I live in Milton, whose leaders did not have the gumption in the 50′s to say “Hey, we want an exit too!” off of I-5. As it is currently, you need to drive way down to Fife at 54th Ave or up to Federal Way. There is a serious glut of commuters on 20th St E and Hwy 99 as a result. On top of that you have Fife High School right there on 20th, and all the juniors and seniors that seem to think they are too cool for the school bus anymore. It is a bona fide mess, Way more cars than a 2 lane road was designed for.

From the standpoint of a traffic calming initiative, I don’t think it get any better than this. You have an unfinished section of freeway that local truck traffic could desperately use, but instead the surface streets are clogged.

It would be along the lines of I-205 in the Portland area: an alternative route for all the short haul traffic throughout the Kent valley.

While I am all for Amtrak Cascades and Sounder as much as the next guy that reads his blog, respectfully, I think this conclusion is wrong. We have SR 509 which leads out of the port to just stub at Alexander Ave, and where do all the trucks go?

We have I-5 which skirts the very tip of the port, only to have a helluva bottleneck at Port of Tacoma road.

In summation, this is one project that would help the Port of Tacoma grow, and even help the railroads as an extension of that.

@ Mr Cascadian: If I am not mistaken the money in the new authorization bill is matching money, not just straight funding. It would be nice, but I don’t think we’ll have anything out of that unless the budget for that increases. Also, it is for things like capital projects like stations and track but not necessarily for operations. I may be wrong, this is my understanding.

Will the grants in the new Amtrak authorization be able to cover some of that loss? Doesn’t it have a lot of money available for state-sponsored lines?

Gregoire seems incapable of making a leadership decision about anything – the viaduct is now the latest to stall her efforts.

The inauguration of Obama can’t come quick enough but it won’t be all peaches and cream as we know. I still do not see much emphasis on rail expansion and rehabilitation, although as I understand it, Amtrak is funded again and has a capital budget for the first time since 1997 – I believe I read that in the New York Times over the weekend. I lose track of where I have read things these days, such is our anxiety.

Coming back to Gregoire, I still want to know what happened to protecting the values of the “great State of Washington”. It is really making me angry to say the least of it.

We need stimulus money to protect the poor, enhance the Puget Sound to viability and to fund so many ‘shovel ready’ projects. I just can’t believe that the Point Defiance bypass could be neglected or that Sounder to Lakewood could be delayed. We can’t keep putting these projects off and delaying them…..

Tim

Pushing new boats except for the single island home past 2016 means the ferry system is again in a “do or die” situation in 8-10 years if some other crisis prevents the purchase of new boats at that point. Even with the reduced service levels of “Plan B” the ferry system may find itself having to cut service below even those levels.

The only real good news is many powerful state legislators will be hopping mad about the “plan B” proposal. Furthermore it may be enough to get Rep. Dicks (Bremerton) and Rep. Insley (Bainbridge) involved in a major way, perhaps Sen. Murray as well. Dicks and Murray both have a fair bit of power in Congress and may be able to get some earmarks for the ferry system. Insley is rumored to be interested in running for governor in 2012, helping to line up some Federal money for the ferry system can’t hurt that effort.

Another thing that might help in securing Federal funding for new boats is both additional Island Home boats and the new 144 boats are pretty much “shovel ready”.

I don’t think the market will bottom for quite some time. There are still a lot of mortgages out there that have yet to reset. I don’t know if these interest rate resets will cause rates to go up dramatically anymore, but we’ve only seen a big group of 2-3 year resets and some 5 year resets, as I understand it, and there are more 5 and 7 year resets yet to come.

I could be wrong about that, but I’m also not the only one to suggest it:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/12/60minutes/main4666112.shtml

The problem is that aside from the dollar number the incoming Obama administration is still thinking too small. Without bolder thinking, the governors are stuck with cutting budgets going into a recession. This will prolong the recession and could very well make it a Depression.

Things have only gone downhill since Lowry. In some ways, it would have been better if a roadhog clown like Rossi had won the last election. Then, at least, these lazy pseudo-Democrats would step up for once. Right now, we’re stuck with backwards “leaders” who make fine pronouncements about global warming and mass transit. (house and senate leadership lowers the bar to subterranean levels)

Then, they do everything within their means to make sure absolutely ZERO progress is made on the most important issues out there.

It really couldn’t get any worse.

Gregoire has been disappointing since her re-election which she said was supposed to be all about preserving the values of Washingtonians against Rossi’s hatchet policies. She has certainly come up with a budget that has no relation to her re-election campaign promises of preserving the values of the citizens of our State.

I just hope the legislature reinstates some of what we have been asking for on this blog.

Step inside and up to the plate, Mr Obama

What needs to be done for transit above all else is a re-thinking of the schemes surrounding federal funding. The economy will come back, but will transit follow? It won’t if there isn’t a serious rethinking of the way we fund it on the federal and state levels.

When a state presents its budget, it knows that the first biennium is the foundation for the following ones. Since there’s a clear lag, it’s likely that funding will remain fairly static from here into the next, but from beyond that point, assuming a standard (or even sub-standard) recovery, it’s hard to say firmly that we won’t get that money back.

So Gregoire is playing this smart, especially the possum game with the AWV. Federally? Not so well. I think she’s missing a boat by not urging revamping policy in key areas we’re lacking.