This helps everyone! Vote yes :)

Yes!

Vote no.

The car tab tax is regressive, first. No progressive can in good conscience support a tax plan that asks the same payment of someone earning $12,000 a year driving a 30-year-old VW bus as it does of someone earning $120,000 a year driving a 3-year-old Lexus.

Second, the funding that this initiative seeks is not in line with important essential city transportation services that the Settle is currently severely deficient in (e.g., sidewalks, pothole repair, bridge repair, etc.).

Third, this measure calls for $100 million for undefined transit "improvements" even though it doesn't call for more frequent bus services or new routes that would make it possible for people to consider using the bus in the first place. It's hard to understand what "improvements" then this plan is talking about. In other words, it's pouring good money after the bad.

Fourth, the tax plan doesn't specify how funding will be allocated. It uses only platitudes, and not commitments, about sidewalks and bicycles to make people feel good about voting for it even though the tax is seriously regressive, it doesn't address fundamental transportation infratructure needs (only bus service), and it doesn't *actually* improve bus service with more frequent services or new routes.

Vote no, no, no.

@3 I've already seen quite a few fare increases over the last two years, and an increase to youth fares just went into effect.

@3: non-drivers already pay taxes that support infrastructure. Not to mention, bus fares have already gone up a fuckton over the past few years. Remember, the poor are the ones who ride buses, and claiming that they aren't paying their fair share in this state is absurd.

"Prop. 1 will give Seattle faster, more reliable transit service; repair and repave roads to make them work better for everyone;"

It wont make mass transit faster or even more reliable. When street cars share the same road & subject to the same rules as cars, then they really wont operate any faster than our current fleet of green buses.

Oh and cars & bikes are operated by idiots, theres no shortage of them. We read about them all the time when it comes to collisions involving the light rail near near Sodo, Rainier or Othello. Sometimes a cyclist will ignore the electronic crossing guards, rocking out to MP3s and get hit by a train going 30mph and die instantly. So with a city flooded with street level light rail, accidents will climb. When something does hit the train, it kills the route for an hour typically. People are offloaded onto buses and any train behind them on the route, simply dont move (blocking normal traffic since they share the same road as cars).

Oh and if you commute to work outside of Seattle (Bellevue, Lynnwood, Kent, etc), it doesn't appear that any of this will benefit you. The light rail system will be good for commuting around Seattle only. People who drive or bus to the Eastside will continue to do so.

@7: Link and the Streetcar have low collision rates, undercutting prior dire predicitons. Moreover, the common experience of pretty much every other city suggests more rails equals more awareness equals fewer accidents.

As to your last point, it's in-city improvements for in-city circulation.

@3: Annual transit fares have increased $500 since 2008 on average. That would suggest to me that bus riders shoulder an unequal burden at this point. More than that, most transit riders own cars in Seattle. These improvements are shared by all to benefit all.

I'm voting "yes", but I'm curious to know more about this "beloved electric bus network". I'm only familiar with the goddamn motherfucking always-late, slow-as-molasses, doesn't-go-anywhere-I-need-to-be electric bus network.

To me this proposition says, "Give us a bunch of money and we'll figure out how to spend it -- but it will be something to do with transportation. Trust us"

Nope. Give me some specifics on just what we're getting for our money. Otherwise I'm voting no.

@10,

At least one thing that's better about the electric buses is how quiet they are. I appreciate it as a pedestrian, and I used to appreciate as a bus rider.

If you can afford a car, you can afford $60 car-tabs.

You people who live in Seattle -- especially south of about 65th -- why the hell do you even own a car? If you do.

Of course, people above 65th or so are screwed, burdened with paying a car tab for a service that they really don't get.

Be nice if these sorts of surcharges could be applied relative to the transit coverage near where you live rather than flat all over the transit-uneven city.

@8 "Link and the Streetcar have low collision rates, undercutting prior dire predicitons."

Ahhh ok, kinda like how accidents between cars and bikes is pretty low, so low that its not even a problem worth worrying about. Cant ignore the fact that accidents happen, so might as well just accept it.

Though, unlikely that voters would approve to spend so much money to replace the existing fleet of in city electrically tethered buses with electrically tethered street cars. Were better off letting sound transit expand its tunneled light rail projects once they complete the current one in 10 years. Sure tunnels are expensive, but it makes commuting so much faster and thats the ticket to taking people out of their cars M-F 9/5, without a speed advantage, its a bit of a waste.