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Along with the million other words being written on this topic, we at Seattlest thought it was a good time to share some of our thinking on the Roads and Transit bill we're going to have the chance to vote on this November.
The crux is this: Voters in the greater Puget Sound region are being asked to approve almost $11 billion for a 50-mile expansion of light rail and $7 billion on highways around the region. To get one we have to approve the other and lately, it seems, tying the two together could end up being transit's death knell (let's face it, roads will be paid for whether or not we vote for them).
While deciding whether or not to vote for the whole package, we've been wrestling with one of the major reasons transit-loving voters have been given to kill Prop. 1: If we do, there's no cause for concern, transit will come back to the ballot next year, alone.
The reason the two were first put together was that each would help the other get passed. Although the combined measure is getting the approval of voters in early polls, it's also turning out that a lot of people who support mass transit also hate global warming and think that the impact of new roads (and the cars that travel on them) will offset any environmental gains of new light rail in the region so they want us to vote against Prop. 1.
Seattlest isn't necessarily sure that the amount of roads in this case will offset the environmental gains of the mass transit (we're waiting for a study that is due out to soon from a local group that we trust to help us make this call), but we do know that roads are always going to get money. The question to us seems to be, "Will transit get paid for anyway?"
Aaron Toso, the spokesman for the Yes campaign told us it's likely that if this measure fails, "transit dollars will go to critical highway projects."
We've watched enough political battles in Seattle to know that predictions about the future of a massive civic project should not be made. Even when the voters said no to spending the money we still got Safeco Field and when we said yes to the monorail four times, it still got killed. So how can anyone argue that voting against a project now will drive law makers to put it on the ballot again, on its own, in a few months?
Sandeep Kaushik, who is working with the Yes folks and has a long history in Seattle politics, told us, "It's a pipe dream that it would be on the ballot again next year." In fact, he went on to say that if the package dies, he thinks a lot of the blame will fall on the transit half of the package.
When we asked him to look forward a couple of years and predict the possibility of transit coming up for a vote on its own in 2009, Kaushik said that it would be unlikely that we'd see another ballot initiative to expand light rail before 2010. Three years from now, according to a Sound Transit spokesman, the cost for 50 more miles of light rail will increase by at least $1.5 billion. Spending $10.8 billion for transit now gets about 49 percent of the vote. Will spending $12.3 billion make passing the expansion more palatable?
Kaushik is obviously not going to tell us that getting a new measure on the ballot will be easy. It's his job to get this one passed, but he's got a good point. Just getting this roads and transit measure on the ballot took a lot of political wrangling and effort. Getting a transit measure on the ballot, this time without roads, after a defeat at the polls in 2007, would take even more political will. That will seems to be lacking around these parts.
Take King County Executive Ron Sims. He doesn't seem too inspired to get a transit-only initiative on the ballot in 2008 as Josh Feit pointed out on the Slog this weekend. If someone who has historically been one of the region's biggest supporters of mass transit has suddenly changed his mind, is he really going to push to get it on the ballot next year? If he doesn't, who will? The Sierra Club? Can they get enough people behind a transit expansion, or will they even try?
Seattlest has yet to make up its mind on how we're going to vote, and whether or not we'll get this kind of chance to expand light rail again is an important question to answer. The thought of voting for more roads makes us a little sick to our stomachs, but not expanding light rail makes us even sicker. After all, we don't want good to be the enemy of perfect.
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This really is a heartbreaker. You summed up my feelings in your final paragraph.
Also, I heard Ronny-boy is urging no now because it greatly effects his Metro Empire.
Yeah, I can't figure this one out, either. I'm not even dead-set against the polar-bear-killing roads, for that matter -- it just bothers me that a) it's a huge amount of money, and b) it only partially pays for them. Meanwhile, the road maintenance burden only increases. Yet, "Vote Yes" were practically Walt Crowley's dying words. It's a conundrum.
I kind of want to see how Sound Transit 1 turns out before approving ST2.
The first light rail project overpromised and underdelivered. When people complained, they said "read the fine print sucka"
And I'm still bitter about the monorail.
