I don’t want to attack anyone in the legislature. Some are basically volunteering there time which is wonderful but not a good model for government. Restrictions on fund raising for other political office while the legislature is in session is another way our legislators are paying to serve.

Now, if we could just get the rest of the eastside delegation to believe light rail on I-90 won’t lead to transportation Armageddon :)

You want to know who killed governance reform? The people around Rep. Eddy working on it. As in, the blatantly anti-rail/pro-roads folks who dominated that effort. The voters are overwhelmingly in support of light rail…so when clowns like Ted Van Dyk, or misguided Reagan Administration leftovers at the Discovery Institute became the self-appointed leaders of regional transportation governance reform…well, that didn’t play so well in Peoria.

It’s easy for people like Eddy to demonize Ben, and point towards a cheap conspiracy theory regarding “who killed governance reform.”. But, in the end, it was obviously the proponents who did themselves in. From what I can tell, Rep . Eddy and others made an attempt at the beginning of the discussion (several years ago) to engage the public with this issue. But, when nobody bit, the entire process was taken over by a small cabal of non-influential Republicans and rail skeptics. The fact John Stanton – #1 GOP funder of the decade – became the annointed spokesman for this effort didn’t help much, either.

Ben killed governance. I got a good laugh out of that one.

Here’s a thought: if voters want more effective transportation leadership – reform STATE GOVERNMENT. Make the state legislature a full-time job so qualified people can get elected to office. The current make-up of the state house and senate reminds me of amatuer hour. And I’m not just talking about Rep. Eddy. Go to http://www.tvw.org and torture yourself with a house or senate transportation commmitte meeting. The current chairs of these committees are unbelievably clueless. And that’s not just rude conjecture on my part.

The voters deserve a lot better – and they’re not going to get it unless 1) qualified and enlightened people start running for these seats; or 2) elected officials from CAMANO ISLAND aren’t driving transportation policy in King County.

Think I’m going overboard? Read Rep. Clibborn’s “no tolls for I-90″ bill, and you’ll see the problem extends way beyond the shores Camano and Whidbey islands. I won’t even get into the issue of Eastern Washington’s influence over urbanized Puget Sound transportation policy. But, you can imagine what direction that discussion will go. Under any one of these scenarios, one thing stands abundantly clear: Rep. Eddy’s contention that regional transportation governance structures are the problem…that’s a joke.

Take the state out of the decision game, and things would get a lot better. At no cost to the taxpayer!

Work where you live? Yeah. Maybe in North Korea, where the Dear Leader decides where you work and where you live. Elsewhere: good luck.

Comparing the highly dense and transit oriented suburbs of Paris and London, with – say – the auto-centric ‘burbs of Woodinville or Spanaway is just plain ridiculous.

These people need to get out of the house more. Really.

Do we have the political will to assert real growth containment and great economic and social development where it is really appropriate?

I realize that this is a Seattle based blog, but I was just with some folks who are from other parts of the state.

One small farmer said that the Growth ‘Accomodation’ Act in his area has resulted in farms being turned into strip malls, trailer parks and McMansion developments on huge lots. There is a whole set of issues related to the economies of small farms, but here is some land use stuff that pertains. They need towns of decent population and distribution systems (rail?) that allow then to feed those towns. Lots of small trucks traveling around new sprawling suburbs is just not cutting it.

I agree government needs to focus our transit investments where it enhances the places where we already live and work.

What mitigates are some deep real political challenges that might need to be dealt with at a national level. First, rail based transportation is not an interesting experiment. It’s required to get many of us out of cars and airplanes. It’s a big investment, but it is an investment that will keep on giving. Did Eisenhower have these kinds of problems building the interstate road system?

Second, jurisdictions compete for their tax base. That along with unsustainable growth (more money, more stuff, bigger houses, more stuff) as opposed to a more steady state has resulted in a lot of our national crash. So, if a company or developer comes along and says, gee I just bought Farmer Smith’s land so let me build some stores there, a jurisdiction will say let us change our comp plan because it means jobs and tax revenue. And land value rises.

