Robert Mak devoted yesterday's UpFront to the RTID/Sound Transit ballot measure. Highlights:
Environmentalist Emory Bundy describes Sound Transit's results to date as "pretty pathetic".
Independent transportation analyst Jim McIsaac says the total cost of the new rail package would reach $157 billion by mid-century, with typical household paying $872 annually.
Boondoggle campaign spokesman Jon Scholes was as convincing as a 15-year-old claiming the dog ate his homework when he answered McIsaac's analysis, claiming that Sound Transit's cost estimates were "conservative". (Sound familiar?)
Kemper Freeman says too few people would ever use light rail to justify the billions it would cost.
The report concludes with the latest KING-5/Survey USA poll results:
56% Oppose a 0.5% increase in sales tax to expand light rail.
65% Oppose an $80 increase in car license fee for road improvements
64% Do NOT feel they got their money's worth from the 1996 Sound Transit package. Go figure.
Our transportation "experts" need to get their priorities straight. The OBJECTIVE should be to move people and goods!
Posted by: Mike on September 17, 2007 10:03 AMMostly that is because of people that dismiss it voiciferously out of hand. Absolutely you can't decrease congestion (you can hold it in check though) without adding more pavement.
What we need to see is an immense master plan. Who cares what it costs. Something that adds real rail and bus alternatives but also adds some pavement.
In my opinion this is what Sound Transit, RTA, RTID is an attempt at. Getting the public to bite off a little bit at a time becasue the regional planners know that people like the hosts of this blog, KVI, KTTH, will go batshit if a real proposal is ever put forth.
Now I don't believe in unchecked programs, and I believe some very serious controls would need to be put in place (which weren't in Sound Transit's original charter) but let's get a plan and get it under way. Show the public what could actually be done.
Posted by: Mr. RcGuy on September 17, 2007 10:28 AMWe spent 8 million on a STUDY....WTF?
Personally, I won't vote, and will campaign against, any "regional" package that doesn't fix the mercer mess as part of the plan.
And what did the last 9.5 cent emergency get us so far??
I may not echo the majority, but I am damn sick and tired of anything with a train. They can take their fun little toy trains that are heavily subsidized and shove them up their.......
Obviously this whole transportation thing pisses me off.
Posted by: Chris on September 17, 2007 10:46 AMMeanwhile, overhead, a Portland Max train rolled by on an overpass, fluorescent lights on...and completely empty!
Yet, one of the reasons for the slow down was the highway was torn up -- building an extension to the rail system!
There you have it: government in action -- causing a well used highway to slow down and have jams, to build a lightrail that no one is riding.
Posted by: John Bailo on September 17, 2007 10:54 AMI never thought I would argue for RTID or Sound Transit. Shoot I've read the score card of how poor the iplimentation has been so far, but that is for us to resolve through elections. Right now the sheep in the mentioned tri-county area won't vote for anything different. They complain CONSTANTLY about how bad transportation is being managed yet they continually elect the same people. People that enable the massive overspending and lobby for less oversight. What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. That is how King County and the surrounding counties vote.
Posted by: Mr. RcGuy on September 17, 2007 10:58 AMI've said this for years now and I'll say it again: They want you out of your car. Period. Whenever you see something happening (or not happening) with our transportation system, you can reference it back to that. Since they control the horizontal and the vertical, they will make it as difficult as possible for you to own and operate a car until you capitulate in frustration. Everybody has their breaking point and they'll get to yours sooner or later.
The anti-automobile, anti-sprawl liberals and construction union special interests high jacked the issue decades ago and are now in control. The only bulwark against them is the voter who will vote to cut off the money supply. It happened to the Seattle monorail it can happen to this boondoggle.
Let me be clear, I am not necessarily against light rail or mass transit in general but the numbers here, by any measure (total, by mile, by rider, compared to similar, etc.), are astoundingly astronomically stupid. A perfect example of government out of control.
Logical, common sense solutions that fit our area, like those of Kemper Freeman and others, are lost in the din of liberal disinformation supported by the media here. There are so many more cost effective alternatives that haven't even been proposed or explored.
Is it just me, or have you already self-diagnosed?
Posted by: TB on September 17, 2007 11:26 AMThis is BS.
