Given that, the best thing now is to accept the voters’ will and push for Eastside rail down the road. Of course, a few billion from the state could get it done without a vote :)

the subareas and the allocation by percentage pre date McKenna and Vance; they were set up by the former Metro Council in about 1992. The main suburban debater was Councilmbmer Paul Barden. His initial position was that no new service would go to Seattle until the suburbs caught up. The main Seattle debater was Councilmember Jane Noland.

to get new reveue, measures must also pass the Legislative body; it needs five votes there before it goes to the electorate.

equity is a topic of discussion in many public policy areas. smart decisions can be made within each subarea.

MY preference has been to run dedicated, grade-separated BRT across BOTH Lake Washington bridges, sooner rather than later (could be done fastest on I-90, but also immediately on the SR520 re-build). Like 5 minute headways, back and forth, express, quasi-express level service. Yes, it’s not only cheaper and faster for crossing the water — but it’d also free up an enormous amount of money for light rail EXTENSION N-S on the eastside and NORTH to Northgate and beyond (yeah, I know there are sub-area equity problems with part of my vision, but whatever – I’d like to believe that we can fix problems like that). I’ve usually expressed my routing preference as Redmond to Renton, but my transit staff friends tell me that Woodinville to Bellevue may be more rider-ready. Who knew! Eventually, rail would wrap around the south end and connect w/the SeaTac-to-Northgate line. (This is, I think, still part of the longer range vision, sort of.)

I am NOT on the ST board, never was, and I don’t beat around the bushes or play games. During much of the formative years of ST, I was running Suburban Cities Association, which wasn’t part of any of the transportation discussion — except for the Regional Transit Committee, which we did staff. I did campaign for both the original RTA proposals, back in the 1990s, and care very much about getting this system built. I am completely frustrated with the existing leadership, with how Ron Sims went about naming/running the ST board, with Mayor Greg Nickels … because the whole discussion seems to be focused on that extraordinarily expensive ID-B’vue linkage, and I think that isn’t nearly delivering on the promise, on our responsibility to voters to supply a fixed-guideway transit system ASAP. And I stand by that assessment.

The existing East Link routing is really cool, if you own land, a condo or a business in downtown Seattle or B’vue, but IMHO it doesn’t do nearly as much to create a transit system as could’ve been done with other scheduling, priorities. And the issues w/the I-90 bridge were predicted … and dismissed as “no problem.” Well, duh.

Again, email me directly at deb@debeddy.net, if you want to pursue this discussion further. I don’t have as much time for blogs right now as I would like. /deb

And Patterson owns 40-40-20, not Vance. But Vance and McKenna are largely responsible for the stupid subareas in the first place. Very few other major systems drive service by such stupid ham-handed formulas. And McKenna is also responsible for ST’s subarea equity formula as well.

As for eddie’s query, “Would the Transit Now tenth have been put on the ballot without 40-40-20?” Who knows? I do know that South King still didn’t vote for it, the eastside barely did, and as usual Seattle drove the proverbial bus to pass it.

The objective ought to be implementation of R8A as soon as possible, well in advance of east Link LRT.

All the governments are short of transportation funds.

Tooley’s Bruce was Councilmember Laing. I doubt Fimia was a leader that early. She began to serve as a appointee on the Metro Council in early 1992. Councilmembers Choe, Street, and Laing were leaders. Choe’s legislative aide was Murray, now 43rd District state senator.

Stefan’s incorrect about McKenna and Vance and 40-40-20. Patterson replaced Vance. That ratio was established in about 2003 after they left the Council. It is not an elephant in the room, but a mouse that folks make too much of. The basic problem is that there is too little new service subsidy, not its allocation between the subareas. There are good transit improvements to make in all three subareas. Those of you who work in Overlake see good loads on routes 230, 245, and 253. For Seattle, 20 percent of something (plus the partnership program) was better than 34 percent of nothing. Would the Transit Now tenth have been put on the ballot without 40-40-20?

I have no doubt the actual costs of the bridge conversion will fall within the range estimated by Sound Transit. Now delaying the project or demanding an outrageous payment for the center roadway will lead to cost overruns but neither of those are engineering problems.

At this point we are simply asking the legislature to fund two-way HOV on I-90 which will have benefits even if East Link is never built. Furthermore we are asking that WADOT not be barred from negotiating the costs and terms of turning over the I-90 center roadway to Sound Transit.

Sound Transit will assume full responsibility for any cost overruns or schedule overruns involved in converting the center roadway for Link.

FWIW, politically I’m much more in line with what the Eastside is today than what it was then.

Recall also that the downtown Seattle tunnel was ‘built’ for rail as well, but took a rather expensive and time consuming service disruption to actually get it so.

We need to make sure those conversion costs are nailed down for the bridge before the go ahead is given. That’s just good business, not some contrived plot to undermine Sound Transit.

An assertion to the contrary is what would undermine the agency.

I haven’t been able to find the joint regional policy committee’s plan. I’ll edit that section, though, thank you for pointing this out.

After voter approval in 1996, the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (whew) was renamed “Sound Transit”.

In any event, I recall that Jarret WAS indeed heavily involved in the early planning under the JRPC and even though we might not agree with his stance on this particular issue today, the work carried out in the early 90′s led directly to sound transit and a preference for rail in the region.

When RTA/Sound Transit decided on rail for some corridors those same people became critics.

The clear intent of the amendment is to strike Clibborn’s language from the final bill. If his gets removed as redundant, fine, but that would only occur if his language is first adopted over Clibborn. It doesn’t remove the heat from Clibborn, it is the direct pressure that’s will be needed to be resolved in conference. By offering nothing to resolve in conference, Clibborn’s amendment could win by default.

McKenna has been anti-transit his whole career. Thanks to him and Vance Metro has the stupid 20/40/40 rule. Hopefully we can manage to keep him from becoming Governor.

I don’t recall the exact dates either, but he was certainly an active leader. Others include Seattle Councilmember Jim Street, Maggie Fimia, later of the KC Council, Doug Southerland last of DNR, Tacoma Councilman Paul Miller, Martha Choe and a couple of others whose name escapes me at the moment, Bruce ____ from Bellevue.

Chris Vance and Rob McKenna were the loyal opposition, in the mid-90′s period McKenna was the sole surviving voice and was constructive throughout. Under his leadership buses were given priority for Eastside service in ST1.

His ‘gas tax’ and ‘waivers’ story is nonsense. Stage 1 was covered by the gas tax, stages 2 and 3 are just the same. And a waiver? The FHWA already said these center lanes are for transit.