Politics Thank God We Live in a Two-Newspaper Town
posted by on July 2 at 14:26 PM
Because if I didn’t have both the Times and P-I, I wouldn’t have seen this credulous AP story about Tim Eyman’s “congestion relief” initiative TWICE.
The AP reports that Eyman’s initiative “aims to smooth traffic jams and head off open-ended tolls on state road projects” by sending “portions of the money flowing from vehicle sales taxes, certain tolls, red-light cameras and other state transportation projects into a ‘Reduce Traffic Congestion Account.’”
What the AP report doesn’t tell you is that Eyman’s initiative would take approximately $127 million a year out of the state’s already-tapped-out general fund. That means $127 million less every year for health care and education, which together make up 80 percent of the state’s general-fund expenditures.
The story, which appears to have just one source (Eyman) manages to pack in three references to the initiative’s miraculous ability to “ease traffic jams,” but fails to mention several other salient facts about Eyman’s proposal:
• It would open up carpool lanes to all traffic except weekdays between 6 and 9 a.m. and 3 and 6 p.m. Because “rush hours” now last most of the day, that will mean more traffic congestion (and less carpooling). It will also make transit, which relies on HOV lanes, much less reliable than it already is.
• Far from “heading off open-ended tolls,” it would restrict the use of tolls to building roads. In fact, the explicit purposes of Eyman’s “Reduce Traffic Congestion Account” is “expanding road capacity and general purpose use.”
• It also contains new restrictions on the use of money from red-light cameras, siphoning those funds into Eyman’s road-building account as well.
• And it bans tolls on I-90—a virtual guarantee that tolls on 520 won’t work, and that traffic will back up on the “free” cross-lake bridge.
What does this have to do with tits?
What's really awesome is if you try to get Timmy to answer and legitimate questions about I-985, he starts raving about "Magic Bullets" to mystically fix all our problems, (without a shred of evidence to back it up other than his precious Mr. Sonntag's opinions which don't count as evidence anyway,) and bitching about how people attack him all the time.
What a sick, sad little man he is. Why do people keep listening to his lies?
My apologies for any typos or run-on sentences in the above.
If anyone gets a chance to talk to Tim Eyman, can they ask if he knows of one single example of anybody anywhere reducing traffic congestion? Because I think his answer would have to be "no". As far as I can tell, Tim Eyman is not aware of one single city that was able to make traffic congestion go down. He does know of places that have implemented all the things in his initiative, but none of them actually worked.
And if you do ask him that question, he starts to act funny. The more you ask it, the funnier he acts. Try it and tell me if you don't think he's acting funny. Good times.
A reporter-type person would ask Tim that question.
Don't you mean three newspaper town? Or was it one?
I can't wait to cancel your vote out on this.
I'll vote against anything Eyman gets on the ballot, but I'll organize and campaign against anyone running for election who votes for or favors tolling I-90.
I-90 is paid for. There is no evidence whatever, except maybe in ECB's little vacuum head, that a toll-free I-90 guarantees that "tolls on 520 won't work."
@6,
Spoken by someone who promises that people will drive out of the city just to avoid paying a 50 cent charge on grocery bags.
@4 his use of the word newspaper to describe those publications was strictly ironic.
"There is no organized opposition campaign."
No wonder their only source is Eyman.
To: Erica Barnett
From: Tim Eyman
With regard to tolling, I-985 says that tolls on a project cannot be diverted to the state's general fund or other non-project spending -- such tolls must remain dedicated to the project the toll is paying for.
In New Jersey, Governor Corzine proposed tripling tolls on the Turnpike, bonding the toll revenue, and using it to cover his state's $32 billion general fund deficit. I-985 makes sure that such diversions of toll revenue are illegal.
I-985 doesn't prevent them from imposing a toll on I-90, that's inaccurate. It just prevents them from diverting the I-90 toll revenue to non-I-90 project spending.
In other words, I-985 prevents politicians from imposing tolls but then having them function as taxes, where they can be imposed on anyone and spent on anything.
http://www.ReduceCongestion.org
@10
Sounds reasonable to me.
You know, if they sign the contracts before Nov. 5th, our state CONSTITUTION does no permit an initiative from affecting an existing contract.
So Timmy can go suck wind.
In Albania.
@10
In other words I-985 preventing the tolls being used on transit spending. Dork.
Speaking of credulous, I don't know where this "bans I-90 tolls" thing came from. There's nothing like that in the initiative.
ECB, maybe you could tell us where in the initiative text we can find that bit. elenchos and I looked for it last time you made this claim and couldn't find it.
It's nice to see Erica admit, if only implicitly, that currently net cash flow goes from roads (gas tax, tolls, etc.) to other projects (transit, general fund, etc.), not the other way around. You hear so much bellayching from people like her about how we "subsidize roads" that you get the impression they actually believe that poppycock.
@14
Tolls on I-90 are being talked about to pay for transit projects. See retarded Timmy's comment @10. Viola, speshul neads student Timmeh's initiative would ban such tolls on I-90. Also, please step in front of a bus.
@15 Federal Highway Administration, Washington State Dept. of Transportation, Senate Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, etc, etc, etc. Paid for by general tax dollars and gas taxes.
QED roads and highways paid for with taxes, in other words subsidized by the American and Washington state taxpayers. Tolls and gas taxes are supplemental to the cash coming out of the general funds.
If the contract is already signed, Timmy's yet again unconstitutional initiative will have never begun ...
Hope the bank forecloses.
Cue Timmy getting on SLOG to complain about how everyone attacks him because we're all so caraaaazaay in 3...2...
Osama tim Eyman, supporting global terrorism since 1998.
NaFun @17 says: "Tolls and gas taxes are supplemental to the cash coming out of the general funds."