This kind of competition is a really hard thing to shift. Real land use management will have to be negotiated state wide, and maybe even nationally. The bad news is that the agencies watching how comp planning is going are not exactly in a position to assert the kinds of standards or litmus tests that are needed. Maybe ‘highest and best use’ needs to be refocused to state right use. Economics is not magic. The economy is a human creation.

Engineers and planners are now only in a position to respond to public policy and I am not sure that the objective measures of population are all the factors that need to be considered. The human beings who live here and our needs for great places that support human and natural life require socio-economic equity, balance and measurement which is beyond an engineering problem. Thus, my issues with certain generic mandates.

I think something is really screwed up with our values and it is reflected in the imbalance of power of who gets to decide – just who builds buildings? Just what they know how to build or want to build? Why the rush to build or accept what and where they want to build? An auto based mall at Dearborn and I-5? No grocery store in any of new buildings near the Othello station? http://www.rainiervalleypost.com/?p=4894 This, along with my rural friend’s story, is the reality of Land Use and Growth Management in the State of Washington. Good people needing to spend their time on stupid fights to get sustainable communities, all feeling like they are doing this on their lonesome.

Engineers and planners and socio-economic transit junkies are also citizens who, witness this discussion, have a LOT to contribute.

Regarding governance, I don’t think I am talking about yesterday’s debate – maybe yesterday as in Friday, but don’t think I’m unaware of who the players are or what they’re doing. Governance change isn’t dead, it’s just likely delayed until next year – just like last year, and the year before, and the year before that. I’m well aware that the Governor supports Stanton’s plans, and you yourself have been involved with this for quite some time. I doubt your views have changed much since you wrote this: http://www.discovery.org/a/2433

Your constituents asked for East Link in its current form. You told me, here, that some R8A money was ‘moved’ from Stage 1 to Stages 2 and 3, and we’ll see this week if that’s true. You downplay your influence, but I’ve seen you get things done in the past, and if you wanted this, you could certainly exert pressure for it now.

The governance reform discussion is over; you and others like you killed it. Fine. Now, we have to find some other way to make this system work, to make dollars follow value (including externalities like GHG). Some of the postings on this blog indicate that there are people out there who DO get it — the talk about which routes, what scheduling offers the most service? That is GREAT … we’re getting there! What land uses support the transit investment (Sharon’s bill was a good one, even if it did require a lot of wordsmithing) — again, that’s GREAT. If this was easy stuff, it would have been solved years ago. It’s not; but those of us who care a great deal will keep working at it.

Sorry I offended you.

1) Fix R8A funding. I understand the budget comes out tomorrow. I’ll be paying attention to whether or not the state will delay East Link. Moving $25 million out to 2017 to block a multi-billion-dollar investment is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. You sit on house transportation, use it.

2) Step away from the idea that you’re going to combine Sound Transit with a roads agency, or change their governance. We want transit and roads separate – the voters have made that patently clear. Sound Transit is well managed, much better than many other agencies you could be going after, and the continued attacks on them from the state smack of obsession. If you want local highway funding, resurrect RTID and make them learn how to engage with voters the way Sound Transit does.

Those two things should be easy. I am sick and tired of seeing the state go after Sound Transit year after year. We’ve passed ST2 – I have plenty of time on my hands, and I will start coming after ‘governance reformers’ in their districts if this continues.

I’ve always thought that the SR520 “light rail” route would begin to make sense, maybe, when this E-W routing could be conceived of going even further westward into Wallingford (deep station!) and on to Ballard. But that’s years and years off …

Right now adding more transit to 405 between Renton and Mill Creek doesn’t help because even the HOV lanes are grid lock. Often through Bellevue the HOV lanes are moving slower than the general purpose lanes. Removing cars, absent of a large scale collapse of the local economy isn’t going to happen. I sincerely hope that the current proposal to add an additional lane is the final expansion. I believe greater transit capacity on the 405 corridor is a good idea. Where does it fit into priorities? Is a huge investment on rail “someday” better than buses today? I’m not sure but it’s worth looking at.

