for the record, transportation choices coalition demanded that greenhouse gas emission study a year before the sierra club did. where do you think they got the idea?

those are 5 damn good reasons! vote yes!

Higher property value = higher rent. Plus, an additional sales tax?! Yay for sticking it to the little guy.

Yeah, higher property values are a nightmare for people who want an affordable place near the line. That's why having the widest geographical extent is important.

Speaking of which, where do you get 70%/85%? And what do you mean by "near"? A half-mile radius around a station is the most most people will walk. You can extend this to a mile or two with shuttle buses, but usage drops off significantly. To reach 70% of homes and 85% of businesses in King County with rail, you'd have to build the 405/518 line (Burien, Renton, Kirkland), and add light rail in Ballard, West Seattle, Aurora, 45th, 23rd, and Kent. 405 and 45th are addressed in a vague "Sound Transit 3" that might be voted on in ten years, but it'll be decades before they're built. The other neighborhoods aren't even in the plan. (I'm not counting Sounder or bus rapid transit because although they have some benefit, they're no substitute for a dedicated subway running every five minutes.)

Hello Stranger,
I recently moved to Seattle and I love this city! I am for mass transit all the way. I lived in Boston for 7 years before I moved to Seattle and they had an ok subway system. It worked most of the time but it made life a lot simpler getting around the city and it keeps the city clean. Seattle is surround by beautiful water and ocean and its in bad shape. Also you don't have to drive that metal death coffin. You can read a book, look out the window at the city, meet someone new, or even cut your name into the seats with a switchblade. Sometimes you really have to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about all those sweet little boys and girls. Cheers, Codad

Cheers!
Once again TheStranger gets it and the Seattle Times does not.

Just my own observations from someone who's lived on the East Coast (lots of mass transit), Minneapolis (less mass transit than NYC or DC, for sure, but such a freaking fabulous place I didn't care ... though still, they're 10-20 years ahead of Seattle in terms of transit), and Portland (what can I say? Portland passed up Seattle in transit options and livability like a Maserati goosing past a Yugo). I believe it's incredibly important to vote "yes" on Proposition 1. Here's why: A) The time will shortly be here when only cities with good mass transit will be anything approaching economically viable, B) This is just too beautiful and gracious of an area to just suddenly lose its nerve and become a Phoenix with water, C) You (and I) have supported deranged auto/freeway-based plans with your (and my) tax dollars for 50 years. Time's up, time to change direction, and D) This is just not something I'm willing to sacrifice on the Republican "oh lordy, it's weird and different and my taxes will go up, and you people are so odd, and drill baby drill" template one more time. I despise you and what you stand for. You seem hell bent on seeing my family live in a goat shed just so you can be stupid and happy. No.

Erica,
Please note that Star Lake is at South 272nd Street and that is barely Federal Way, let alone Tacoma. That is the extent of south Link and it will be reached in about 2023 and will attract few riders. The south extension is estimated to cost $2 billion.
Also note that East Link LRT will cost $4.5 billion and reach the Overlake TC, not downtown Redmond. More riders could be attracted with different transit investments in both corridors.
The percentage figures you cite are reached by including those within walking distance of a connecting bus route.
Traffic congestion will only be reduced by tolling or a deep recession. Any lane space freed by a modal shift to transit will be filled by latent demand.

I, too, doubt the 70/85 figures. If you mean a huge radius, that means you are relying on the "feeder buses" that they plan to use to bring people to the light rail stations, and that added leg to a trip makes light rail much less attractive.

It will not come where I live, and they won't even add STR buses near where I live (Kirkland). You can't even get an ST bus to downtown Seattle from here; you have to go to Bellevue and transfer.

And how about the grotesque cost overruns of their first phase of light rail?

If the first phase is wildly successful, they'll have a working model to come back to us with. Then we can talk.

I'd nix the tunnel extension north beneath Capital Hill to Husky Stadium, the 8-year initial expenditure and most expensive segment. Going south is important. Seatac Airfield is NOT a major destination as much as a place you go to when you're going somewhere else.