Wikipedia says: "Tax revenues directed to the HTF are derived from excise taxes on highway motor fuel and truck related taxes on truck tires, sales of trucks and trailers, and heavy vehicle use."
Sorry, NaFun, but reality trumps ideology. Federal highway spending is covered entirely by roads revenue. The same is true at the state level, if you care to look up the budget reports at WA DOT. (I have done this, and referenced in previous discussions).
What I want to know is this: Are you really confused about this? Or do you just hope that, if you obfuscate and repeat often, enough confused people will believe you?
"Also, please step in front of a bus."
I hope you were talking to Timmeh and not me :(.
Timmeh Eyman, there are many places in our fine nation where you might feel more at home that trapped here in Washington with all us crazy Seattleites. Reno, Sioux Falls, Bishop CA, Tallahassee, Colorado Springs, Waco, Topeka, Roanoke VA, Wichita, Abilene, Oklahoma City, Plano, and Provo are just a few suggestions. Please do choose one and take your loony inishutives with you. You wouldn't have to bother the rest of us with your nonsense, and your idiotic ideals will be right at home. You obviously hate it here because you keep trying to change everything. Go where you will be happy and leave the rest of us be. Thanks.
We've pushed 16 initiatives, managed to get 11 on the ballot (I-985 is the 11th), and voters have approved 8 so far (I-985 will be the 9th). Voters clearly agree with the reforms we're offering, so moving isn't necessary - voters like our ideas. if they didn't, no one would be signing our petitions and our initiatives wouldn't be consistently approved.
http://www.ReduceCongestion.org
david,
it's not just money most are concerned with (though i am surprised to hear that all roads are and have been funded entirely by roads revenue). it's also the environmental toll -- and the true cost of the roads. even if the money comes from regressive road revenues, there is also pollution, sprawl, etc... we subsidize these with our quality of life, and may have to pay in actual dollars soon enough. just because we choose automobiles as the primary mode of transportation years ago doesn't mean that is the best choice to propagate today. the true cost of roads should be higher to account for the real cost of using them.
Hey Tim Eyman, since you're back on the Slog, can you tell me if you have yet discovered on instance of anybody reducing congestion?
Or conversely, if this thing were to pass, and it failed to reduce congestion at all, as history teaches us, what then? Will there be any accountability for that? Will your supporters stop deluding themselves?
You really have to think hard about how many decades Americans have tried everything to make car traffic move, and it hasn't ever worked. So like, if there were one more go-around of the same old attempts to reduce congestion, and once again, total failure, will that finally convince people to change?
Where does light synchronization work? It sure as hell doesn't work in Phoenix. With people trying to pace each other to match the light sync, you end up with clumping (like cat litter) and then a crowd of people at the next red.
As Tim saps more and more revenue from the state, he leaves a sorry legacy that is easily blamed on the person holding the purse strings, i.e. the party in charge.
$127 Million, Tim. Are you going to mortgage your McMansion for that?
Are you ready to battle Ron Sims when you screw up his BRT? Slaaaaaaap fiiiiiight!
"Thank God We Live in a Two-Newspaper Town" and thank god you won't find a job at either one of them. You're sophomore year, dear. And spunky just don't cut it when you're 37.
My bus doesn't need to go any slower than it currently does, thanks. Leave the HOV lanes alone.
Mea Culpa. Gas and tire taxes do pay for the majority of the Federal Interstate Highway system. However, freeways are not where the majority of miles are driven:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/08martvt/08martvt.pdf (Fed. Hwy Admin Monthly Traffic Volume Trends Report).
Table 2 on Page 3 shows that only approx 20-25% of vehicle miles driven are on rural and urban interstates, with the rest on surface streets and arterials. We tax all gas use but spend the majority of those taxes on highways.
And w7ngman, I thought you were being intentionally obtuse in order to antagonize ECB. If you weren't, then I'm sorry.
Is the dispute over "banning tolls on I-90" the difference between saying you can't toll I-90 at all and saying you can but you can't spend the money on anything we need (making a toll on I-90 pointless)?
The economics of Eyman's claim that tolling one bridge but not the other will not divert some traffic to the untolled bridge is interesting. By "interesting" I mean "contradictory to common sense." Added cost does not influence choices people make?
#30, ECB is the one being obtuse. I don't like the initiative as much as the next person, but continually claiming that it is going to "ban" tolling on I-90 is just as credulous as the newspaper reporting.
@32
But you know that's not what she meant, right?
see elenchos @31
@24 Dear Timmeh,
Just because you keep managing to double-speak and outright lie to the people enough to get your ill formed and damaging initiatives on the ballot and then approved by those same people you fooled before doesn't mean you or anything you get passed is legitimate or a good idea in the least. It just means you are Seattle's most accomplished snake-oil salesman. Go choke on your 'Magic Bullet.'
If I-985 ever gets passed, I really can't wait to see it get overturned, just like most everything else you've tricked people into passing.
Actually, both times she posted that I went into the text of the initiative to look for any mention of 520 or I-90 at all and couldn't find anything.
I understand what she meant now. Why not just write that instead of disingenuously claiming that it "bans" tolling? No doubt she wrote that merely for shock value, to scare people away from the initiative, rather than describing it accurately and posing a cogent counter-argument.
I think you're right, w7ngman.
These initiatives are a nightmare to understand, with the pages of legalese and crossed-out lines referencing other laws (kind of why we have a legislature to do this work).
So you and I were searching the text for a mention of I-90, when ECB was talking about a consequence of one of the spending provisions. Not finding anything about I-90, her credibility was weakened and Eyman looked stronger. She should have been much more clear, since Tim Eyman's best weapon is ignorance of what you're signing and what you're voting for.
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