain bad.
And, it barely funds the 520 bridge - 40 percent - over almost 60 years.
Sixty years. That's when a teen today will be retired. Or dead.
OK cressona I'm back with my progress report.
London's system isn't perfect from an economic point of view -- it is a cordon with a static charge -- but it did eliminate gridlock and provide while providing £160 million per year for transit.
By contrast the RTID would use sales taxes to subsidize sprawl. "Political reality" is what we make of it.
Cale,
I'm not asking you to give up your car completely. I'm saying that we shouldn't use public policy to deepen our dependence on cars and intensify global warming at exactly the wrong moment.
Speaking about climate change, I didn't see anything about that in your post. Did you know that most CO2 in Washington State comes from the transportation sector? Don't you think we should take that into account when we make multi billion dollar investments in that same sector?
Patrick @60, I imagine you've never been to London, so this may come as a shock to you, but when they talk about "The Tube," what they're talking about is a subway. London already has an extensive subway system. London already has an alternative that people can use if they want to avoid the pervasive tolling.
And Patrick, since you're apparently just some earnest guy who's never read much about any of this stuff, I hate to break it to you, but, aside from dinky, little bus routes, it would take some incredibly expensive and broad tolls to serve as the primary funding mechanism for actually building anything. Try funding $10 billion worth of light rail primarily with tolls. Do the math. It's not pretty.
But hey, I'd expect you to understand that math about as much as you seem to understand the political viability of Ron Sims's congestion-pricing-only alternative. Ron knows there's about as much chance of that happening as there is of his getting swept into the gubernatorial mansion on the wings of a state income tax proposal.
Anyway, dude, keep me updated how that's going, and I'll keep you updated how I'm doing with that "marry Jessica Biel" project of mine.
cressona:
I support extending our nascent fixed rail system, as long as it's not part of a package that worsens global warming and sprawl. That said, here's a quote from that same report:
cressona:
Washington State Transportation Research Center "Destination 2030" report, March 2007:
cressona, your jeering, sarcastic tone cannot hide the fact that you don't do your reading.
Patrick, it's certainly true that cities that are implementing or planning to implement pervasive congestion pricing use bus service in the mix. But does anyone really seriously think that congestion pricing would even be on anyone's radar in cities like London and New York and Stockholm if they didn't already have extensive metro systems?
Anyway, good luck putting together the political support for that pervasive tolling plan that will raise a billion dollars a year.
Maybe before you try getting Olympia to go along with that, you can field legislative candidates to replace the road warriors in your own Seattle districts, like Ed Murray, Helen Sommers, Mary Lou Dickerson. Oh, you might also want to replace Frank Chopp with an ideologue who's going to ram through a massive tax increase without a public vote. Oh, and we haven't even gotten beyond the friendly confines of Seattle.
P.S. No progress so far on my Jessica Biel project either, but I'll let you know.
#61, I have actually posted extensively about global warming.
I think that by passing RTID, we are mainly making commutes less annoying to already well developed (and in many cases, urbanizing) areas. In addition, we are getting those cars through the freeway faster, therefore spending less time with idling engines.
None of the carbon increase estimates takes into account what will happen if places along the light rail line start building up, with transit oriented development and urban infill. This is already happening along the current line, so why is this being ignored?
Based on national trends in urban planning and city building, I don't see this trend of building urban infill, more compact neighborhoods, and transit oriented development stopping, even if we open up some choke points on freeways.
I would support congestion pricing though, but nothing besides bridge tolling before we get rapid transit (light rail) in place.
Man if London didn't have it's rail systems....
We should get rid of all the cars and plant tomatoes and asparagus on the freeways so no one has to drive ever. Just catch salmon from the Sound, eat the blackberries and tomatoes and asparagus.
We should get rid of buses too and light rail and any kind of motorized transit. Everyone should get a free bicycle and free walking shoes and a good umbrella.
All meetings can be conducted over the internet, including state legislative meetings.
