So now what do we do about it?

The Stranger and The Sierra Club promised that if you voted against Roads and Rails / Proposition 1, you would only be voting against expanding roads. They promised that the political class could look beyond the failure of R&R and see that a new coalition existed - a coalition which wanted to see a light rail only solution. They promised that a vote against Prop 1 was only the first step in a great expansion of light rail for the region. They promised the best of both worlds.

So, Proposition 1 / Roads & Rails failed. And then there was silence. The Stranger & The Sierra Club got all the greens, all the transit supporters and all the progressives in the city up in a frenzy, they voted against Prop 1, and then everyone went to sleep, quietly awaiting what the good liberal folks of The Stranger & The Sierra Club promised. Light rail was coming, it was only a matter of time.

Well, what lesson did the political class actually learn? No more light rail.. more buses! That's what...

Crosscut Seattle : Beyond Prop 1: A new consensus is emerging

A group headed by Norm Rice and John Stanton is gathering allies for a more rational and practical approach to the region's transit needs... a new consensus is emerging about a post-Prop 1 agenda.

It centers on moving aside turf-oriented, self-serving agencies such as Sound Transit and transferring power to a more objective, more responsive regional body... It would not stop light rail construction in place, but it would limit construction to a line running from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to either Convention Place, Husky Stadium, or Northgate.

Future funding would be focused more greatly on express bus, bus rapid transit, and normal bus service; dedicated transit lanes; HOV lanes; tolling; and selective repair and expansion of long neglected local roads and lifeline highways. Citywide trolleys definitely would not be part of the scheme.

No roads! No rails! Buses for all!

You can read about whether or not Ted Van Dyk (anti-rail author of the Crosscut article) is tilting the facts in articles at both The Slog and Northwest Progressive as well as arguements that what Stanton & Rice want to do is already blocked by some in the Legislature. But what isn't addressed is the fact that CW is now tilted against light rail, and The Sierra Club and (less importantly) The Stranger don't seem to feel they had anything to do with it.

The block of interest groups which killed 50 miles of light rail promised that they could get it back, and now the elder key-holders of Washington State seem poised to bring you buses instead.

I hate you, Sierra Club & The Stranger.

Ron Sims. Seriously. Ron Sims. WTF? Everyone is now quite familiar with Sims' opinion piece which ran in the Times on Sept 27th during the lead up to the RTID vote. A lot of people praised Sims for political courage, but how could you?

He's been a member of the Sound Transit board for a decade and perhaps has had more say about ST2's Light Rail expansion than anyone - only to come out at the last hour to call the plan "lackluster" and "inadequate". And the courage he exhibited? Where was it when he voted for the plan while he was on the ST Board?

Sims' environmental stance on voting against RTID was certainly understandable and commendable. But his decision to oppose RTID on the grounds of cost and time was hypocritical and a "Judas" moment that few have seen since Dylan went electric. The man who once said, "We're going to dig and dig and dig and dig, until the light-rail project gets to Bellevue, gets to Everett, gets to Tacoma" was now saying:

If approved, we will see the largest tax increase in state history... I look at this package with the knowledge that in 50 years, my oldest son will be 80 when it's paid off. My granddaughter will be 55. Their ability to make public investments relevant to their lives and times will be severely limited by this package... The benefits of this package are far from immediate... Even if on schedule, 60 percent of new light rail won't open until 2027. Light rail across Lake Washington is at least 14 years away. The Northgate extension is 11 years away.

On what planet does this guy live? Building an entire network of light rail to cover 50 miles is not only expensive but will take time. What cost and time frame was he thinking of when he made his now infamous "dig" quote? It was a total back stabbing moment against Sound Transit. An urging to vote no because of the environmental concerns would have kept ST in the clear, but bringing up concerns on cost and timetable only reinforce the false-concept that light rail is invariably too expensive and doesn't move enough people.

But Ron's got a solution for you. The man that worried that Light Rail would take too long, not move enough people and would be too expensive wants you to pay for 5 new Ferry routes.