Votes on tax increases should always include the TOTAL taxes a project is expected to extract from the taxpayers - including bond repayments.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on September 17, 2007 11:34 AMThe more people know about the truth, the less likely they are to support the November ballot measure.
It is unsafe. It provides tens of billions too much new taxing authority to ST, and there is no outside oversight body that can take cost- or quality-control measures.
This is the mother of all terrible plans. It only partially-funds the big projects, political appointees only serve on the board, those appointees are provided with blank-check spending authority, all massive cost overruns would have to be covered by sales tax bailouts that families and individuals would need to pay, and the trains only would move a relatively tiny percentage of the population.
We deserve a far better, far safer plan.
Posted by: Coot on September 17, 2007 11:38 AMThe more people know about the truth, the less likely they are to support the November ballot measure.
It is unsafe. It provides tens of billions too much new taxing authority to ST, and there is no outside oversight body that can take cost- or quality-control measures.
This is the mother of all terrible plans. It only partially-funds the big projects, political appointees only serve on the board, those appointees are provided with blank-check spending authority, all massive cost overruns would have to be covered by sales tax bailouts that families and individuals would need to pay, and the trains only would move a relatively tiny percentage of the population.
We deserve a far better, far safer plan.
Posted by: Coot on September 17, 2007 11:39 AMI love the trains in NY, Tokyo, Bangkok, etc., but even if Seattle continues to grow rapidly, it will be many, many decades before we match their density.
Posted by: Bruce on September 17, 2007 11:41 AMAlso, I noticed on Mak's show that whenever the "Yes on big new taxes for transit" people were asked the hard questions about Sound Transit and the tax package, THEY WERE SLIPPERY and dodgy AND SPOUTED THE SAME WORDS THEY SPOUTED LAST TIME AROUND that ended up not being accurate or true. Very telling.
Lastly, if their original estimate of what this would cost and what we would get back in '96 was that far off, then why in the world would we think that this new tax would give us all the new stuff they are promising with it?? Answer: It surely WON'T, as sure as I'm sitting here typing; it won't. They will be back asking for even more money to finish it. The last 10 years and what they're trying to do to us now says it all.
Posted by: Michele on September 17, 2007 11:41 AMI am not frustrated by the fact that other trains work and ours don't. Population density is one matter to consider. The other problem that I have, and it is an immense one, is that I HAVE NOT SEEN ANYTHING WORTHWHILE COME FROM WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE (IE MY MONEY THAT WAS SPENT AND PROVEN TO BE A WASTE!!).
Until a plan is presented that actually FIXES, and I mean to truly fix something you need to tear it down and redo it, the f***ups that these f***ups have already brought us, I will have nothing to do with it.
You are correct however in defining this as insanity. I think that if you vote for these transit packages, you should receive a straight-jacket via return mail.
So, when does this end? I keep waiting to see a taxpayer revolt soon. Anyone up for one?
Posted by: Chris on September 17, 2007 12:10 PMThe CEO is also full of it....we'll make what we say now because i'm in charge. What has she done to prove that? Nothing. In 1996 the voters approved someting and we have half and are now being asked to pay more to get to what was promised and a little more.....I can't wait for 2015 when we have another vote to get what round two was supposed to do.
The 60% number on transit to is misleading....more like 70% will go to transit since they are using some ot remove roads. Ugh!
Posted by: Dengle on September 17, 2007 12:27 PMThat's irrelevant. You also can't ride on your house. The reason we should discuss cost in current dollars is that that's what people understand. Most people don't realize how little future dollars will be worth, so discussing them is as relevant as discussing the cost in yen or dinars.
Posted by: Bruce on September 17, 2007 12:28 PMYou wrote:
"Look at the trains, el's, and subways in the rest of the country and the world."
You appear to be overlooking the fact that the geography of Puget Sound is very different from those locations, and is, in fact, very unsuited to the development of a rail network.
Posted by: ewaggin on September 17, 2007 12:36 PMWe can spend billions on light rail to serve the few, or we can spend billions on roads, buses, and other modifications to the system that will serve many more people, and do so more effectively. The problem is that there are rail transit zealots that only have eyes for rail. They cannot fathom any other system or solution. And as such, they keep proposing the same brain dead rail ideas, regardless of their cost effectiveness, nor the data that shows little ridership in other cities of similar size, density and geography.
