Well, The Stranger Election Board, The Sierra Club, Tim Eyman & Dino Rossi, The Seattle Times, KVI & Right Wing Talk Radio, SoundPolitics and the Anti-Infrastructure crowd made a strange bunch of bed-fellows and, together, they defeated 50 miles of light rail. Actually, they shot it in the back of the head.

I understood the concern about the growth in roads, I truly did. While I was an unapologetic supporter of RTID, I did have lingering doubts about the amount of roads we were going to be building. But, like Dan Savage told the Sierra Club last night, "I didn’t care if they paved all those new roads with baby mice, I wanted 50 miles of light rail."

The perfect storm was created, and so goes 50 miles of light rail which we won't ever get back in one package. And, in a nutshell, that was my greatest fear... what I predicted in the comment section of my last entry would happen if it failed:

"You can bet that if Prop 1 fails, it will take 3-7 years for another Proposition to surface and you can also bet that it will have far less light rail up for vote as the interpretation the pols will get from a failure of Prop 1 won't be "think big" but "think calculated risk"

I was concerned that RTID would fail, but I wasn't prepared for the outright slaughter it endured. "Think Calculated Risk" looks like the bright side now. A slight loss would perhaps made the Pols think that, if only they split RTID into a light rail vote and a road vote, they could have passed the light rail section (with all the loud environmental uproar over the roads not being a factor this time). And, while I think that's still true - that a light rail proposition could definitely win a broad support of voters in 2008 - the daunting numbers of last night scare the Pols shitless now. And now, here comes the Seattle Times Danny Westneat to tell them what to think about the results of a massive RTID loss in his editorial today:

So I say forget it. Forget the big fixes and the megaprojects. Forget extending light rail, or any new freeways.

It's time to think smaller. Much smaller...

Big new stuff? Forget it. It costs too much. And there's too little trust.

Speaking of trust, Sound Transit should just go away and finish building its line from downtown to the airport that's now 80 percent done. After it opens, two years from now, then maybe we can talk about building more.

So, to the pro-light rail, anti-prop 1 crowd, the onus is now on you. This sort of thinking should scare you to no end, and this is what you're up against now. You got us into this mess. You helped create a perfect storm. I was willing to compromise for 50 Damn Miles of Light Rail but that wasn't good enough. So now, you are the ones that have the biggest reason to step up to the plate. What is the way forward? Please, speak up.

Related Links
Slog - A Little Good News On Election Night (Nov 7, 2007)
The Seattle Times - Danny Westneat Editorial - After 15 votes, let's think smaller (Nov 7, 2007)