I don't like it, but I'm still voting for it

[solarbird]

This is just a mini-post to refer people to llachglin's post on Sound Transit 2/Regional Transportation Improvement District "Roads and Transit" package on the ballot this fall, Proposition 1. I agree with a lot of what he has to say on this particular vote. (Frequent readers of my political posts might note that he and I argue a lot in comments.) I've said before that I don't really like the package, but I think there are three key things:

1. The "next version" won't actually happen. Now, they may throw something else on the ballot in another couple of years - probably two to three - but even if they do:
   
2. The next version won't be better. (C.f. the 1993 vs. 1996 Sound Transit votes, the 1968 vs. 1970 Forward Thrust votes llachglin mentions, the Seattle Commons vote and second vote, and others going back in time.) If you're banking on a second, "better" version, stop. You're not getting it. This is the second version. Or, arguably - going back to Referendum 41 - the third. (41? 43? I lose track of the numbers.) And, aside from that,
   
3. We need the infrastructure buildout now. C.f. my comments halfway down here.

One thing he doesn't cover is how I have to work my way past my loathing of the inept and incompetent Sound Transit management board. I've spent a lot of time fighting that thing and holding it up as an example of idiocy and trying to get it reformed. I have not changed my mind about that. They're jerks, and the reforms that did happen didn't go far enough. But with the Monorail project scuttled, and with Metro just now an extension of King County, there's not an alternative, and there's not going to be an alternative in any realistic timeframe. We're stuck with them. I don't like it either, but I accept it and move on.

So. It sucks. But it's good enough. Under the circumstances, it'll have to do. So go read Erik's post, he talks about a lot more than I am here, and then go hold your nose and vote Yes. That's what I'll be doing.

Comments

[dustin-00.livejournal.com]

Having a popular vote to make this decision is total political cowardice.

It's almost like having a vote of "how many of you think will be helped by this".

We are Seattle, however, and hopefully enough people will say "it doesn't help me but it's the right thing to do" and we can move forward on some sort of plan.

I have no idea if this plan is a good one. I'm just going to trust that the people that created it know what they are doing and made some good decisions. It is very clear there are many hard decisions, the "good" part will probably be debated for the next 100 years.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the mention. You summarize the most important points, but I really wanted to explore the pros and cons in detail.

I kind of skipped over the pre-1996 Sound Move/RTA vote (I thought it was 1995, but maybe it was 1993). But if you look at what people voted on then, it's almost identical to what we'll have after ST2. Despite all of their screw-ups, Sound Transit has done a good job of keeping on track through a lot of disruptions. The board is dysfunctional, but the day-to-day management of the agency is much improved over ten years ago. I was a doubter for a long time throughout the 1990s and really only came around when it became clear that monorail was dead and ST was at least building something. Then I reconsidered and rejected a lot of my previous anti-ST arguments.

I do think they'd benefit from having directly elected board members, because then you wouldn't have the case of politicians elected for other positions with only indirect accountability for their Sound Transit responsibilities. The egos would also probably be smaller. On the other hand, it's pretty typical for agencies to take a few years to work out the kinks, and the idea of starting over just as things are starting to get done is a bit worrying.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Replying to my own post to confirm that the first RTA vote was in 1995, but that RTA was formed before the vote in 1993 by the decision of the state and relevant county councils.

The details are here (http://www.soundtransit.org/x2403.xml).

The 1995 plan:

• All-day commuter rail between Lakewood-Tacoma-Seattle-Everett (and intermediate stops).
  
• A rail system stretching south from Lynnwood to Tacoma via Northgate, the University District, downtown Seattle, Rainier Valley, SeaTac - plus an east-west line across I-90 to Mercer Island, Bellevue and Redmond/-Overlake.
  
• Following additional study, some form of HCT service would be implemented between Tukwila, Renton, Bellevue, and Kirkland.
  
• Major investments in all-day, frequent ST Express Bus service linking employment centers along with supporting capital facilities.

If that looks familiar, that's because it's a good summary of ST2.

[tanthalas101.livejournal.com]

It's not the Sound Transit piece of this that bothers me. It is the mindless expansion of road capacity in the RTID portion of the package. Sound Transit, for all its troubles, has worked out many of its problems, and is actually accomplishing something in the morass that is Puget Sound politics, which as can be seen by the number of great ideas that have gone nowhere, is not something to be sneezed at. Additionally, Sound Transit has the backing of the political establishment, which avoids the flaw that proved to be the Monorail's undoing - when the going got tough for the Monorail, the politicians were nowhere to be seen.

