Comments on: What’s at Stake in Thurston County

By: 2010 Primary Endorsements - Seattle Transit Blog

2010 Primary Endorsements - Seattle Transit Blog — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:09:57 +0000

[...] Transit Authority Proposition 1: YES. It goes without saving that we’re in favor of maintaining the current level of transit service in Thurston County by raising the sales tax rate and restoring gross revenue to previous [...]

By: Michael H. Wilson

Michael H. Wilson — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:18:20 +0000

I am aware of that but any reduction in fuel is beneficial in reducing costs and in reducing pollution. Every little step helps. Of course it might help to reduce the size of the vehicles they run.

By: 2Tall

2Tall — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:04:38 +0000

The operator is the biggest cost component – and that’s whether its a small vehicle or not. Fuel, while a significant contribution, is not the major cost driver.

By: Michael H. Wilson

Michael H. Wilson — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:43:12 +0000

If you watch some of the routes you get the impression that a smaller, more fuel efficient vehicle be of better use than a bus that gets about four miles to a gallon and is carrying half a dozen people.

By: Streetsblog San Francisco » Sales Tax Hike Could Save Olympia’s Transit System

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:14:18 +0000

[...] on whether to increase its sales tax by 0.2 percent in order to fund transit. And according to the Seattle Transit Blog, the stakes are [...]

By: Streetsblog.net » Sales Tax Hike Could Save Olympia’s Transit System

Streetsblog.net » Sales Tax Hike Could Save Olympia’s Transit System — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:00:39 +0000

[...] on whether to increase its sales tax by 0.2 percent in order to fund transit. And according to the Seattle Transit Blog, the stakes are [...]

By: Martin H. Duke

Martin H. Duke — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:01:17 +0000

Bernie,

What part of “basically” do you not understand?

By: Martin H. Duke

Martin H. Duke — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:57:37 +0000

Which begs the question, why were they spending the money to begin with.

I don’t know much about IT’s cuts, but in Metro’s case it was reduction in things like shelter cleaning. Not “essential” but not exactly Metro setting fire to $100 bills.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:10:43 +0000

Not so surprised. I grew up riding horses out there. You want to own horses, great… but don’t expect express bus service. We could have two horses here in Bridle Trails but I don’t expect bus service (although with Access who needs it). I’m not surprised when I drive out to Yelm or Eatonville. More like sickened. Making it even more attractive economically to promote this sort of cancerous growth through transit makes me all the more adamant to vote NO on any measure.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:38:27 +0000

L Of course it would be better if Thurston County could raise additional taxes

Additional taxes are a good thing? Even when the economy is in the dumps and it will result in a net loss of jobs (yeah a few union jobs with benefits we can’t support might be addded in to make it look good). Less than 3,000 people per square mile = no public transit. Why is it so hard to draw the line on cost? And NO, the alternative is NOT building more lanes. The alternative is “deal with it”; either live closer to work or accept less for the privilege of living in an area that doesn’t feel like an ant hill. Of course lots of people actually like the ant hill ambiance.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:35:33 +0000

Martin,
I think it really depends. Who knows adding in Thurston County might actually make it easier to pass ST3. Of course it would be better if Thurston County could raise additional taxes and use the revenue to contract service from Sound Transit. The issue is if a district could be formed with the appropriate taxing authority.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:28:42 +0000

Yelm counts as an Urban area?
You’d be surprised, the Yelm area has grown a lot in the past 20 years. It is still out in the middle of nowhere, but there are scads of people commuting to State jobs in Olympia/Lacey/Tumwater, to jobs at Joint Base Lewis/McChord, or even Seattle.

Still the lifeline service out to Yelm likely isn’t much of Intercity Transit’s service hours or even costs. The bulk has been spent on improving service in the urban core and on the Olympia Express.

Sure Intercity Transit could go back to providing nothing more than minimalist lifeline service only good for those who have no choice but to ride transit, but that would be a shame.

By: Z

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:29:31 +0000

i used to do the Pierce County-Tumwater commute, and i’m quite glad i dont do that anymore. The traffic through the fort compares to 405 on many days, why does state and local government have to mitigate traffic caused by its devlopements, but private business and the federal government are seemingly nearly or mostly exempt from those requirements? I think patty needs to bring home some more bacon for more HOV lanes and transit in the southern I-5 corridor…

By: poncho

poncho — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:45:32 +0000

Eliminating transit service on Sunday… not as bad as Salem, OR’s Cherriots – not only no service on Sunday but no service even on Saturday and I believe more cuts are on the way. And nevermind that their transit system’s offices and downtown transit center was just condemned since the building and transit center is unsafe.

By: poncho

poncho — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:40:29 +0000

theyre gonna want sounder service into olympia otherwise joining ST wouldnt have much appeal to them.

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:24:14 +0000

Martin, I didn’t mean to invoke your passion on this issue. :-)

My first job out of college was working for the state. I chose to move there at the time simply because commuting nearly 2 hours each way was a complete non-starter. If there was a viable fast train then I might have made different choices. I think though my parents were happy there was no fast train. ;-)

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:16:11 +0000

CAP Rural Transit (http://lowercolumbiacap.org/schedule) offers service from Tumwater Square to Centralia. Awesome for a transit trip from Seattle to Portland and back.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:53:37 +0000

The agency has already cut some nonessential programs

Which begs the question, why were they spending the money to begin with. Oh yeah, it’s always a revenue problem, never a spending problem.

The tax would only apply to, and only be voted on by, the Public Transportation Benefit Area (PTBA) of Thurston County, basically the urban areas.

Yelm counts as an Urban area? No wonder they’re in a deep hole. They’re trying to run transit to areas that make North Bend look like a teeming metropolis.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:44:44 +0000

Yeah, those routes might be almost as productive as North Bend. I’m surprised you left out Eatonville; lets push strip malls and subdivision development all the way out to Mt. Ranier National Park.

By: Z

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:32:04 +0000

Thats why you annex them in seperatly. Either in conjunction with ST III, or apart from, and only the urban Tumwater-Olympia-Lacey areas. This was done with the issaquah highlands several years ago so theres already form for it.

Indeed, i think you will find the support coming from those areas because they want the benefits of Sound Transit. It’s already been proven that the populus wants Orca, they want more Olympia Express service, and they want Sounder. Although i will say it’s been fun watching IT dance around the ORCA issue, its time has come down there. The Olympia Express really needs to be handed over to ST because the local agencies cannot provide enough service to meet the demands, as the service is VERY expensive to operate (long routes + heavy traffic). Finally, some have been talking about wanting sounder for years.