Comments on Prop. 1: Environmentalists vs. Environmentalists

Wow, video... Information overload there...

So really, Sierra Club rest assured, I've decided my figurative vote goes No...

What kills me is that here in Seattle, supposedly one of the most liberal bastions of this country, we don't even take global warming seriously. Oh sure, we talk all the time about how concerned we are, but when it comes down to creating a transportation plan the best we can come up with is a watered down half-measure. How are we supposed to expect the rest of the country to get serious about reducing carbon emissions if even we can't?

There's also an endorsement for Prop. 1 from the P-I editorial board.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/337555_prop1ed.html

And an exhortation to vote 'no' from Scott Preston:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/337561_noonroads01.html

Hi Seattle:
Prop. 1 contains $7 billion in highway expansion. Plus the other $3.4 b for 520 -- that makes it a commitment to spend $10 billion for road expansion.

The likely 520 design (adding two lanes) will look like what DOT proposes for a new Viaduct -- concrete on stteroids. The width will be three times wider and the whole roadway will be raised up off the pontoons one story. So it will be way taller, too.

You could get an HOV lane just by restriping the current lanes.

You could deter unnecessary driving through congestion pricing and tolls -- this would raise money for a replacement or transit that way.

This is better than taxing yourselves to create a huge CVO2-'n' sprawl subsidy through massive highway expansion.

Seattle, you are supposed to be green.
How could you do this to us?

@4: Cool, let's not replace the 520 bridge. It's been there, like, forever, so it'll be fine, right? And we'll cut it down to one general-purpose lane and one HOV lane each way, just for added fun. Oh, and it will still have no shoulders or stormwater treatment... that'll be great.

You know, we'd listen to the polar bears more often if they had a fucking clue.

I'm voting no just because of the shitty tie in of roads and transit. If anyone is to blame it's our fucktard legislature for putting forth such an asinine proposal. They should have been two separate proposals. Tie-ins like this bullshit are Eyeman-esque.

@4: Prop 1 contains 50 miles of light rail connecting major population centers, including the 3rd largest city in the state with the largest one. Without that light rail, people aren't going to have choices other than sitting in traffic and they will sit in heavy congestion with their vehicles spewing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere as they stop and go.

And it's not just Seattle we're talking about here - we have the opportunity to influence an entire region and set a course for a greener future.

You're an ostrich, not a polar bear.

The best Seattle can do to erase their CO2 emissions still wouldn't be enough to save the polar bears, mainly because the thousands of others cities in hundreds of other countries still pollute, and heavily.

So the actual relevant question is... do you want to sit in impassible gridlock? The polar bears are already dead no matter what you prefer.

Forgive me for the possible alliteration abuse, but I've come to believe in something I'll call the Puget Sound Political Perpetual Motion Machine. It works like this:

Every time a new mass transit measure appears on the ballot in our region, some opponents say, "Vote this down and we can get something better in a year or two." So heeding the opponents, the voters vote the measure down.

Then two years – or 10 years – later, another mass transit measure appears on the ballot. It may be better than the previous one, though chances are it's worse. And some opponents say, "Vote this down and we can get something better in a year or two." So heeding the opponents, the voters vote the measure down.

Then two years – or 10 years – later, another transit measure appears on the ballot…

Well, you get the picture. I'm sure there's some classic logical fallacy at work here, but I don't know which. But I will say, this is a great example of renewable energy at work. Renewable political energy?

@9: It lets Westside elitists feel superior to those damned suburbanites. How DARE they want more roads for themselves? How DARE they not want to pay for light rail? Don't they CARE about the POLAR BEARS? They're just so short-sighted... they should vote against the certain deal in front of us now so that we can maybe, possibly, hopefully get a better one in the near-but-unspecified future...

You are wrong.
the ONLY rail project you have ever built in modern Seattle was passed because IT HAD NO ROADS OR DOT FUNDING IN IT and it was 100% TRANSIT FUNDING and it had been REWORKED AFTER A PRIOR RAIL PROPOSAL FAILEED TO PASS THE YEAR BEFORE.

SO don't rewrite history and leave out what actually worked.

There are many things you guys need to do to tackle the climate crisis. Spending $10 billion on road expansion is not one of them.

I'd made an observation a while ago that the Sierra Club's opposition to Prop. 1 has nothing to do with global warming and has everything to do with group identity politics, fighting the establishment, fighting change. Global warming is just their cause du jour. The more I've followed this campaign, the more confirmation I've seen of that observation.

The local left's opposition to Prop. 1 on the basis that it will increase GHG emissions is such a cartoonish, dishonest representation of our local impact on climate change that the simple fact it has received such attention only makes me all the less hopeful that society can ever willingly control its climate impact.