I’m not for blindly building roads to continue growth farther and farther a field. I do support building, maintaining and improving roads to areas that already need them and are within the GMA destined to require more capacity. I’m not up on the cross base highway but grew up down there as the son of Air Force officer. Up until 9/11 there was free access through base housing that connected the Lakewood Dupont area with Spanaway and Parkland. Likewise Fort Lewis was an open post and gates on the east side were unmanned. Restoring these connections will make it more desirable to build out east of Fort Lewis and I can’t say that I’m opposed to this happening (within limits). I’m not really up on this particular proposal so I can’t say one way or the other if it’s smart growth but I can’t oppose it just on the blanket assertion that no growth is good growth.

Greater employment downtown doesn’t do much if anything for cutting down on the number of cars on the road. Given the options for transit in downtown far outweigh what’s available on the eastside what’s appalling is what a car magnet the downtown core is.

There is no way to eliminate traffic without something like congestion pricing. Eliminating car traffic is not the end game, which is why expanding roads is a waste of money. Studies have shown that after a road is expanded traffic will just come back and there will be more of it.

If the goal is to eliminate traffic then no amount of urban planning will do that. If the goal is to reduce VMT, like I want to, obviously having a handful of centralized job centers will allow each of those centers to be better served by transit. The Eastside is not lacking transit options as a form of punishment but because everything is so spread out that transit is hard to get right in the Eastside — unless you’re going to Bellevue or Seattle.

It’s clear in all the growth projections that the population growth is going to be much greater outside of Seattle yet somehow the “green” thing for employers to do is relocate near downtown?

Yes. Because even if someone is taking the bus from Issaquah or Sammamish to Seattle/Bellevue then that reduced VMT. Forcing transit into an area where it doesn’t work, like some of the Eastside, creates some of the criticisms we hear from you: This market-driven idea that empty buses are a waste. Empty buses are rare in Seattle, and it’s not because people on Capitol Hill and Queen Anne are poor (they’re not). It’s because those buses go to places people actually want to head to. Can you imagine where a bus route in Issaquah would actually begin and end? Would you need a P&R? If someone drives to a P&R, is it likely at some point they’ll decide it’s just faster to drive the whole distance, alone? This says nothing about Issaquah being evil or bad. But yes, it certainly is better for the environment to build in a few central job centers. Population growth will follow the options. Right now, the options are I-90 and I-405 and SR-520. Soon, the other options will be East Link, North Link, University Link, Central Link.

The population growth projects are now necessarily how we should design policy but are the artifacts of policy already decided. We are growing in the outer suburbs because we built wide highways to them. That growth may produce walkable, livable communities but given the status quo of policies that seems unlikely.

And the answer is, yes but if we just force everyone to change behavior and adopt the urban lifestyle the world will become a better place. Economic efficiency is irrelevant? The answer to a budget gap is to increase taxes. More to the point increase taxes on people who drive cars because there’s a huge “need” for transit. Wait, I thought the the reason for living is Seattle was to enjoy a walkable neighborhood. Discretionary trips by someone on the eastside are evil but hot and cold running transit in Seattle is sustainable. What a case of denial to posture that the reason we must increase public subside for transit is because it’s our only hope of saving the planet when really it’s all about increased mobility to support a lifestyle choice that’s no more sustainable than in the surrounding cities.

A trip by someone on the Eastside is never evil, and that’s a strawman argument.

You are doing something foolish and you’ve been doing it repeatedly. Just because transit is not “sustainable” in the same way that walking is, doesn’t mean that it isn’t much more “sustainable” than personal automobile traffic. And it is. Link light rail will be emissions free. Many bus routes in Seattle are emissions free. And it is a lot easier to make a few thousand buses more efficient than make a car fleet of two million more efficient.