What irks me about Proposition 1 is not Sound Transit, it is the fact that by voting for it I will in effect be subsidizing, with my tax dollars, the idiots that think it makes sense to do things like live in Black Diamond and work in Bothell, and to get back and forth via single-occupancy vehicle. Expanding I-405, SR 520, and building entirely new highways in Pierce County is not how you encourage people to take the bus or the train or to live closer to their place of employment.

I actually still haven't decided how I am going to vote on this. I might end up holding my nose and voting for it, so that I can be reasonably sure rail transit gets to Northgate (which would be quite convenient for me) sometime in my lifetime . . . as has been pointed out, around here, voting down the ugly package simply means getting to vote on an even worse package later.

[solarbird]

Yes, I think we should also have gotten a purely transit initiative. But a lot of the roads stuff is HOV-lane and transit-lane, and besides, again: if you want trains while oil is only $85/barrel, this is your best shot. It won't get cheaper and the plan won't get particularly better. There's a lot of crap in this I think they shouldn't be building, but there's a lot of stuff they should've built already. I don't like it but I do think it's the best we'll get for the cheapest we'll get.

[solarbird]

I mean, from my standpoint, the Sound Transit portion isn't even all that strong. Where's the North Lake Rail? MIA. And it's going to keep being MIA for a long time. I don't like that. We should have a loop around Lake Washington akin to the Tokyo loop, and this isn't going to give us that, and those of us up here in Uplake are going to keep missing out for a while. But we'll just have to SUFFAH, POPE, and get our spur line - or whatever - when we finally can actually get it, you know?

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Well, the reason there's no rail along the north of the lake is that ridership projections are only 3-6K/day for the corridor, lowest of pretty much any route they've studied so far.

What they're missing is that trains run on a network, and there's a value to a connection between the east line and the central line beyond the number of people along the stretch itself. But I can see why with limited funds it would be one of the last routes built, even if it sucks for me personally.

One thing, though--the studied route was Northgate to 145th to Lake Forest Park, and then to Kenmore/Bothell. I think they made a mistake in not studying a 522 route that includes Lake City. It doesn't make sense to take 145th at all, and all I can figure is that the length of the route ends up being less because you can build from the already planned line to Lynnwood near I-5.

I can try to dig up the map that has all of the ridership projections for various routes. It's hard to find. Another route that is surprisingly low-ridership is Ballard to U-District--only 10K or so per day.

I think the solution to this is to approve as much now as possible, and then when the first trains open and are (hopefully) far more popular than expected, construction can be accelerated so that the whole system can be put in place. The sad thing is that the 1968 plan that got just over 50% of the vote (but needed a supermajority) included Northlake rail.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Here's the analysis of a potential 522 light rail route:

http://www.soundtransit.org/documents/pdf/projects/seis/N.4_SR-522_CorridorHCTAssess.pdf

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

er, that 10K estimate might actually be for Ballard-Queen Anne. It's hard to read the map. I think Ballard-U-District has yet to be studied, though it's funded by ST2.

[solarbird]

My point, though, being: I don't get rail out of this. I'm voting for it anyway.

Tho' I have to admit that let's-not-have-lake-city-but-let's-take-145th-instead idea is a real wtf moment. Maybe it's land issues?

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, it could be land acquisition issues, combined with the fact that the LFP-Lake City stretch is close enough to the central line from Seattle to Lynnwood that they're afraid it's going to compete for riders on that line.

I have a hard time believing only 6500 max would use that route. With Lake City, I bet it's at least 10K. Apparently, over 7000 people ride buses on 522 right now, but they actually project that will go down because of the main light rail line.

[solarbird]

I think their forward projections on this line are kinda full of crap. The 61st Avenue P&R is filled with people coming down from northern Kenmore and from Briar in Snohomish County, and the 73rd Avenue P&R is even further away.

Plus, fundamentally, it clearly assumes plentiful gasoline into the indefinite future. But that's another story.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

They're really conservative on ridership projections for the whole system. For example, Portland's light rail system is smaller than ST2 would be, but it already has more riders than Sound Transit is projecting. The Portland area is less dense than Seattle and has less than half as many people in the metropolitan area. We don't love our cars that much more than they do.

I think the lowball estimate on this line is just an extreme example of pessimistic assumptions made everywhere.

If gas supplies become scarce or expensive, there will be demand destruction for driving, which would increase ridership on rail lines. But again, it's not at all clear how the oil and gas markets will change in the long run. It could be a slowly unfolding peak with a long plateau that gives Americans a lucky break in converting from our motoring ways (or an opportunity to keep motoring with non-petrol energy). The data on oil reserves is just too unreliable--Saudi Arabia has a history of manipulating its reserve numbers, for example, and we can only guess at which direction that manipulation is currently working. A transit agency is pretty wise to assume that it will be competing with driving and plan accordingly. It can always adapt to changing conditions later.