There's little doubt that rail works well in very dense urban environs like Tokyo and NYC, but those systems also have taken 50 to 100 years or more to build, and at enormous expense.
Likewise, there's little doubt that there is some use of Light Rail in cities like Portland and Atlanta, but the hard questions that the zealots don't ever want to hear, are "how effective?" and "at what opportunity cost?" We could use a combination of buses and roads to make system work without rail. And we could propose an entirely different rail scheme, where there were small feeder trains that lead from large parking lots near freeways into the more dense urban shopping and business districts. It might makes sense for example to have a very large parking lot / structure with dedicated on and off ramps to I-5, that acknowledged the pervasiveness of the automobile. Then there could be a small automated train that ferried people back and forth in to a very dense area like downtown. That would be a sensible use of trains, that acknowledged that if people only had to go a short distance back to their car, then they might really like to use those trains. There are many solutions, but they must fit both human nature, and the economic realities.
But instead, we see rail zealots propose the opposite attempting to phase out the car, when at best it is hundreds of billions of dollars and a 50 to 100 year proposition, and probably more so with all of the challenging geography in the Sound Region.
It's crazy, and it will never work because people don't respond well to negative incentives and cars are too cheap and useful for any serious numbers to consider abandoning their use.
But the rail zealots will press on, because they are guided by rhetoric and emotion of Progressivism, and not the rationality of good sound economics and common sense understanding of the real majority modes of transportation and human nature.
VOTE NO ON RTID/ST2.
Posted by: Jeff B. on September 17, 2007 12:49 PMThey also don't mention how this vote doesn't fully fund the 520 replacement, which will also require billions MORE tax dollars. Because the money's going to rail. Insanity.
Posted by: Palouse on September 17, 2007 01:06 PMRunning light rail over the I-90 bridge and eliminating HOV/express lanes is just plain stupid.
Express bus service from many points in Bellevue is great and could be drastically improved for pennies compared to the billions ST would spend.
Same can be said for the southend. Why on earth would anyone in Federal Way ride the train that will snake up Pac Hwy, stoping at the airport and then meander through the Rainier Vally when they can hop and express bus that gets on the newly-built HOV access ramp and be in town in 45 minutes???
If traffic worsens, increase the number of riders to three for HOV access, or work on building a real BRT system.
Rail is not the only answer.
Posted by: eric on September 17, 2007 01:14 PMObviously there is more than one reason. Crumby leadership and this crazy "no more pavement" attitude of those leaders. But bigger would be lack of planning for growth.
So is your suggestion to wait until we have a density as great as CA or NY or DC and then try to implement a system after the fact? That's slightly nuts. We are having a hard enough time getting any consensus on how to do it now.
Posted by: Mr. RcGuy on September 17, 2007 01:33 PMNothing could be farther from the truth. I am for a combination of systems that work, not any one system that is doomed to failure. My main point is that at some point we have to bite the bullet and do something that works. Vote. Vote yes or no, but vote.
Posted by: Mr. RcGuy on September 17, 2007 01:47 PMAnd these projects don't exist in a vacuum. While I'm far more willing to invest in public projects than most of the anti-tax crowd on this board, given the choice between, say, roads, buses, trains, schools, and social services, I think trains are by far the least cost-effective. I'd love to be proven wrong, because I think trains are cool.
Posted by: Bruce on September 17, 2007 01:53 PMNot here in Atlanta, they aren't.
Posted by: F451 on September 17, 2007 03:41 PMThe following is from the PI Soundoffs:
------------------------------------
"Keep Washington Rolling" is the PAC that is paying for part of the "pro" RTID/ST2 campaign.
The information below comes from the PDC website. Go to hera.pdc.wa.gov/wx/fieldsearch.asp. In the field "FILER NAME," type these words: keep wa rolling. Then click "send query." That will take you to a list of Keep Washington Rolling's PDC filings.
The form C3 filings show who the contributors are, and how much they've paid. The form A filings show whom that PAC pays with the money it gets.
