2008 More on Rossi’s Fishy Numbers
posted by on May 1 at 11:08 AM
As I wrote this week, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi’s transportation plan doesn’t just suffer from a lack of local, regional, and statewide political support; it’s also based on numbers that range from wildly optimistic to totally nuts. Among the examples I cited in my story:
Rossi estimates his eight-lane 520 bridge would cost $3.3 billion, or less than Gov. Christine Gregoire’s proposed six-lane 520 replacement—a number he arrived at by taking Gregoire’s estimate for a six-lane bridge and just assuming construction would happen faster.
He predicts a cut-and-cover “tunnel lite”—the so-called “surface/hybrid” tunnel that Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels proposed in early 2007—would cost just $2.7 billion. That’s $700 million less than Nickels’s own estimate, which was widely regarded as optimistic—and subsequently rejected by the state transportation department as unsafe.
And he estimates that the controversial Cross Base Highway in Pierce County (omitted from last year’s rejected roads and transit plan after lengthy negotiation) could be built for a new, low price of $252 million—down, inexplicably, from the state’s own estimate of $318 million.
After my story went to press, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) sent me the numbers on other aspects of Rossi’s plan. Not surprisingly, they’re equally or more fantastical than the big-ticket items I talked about in this week’s paper:
• Rossi estimates that improving US Highway 2 in east Snohomish County—including new passing and turn lanes and a new two-lane highway around Monroe—would cost $600 million. WSDOT’s own estimate for its US 2 Route Development Plan: $1.2 to $1.8 billion.
• Rossi’s estimate for extending SR 509 to I-5 and providing a new, direct access to Sea-Tac Airport is $818 million—WSDOT’s own estimate for the same project, meanwhile, is a much higher $1.35 billion.
• The candidate’s estimate for connecting SR 167 to the Port of Tacoma, similarly, is right around $1 billion—just half of WSDOT’s own estimate of $2 billion.
• Finally, Rossi anticipates that nearly the entire cost of a new bridge across the Columbia River—estimated by WSDOT at between $3.1 and $4.2 billion—will come from unspecified “matching funds” from Oregon, “potential money from the federal government” and “additional state funds.” Rossi’s plan would provide just $870 million.
Where is Rossi coming up with these numbers? His plan doesn’t say. Nor does it say what he’ll do when his lowball estimates prove to have been wildly optimistic—not surprising from a candidate who’s so comfortable with doublespeak he refers to a roads-only transportation plan as a “progressive” system of “transportation choices” to “get Washington moving.”
Rossi's confidence that he can break his seven-race winless streak is tempered by greater realism
You can watch him race Sunday at Mulleady's in Interbay or Smarty Pants in Georgetown on Wednesday night, btw.Rossi is a snake-oil salesman of the worst type, he has no real policy beyond a desire to create an environment in which he and his cronies can milk the state budget for their own profit.
Rossi is about the only actor on the transportation scene who makes ECB look reasonable by comparison.
Unfortunately, there is real evidence that promising people something for nothing, something you can't possibly deliver, is a winning strategy.
I voted for Gregoire the first time, but I am on the fence this time. You bash Rossi as though Gregoire has done any better during her reign as mayor. She has done nothing for the 4 years she has been in office, traffic is worse, the economy is worse. Under Gregoire, a 9 1/2 cent gas tax was added for the viaduct, the 520, and roads in general, and nothing has been done.
Why does the Stranger even create an endorsement issue, when we just know you will always endorse the democrats. Give independent voters like myself a little more respect. Not everything depends on the gay vote.
Red Bushies like Rossi always forget to stop lying.
That's their problem.
Want a gas tax cut so oil firms can rake in excess profits (Econ 101)? Clinton and McCain will give you one - and the money will stay in the oil barons pockets, as it always does.
(caveat - I own direct shares and mutual funds in oil and other energy companies)
(oh and if you want poll numbers, look at the front page, above the fold, of the Wall Street Journal today - "Support for Republicans Falls, but Race for President is Tight")
Nobody wants Red Bushies anymore.
@5 Gregroire is the Governor of Washington State not the mayor of anything. You've got to get the facts straight to make a persuasive argument.
C'mon folks, you're just not thinking "outside the box" far enough to get Rossi's genius.
You see, ALL of the items on his agenda COULD be built, and for the amounts indicated - if we just use non-union and immigrant labor, purchase substandard materials, and eliminate the expensive and time-conumsing process of bidding out the jobs.
When you factor in things like those - and why would anyone figure that a red-blooded GOPer like Rossi HASN'T? - then the numbers make complete sense.
Honestly at this point I don't give a sh!t how it gets done, but we NEED additional lanes up and down I-405 and across 520 from Interstate to Interstate.
At this point I just want the crap done. Make it happen. Scrap any other transit plan until those places get addressed first. They are the worst bottlenecks in the region. No extra busses, no BS about light rail cutting across or taking up valuable time/money/design to get done.
Just give me 200 more lane miles between Renton, Kirkland and over to Montlake.
Enough.
RC @ 10-- what are you talking about? I drive 405 and 520 regularly and have never encountered any congestion. Period. My secret? I don't drive them during rush hour. I use them during the 16+ hours of the day when they are free-flowing.
Before we go charging ahead on such new lanes, we should all remember that they will be added merely to accommodate rush-hour commuters, most of them in SOVs. I hope someone (not Rossi!) figures out the cost-per-motorist-served of these added lanes -- I expect the numbers will make light rail look cheap.
It's easy - just pay 1950 wages.
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