Yes, they are relatively inexpensive (financed by a property tax of 5.5 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation or $22 for a $400,000 house) but for a region which is wondering what the public was telling them about taxes, long term planning and transit after the election, is this where Sims wants to take us? Ferries? Moving the relatively wealthy from waterfront properties to other waterfront properties.

I think it's worth it, personally, and I would be happy to pay for it if it actually moves people and decreases single-occupant car trips into the city. But I am concerned about what message this sends to voters. Mainly, "We don't know what we're doing, no one is running the show so let's throw out a million ideas to see what works". (Oh, and you have to pay for them all)

Nice job, Judas.

More fall out today... was it anti-tax or anti-road? That's the question. Erica Barnett Slog's yesterday that "pro-transit environmental voters who opposed Prop. 1 may have been decisive in its defeat" quoting exit polls taken by the Sierra Club. The commenter's on the Slog went to task on the Sierra Club's polling methods as the organization was crucial in killing RTID.

Here at BD, David comments that:

But what progressives need to worry about more, I think, is what looks like taxpayer fatigue that is more significant than we previously thought.

What's the truth? Well, like I said earlier in the week, the fact that there's even a question about what the results mean indicates that the "truth" will be decided by those that speak out now. After all, that's what politics in often about. Nuance never sells, just ask John Kerry. Skewed Sierra Club poll results? Who cares, honestly. We need to talk about it like it's the gospel truth. Why? Because, more often than not, conviction will overrule nuance. And that is what the battle is right now - the definition of the truth about the future mass transit in Western Washington, about what people are willing to pay for and what they think the solution is to traffic and mass transit in region.

I couldn't agree more with commenter "matthew fisher wilder" in Barnett's Slog entry when he says:

Well, anyway, Prop 1 didn't pass.

If this means more people will wake up and try to get more involved in making this happen -- meaning attending more public meetings and such -- then we might have a solution that's trimmer and would make people as happy.. The whole point of "FUCK YOU STRANGER. FUCK YOU SIERRA CLUB" is pretty pointless now.

Start talking with other people in town or start your own efforts to help get light rail into King County.

More Slog fun after the break

The fall out from the RTID blow-out is in full force. The biggest issue is that the political class just doesn't know how to read the tea leaves after such an huge "no" response from the public. Goldy summed it up best yesterday saying RTID's defeat provides the pols:

"No inkling as to whether voters said “no” because they don’t like roads, don’t like light rail, didn’t like these particular road projects or the routing for light rail, didn’t like the price tag, didn’t like the regressive tax, or didn’t like the legislature tying the fate of two separate measures together. Or any combination of the above."

You can definitely argue that the combo of roads & transit into one package created this confusion, but into this vacuum steps some dangerous thinking if you're a believer in mass transit. Waking up on the east coast earlier yesterday to read the news, I was greeted rudely by the results (ugh) and a nice column from the Seattle Times Danny Westneat. I blogged about his call yesterday which should scare the living daylights out of all the pro-transit anti-RTID folks as Westneat proclaimed, Clinton style, that the era of big projects is over.

The Times continues its verbal diarrea this morning over the possible answers that RTIDs slaughter provides the pols, including some gems from Eyman.

So, this is where the public can step in and provide some leadership. Now is the time to tell the political class the message they should receive from RTIDs failure - light rail now, no money for expanding roads.

They're soft, they don't know what to think and they need direction. If mass transit supporters don't step up to the plate and tell politicians what to think, the Eyman's of the world will.

Call and Email your State Legislature Representative. Write a letter to the editor. Email Sound Transit. Talk to your friends. Call the Sierra Club and tell them they need to step up to the plate now in the aftermath of urging a no vote on RTID.

The onus is on all of us, but especially those of you that were anti-RTID and pro-Transit. The time is now. We must act! Tell the political class what to think before someone else does. Personal contact, phone calls, and emails make all the difference!

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.