The PAC-funders who benefit from these two local governments' taxing and spending practices fall into several categories:
Entities that Make Money Directly From ST/RTID Taxing and Spending
CH2M Hill Inc. $50K
Operating Engineers Local $50K
Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council $40K
Washington State Labor Council $35K
ACEC Washington $35K
Laborers' Northwest Cooperation $35K
PB (Parsons Brinkerhoff) Americas $30K
HNTB Corporation $30K
HDR Engineering $30K
Perteet Inc. $30K
Washington State Labor Council $25K
Wilder Construction Co. $25K
Builders United in Legislative $20K
PCL Construction $20K
Associated General Contractors of Wa. $20K
Architects and Engineers Legislative Council $15K
Woodworth and Co. $15K
Lakeside Industries $15K
K&L Gates PAC $10K
Iron Workers Dist. Council of Tacoma $10K
Washington St. Building and Construction Trades $7K
KBA Construction Management, Inc. $5K
ARUP North America LTD $5K
Seattle Building and Construction Trades $5K
Pierce Co. Building and Construction Trade $2.5K
IBEW Local 191 $1K
Renton Carpenters Union $1K
LADS Local #1144 Political Education $1K
IFPTE Local 17 $1K
AFCME Local 109E $500
Entities that Make Money From Real Estate Development and Sales
Wa Assoc. of Realtors $50K
NAIOP $50K
(trade association for commercial property developers and managers)
Weyerhaeuser $50K
Touchstone Corporation $10K
(commercial real estate developer)
Entities that Would Benefit from Infrastructure the RTID/ST2 Taxes Would Partially Fund
Microsoft Corporation $200K
Mariners $75K
Pemco Mutual Insurance Company $50K
Aerospace Machinists Indust. Dist $10K
Puget Sound Pilots $5K
-------------------------
See, it isn't ideology, or zealotry - the pushers of this RTID/ST2 measure are just the usual money grubbing interest groups that always want inefficient local governments in Washington.
Posted by: not_zealot on September 17, 2007 03:55 PMFurthermore, the current planned extension will REMOVE auto capacity from I90 - an insane proposition. We cannot allow such nonsense.
And I still can't find a bus to go from Renton to Bellevue Community College / Eastgate.
Posted by: Seabecker on September 17, 2007 04:21 PMI hope we don't have to learn that more lanes don't help congestion the hard way. I was just on the uncongested German Autobahn - it's two lanes each way. I-405 in LA goes as high as 7 lanes each way, and it's stopped. Guess what the Germans have? Trains.
I don't expect anyone here to pay attention to the fact that we have a flatter curve of density, measured from the center to edge of any given community, than an equivalently populated community in a place like Europe. It costs us more for infrastructure because we spread out too much - that's a lot of why our economy is taking a downturn. A good way to channel new development into compact corridors and prevent the *next* recession is to build rail.
We aren't any different from anyplace else, except that we have a monomodal transportation system that causes us really bad congestion. There's actually only one way to fix that, and that's to make our major transportation corridors multimodal.
Posted by: Ben Schiendelman on September 17, 2007 04:24 PMBy now, I would think that more of us would have figured out that providing light rail will not get the other guy to leave the roads to us, however much we might wish that to happen. Maybe by this fall a majority of the voters will have grasped that point.
Posted by: Jim MIller on September 17, 2007 04:38 PMThe reason light rail makes ZERO sense in Seattle is the one thing we cannot change - our geography. Why is the current light rail so expensive? Because it has to tunnel SO DEEP under Capital Hill. Because light rail cannot climb that grade.
BRT is the ONLY solution to mass transit that makes sense. No problem climbing the grades around here. No problem re-routing when there's a disaster (imagine an earthquake damaging the rail tunnel - it's closed down, so is your rail system). No problem adding or moving capacity as needed.
All those other placed around the world - yes Ben, including Germany - have a LOT less grade issues in their urban area. Where it starts to get to have a bit of grade (say, Baden Baden) they move to buses and leave rail.
Rail is the ultimate foible for Seattle. It doesn't meet our geographical needs, is way too inflexible as our city (just over 100 years old) is still growing and figuring out where to go, and does not allow reconfiguration when - not if - the next big earthquake happens.