Troy, I've heard the same thing and tend to agree, to a point. I think it also has to do with Ron's next political steps. I think he may not want to seem either wishy-washy by not advocating a position either way or too green by backing transit. He wants to be a friend to both business and enviros as he plots his run for his next office (whatever that may be).
MvB, Like I said, roads always get paid for. They'll find the money to finish them somehow.
guest commenter, ST1 is doing a helluva job. Look around. They've got rail laid through the RV, out near the airport and the bus tunnel opened on time.
As for what they "over promised," I understand your bitterness, but after it's all been said and done, I think they handled the problems well.
When we passed ST1 in 1996 (after first rejecting it in 1995), we were told it would go from UW to south of the airport and, if possible, all the way north to Northgate. When the cost estimates were revealed to be "extremely wanting" in their accuracy, the Northgate bit was canceled and the accounting system fixed. They're now an open honest organization (financially) and on track to open ST1 from downtown to Seatac in 09 as planned and are pretty sure that they will be breaking ground to the U District as a part of ST1 next year (they're waiting for a grant from the Feds).
Considering that we passed ST1 in 1996, and it is opening 13 years later, waiting to see what it's like when it is up and running will mean not voting on it till late 2010. I can't imagine that we'll get 50 miles at that point considering how much that'll cost.
I really do think the time is now.
I wish Seattle would stop trying to vote for the "Perfect Solution" for transit and take these kinds of opportunities when they come up.
Part of the reason I voted for the monorail was that I assumed that if it was passed as a mandate from the voters, government would then *have* to make it work. Turns out it can just outright fail.
So why try to get these things in all one shot, when you can vote to expand light rail by 50 miles and move the ball forward a few yards?
The rate this "everything at once" strategy is going, 50 miles of light rail will be built and in use while the purists are still debating hypotheticals.
Charles, sure *roads* get always get paid for. But if their costs aren't covered in the plan, that means the money comes from somewhere else. And that somewhere else is what? So there's an invisible opportunity cost here, because something (not sure what) is going to get shorted when those roads need to be paid for.
I'll hold my nose and vote "yes" (politics does make strange bedfellows!). I figure in a few years when gas is $5 or $6 per gallon the new roads won't matter so much -- people will simply have to change their lifestyles out of economic necessity.
guest #2, I agree with you, but I'd say the 50-mile expansion is moving the ball forward more than a few yards. It's more light rail than all of Portland's system combined.
The tone of the post is quite defeatist, and at odds with history. Roads don't always get built. U.S. history, and Washington history, are full of highways that did not get built. Additional freeways through Seattle died in the 1950's, "605" through east Snohomish, King and Pierce counties remained no more than a pipe dream, and a highway around Mt. St. Helens, was killed by the defeat of R-51. These roads are like the monsters in a bad horror flick, you have to keep killing them, but it is just plain wrong to say that we can't stop bad highways. We've even managed to start taking out some of the worst ones, the Central and Embarcadero freeways in San Francisco, West Side highway in NY, a highway through Seoul, Korea, and, maybe if we are really lucky, the Alaska Way Viaduct.
The fact is that the road advocates are the desperate ones, clinging on to Sound Transit like a drowning man. It is really quite cynical the way they think they can get Seattle voters to support roads that couldn't get support on their own. Walt Crowley was right that the highway builders days are coming to an end. Defeat of RTID will hasten that process.
As for climate change,we have already seen what respected experts say about the climate impacts of new roads. They fill up with cars, and induce more traffic. Check out the Victoria Transportation Institute, or Smart Growth America websites. The Urban Land Institute just put out a study that says you cannot beat global warming with a continuing rise in vehicle miles traveled because more cars will swamp efficiency gains. Puget Sound Regional Council says that vehicle miles traveled in this region will increase by 45% by 2030, even factoring in the positive effects of light rail. 80% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 require a very significant shift in how we accomplish transportation. Jay Inslee is right to name his global warming efforts the "Apollo Alliance" because we need the type of concerted effort that got us to the moon to turn the tide on global warming. Business as usual just won't put us on the pace to reduce emissions the way we need to. In "Inconvenient Truth" Al Gore told us that this is no time for "soothing half measures." Boy did he predict it -- that is exactly what we are being sold with this joint ballot measure. That somehow the light rail justifies more climate changing highways. We can, and must, do better.