The Governor made a big mistake by asking for input from Seattle voters on the viaduct. The whole viaduct debate is a falsely framed debate that will be made even more confusing by a public vote. Understanding the complexities of how the different proposed replacements will be funded and whose pocket that funding comes out of will not be clear to voters.

The fact that a reduced capacity tunnel or surface expressway, are not on the table also limits the choices presented to voters. Voters will be asked to choose between the two most auto-oriented proposals, and that simply doesn’t make sense, not for transit, the environment or the future of a livable Seattle.

If a public vote is inevitable, as it now appears, many choices should appear on a ballot. The public should vote using Instant Run Off Voting (IRV). IRV would allow voters to express their first, second and third choices, and give elected officials the ability to see these results. Only having two choices is an outmoded voting method, and in this case will really skew what the true public opinion is.

The masochist known as Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has a 20-year tax proposal worth 1.8 billion, and he wants your input on what hole in the asphalt he should bury your money in. The top complaints compiled via this web form, will be called the "dirty dozen" (how original), and will receive "very high priority" come fix'n time.

It might not help the mayor for you to list "the whole damn city" or "everywhere that there isn't a monorail" but regardless vent your opinion like you know it will count- via a completely anonymous web form.

"The winners will be announced on July 13." Not sure if the winners are the holes in the road or the fools who tread them enough times to complain about them by name.

But hey. Web form.

With the demise of the Monorail last year, where pro-transit forces had been content to fight with each other, our dysfunctional family can finally reunite with the common goal of making Seattle a city where transit is #1

In 2006 Seattle voters will be presented with two transportation measures. Measures that I believe should be presented in Seattle as companion measures to get buses on the street and transit moving through the city. With the King County Transit Now! initiative adding buses to the city and the region. The transportation measure in Seattle should focus on moving buses through downtown and the city.

Creating a progressive, environmentally friendly urban city is really a recipe of an investment in transit, combined with transit oriented land use decisions, such as smart growth, affordable housing and transit oriented development.

Once again, it's Happy Hour where you - the loyal readers, bloggers and lurkers pipe up.

Today's topic - increased sales tax, bus transit, Ron Sims and Transit Now

Erza already started the bus discussion last week and Ron Sims brings it to the front page of today's Seattle Times:

King County Executive Ron Sims is proposing a sales-tax increase for the November ballot in hopes of buying so many buses that riders won't even need a schedule.

The plan, nicknamed "Transit Now," promises Metro Transit runs between downtown Seattle and West Seattle, Ballard and Aurora Avenue North every 10 minutes, with equally frequent trips from Bellevue to Redmond and along Pacific Highway South.

Sims' office calls it the largest expansion of service in two decades.

So, what do you think? Should the funding come from a sales tax increase? What about a gas tax increase? Should we spend more money on buses or should we look more to light rail? Should we increase the funding even more than Sims wants?

What do you think? The bar is open.

All it takes is a little inspiration and some political will to get the ball rolling with creating Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the Seattle region. While rail transit is an important strategy for connecting urban centers and serving neighborhoods, building new rail infrastructure takes time and funding to complete.

For Bus Rapid Transit, the infrastructure already exists, because the streets are already built! A new network of BRT routes, traveling in separate bus lanes on existing streets, could just take several years to complete. Just imagine how exciting it would be to have BRT routes criss-crossing the metro area, connecting neighborhoods and providing mobility throughout the region by the end of this decade.

In Curitiba, Brazil the city has spent decades building a BRT system. This system has inspired many cities throughout the world because in Curitiba they don’t wish they had a rapid system, they’ve built one, and because it’s a system of buses, it’s not cost prohibitive to operate.

The City Council and Mayor in Seattle are deliberating and deciding the priorities for increased transportation funding this year, probably in the form of a city-wide ballot measure this fall, spurred on by the desire of the Mayor to find some funding for burying the Alaskan Way Viaduct in a tunnel on the waterfront.

