Comments on HorsesAss to Sierra Club: Suck It!

Awww.

Did we hoit poor widdle Goldy's feewings?

Tough.

We translated messages into what voters cared about, and quite frankly, the only real shift was in the areas where Sierra Club has a lot of members.

The anti-tax people were always there, and they were always going to vote against it.

So, to Goldy, I advise you follow your own advice ...

Will - methinks you didn't read the poll - people didn't vote against it because of the freakin Sierra Club or its supporters. All you did was taint the debate, and stop me from seeing real mass transit in my lifetime. Congrats, ass.

I can't wait to start gloating over the far better transit package that is going to pass now that Prop 1 is dead. It isn't so much that you won't see transit in your lifetime; you'll see it, but you won't be able to ride without me there, in your face, gloating at you. Every time you try to get on a train, you'll be mocked and ridiculed in the most cruel way.

Almost to the point of unfairness, but you deserve it.

Hell, why should I wait? I think I'll start gloating how. It feels so good to be me.

Sierra Club is quickly becoming the local Ralph Nader. Way to go progressives! More cars and fewer options for the next several decades! But you'll at least have your moral superiority to keep you company.

man soreloserman or what.

I saw the same thing at the progressive thingma-blog - what statistics horseshit! whether or not enviro was at the bottom of the list or not has nothing to do with the fact that a key swing group of somewhere around 4-5% voted against Prop 1 and tipped the scales. Maybe next time when it comes time to count votes, people will be making sure SC is on the stakeholders list.

But, but I thought ECB and Josh reported that a poll showed that it was all because of GW and the Stranger. These polls shouldn't be reported by the media they are what the buyers want them to be and used that way. Polls should not be done by public agencies anyway. The way our government should work is the elected representatives should be able to reflect public sentiment and if not they should be voted out. The problem with ST is that they aren't put on the board by the people.

As a fellow Prop. 1 supporter, I'm way past where Goldy @ Horse's Ass is now. Yeah, history probably will show that the Sierra Club is the local Ralph Nader. But what's the point now in saying it? I'm not sure tossing blame around for Prop. 1's defeat accomplishes anything.

What does need to be accomplished ASAP is for the environmental community to present a unified front against any continued attempts by the state legislature to meddle with Sound Transit. That includes preventing Sound Transit from going to the ballot on its own in 2008 (if Sound Transit so wishes). Even worse, that includes the sort of governance reform that would perpetually put Sound Transit at the mercy of roads projects, i.e. a sort of permanent Prop. 1.

Of course, when I talk about the need for the environmental community presenting a unified front, I'm talking about a reconciliation between the Sierra Club and the various environmental groups that supported Prop. 1. This raises the dual question, though, how much does the Sierra Club really want to reconcile; how much does the Sierra Club really want more light rail? It was hard not to notice during the campaign that, while the Sierra Club's mesasge was, "Don't hang the roads albatross around Sound Transit," the Sierra Club leadership's support for light rail was very lukewarm. Is there some sort of King County-only Sound Transit 2 package that would garner the support of Mike O'Brien, Tim Gould, and gang?

There's a window of time before the legislature goes back into regular session in January when we really need to hear from these guys as to Plan B.

Agree with having elections and greater accountability. And wish that ST would have been clearer about costs and benefits.

But here Prop.1 was the result of nonaccountability -- legislators from Walla Walla and whatnot telling us here in Puget Sound to tie the roads to the transit. Sadly, we don't get to vote them out for making this mistake because we here don't vote on legislators statewide.

The Moore Information/EMC survey has lots of info both pro and con for transit. The summary (page 2) says the survey shows 65% support for adding light rail and express bus service. This left out funding. On funding, 51% supported a car tab tax.
This confirms what the Sierra Club poll said: transit only coudl win with the right funding. The sales tax is a killer.

So .. we should come back with a transit only vote in 2008.

Plus reconfigure the rail plan to pick up that BNSF right of way on the East Side (rail from Renton to Bellevue is more efficient than widening 405) and have some way to hook up West Seattle, Seattle Center and Ballard (trams, monorail, sky train, light rail, whatever. You can't have a rapid transit system that leaves out half of Seattle). Reaching far-flung Mill Creek and Fife and such is notthe priority.

The key is to show an integrated system with multiple lines that go pretty much everywhere in the densest parts of our region.

Cleve @8:

So .. we should come back with a transit only vote in 2008.

Plus reconfigure the rail plan to...

Cleve, I need to put you on the spot here.

Suppose Sound Transit came back to the ballot without any reconfiguration. Suppose they produced a King County-only ballot measure with just the King County portion of Sound Transit 2. Would you support that?

Likely or possibly I would support that or be a critical supporter. And that's a suggestion to consider. BUT...

ST needs to be responsive to the concerns raised by some pro rail no voters that the ST2 lines as proposed in Prop. 1 went to low density areas, and there did not seem to be an overall plan that made sense. (As well as concerns about lack of accountability, and other concerns too numerous to mention here).

In other words, make it better, don't just chop it off at the County line.

The prospects for what you propose would be greatly enhanced if it were part of a plan that showed voters in Ballard, W. Seattle, Kirkland and Renton that there will be an integrated system that reaches them, that does not leave out half of Seattle, that "looks like" the transit maps from other cities where they have multiple lines that pretty much cover the urban core and that are accessible to most folks in the taxing district.

I would be concerned that what you propose would not do that and would leave out half of Seattle and would leave low hanging fruit out of the plan (such as connections to Renton, Southcenter and Kirkland when we basically have the right of way available).

Very much agree that there should be dialogue on all these issues and we should not take a time out for the holidays.

