Mike at Carless in Seattle has the text and analysis of a Sierra Club letter to Sound Transit. It would appear that rumors of the Sierra Club coming out against the next package are somewhat exaggerated.
There are some particulars in the letter that this blog has disagreed with in the past, mainly for tactical reasons (congestion pricing, park-and-rides, etc), but it’s good to see the Sierra Club participating constructively in the process. What’s important is that the perfect isn’t the enemy of the good again; when they don’t get everything they want, the reasonable thing is to do is fall into line for the election, rather than ally themselves with Kemper Freeman.
About Martin H. Duke
Don’t forget: I listened to them last time around!
I could be totally, utterly, completely and fantastically wrong about the Club’s intentions this time. Just, you know, trying to find the tiniest sliver of hope.
:-)
Mike, you did take the Sierra Club’s interests seriously, but it is hard to say you listened when you ultimately voted yes.
And you were right to listen. The pro Prop 1 bloggers had it all wrong. They told us that if Prop 1 failed the legislature would pass governance reform. Wrong.
They said Gregoire and Chopp would never let ST back to the ballot in 2008. Wrong. If ST board can get its act together ST can go the ballot.
They said that Prop 1 was the best way to move toward tolling. Wrong. The defeat of Prop 1 meant that the legislature passed a tolling framework bill and will use tolling on 520 not just to finance the bridge, but to manage traffic, reduce global warming pollution and pay for transit.
They said the roads will get built anyway. Wrong again. The legislature made zero effort to find money for road expansion.
They told us that political reality was that Prop 1 was the best we could hope for. Wrong. See all of the above — the issue of global warming is rapidly transforming the transportation debate.
If such a thing existed as political punditry malpractice, the pro Prop 1 bloggers would all have their blogging licenses pulled for gross inaccuracy. (Except you Mike, you actually showed a high standard of care). But hey, this is America, thank goodness, so we can just enjoy the online sport of debate instead. But no one really has to take their political prognostication seriously.
Anonymous,
Way to set up a straw man.
The point I, and others, made was that many, many things had to go right for us to get a good light rail package passed in the near future.
The fact that some of those things have gone right doesn’t mean we’re home free.
And by the way, 50 miles of light rail is off the table. We’re probably not getting to Microsoft, Lynnwood, or Tacoma.
I’ll concede that things have gone much better than I’d feared, but I think it’s a bit early to be gloating.
You are correct, we are far from home free. Many, many things have to go right for us to dramatically reduce global warming pollution from transportation.
Note, I chose global warming as the issue, not light rail. If light rail is your finish line, then of course the loss of Prop 1 is a defeat because 50 miles are no longer on the table.
If reducing global warming pollution is your goal, the defeat of Prop 1 has created lots of progress — the new roads are beat back and tolling is seriously in play, as is new transit.
Light rail proponents are by no means out of the woods. The Sound Transit board may not have the political will. But the point of the prior post was not to claim victory for global warming or light rail (nice straw man yourself), it was to point out that the political predictions made by many of the pro Prop 1 bloggers were just flat wrong. Some humility on future predictions, or advising others on “political reality” is in order.
anonymous-
“Reduce global warming pollution” alone cannot be a finish line. There are far too many draconian ways to acheive that one goal at the expense of other important priorities.
Once you begin to realize that other priorities exist – people and goods still have to be transported from place to place just to keep us all alive – then you understand that compromises will have to be made.
Dissing bloggers for failed political predictions is silly. Especially when you state them in overly absolutist ways, rather than in their original and far less certain phrasings. It could just as easily have been you who were wrong: politics is far from being an exact science. People extrapolate based on trends and (gasp!) opinions, any of which are subject to change.
Back to what’s important: exactly which measure of global warming emissions do you wish to reduce? Absolute, per-capita, per mile travelled, or some other measurement? Statewide, or just King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties? What are your deadlines? Tomorrow, next week, next decade?
If you’ve got an agenda, be specific. If you aren’t specific, it becomes hard for others to include your agenda in theirs. And please don’t get in the business of restating other agendas as harshly as possible to make others look bad; that’s not a smart consensus strategy. And consensus is what you want, isn’t it?