Transit funding must rise as a top priority for this ballot measure. Any ballot measure in Seattle in 2006, must include a significant amount of funding dedicated to increased bus service and new transit hubs.

Basic transportation improvements remain important for Seattle. Lets not diminish the importance of sidewalks (for those areas that lack them), bike lanes and fixing the backlog of street repairs. Yet these priorities, which can also come from an increased allocation from general fund dollars, are basic quality of life issues, and are not specifically related to congestion relief and creating alternatives to car dependence with better transit.

Removing or burying the viaduct must be a top priority for the city. Yet, the funding for this project must also be part of a long-term plan in Seattle to create a vibrant downtown. A downtown of increased density, with a focus on new affordable housing and serving as Seattle’s primary transit hub.

BOMBSHELL. Views from atop a 50% larger viaduct would suck. The horror! Washingtonians abandon support for "Big Ugly" viaduct in droves- and into Greg Nickels' warm tunnel-o-love embrace...is that how it's supposed to go?

I can't believe people are actually listening to these arguments, but just for kicks lets take the tyranny of the views debate one step further:

SLOG writer Erica C. Barnett points out that panoramas would be visible from most vehicles, including cars...about four inches shorter than the existing barricade.

WHOOPIDEEDO. This is not the issue, and if I hear one more person debating the merits of views gained or lost where one is supposed to be driving I am going to erupt in one large vomitous mass. Keep your eyes on the road Seattle, and eyes on the prize, whether or not you support the viaduct v2, if you try and tell me views from the top are an issue I'll point out immediately you are an fool undeserving a drivers license.

I hope you all caught Amy tonight on Q13- she was fantastic. She made the call to all of Washington- initiate real mass transportation solutions not limited to individual municipalities. Yes there is life after the monorail.

And here I thought I was going to have a dull evening filled only with W's rhetoric and pundit-pontification run amuck. Thanks Amy, for talking about real issues affecting us every day. Nice work.

Puget Sound is in terrible condition. Gov. Christine Gregoire announced today that she wants to spend $42 million towards clean up and appointed a panel of political, business, and environmental leaders to come up with a plan for full restoration of the Sound by 2020.

The panel includes William Ruckelshaus, former head of the EPA who noted, "It will take a miracle." What a ray of hopeful sunshine!

But, realistically, full clean up will take a miracle (better stop that War on Christmas, people!) if a proposal doesn't include a look at population trends, as the Times indicated in today's article:

Perhaps the biggest challenge to the health of the Sound will be the region's population, which is expected to swell by 1.5 million people by 2020. That could mean more cars leaving toxic chemicals, and more land cleared for homes, which can mean dirtier water flowing to the Sound.

Their ain't no "could mean" about it.... 1.5 million more people means a shit load of new cars on the road. A campaign to save the Sound - to save our regions environmental heritage - must include a campaign to expand our rapid transit systems.

Yet another reason why Western Washington needs to have one transit authority which can create a region wide mass transit plan of attack against all of the problems - environmental, economic and beyond - that our current weak transit infrastructure currently creates.

Sound Transit? Something new? I don't know, but time is running out. I don't want to regale my kids with stories of long extinct Orcas and summers when swimming in the sound was just cold, not poisonous.

So after 4 votes of yes, and one vote of no Seattle has killed the monorail. The reasons for doing it I can't say, because I fully supported it as an alternative to the light rail line that will not serve the areas served by the green line. Now, there isn't an alternative, and guess what? You still have to pay for it. So you are paying extra for nothing. It's this bullshit that is going to keep Seattle a second class city, because we talk everything to death and never take action. You drank the kool aid put forth by the major developers like Martin Selig (the closest thing to a living Mr. Burns in this city). We have no one to blame but ourselves and our gullibility at the hands of big business blocking progress, the fear of paying up (which you will still have to do), and a revised line that was shortened by a few miles that was still proposed to be built in the future. For future generations we will be regretting this move wondering why we were so stupid as to hack off our noses to spite our faces.