I read the poll, @2.

I was even POLLED!

Wish they guy polling me could have pronounced half of the words in the poll. I remember the order of the questions and how they avoided certain possible answers ...

And I stand by my statement: were it not for the Sierra Club actions and translations of messages that people in Seattle actually care about, the result would have been different, after the typical MSM whitewash we get around here.

Cleve has some good points on this issue @10, of course.

and, @9, a transit only ST2 without the RTID package would be supported. And I'd vote for it. I'm sure Cleve would too. Even if it's flawed with that segment from Sea-Tac to Tacoma that makes no sense at this point.

Cressona,

Is there a light plan at any price using any tax that you wouldn't support?

The current plans including drilling through Capitol Hill with only one stop using a huge amount of energy and money makes little sense. Building on a bridge that will have used half its life before the train rolls makes little sense. Serving low density areas before serving dense areas make little sense.

But I don't think anything matters to you except building something on tracks.

ST2 was a plan basically developed in the 50s without the realization of energy independence and GW. It is as outdated a model as building huge freeways. The GMA is way to big to accomplish the density needed to reduce GHG in a meaningful way.

@13: There are a number of good reasons for tunneling under Capitol Hill. The Hill is a stop between two more important destinations, UW and the bus tunnel, both of which are underground. Light rail has to have a pretty shallow grade, and Capitol Hill is, you know, hilly. Also, the area's so dense and property values are not going down, so the aerial right-of-way would be a royal bitch to buy up. Further, the Capitol Hill station is a cut-and-cover box structure, which is much cheaper to build than the shaft-mined Beacon Hill station.

Ya'll are kidding yourselves about the mythical support that will come from not tying roads to transit. Look at the stats--"too much transit" outpointed "global warming" by 14 POINTS as a reason NOT to vote for Prop 1. It even beat out "too much roads" by 6%.

Focusing all efforts on meeting the requirements of the global warming zealots to try to win over "the 4 to 5%" swing voters who make this their primary issue is a recipe for failure. If the electorate believes the deal is too expensive and that the agency has no credible accountability in place--it's going to fail, no matter how environmentally perfect it is.

You still here cressona? I could have sworn you vowed to leave this podunk burgh the moment Prop 1 failed to pass.

Guess that vote wasn't the earth-shattering, life-changing, you-people-are-full-of-crap-and-I'm-so-out-of-here event you made it out to be, now was it?

Thanks, Goldy. I'm not even being sarcastic. Thanks.

Always good to see that Cleve and whatever--former monorail foamers--haven't given up on their hatred of ST. That partially elected monorail board provided some great oversight didn't they?

You need to understand that ST has subarea equity--money raised in each region stays in that region. Number one priority for North King must be to get to Northgate. This is the project with by far the most ridership.

Perhaps we in Seattle should look at a separate tax to task ST with building rail to Ballard, West Seattle, etc. if we want to expand the rail system in Seattle. Oh yeah--the incompetents at the monorail fucked that up for years to come. Too bad.

BTW--if you take Capitol Hill and the U District out of Seattle's density figures you will find that the rest of the city is not much more dense than Federal Way.

Population densities along the main corridors
Everett - 3,106.7/sq mi
Lynnwood - 4,430.2/sq mi
Seattle - 6,901/sq mi
Des Moines - 4,616.5/sq mi
Federal Way - 3,959.4/sq mi
Tacoma - 3,984.2/sq mi
Bellevue - 3,807.3/sq mi
Redmond - 1,274.3/sq mi

"I can't wait to start gloating over the far better transit package that is going to pass now that Prop 1 is dead."

By "much better package" elenchos means "a lot less fast and reliable light rail" and "a lot more diesel buses stuck in traffic." Great way to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. Wow - sure gives him something to gloat about.

"The prospects for what you propose would be greatly enhanced if it were part of a plan that showed voters in Ballard, W. Seattle, Kirkland and Renton that there will be an integrated system that reaches them, that does not leave out half of Seattle"

Geez, Cleve. You're proposing a plan 4x bigger than the one the voters just rejected. Seattle / North King does not have the tax capacity to pay for all this rail to cover for the ex-Green Line. Unless, of course you're just talking about dumping a bunch more buses on the street.

"This confirms what the Sierra Club poll said: transit only coudl win with the right funding. The sales tax is a killer."

Yeah, too bad it's the only tax ST has available to them. When Peter Sherwin was acting all buddy-buddy with Tim Eyman as they were coordinating 776 with the Monorail vote in 2002, giving your monorail project soul proprietorship of the mvet, it pretty much sealed the sales tax in stone as the only source for future high capacity / grade-separated transit in this region.

And thanks to the Sierra Club, for joining hands with anti-tax/anti-transit right wingers to make sure the funding source for light rail became "a killer."

"The current plans including drilling through Capitol Hill with only one stop using a huge amount of energy and money makes little sense."

And whatever's plan is...what exactly? How do you serve over 100,000 daily boardings from downtown-capitol hill-uw-northgate, then?

And how do you do that using energy independence as a standard? Is it in the water around here, or what...ever....

I hope the Stranger Kids will hold the anti-Prop 1 transit advocatres accountable to their promise to support a transit-only measure in 2008.

Voter turnout will be 2x what it was in 2007. If Hillary or some other Dem wins next year, 2010 will be the backlash year like 1994 was (remember that?). If we're going to get serious transit funded, 2008 is the year to do it.

The geniuses in Olympia are already making noises about heading ST off again to protect their re-election chances, despite the fact that 56% of the people in that poll are demanding action to address the transportation situation in the region. Are we going to get something done or not?

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