East through Bellevue is fine, but most station siting and design is still iffy. How many more monstrous parking garages will be built before they're admitted mistakes?

Absent from the plan is a productive spur through Southcenter to Renton. Bypassing Southcenter saved jet-setters a whopping 3 minutes of travel time to downtown Seattle while cancelling access for tens of thousands of local transit users there and Renton and the future use Lake Washington Railroad. Sound Transit done got corrupt, that's for sure.

Cancel the tunnel. BRT north will suffice for the present. Do the east and south extensions and the Southcenter Spur. Relative inexpensive and more productive than the tunnel.

Just because you add more busses doesn't mean people will ride them. Half the reason people don't ride the bus is because Metro sucks. More peak time busses just means more vehicles parked on I-5 at 4:30 in the afternoon each day....

I would vote Yes on Prop 1 IF (and that's a big if) I had any proof that the funds would be managed correctly, that the projects would be even close to finishing on time, and that the Transportation Counsel could complete a useful plan. I voted NO on Prop 1.

Simple business economics also urged me to vote NO. Raising the sales tax hurts small business people like me because I have to charge more to make ends meet. If I have to tack on 10% to every sale my customers are going to go elsewhere and I'm gong to find myself in the soup line.

Vote NO on Prop 1. Send a clear message that it's time for them to effectively manage the money they already have.

"Cancel the tunnel. BRT north will suffice for the present."

I see you don't live in the north end and haven't experienced the I-5 parking lot there. Getting to the U-district is vital to getting to Northgate, and once you get to Northgate all the Snohomish County buses can stop going all the way downtown.

The south end has three times as many highways as the north end, because it was built up later and was originally drained marshland, and became the place for industrial businesses (i.e., trucks).

"Seatac Airfield is NOT a major destination"

Actually, Sea-Tac is the largest destination in the Northwest. It doesn't matter that they're going there to continue onward; they're still ground transportation users. Not to mention the thousands of people who work there and have to get there every morning. Or that many riders are new to the city and are afraid of getting lost or stuck somewhere if they take a bus. Or that people judge a city by whether it has rail to the airport. (Portland, Vancouver, SF, LA, Chicago, NY, St Louis, and most of Europe have already made the switch.)

"Bypassing Southcenter saved jet-setters a whopping 3 minutes of travel time to downtown Seattle"

I would have included Southcenter for the same reason I'd include the airport and the stadiums: a lot of people go there, and most of them aren't carrying large bulky stuff (for which they'd need cars). But ST had to choose one way or the other, and saving Southcenter for the 405 line makes some sense. And the 154th station will have a bus to Southcenter and Renton.

oh cool, higher property value, more yuppies, and more poor people pushed right of the city. hooray

Even though the plan may not be perfect, something HAS to be done about traffic in the Seattle area. Driving up & down I-5, 405, 167, or 99 is a nightmare. They'll need another rail line connecting SeaTac to Tukwila to Bellevue, & then one going farther north parallel to 405 going to Lynnwood. Then further down the future they can connect it to Everett & go south all the way down to the Tacoma area.

But go ahead & vote no if you want the same traffic we see on the freeways now on larger arterials in the residential areas in another 5-10 years.

I thought it was cute when ST thought stretching the link to the Fife tideflats was making it to "Tacoma".

I'm curious as to why no one has ever thought about creating a light rail that services Tacoma - Puyallup - Sumner - Bonney Lake with a few points in between? With parking at the Sounder stations in those areas reaching critical mass (interesting segue, bike lockers are about the same--I've been on the waitlist for one for months now), it may not be a bad idea.

Besides, Seattle's workforce has days off too and we don't always want to drive or necessarily want to go to Seattle.

Wait a minute? Bellevue supports transit? I thought they were all a bunch of Republicans with guns?

You can't have it both ways, Stranger. If you want your close-minded "Seattle's all that" elitism then don't go copping support from the Eastside.