Once again, it's Happy Hour where you the loyal readers, bloggers and lurkers pipe up.

This edition... The Seattle Monorail Project Proposition 1.

This could be it. The monorail is on its last legs.

The Seattle Times revealed today that a report prepared for the city coucil raises more financial concerns for the SMP. The Stranger bucked all trends and held steady with its long time support of the monorail last week, urging readers to vote yes one more time.

How are you going to vote?

Let's get into it!

Republican Party Endorses I-912

State Transportation Infrastructure Poised to Crush Us All To Death

Darlings, this is serious. The state GOP is endorsing (read: feeding an assload of money into) the I-912 campaign, which will destroy hundreds of vital transportation projects designed to repair the roads and bridges you use every day.
If I-912 passes, your safety is in jeopardy.
You and I have to step up, you know what I'm saying? Investing in the future TODAY is what being progressive is all about. So here's my suggestion: go to the Keep Washington Rolling campaign. Sign up to volunteer-- that's what I did. Maybe throw them a $20 if you've got it. Read up on the facts (grant talks about this a bunch in his blog) and talk about this with your friends. And of course, come November 8, vote no on I-912.

Mayor Nickels withdraws his support for the monorail

Fifth vote on the monorail will happen this November

The Seattle Times reports:

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels withdrew his support for the financially troubled monorail yesterday, refusing street-use permits and calling for a fifth public vote on the project in November.

The ballot measure would ask voters whether they want to kill plans, three years in the making, for a 14-mile line to connect Ballard, Seattle Center, downtown and West Seattle.

"This is perhaps the most disappointing day for me since I became mayor nearly four years ago," Nickels said at a news conference. "... Put simply, the monorail does not have enough money to pay for the project."

The mayor's turnabout marks the biggest setback yet for a project that began as a grass-roots movement for a functional transit system that rises above traffic. By this summer, though, the public rebelled against a finance plan that would have required at least 50 years of taxes totaling $11.4 billion to pay for a $2.1 billion line.

Is this the end of the monorail? How do you feel about it? Which way will you vote? Why?

This November's off-cycle election is turning out to be the most important election in the last 20 years for residents of Seattle. The monorail and the gas-tax will effect your everyday life much more than George W. Bush ever could.

Want to honor the memory of Katrina's victims? Want to practice a little emergency preparedness here at home? It's an easy fix: come November, vote no on I-912, the Infrastructure Killer.

The Seattle P-I tells us why:

Republican arguments about shared blame for Hurricane Katrina's losses have a reasonable basis.... Acknowledging that reality has obvious implications for Washington state. It's absurd for national Republicans to tut-tut about municipal and state shortcomings in Katrina while many GOP leaders here try to sink the state gasoline tax funding that could save thousands of local lives in a disastrous earthquake. Without the gas-tax increase under threat from an initiative, the state has no prospect of replacing the state Route 520 bridge across Lake Washington or the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Yeah, gas is expensive. But you know what's a million times more costly? Rebuilding the entire transportation infrastructure of Western Washington on a wish and a prayer, once the Big One hits.

You have a choice. Make the right one.

I've been pretty honest about my slipping support for the Monorail. This once proudly "Let's Monorail"-sticker-displaying supporter has thrown his lot in with the "Yeah, it was nice before I saw what the thing would look like, how much it would cost and how many people will ride it" crowd.

But, all you mono-heads should go over to 2045Seattle.org, a pro-monorail group who state:

2045 Seattle is a group of concerned Seattle residents who have two things in common:

1. We are committed to healthy rapid transit in Seattle by building the Monorail.

2. We are young enough that in 2045 we will bear most of the cost of projects begun today and will have to answer to the next generation of Seattle citizens.

Young people who want to get involved in local politics... it reminds me of something... I can't quite put my fingers on it.

Anyways, I might now be throwing my lot in with the opposition, but anytime younger people want to get involved and take control of local politics, I can get behind that... no matter what the cause.