But look, you’re missing a huge point. The fact is that if you live in a walkable neighborhood a lot of your discretionary trips can be handled with your own two feet. I do not take the bus to the store, for example. When I run errands, I do so near work or my home, both in walkable neighborhoods. This isn’t new-age, hippie stuff. This is how life was for centuries. And now I’m walking on a sidewalk instead of a grass path, certainly, but I’m the only energy I’m burning when I go to the store, rent a movie, or buy groceries is the calories from my dinner. And these neighborhoods do not have to be urban. Right now, though, there are more walkable communities in Seattle than outside of it. (Again, I used to live in downtown Redmond.)

An auto-oriented lifestyle requires bigger parking lots. That’s more concrete and asphalt — production of both is a significant emitter of CO2. It requires wider roads, which is the same deal. Because there are parking lots everywhere and an abundance of wide-open space, people tend to walk less and less. And biking becomes less common because the distances become large and the car traffic becomes too speedy. So you have a population that exercises less and only sees their neighbors on the highway. And now, when you want to go to the store you have to turn your key and burn some oil. That is not sustainable. That is far less sustainable than taking a bus, certainly. And it doesn’t compare to walking around.

But again, when someone wants to go out in Seattle and they’re taking a bus, that’s another person not on the roads and auto-dependent. That is good for our entire society because it means we need to support less parking, less roads expansion, less car accidents, less congestion, and less emissions. That’s why bus service doesn’t end at 7pm, and that’s why systems that do have terrible ridership.

I understand this blog is pro transit (like the NRA is pro gun) but the hypocrisy of condemning road improvements (like buses don’t get stuck in traffic and Seattle isn’t dependent on those roads for all of it’s goods and economic health) and then defending the ferry system exposes this whole little ruse. The ferries are number one by a nautical mile when you look at CO2 emissions per passenger mile and they’re driving growth out on the peninsula where there’s a continuing drop in employment. The only job growth other than PSNS is that fueled by the development.

Some road improvements are fine. But if you want to speed up bus transit, the answers are HOV lanes, HOT lanes, and bus lanes, not general purpose lanes. You argue that empty buses in the evening are a waste of money. I argue that empty roads in the evening are a waste of money. We don’t have to design our infrastructure for a peak-time scenario where everyone drives. We are significantly investing in transit — more and more people are within access to an alternative to driving.

I am not very supportive of the ferry system (strawman!). I think it’s a unique thing in our region and kind of cute, but like any transportation link it plays a dangerous hand in sprawl, you’re right. Certainly it’s cheaper to operate some ferries than to build a bridge though.

I’d like to see improved transit. I try to use the bus whenever I go downtown because driving in a that traffic sucks. I know that buses full of people coming to Microsoft and going back into Seattle make my life better even though I’m riding a bike. I know that transit is essential to the economic engine that drives growth and I’m not going to pretend that it makes that growth ecologically sustainable. I’d like to see a better job of land management and applaud HB 1172 (Implementing a transfer of development rights) and opposed HB 1490 with it’s smog screen title “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions” diverting attention from it’s top down approach of controlling zoning. There are lots of good reasons to support transit. Social engineering isn’t one of them. There are ways we can improve transit and economic efficiency is one of them.

Social engineering isn’t something I’m interested in, either. I don’t see how you can have smart development at both the regional level and let everything be local. In fact, the interests of Sammamish may not coincide with the interests of the region. But the days of building more freeway access to a municipality because they ignored the interests of the region are over. Just like Redmond can’t develop on some its land because of the urban growth boundary, we need to start thinking more seriously about our “development centers” throughout the region and make sure they are supported by strong transit access and that the development patterns supports they access.

Cul-de-sacs as far as the eye can see are an example of misplaced priorities. Going with whatever developers want in effort to fill the tax coffers is an irresponsible way to design a city. Sacrificing as basic as a gridded street system or allowing developers to block off access to neighboring businesses — these are not examples of local control, they are examples of a total lack of control. These “free market ideals” are being completely subsidized by the region via highways and arterial roads and the ability to pollute without cost, so it is no longer useful to talk about them in the context of a “free” market when there is significant government subsidization.