Climate change & condoms

To say that we should kill mass transit, our best alternative to fuel fossil dependence, on account of the corresponding roads' increasing GHG emissions is a bit like one pharmacy in Seattle deciding they're going to stop selling condoms in hopes of reducing the rate of non-procreation-related sexual intercourse. Not only that, though, but to put the climate change burden entirely on driving and not on other activities that contribute just as much (like flying and diet) is a bit like that pharmacy deciding they're only going to stop selling Trojan condoms in the hopes of reducing the sex rate, but they're not going to stop selling other brands of condom.

The Sierra Club's global warming argument is itself an indication that these are people who have not even begun to seriously think about global warming. But we should have already known that. Most, if not all, of the Sierra Club leaders live in single-family homes themselves. They want to deny a lifestyle choice to others that they themselves want to keep for themselves.

To see self-important, vapid, hypocritical windbags like Michael McGinn present themselves as serious thinkers in fighting climate change is like seeing Lou Dobbs present himself as a serious thinker on globalization.

The polar bear's true symbolism

The polar bear is a great symbol for their cause because it shows just how shallow their appreciation of global warming really is. Global warming isn't a "Save the Whales" kinda thing. It's a "Save Human Civilization" kinda thing. I realize when I say that, I'm overstating the case.

But check the latest Rolling Stone (the one with Bruce Springsteen on the cover). There's an interview with James Lovelock, the scientist who introduced the concept of Gaia, that earth is a living, self-adjusting organism. Lovelock would laugh at the idea that we should be concerned about global warming on account of polar bears. And he would laugh at the Sierra Club's putting their delusional idea of our impact on climate change ahead of trying to build our region's bulwarks against the impacts of climate change.

@4 - you said about 520:

"You could get an HOV lane just by restriping the current lanes."

This statement shows two things:
a) you've never actually driven on the 520 bridge before, and
b) you're fucking delusional.

@4,10,11 &C

The City of Seattle doesn't have the population, the tax base or the political will to pay for its own rapid transit. That's the basic problem here.

That problem is actually correcting itself. Condo conversions are increasing the tax base dramatically. The new condo/apartment glut, which will be bad for real estate investors over the next 10 years or so, will also ultimately serve to increase the tax base of the city proper. Expand the dense urban core, reduce the area of low-density housing, and expand the tax base. Do that for 10 years and we might have the money and the will to pay for our own mass transit.

Meanwhile, the energy costs associated with personal transit will continue to increase and it's only really a matter of time before suburban residents start demanding the services they're refusing to pay for now.

Oh, my brain hurts. I keep thinking I know how I'm going to vote, and then I read or see one more thing and I'm confused and undecided all over again.

@5 - the problem is that the GOP-created bill that has us voting on RTID/ST2 in fact does not fix the 520 bridge.

It doesn't even have half of the funding for it.

And it does nothing for 98 percent of the critical bridges below a rating of 50 in the Puget Sound.

Just say no and demand a clean ST2.1 vote in 2008.

Cressona -
"And he would laugh at the Sierra Club's putting their delusional idea of our impact on climate change ahead of trying to build our region's bulwarks against the impacts of climate change."

So how does this multi billion dollar project build our bulwarks against the impacts?

Just say no and demand a clean ST2.1 vote in 2008.

Okay, Will. Who should we demand it from, exactly? Our elected officials? And suppose they don't come through for us. Should we vote them out of office? Should we vote them out of office in favor of someone who supports our "clean ST2.1" but who has to make up for that by supporting other positions we're opposed to, like developing closer to watersheds or reducing social spending?

You say "demand it," but you don't say how or even pretend to address the implications of what you're saying. Until you do, it's pretty hard to take you seriously.

@18

You're saying we should compromise on this so we don't have to compromise on something else? That's a really bad argument.

Also, denigrating other people's intelligence while making such a bad argument is a little unbecoming.

You can see a higher resolution version of the spot here:

http://nortid.org/media/NoRTID_video.html

@19

To be fair, it's not actually my argument. It's Alexander Hamilton's. This is how democracy works: you have to compromise in order to get things done. A candidate who supports a pure rail transit package will lose the support of a certain number of progressive voters who support the progressive agenda on other fronts but who don't like transit spending. Unless the situation changes drastically enough to realign the interest of the voters, the support that is lost by being "pure" on transit will have to be made up from somewhere else, or the candidate simply won't be elected. So the candidate will have to appeal to developers or social conservatives or someone else we don't like to get the votes he or she lost by going whole hog on transit.

As far as being "a little unbecoming", I'll worry about that if I plan to ask you out on a date. Otherwise, it's not really on my list of concerns.