Go for roads and add BRT. In low-traffic situations (like off-peak hours) you can open up the lanes to improve flow (like 405 after 7 PM). When traffic starts to get heavy, close down the BRT lane for buses only, and there's no impact.
The fact that you have a huge existing infrastructure in terms of park-and-rides, transit centers, and feeder lines (regular buses) is just a bonus.
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on September 17, 2007 05:23 PM1) "maybe $250 a year" in taxes. In your dreams. We pay much more than that now. And we get the least bang for the most buck. Hey, but we get art for our money too. Anyone like the fish at I-90 - 148th/156the exit? Lanes, no; salmon, yes!
2) "Guess what the Germans have? Trains." Yea. Trains that go 250 MPH, and can take someone from the equivalent of Ellensberg to Redmond in about the same time it takes to get from Sea Tac to Seattle. We'll soon have trains that will go 30MPH down the middle of Empire Way.
Posted by: Seabecker on September 17, 2007 05:24 PMHow does an agency do that and still have enough political life in it to go BACK to the ballot for more $$$?
Fool us once, shame on ST; fool us twice, shame on us. If the RAT tax passes, the message from voters will be 'the sky's the limit."
Posted by: russell garrard on September 17, 2007 07:35 PMHeh Gregoire! Where's that property tax control you promised us would be a first thing in your last session? My 300k home went to 722k in just the last 2 years alone.
30% increase in state spending
And they need more for Choo Choo's
Sorry Charlie, this tuna is out to sea!
Posted by: gs on September 17, 2007 07:37 PMBe afraid, be very afraid if that thing passes...
Posted by: KS on September 17, 2007 10:28 PM
That said, the TNB was probably still a bit overpriced, but that's mostly the reality of a large civil engineering project in today's litigious environment.
By the way, they don't go 250mph. They max out at 186. The French have the TGV Est at 200mph as of this June, and that's the fastest in Europe.
Edmonds Dan - buses stuck in traffic don't work as a mainline in a developed country. Sorry, this isn't Nigeria.
Posted by: Ben Schiendelman on September 18, 2007 08:46 AMWhich is why you have a BRT lane that's reconfigurable. When you need it to be reserved, it becomes reserved for buses only. No one else. The only traffic they'll see is other buses.
Trains at grade - like we're doing with light rail here - also get stuck in traffic. Ever watched the light rail in San Jose? Gets caught behind cars all the time - I see it regularly. Or worse, they tangle with cars which slows the entire system down for an hour. Or when we have a mudslide and the rail shuts down for 3 days...
Trains just don't make sense here. Our geography is radically different than Atlanta, LA, and most of the European countries. It's extremely hilly with high-grade hills. It's all North-South. And it has multiple fault lines. The closest city to Seattle would be SF, and BART serves about 2% of the population there.
You know, you want to take 2% of the cars off the road? It would be cheaper just to pay people to stay home. The interest on $20 billion dollars would pay 40,000 people the equivalent of $50,000 per year.
You want to help traffic? Rather than waste an incredible amount of money on a public works project that will not help the situation at all, just spend less and keep some people home.
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on September 18, 2007 09:09 AMOr to make all buses free, more frequent, and (where practical) faster.
Posted by: Bruce on September 18, 2007 04:57 PMSince farebox recovery is falling well below stated goals and Transit Now has raised the local sales taxes 3 tenths a percent for ZERO results, please be prepared to pay close to a full percent more for that particular proposal.
Posted by: Smokie on September 19, 2007 06:01 AMUh, 90 and 5 each only account for about 2% of cars. Perhaps we shouldn't have built them? 520 accounts for less than 2% of the traffic on the road, but we're going to spend BILLIONS just to replace two miles of it. Using your logic, that's insane.
You can't keep people home without hampering economic growth, and if you hamper economic growth, we start losing large businesses and the region spirals into recession.
Our geography, because it bottlenecks us, actually makes it *more* efficient for us to use rail - rail takes much less space to move many more people.
By the way, free buses don't get riders, because the riders don't feel that something that's free actually has value. It's been tried all over the world, to the same results - a lot of vagrants and teenagers force the professionals off the transit.
Posted by: Ben Schiendelman on September 19, 2007 05:29 PM