He will never, ever, get the State to both turn over a state highway to the City and then give money to the City to do what he wants. This was a fantasy when he proposed it (the federal money goes away too), but gullible hordes ate it up.

He can have all the authority in the world to let us vote to heavily tax ourselves for our “go our own way” light rail line, but I would guess that by then we’d be heavily tapped out from either voting to heavily tax ourselves for his “no-rebuild” viaduct answer, or from having to pick up the pieces after nothing is done and the thing collapses.

If you guys keep believing this, you’re just shooting yourselves in the foot.

In fact I often hold up Sound Transit as an example of an agency that successfully turned itself around and that has been rebuilding trust. I use Joni Earl as an example of the sort of leadership required to do that.

I agree, McGinn was wise to call for ST to handle the details, best to let experts do their thing rather than trying to create something new from scratch and have it make a bunch of rookie mistakes.

My point wasn’t so much a political one as a technical one. Tunnels are expensive and take forever to build. Underground stations are expensive and take forever to build. Elevated ROW and stations are cheaper and faster than underground but still not cheap or quick. Even the at-grade alignment along MLK while nice is perhaps a tad overbuilt, especially when it comes to stations.

I’m thinking there is a place for some form of rail transit for some corridors in this city somewhere between what we have with the SLUT and what ST is currently building as a regional spine in Link.

“They’ve already agreed to it.”

Yes, the legislature already agreed to the deep bore tunnel, but that doesn’t mean they like it. Their support is lukewarm at best. We actually agree: if Seattle tries to kill the tunnel, eastern washington legislators would be more than happy to help us pull the plug on it.

“Gas tax dollars can’t be used for transit anyhow”

Unlike other people on this blog, building transit is not my top priority, ending taxpayer subsidy of automobiles is. I would rather take the money and dump it in the ocean than spend it on this tunnel project. Transit does not save the planet, ending the use of cars does. Transit does not prevent the killing of bicyclists and pedestrians by drunk or inattentive drivers, ending the use of cars does. Transit does not save this country trillions of dollars per year, ending the use of cars does. Reduce auto use and public support for transit skyrockets. The only way the public is going to start saying “yes” to transit is if we continue to say “no” to highways. I say continue because the citizens of seattle have consistently voted against highways and for transit. It is only the power brokers than have forced a highway solution on us from afar for the last 50 years.

“If they don’t spend those dollars on the tunnel, then the money will be diverted to other ‘state-wide’ uses”

I would much rather see that money going toward improving safety on our rural highways that kill hundreds of our fellow washingtonians every year than see it go toward supporting car culture in the only city in the state that actually has the density necessary to make a major shift to mass transit. You are revealing yourself as an arbiter of exactly the kind of self-centered Seattlite that the rest of the state hates so much.

Re: octopus

“Umm, the city should pick up total costs on remedying the issue with a STATE highway? Are you looking to bankrupt the city?”

If the state were to turn over all the gas tax money raised within the city limit, I’d be more than happy to take on maintenance for both I-5 and SR 99. That’s what I mean by solving our own problems with our own money. So long as seattle is paying into the state coffers however, we do deserve to receive some of the benefits. Of course total taxing autonomy is unlikely. I was actually referring to a general strategy in our lobbying efforts with Olympia that I believe will be more successful than our current get-as-much-as-we-can-from-the-state strategy.

When I say heavy rail, I don’t just mean any 3rd rail system; I mean that we should be using whatever technology has the fastest acceleration, highest top speed and potential for full automation. In general those things only come with heavy rail. I am very impressed that we have pushed “light” rail well beyond the quality that is usually associated with light rail technology, but at the end of the day, Skytrain is faster and runs tighter headways than Link. I’ve ridden them both, and Skytrain takes the cake, no contest.

Part of what has taken ST so long to build Central Link is that they have been on a political knife edge since their conception. They also took a while to get their sea legs and work out a lot of internal management challenges. All that is behind us now. ST is an experienced, highly reputable, well managed organization with solid political support (post ST2). McGinn’s plan taps into that strength by contracting with ST. Without ST already in place, McGinn’s plan would never be able to fly.

You are correct that that the state may be hesitant to grant Seattle additional taxing authority for this project because they want to tap seattle money to fund roads. It will take some political skill to make a case, but I think it’s a much easier case to make than asking the state to build it for us.

“One way to fund a rail line could be to form a “transportation benefit district” as authorized by the Legislature, McGinn said.

With voter approval, state law allows a city district to enact a yearly car-tab fee of up to $100; sales taxes of two-tenths of 1 percent; or charge tolls on city arterials. Such a district could charge developer fees, or neighborhood-approved property taxes near the projects.

The city is eligible to form a district, and the law allows Seattle to transfer a new rail project to Sound Transit, a legislative staffer in Olympia said Wednesday.

A city light-rail project would be eligible to apply for Federal Transit Administration grants, an FTA spokesman said.”

Per McGinn’s populist values, I think if the people of Seattle vote to support the tunnel, he would respect the will of the people. I actually don’t think this would damage him that much. I know a fair number of people who love McGinn except for his tunnel stance. If the voters back the tunnel and McGinn accepts the vote as the will of the people I think he can easily pivot to other priorities.

If, however, the people vote to oppose it, especially if they do so strongly as they did before, it would give him a fair amount of leverage.

I think the state’s support for the tunnel (at least in the legislature) is more tentative than you imagine, but if I’m wrong and the state does force the issue, then the tunnel will get built, but at least we’ll know who to blame.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2009882057_mcginnlightrail17m.html

On the other hand the way Sound Transit is building Link takes forever and is expensive. U Link doesn’t open until 2016 and no ST2 segments open until at least 2020. We’ve been doing planning for most of these routes for at least the past 20 years (more if you count the prior Forward Thrust work). Other cities have seen rail lines go from vague idea to opening day in less time than U-link will take to go from groundbreaking to opening.

Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t see a faster and cheaper way to serve the same areas with rail that wouldn’t have been seen as rather bad ideas in hindsight.

All of that said, I can really see the attraction of getting rail transit to the rest of the city as quickly and cheaply as possible by using largely at-grade alignments built in existing ROW. Even having to run at-grade downtown or having to do mixed traffic operations in some areas due to constrained ROW, light rail built to this standard will still be a better solution than RapidRide or some of the streetcar alignments. It also means we can take advantage of some low-hanging TOD fruit like Interbay, Aurora, etc. sooner rather than later.

In any case, I believe the language in the state approved legislation is meaningless. I doubt it could ever be enforced.