The worst thing for global warming is airline flights so we should definitely stop all airline flights. Let’s close down the airport immediately and stop the trains.
People should wear more sweaters. We should subsidize sweaters for people so we can turn down the heat. And people should keep the lights off except for a few hours a day.
We should stop all the trade because those cargo ships spew out tons and tons of carbon dioxide. The only thing that should be allowed in on those ships is the tomatoes and asparagus seeds, the computers and equipment needed for our internet meetings, our free bicycles, walking shoes and umbrellas and maybe a little fishing line to catch the salmon.
Cale:
Todd Litman, Victoria Transport Policy Institute:
"Bear in mind, Sounder already provides that service, at great cost to taxpayers."
winfield: if you step ouside your Seattle bubble for a second, you can find out just how wrong you - and whomever wrote that column for Ron Sims - really are. Sounder serves Tacoma (soon S Tacoma and Lakewood), Puyallup, Sumner, Auburn, Kent, Tukwila and Seattle. The light rail extension will connect Tacoma, Fife, Federal Way, Des Moines, SeaTac, Tukwila and Seattle. Think you got two right, thinking transit riders ride from end to end - Seattle - Tacoma? Ok, then, take a break from your self-imposed ignorance and ride that Sounder train one day. Only a small portion of the ridership travels from end-to-end.
Same will be true for light rail extension. The bulk of that ridership will come from inbetween. Still confused, winfield? Hop on one of Ron Sims' lame buses at the point of origin. If you ride the route to its end point, I can almost guarantee you not a single one of your fellow original passengres will still be along for the ride. If you're STILL confused, go to Google maps and figure out for yourself (and for Ron Sims) that Sumner and Federal Way - are, indeed, two separate cities.
"And then the capper: “Hundreds if not thousands have told me it’s time to stop arguing and start working.” That is exactly the same pitch monorail used to sell itself to voters."
Uh, that's exactly the message Ron Sims had in 2004, when rolled out HIS OWN Roads and Transit Plan: 53% pavement, 47% non-pavement. And if youb want to talk monorail, keep in mind a large portion of the anti-light rail forces allying themselves with Sierra Club were former foaming monorail activists. Kemper Freeman's pavaement caucus was also gung-ho for monorail. Now, these childish sour grape eaters finally see their chance to "get even" with The Man, who killed their Green Line. Ask Will in Seattle.
"It is not more important to add light rail to Tacoma (or build a half-billion dollar light rail tunnel under downtown Bellevue for Kemper Freeman, Jr.) than it is to fully fund SR 520 or repair the pavement of I-5 through Seattle"
Of couse that's just a talking point about 520. What the Sierra Club liars won't tell you is that they are pushing to leave 520 as-is, slap bigtime tolls, and replace 2 of 4 general purpose lanes with HOV lanes. They really believe their congestion pricing plan will make this crazy idea possible.
Nobody who makes this statement "520 isn't fully funded" can actually ever back it up.
Not to mention there is no "Kemper Freeman tunnel" for light rail in Bellevue, and that I-5 paving was paid for by the last gas tax increase.
Note to Sierra Clubbers: if you want to tilt at windmills, that's your right. But do you really need to lie and makes stuff up to get your point across? When I read your members repeating tired urban myths, you sound like callers to the Rush Limbaugh show.
"Some have argued that those highways are inevitable whether or not RTID passes. But this ignores evidence from beautiful countries around the world, especially in Europe, where much higher population densities are served by much less highway than we have here. "
Bad example, scotto. Your naivite is showing again. Car ownership is way up in Europe, and the EU is building new freeways across remote lands as we speak. Plus, your idiotic "punish the middle class for Seattle's light rail" theory might work if we actually HAD a European-style mass transit system to give people options once congestion pricing kicks all the poor people off the roads. Sims' dumb "Plan B" explicitly cites this as a problem. In other words, Sims needs Prop 1 to take effect, if he wants his proposal to work. Details, details...
@66: Jessica is either joking or a member of the Sierra Club board of directors.