They are going to put the money into places i don't go, and take money away from me in taxes. Why the hell would i vote for this? I take the bus all the time, and i will be voting a STRONG no, until they consider those of us that ALREADY ride mass transit!

Unfortunately this proposition is not designed to get people out of cars, it only expands capacity on existing, mostly ghetto routes, where only poor moves. All the neighborhoods that rely on Mercer corridor will even get more congestion and slower transit options because of this proposition, Renton gridlocks are not even mentioned. Yet, somehow, Aurora and Pacific HWY, places where traffic was never a problem, gets express bus service and a light rail line?! This is not about taxes, trust me if it was a logical plan many wouldn't mind to pay an extra sales tax.
Look at this plan carefully and in detail, most of you will realize that it will not serve you, will not get people out of cars, and will only expand existing dysfunctional system.
The devil is in the details! Read it, study it, and do not listen to anyone else.
If you live in Queen Anne, Ballard, Freemont, Interbay, Belltown, and any other neighborhood that has to use the Mercer corridor, understand that under this proposition the Mercer corridor will shrink to 3 lanes in each direction, there will be a lot of obstacles for vehicular movement to beautify the South Lake Union, and you will get absolutely no regional transit service, so it will be back to cars, but this time in a much more stressful and congested environment.
Just do yourselves a favour and read the details.

This was a great article. Honestly, I wish it would've come out 1-2 weeks earlier, before I voted no.

Oh, and guess who is the chairman of the Sound Transit Board(the agency behind this proposition). It's the mayor of Seattle, Nickels. How convenient. The Mercer beautification project that will reduce its capacity and create more congestion and pollution is his idea. This real estate project obviously can not be funded through the federal dollars, so he stuck into the proposition 1.
Why no one ever pays attention to details, especially the press. I mean, this is a clear conflict of interest. No wander the project details are barely disclosed in the proposition. I hope that Feds will catch up with this.

Mr. Nickels, transportation funds can not be applied to real estate projects! It's a fraud. And by the way, a transportation project is a project that relieves congestion and increases safety, not otherwise. Making a street look beautiful by creating more congestion and pollution is not a transportation project.

You pay for it - totally against it.
Same with parks - you use it, you pay for it.

I voted no. As a Seattle resident, I have yet to see any Sound Transit project come in on time, as promised, and on budget. Once more, this flawed multi-county plan doesn't concentrate funds and efforts where they are most needed, namely, in the core population centers where most people live and the majority of the businesses have offices. No more money for these trains to nowhere until I can ride it to the airport without breaking down.

I find it odd that Mr. Kacian keeps exhorting us to "look at this plan carefully" and focus on the details, but it's obvious from his comments that he's talking about the proposed mercer corridor project--not proposition one, which has nothing to do with the number of lanes on mercer street or beautifying South Lake Union. If you're confused about what project is being discussed--a fairly important "detail"--then your other comments don't have much credibility.

As for the people who think that voting no will send a message for "them" to more effectively manage money, I would suggest that the only message you're really sending is that you're unwilling to pay to expand the region's infrastructure. You're not really punishing sound transit or teaching them a lesson or whatever...you're just hurting yourself by postponing an expensive but necessary long term investment. The need for expanded transit--the kind only a high capacity system on a separate right of way can provide--will expand over time, and so will its cost. We should have done it 40 years ago. It will only get more expensive if we wait longer. And if people are going to wait for it to magically serve more areas--including their specific neighborhoods--for less money, then we'll be waiting forever.

ScottH

What a load of garbage from Erica C. Barnett.

Construction costs will never be HIGHER than they are right now. Construction costs climbed very high because of the housing/construction bubble, which has now burst. Apparently Erica has not read about that. Construction costs will be falling now for the next few years, as the economy remains mired in recession. The longer we wait, the lower construction costs will fall.

Prop 1 would cost the average household about $300 per year. This is way too much to pay in extra sales tax any time, but especially now, when we are in a recession and many people are having difficulty just paying their bills.

Gas prices are falling like a rock. I paid $2.60 per gallon last week, and prices continue to fall about 3 cents per DAY. The price of oil has fallen over 50% from its high a couple of months ago.

