Comprise, yes, but fragile?

Today the Seattle Times ran a cover-page story about the Roads and Transit package. Headlined, “Record-setting tax plan wraps roads, rail in 1 fragile package” it begins:

It’s hard to find a political leader in love with the nearly $18 billion roads-and-transit tax package on the November ballot.

Among the complaints: The plan spreads projects too thinly, doesn’t fully address some of the region’s most pressing traffic problems and imposes the wrong set of taxes.

Yet most of the leaders want voters in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties to pass the biggest tax package ever placed on the ballot in this state, arguing it does enough good to warrant support.

“I don’t think we’ll get anything better,” House Transportation Committee Chairwoman Judy Clibborn, D-Mercer Island, said. “Everybody wants us to have a plan. This is the plan.”

That’s right. We won’t get much better than this. Most people want either roads or transit, and it’s very difficult to please both sides of this debate. Studies have shown that most new roads projects are far more expensive than light rail (for example, increasing I-5 by one lane each way just within Seattle would cost more than $25 billion, which is enough to build an entire subway network), and even widening 405 will cost nearly $4 billion. Building new highways would be even more expensive, and when looking at the cost of replacing the viaduct (cost between $4 and $6 billion) and the 520 bridge (around $5 billion), $10.8 billion for 50 miles of light rail, four miles of street cars, and improve Sounder access make the project seem cheap by comparison.

The big problem for the pro-environmentalist side is that if the package fails, it’s likely that the state legistlature, who’s 100% pro-highway, will push through a roads package and we won’t get another rail package for years:

Horn, with the Eastside Transportation Association, says roads would emerge as a winner if the measure fails. “If it’s not passed this year, the Legislature will have to step up and address it in some way,” he said.

Legislators aren’t sure what would happen.

It’s possible light rail would reappear on the ballot fairly quickly, but fixing the region’s highways is another matter. Legislative leaders predict few people would want to touch the issue in 2008 because it’s an election year.

That would push any highway proposal off until 2009, and by then the debate over replacing the Highway 520 bridge and the Alaskan Way Viaduct — both in danger of collapse during an earthquake — could suck up all the attention and money for years to come.

If you care about mass transit, which I certainly do, you want to support this bill. It’s likely to show how little you get from billions of dollars in highway spending, and just how much can be done to change people’s minds when looking at rail projects.