"I would support congestion pricing though, but nothing besides bridge tolling before we get rapid transit (light rail) in place."
I'm with you there, Cale. But don't scare off the clueless Sierra Clubbers with basic facts and realities like this one.
If Ron Sims had bothered to read his own Congestion Pricing report, he would have noticed the consultants he hired came up with THE EXACT SAME CONCLUSION: if you want to make Sims' "bold" plan work, you need an effective mass transit system in place FIRST.
Oops, right?
Again, don't bother these anti's with the details...it hurts their little heads.
Since lefty opponents to Roads and Transit (pumped up with anti-transit right wing money) have decided to take Ron Sims' idiotic critique of light rail hook, line and sinker - and since these clowns never seem to want to leave their Seattle echo chamber - why not tune in the radio traffic reports right now.
It's 10:30 on a tuesday morning, and the travel time from Federal Way to Seattle is one hour and thirty five minutes. The HOV lane for those "rapid" buses is now a parking lot.
Yet Sims and the Sierra Club think Federal Way doesn't need light rail? Imagine what that trip could look like in 15 years!
One last truism to leave you with: light rail trains don't crash into eachother the second it starts raining. Buses, cars and trucks do. But I'm sure pavement-hugging Sierra Clubbers believe congestion pricing will solve that little problem, too.
Cressona - um, hate to wake you up with more facts, but none of the ST2 we're talking about in the bad RTID/ST2 plan is "subway". You need to get out more.
Blake99 - no one said we don't eventually want light rail - we just said it's dumb to vote for new highways that choke the planet and the ST2 vote will come back in Feb 08.
And, no, I don't have to talk with the Gov on it, I remember interviewing her for a few PACs back when she ran for Attorney General and then for Governor later - and talking with her many times in between.
NYTimes 10/2/07: Arctic Melt Unnerves the Experts
The Arctic ice cap shrank so much this summer that waves briefly lapped along two long-imagined Arctic shipping routes, the Northwest Passage over Canada and the Northern Sea Route over Russia.
Over all, the floating ice dwindled to an extent unparalleled in a century or more, by several estimates.
“So I wouldn’t sign any shipping contracts for the next 5 to 10 years, but maybe the next 20 to 30.”
Let's see ST2 will GHG neutral about 25 years from now - that should help stop the ice from melting.
If these "environmental" RTID/ST2 supporters would just say that this is NOT about GW and reducing GHG then at least they would be being honest.
#72, you neglected to mention that the ice shelf around antarctica has actually been INCREASING in recent decades. for reference, read the rest of that article.
the point is we don't know what is causing global warming, but we are doing what we can to stop it. most scientists think that humans probably are contributing significantly, but it could just be an amplification of a natural process.
meanwhile in seattle...
we need a transportation infrastructure upgrade!
and will, no it's not subway (from uw-stadium to roosevelt actually it is, but that's ok), but it is grade separated.
#67, people have known that about automobile oriented development for many years now. development patterns have changed. we have new principles in urban design that are both better for the natural environment and the built environment- new urbanism, transit-oriented development, pedestrian oriented development and urban infill are the way of the next 20-30 years. we aren't building roads to subsidize sprawl, we are trying to ameliorate congestion while accomodating a reasonable amount of growth.
Will in Seattle @71:
The sad, funny thing about most of my fellow former monorail supporters is that they've always been light rail opponents. They would always go on and on about light rail's fatal flaw, that it's not grade-separated.
Now, ST2 is costed out as grade-separated, aside from the I-90 crossing where it doesn't matter. So you would think that these monorail supporters now would suddenly be gung ho for light rail. But no, instead they find some other excuse to oppose it.
Why is this? Because for these people, their cause has as little to do with grade separation as it does with global warming. Hey, you gotta find something to protest.
Unlike Will in Seattle here, at least most of those monorail supporters didn't campaign for and vote for a new, expanded viaduct. And at least they didn't then make the bizarre claim that they were actually supporting surface+transit all along. (Actually, in a twisted way, this may be totally consistent. I'm sure Cary Moon was relieved not to have Will in Seattle here as her spokesperson.)