Gas prices, construction costs and congestion are all FALLING, and will continue to fall for the next several years. Vehicle miles driven have fallen by about 6% in WA this year, and that had nothing to do with any light rail system. We do NOT need a huge sales tax increase to reduce congestion, obviously.

Just to emphasize what a total load of carp Erica C. Barnett's column is, look at the actual report on Prop 1:
http://www.soundtransit.org/Documents/pdf/about/board/Discussion%20Items/2008/Sustainability%20Assessment%20Memo%20with%20AM-PW%20Exec%20Summ%202008-09-04.pdf

Barnett claims that Prop 1 would reduce greenhouse gases by about 100,000 metric tons per year. That is true, but that is by the year 2030. In the year 2030, total greenhouse gas emissions from roadways in our area are expected to be 14,080,813 metric tons. So the expected reduction from Prop 1, of 99,552 metric tons per year, is a reduction of only 0.71 percent.

This does not include trains, trucks, ships and planes, which also emit a lot of greenhouse gases, and which would not be impacted at all by Prop 1. So the transportation greenhouse gas reduction from Prop 1 would be LESS than 0.7 percent in 2030.

However, transportation greenhouse gases are only about 47 percent of toatl greenhouse gas emissions in our area. So the 100,000 metric ton reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in Prop 1 would amount to LESS THAN ONE-THIRD OF ONE PERCENT reduction of total greenhouse gas emissions in our area by 2030.

This is a trivial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from Prop 1, especially when considering it would not happen until 2030, and it would cost about $23 BILLION to achieve.

From the same reporta, Prop 1 would reduce vehicle miles traveled in our area by 2030 from an expected 99,398,539 per day to 98,536,539. This is a reduction of 0.87 percent, or LESS THAN ONE PERCENT.

So Prop 1 would reduce traffic by less than one percent by 2030.

Prop 1 would reduce vehicle miles traveled by less than one percent and greenhouse gas emissions by less than one third of one percent, by 2030.

In terms of both traffic reduction and greenhouse gas emission reduction, Prop 1 is a criminal waste of tax dollars.

"There's never been a better time."

Surly there have been better times (past tense).

Surly you must mean "There may never be a better time" (future tense).

You guys should hire an editor...

Good point about how voting against Proposition One would be incredibly stupid--even if you never set foot in a public transit station, its effects--such as decreased congestion--would directly benefit you.

TheMisanthrope--you must also remember that the little guy (and I am one of them--a poor student who earns $1000 a month and lives in an inner-city studio apartment which costs me half my salary) will benefit from all the reasons Ms. Barnett enumerated. One of these reasons was that rail construction would create 66,000 local jobs, hence increasing your opportunity to earn more money to pay your rent.

Rogue Linguist:

Neither a "little guy" nor a "poor student" would ever blow half of their salary in order to be trendy/live in the "inner city". Further, that segment of the population never offers itself up for further wendeling by the taxman, at least willingly.

Come back with your Joe The Plumber-esque lament when your commute takes at least an hour, utilizes at least two types of motorized transit and at least one non-motorized source. I guarantee your view of mass transit, where it should go and how its funds should be spent will be a bit more realistic.

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Yeah, I voted for it. Somewhat reluctantly, for 5 reasons:

1. Sales taxes really stick it to the po folks. Enough already.

2. Sound transit seems to be more about Show than GO...I tried the Sounder to Seattle recently and man was it SLLooooowwww compared to the east coast.

3. Seattle should cut the BS and build a damn subway + elevated rail already: See #2.

4. Street-level city rail is inherently slow, dangerous to peds/bikes/cars and altogether halfassed. Like Paul Allen's toy train on Westlake. See 2. and 3.

5. Property values?? In what is still one of the most inflated, overpriced real estate/rental markets in the USA? If Seattle people ever did the math re wages/salaries:rents/prices ratio, there would be another general strike.

Yay yay yay! Maybe now in 10 years I won't have to drive to work!