Want the Sierra Club to shut up about greenhouse-gas emissions and get on board with Sound Transit's latest ballot proposal?
Too bad. They won't. And they shouldn't—at least, not yet.
Last week, at a boozy transportation forum hosted by Friends of Seattle at Spitfire lounge in Belltown, local Sierra Club chapter chair Mike O'Brien echoed what is quickly becoming the Club's post-roads-and-transit line: Sound Transit can win the group's support for a 2008 ballot measure, but only if it commits to reducing greenhouse gases in the process. Before the Sierra Club supports any new transit plan, O'Brien said, they "need to see the whole plan, [including] what the impact is on greenhouse gases in the region."
A little context: O'Brien and the Sierra Club opposed last year's roads-and-transit ballot measure, aka Proposition 1, because it included 182 new miles of roads (along with 50 new miles of light rail). At the time, O'Brien and company argued that they couldn't get behind any transportation package that increased greenhouse gases in the region. The group's opposition was credited with helping to kill the measure.
Since Proposition 1 failed last November, the environmental community—many of whom supported roads and transit—has more or less rallied to Sound Transit's side, despite the fact that the tentative new plan contains far less light rail and far more large new parking garages than the previous proposal. The Sierra Club is an outlier. Instead of park-and-rides that "encourage more driving," O'Brien said, "we want to see station access funds [that pay for] bike facilities, more density—whatever it takes to get [transit] ridership up." As someone whose organization pledged to support transit as long as it didn't come with roads, O'Brien hasn't made any friends by raising questions about the latest version of Sound Transit—despite the fact that the vote, if there is a vote, is still seven months away.
That's too bad, because he's right. Sound Transit does need to make sure that whatever it builds reduces the level of greenhouse gases in the region, rather than increasing them. Moreover, the number of new parking garages in the proposal—parking garages that encourage people to drive from far-flung suburbs and take a short train ride into the city—should be cause for concern. If any time is appropriate for raising legitimate concerns, it's now—before mid-April, when Sound Transit staff are expected to present the agency's board with a plan. Agitating may be irritating, but it often makes for better policy. The Sierra Club (and other environmentalists, for that matter) should lobby Sound Transit to improve its plan right up until the board adopts a proposal for the ballot. And then, they should get on board—even if that proposal is less than ideal. 