Anyone else notice the "pro" side on SLOG is becoming pretty shrill about this? I mean look at it - personal attacks on top of personal attacks.
#76, the con side is doing the exact same thing...
welcome to teh internet mah friend.
and nobody is forcing you to read this debate.
@ 76—you’re right. Then again, have some sympathy: how would you feel if you had, say, five enviro groups no one’s ever heard of on your side, and the one enviro group everyone’s heard of was on the other side….wouldn’t it suck to be you?
tired of the screechers @76 -- "personal attacks on top of personal attacks." I suppose by this standard, calling someone out for flip-flopping or hypocrisy or demagoguery or brazen and bizarre inconsistency constitutes a personal attack.
I mean, can you understand why these Sierra Clubbers keep saying they want to save light rail and then, when Ron Sims writes the kind of anti-light piece you would expect from Kemper Freeman, they all stand up and cheer? This is one of the conundrums (conundra?) of this campaign. Perhaps you have an explanation?...
The more I read the opinions of ST2/RTID opponents, the more I realize they're living in a Seattle bubble and have no idea how the majority of people in this region live or even who they are. Instead, they trade in stereotypes that are a generation out of date.
For one thing, they seem to assume that the 405 corridor is an empty wasteland devoid of potential transit riders and prone to additional sprawl. The reality is that the entire corridor has already succumbed to sprawl and there's nowhere else to sprawl. The sprawl of the last 25 years is being transformed into denser urban development. There are hundreds of thousands of Eastsiders that want rail. The rail supporters outside the city almost certainly outnumber rail supporters in the city, and might very well outnumber the population of the entire city when you consider that Seattle is only one third of King County and one sixth of the region's population. The new people moving in will largely be moving in to these already developed areas that are rapidly urbanizing. If recent trends follow, many of these people will be former transit riders of the cities they once lived in, as many of the newer Eastside residents are. These are not the white flight anti-transit suburbanites of the 1970s.
This reality all argues for regional light rail, going to places like Bellevue and Redmond and Kirkland, and yes, even Lynnwood and Federal Way. That will give alternative for existing and new residents of the established suburbs. The new sprawling suburbs further out are where we have to worry about road projects, and if you look at RTID they're really aren't that many of these. The Cross-Base Highway is the only horribly bad project in the lot, and it's underfunded and probably won't happen. These are the projects on which an honest opposition to Prop 1 would be based, but that's not a political winner and so the opponents lie and obfuscate instead. The reality is that the relatively small amount of truly bad projects is worth the upside of 50 miles of good regional rail.
Oh, and as for the no vote? The signs I see popping up say something like "double taxes for NO traffic relief." To people living outside the Sierra Club bubble, this is being pitched as a bad plan because it's got too much transit and not enough roads. If it goes down thanks to the self-destructive revolt of the people in the bubble, the impression to most voters is going to be that it was an anti-transit no. Just look at all the signs. On the other hand, this gives me hope that this part of the debate is mostly happening outside of the attention of most typical voters, and the current slim yes majority will hold on.
"Aaron Toso, spokesman for the Yes campaign, says the new transit will spark a shift toward transit-oriented development"
This whole scheme is designed to transfer wealth from poor and middle class families to commercial property developers.
It will "spark a shift" alright - of money from those who can't afford it to those who don't need more of it.
Snorewellian seems to think development is always a bad thing. Developers build housing. Without 50 miles of light rail they will continue to build housing that is auto dependent. With light rail we have the opportunity to build over 20 dense, walkable, livable communities throughout the Puget Sound region.
Each of these is likely to be more affordable than 70% single family zoned Seattle or condos for the rich in Belltown. Working class people will benefit from 50 miles of light rail.
JR at # 69 - Yes I am on the Sierra Club Board of Directors. I am the grand poobah actually.
And, I am having a secret affair with Ronnie (but don't tell the Pepper).
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).