City Sound Transit: On the Ballot This Year
posted by on July 17 at 16:40 PM
That’s sure what it looks like, anyway, as Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon, a longtime holdout on going forward with light-rail expansion in 2008 , has endorsed a new 15-year plan that would extend light rail to Lynnwood, Federal Way, and Redmond. Although the plan only needed 12 “yea” votes to pass, Reardon’s support was considered crucial because without him, none of the board’s Snohomish County members would be on board with the plan, a bad political situation for Sound Transit if it wants to win votes in Snohomish County. Now that Reardon has signed on, his fellow Snohomish County ST board member Deanna Dawson—who works for Reardon in her day job—will undoubtedly support the package, as will Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, who told me recently that he was just waiting for Reardon to say he backed the proposal before throwing his own support behind it. That gives the new, $9 billion 2008 ballot measure at least 14 and probably 15 votes, with only King County Executive Ron Sims, Everett City Council Member Paul Roberts, and state transportation secretary Paula Hammond expected to vote “no.”
The board is expected to vote on July 24.
fucking awesome
How the world turns. The Stranger, former skeptics of Sound Transit, get religion and become true believers. Ron Sims, former true believer, sees the light and becomes a skeptic.
Never hurts to have a recorded public vote at a time when people are screaming for blood because they can't afford to drive their cars and want transit now ...
Charlie the choo-choo- says call in the KING crew and let Mr. Barlow know they'll all get their " blood " sucked out by the over- and under factoring cost overruns and eventual skim complaints and followe-up Tim Eyeman stories.
By the way, ECB, does your own personal conversion have anything to do with where you recently moved?
That's not what ladenburg told me. He said he would be the 15th "yes" vote, but not the 14th.
If he wants to win on the state level, he'd better get over himself, @6.
The thing is, they won't even have vote unless he votes yes.
How much tax would ST take from us in the North King Subarea, and what is the cost of the infrastructure and service we would receive if we vote yes?
What JesseJB @1 said.
I feel the board found the sweet spot between timeframe and project scope. If stretching things out from 12 years to 15 years is the price to be paid for light rail to reach Lynnwood, then that's a deal worth making.
I'm sure the critics are going to start claiming that we won't see any of the light rail in ST2 for another 15 years, so I'd be curious which portions of ST2 will be up and running before then.
Oh, and speaking as a supporter-at-the-time of the bloated beast that was Proposition One... If this thing passes this year, I'll be happy to eat crow over that thing last year. (I guess that makes me a flip-flopper.)
I could have sworn reading that an ST2 2008 will have the Sierra Club's backing. That accurate?
Well one thing for sure, as supporters of Prop. 1 noted last fall, there was no "Plan B" fallback position. They had to work hard to build one, the Plan B, and it finally looks like it's come together. Let's keep our fingers crossed until next Thursday.
This is a better deal than Prop. 1, and I didn't think it would pull together.
We shouldn't count our chickens yet, or any time until after a successful vote in November, but I'm preparing to eat crow if it means we can pass this thing.
With the reduced gas taxes coming in, it's a good thing we didn't vote for all those new roads in Prop 1.
And, with the price of gasoline, we can look forward to very high ridership of the transit being built.
Will @ 7--the irony of you telling anyone to get over himself astounds me. Ladenburg is running against Rob McKenna. McKenna is an anti-choice, transit-hating, very conservative man who was a disaster on the county council. He is just the kind of apple pie guy that plans to polish his resume for eight years in the public service AG post and then run for governor in 2012 after Rossi loses again. You have to go after guys like him while they are young. He is already in line to be boy wonder for the R's--he just knows that this isn't his cycle to move up.
Cressona @ 10--the Sierra Club testified last week in front of the ST board and supported the 15 year plan. They turned out in force to encourage the board to move forward. I am hopeful that they will continue to be as active in telling people to vote yes this time as they were in telling people to vote no last time.
ST2 comes at a crucial moment. This region is going to grow by millions. We must decide now to invest in transit. If ST puts this on the ballot this election and loses, we won't see a vote for years. If you care about our transit future you have to work to make sure ST2 passes this year.
Thank God the council finally got their act together. I was very worried this wasn't going to happen until next year, or the year after...
This is a good plan, and it's not attached to roads. Everybody please help on this one. Ron Sims, if you talk about how the sales tax is a regressive way to pay for transit I swear to God I will pimp-slap you.
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