So this isn’t about social engineering or personal choice. It is about the government policies that make it more difficult to find a walkable community in the Eastside than anyone wants.

Don’t kid yourself, the gas tax doesn’t even come close to paying the full cost of roads. This is without factoring in any of the indirect costs.

Sure we could try the Houston, Phoenix, or Atlanta solution here, by widening existing freeways to 18 lanes and building a bunch of new ones. But just the ROW acquisition costs alone would be staggering.

You can buy a lot of transit for the cost of adding one lane in each direction to I-5 or I-405.

For an example of roads being “social engineering” take the proposed cross-base highway down in Pierce County. Sure there are people already living East of Ft. Lewis and McChord who would benefit but it would also make that area more accessible to the rest of the region and therefore more attractive to developers. This would lead to lots of new auto-centric sprawl East of the Military bases.

Greater employment downtown doesn’t do much if anything for cutting down on the number of cars on the road. Given the options for transit in downtown far outweigh what’s available on the eastside what’s appalling is what a car magnet the downtown core is. It’s clear in all the growth projections that the population growth is going to be much greater outside of Seattle yet somehow the “green” thing for employers to do is relocate near downtown?

And the answer is, yes but if we just force everyone to change behavior and adopt the urban lifestyle the world will become a better place. Economic efficiency is irrelevant? The answer to a budget gap is to increase taxes. More to the point increase taxes on people who drive cars because there’s a huge “need” for transit. Wait, I thought the the reason for living is Seattle was to enjoy a walkable neighborhood. Discretionary trips by someone on the eastside are evil but hot and cold running transit in Seattle is sustainable. What a case of denial to posture that the reason we must increase public subside for transit is because it’s our only hope of saving the planet when really it’s all about increased mobility to support a lifestyle choice that’s no more sustainable than in the surrounding cities.

I understand this blog is pro transit (like the NRA is pro gun) but the hypocrisy of condemning road improvements (like buses don’t get stuck in traffic and Seattle isn’t dependent on those roads for all of it’s goods and economic health) and then defending the ferry system exposes this whole little ruse. The ferries are number one by a nautical mile when you look at CO2 emissions per passenger mile and they’re driving growth out on the peninsula where there’s a continuing drop in employment. The only job growth other than PSNS is that fueled by the development.

I’d like to see improved transit. I try to use the bus whenever I go downtown because driving in a that traffic sucks. I know that buses full of people coming to Microsoft and going back into Seattle make my life better even though I’m riding a bike. I know that transit is essential to the economic engine that drives growth and I’m not going to pretend that it makes that growth ecologically sustainable. I’d like to see a better job of land management and applaud HB 1172 (Implementing a transfer of development rights) and opposed HB 1490 with it’s smog screen title “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions” diverting attention from it’s top down approach of controlling zoning. There are lots of good reasons to support transit. Social engineering isn’t one of them. There are ways we can improve transit and economic efficiency is one of them.

If we had more funds, perhaps including state support, I don’t think we’d only be talking about interesting ways to build to Seattle. I think building to Seattle is the first step for the Eastside. But the second step will be going to Issaquah or Renton or Kirkland. We shouldn’t abandon the cities — and we do need to keep the urban growth boundary in place — but it’s hard to except a huge light rail network when we started construction on the first line less than 6 years ago.

The awesome thing, Rep. Eddy, is that once Renton gets light rail to Bellevue, now Renton is connected to Overlake, Federal Way, Northgate, Seatac Airport, Bel-Red, Shoreline, etc. And yes, the line also gets people to Seattle — and those stops will be the most popular — but a transit system is no more end-end than a highway system. And I don’t know about you, but when I take I-90 I’m not going to Boston even though it goes there.