So stupid, 15 million tons of emissions over 30 years. We do more than 70 million tons each year just in the county, and in America we do 6 billion tons each year. 15 million tons over 50 years is essentially nothing.

@19:

Yes, that's exactly it. OF COURSE the next thing will be a compromise. There's no other way anything ever ever gets done. It's called politics...you know, "the art of the compromise."

One of the most annoying things about living on the W. Coast is all this "participatory democracy," i.e., the referendums, the propositions, etc. etc. Politicians, for all the horrid things they turn themselves into, at least understand that in order to get anything done, there must be a compromise. Amateur citizen politicians (that is, voters) don't understand this. Particularly when they're being whipped into a frenzy by the urban vs. suburban or wastoid vs. green binary thought bludgeon being wielded by the likes of The Stranger.

I can't find it on their site, but Sightline did an analysis of Transit Now which you all loved so damn much and it was going to increase emmissions by 6 million tons.

15 million tons isn't shit.

Polar bear, you're voting against prop 1 because of 520 roads expansion? Do you realise that WSDOT spends more than prop. 1's value on roads every 2 years?

Look it up.

@16: Yes, Will, Prop. 1 only provides part of the money for a 520 replacement. That's because the rest of the funding is supposed to come from state and federal money, and tolls. I don't think voters in the three-county area should bear the full cost of the replacement, do you?

If Prop. 1 fails, then no money from the three-county area goes toward the bridge replacement. That's not exactly an improvement.

And those other bridges in Puget Sound? Existing taxes are supposed to pay for them, or do you think we should regularly pass new tax measures to catch up on our regular maintenance?

Andrew are you saying both parts of P1 add GHG? Certainly for some period of time that would be true for ST2. And the increase of GHG is relatively small but if the idea is that we locally as part of the world need to work towards reducing GHG then it seems less than reasonable to spend so much doing nothing. Or if as Cressona indicates there is no hope then we should be getting ready for the changes, higher sea levels, smaller snow packs, etc.

Oops Transit Now not ST2.

The idea that Roads and Transit involved compromises is a joke. It is a huge increas of sales taxes - which the lower stratum of our community pays far too much of already.

If it were to be paid for by income taxes or user fees - that would be a compromise. As it is the politicians just took the path of no resistance: a plan to increase sales taxes massively.

Do not F*CK your less-well-off neighbors: vote no.

No more roads..... gheezuz you people that want more roads; never satisfied are you? It's all about YOUR needs! Well what about MY needs. Leave Roads ALONE! What have roads ever done to YOU? Leave roads alone......

@21 - I get it now. You don't understand Alexander Hamilton or how to construct an argument.

The problem is that you started by saying that, if we don't accept the compromise inherent in Prop. 1, we will have to make bigger and more damning compromises lately.

We'll ignore for a second your silly premise that other compromises won't be worse than Prop. 1 (an environmentally unfriendly package funded by taxing poor people... yuck); the bigger problem is your assumption that Prop. 1 will fail because of conservative opposition.

If Prop. 1 goes down it'll be by a small margin comprised of conservative opposition to taxes and progressive opposition to a bad plan. Prop. 1 supporters have convinced themselves that the only way to get a transportation package was to load it up with roads, but the numbers don't support that.

Yes, we can elect candidates who support "pure" transit and who don't make huge concessions elsewhere - that's why your argument was bad.

@26 said "Yes, Will, Prop. 1 only provides part of the money for a 520 replacement. That's because the rest of the funding is supposed to come from state and federal money, and tolls. I don't think voters in the three-county area should bear the full cost of the replacement, do you?"

It's a State Highway. It's a State Bridge.

And there have been no literal contracts saying we would get one cent of the remaining 60 percent of funding for the 520 bridge replacement.

None.

So it's imaginary money.

Come back when you have the funding and we'll talk.

You don't understand Alexander Hamilton or how to construct an argument.

Actually, I just mistook my attribution. It's Madison's Federalist Papers (10 and 51) though Hamilton's pitch for the electoral college addresses some of the same issues.

you started by saying that, if we don't accept the compromise inherent in Prop. 1, we will have to make bigger and more damning compromises lately

Yeah, except you know what? I never said that. Maybe the reason my arguments seem so bad to you is that you don't understand them.

Prop. 1 supporters have convinced themselves that the only way to get a transportation package was to load it up with roads, but the numbers don't support that.

Which numbers, exactly?

Yes, we can elect candidates who support "pure" transit and who don't make huge concessions elsewhere.

Hey, you know what? That'd be great if it was true. But you have yet to demonstrate, anywhere, that it is true. You're asserting it pretty vigorously, but you're not giving me any proof.

So which is it, Will: Too much money, or not enough?