Light Rail Opposition More than the Usual…

Seattlest jokes that light rail opposition is just more of that same Seattle knee-jerk reactionism:

It’s a little known made-up fact that soon after the Oregon Trail was blazed a group sprang up to oppose its expansion. It’s the very first example of a long and illustrious tradition of opposing the expansion of transportation projects in our region that flows directly into opposing the monorail and the 520 and Viaduct replacements. So ingrained is this instinct to oppose that Seattlest found a petition signed by 15 local residents the other day asking that we please quit cutting across our front yard to get to the door of our duplex.

…

Of course there’s a group forming to oppose light rail expansion in Seattle, and of course their argument is that it won’t reduce congestion. Are world peace and nirvana going to be achieved by building a comprehensive mass transit system in Seattle? No? Then why bother? The fact is that opposition groups have left light rail as our last best chance at keeping Seattle a livable city, but in order for it to succeed at that it needs to be expanded and expanded and expanded some more until we can start forming groups to oppose road expansion on the grounds that it won’t reduce congestion on the light rail lines.

Emphasis added. The difference between light-rail opposition and normal run-of-the-mill “whatever you want I don’t” opposition is that there is a certain nastiness to the anti-transit folks. First, what other anti-something group puts up a site that pretends to be for that something? Well, anti-transit does just that. How many other groups just make up statistics at will with no shame?

Compare it to the anti-development, pro-“neighborhood” people. At the bottom of that link:

Kathy Goodwind, owner of the Gasworks Park Kite Shop a few blocks away, says she doesn’t mind the pit because she hates seeing more “skinny” townhouses in the neighborhood.

“I’d rather see a pit than see the city turned into cheap-looking houses that are costing a fortune for people to buy,” she said, adding that she would welcome a grocery store without residences above it.

She’s a little misinformed because the neighborhood (Wallingford) where she complains about expensive skinny houses is populated by super-expensive normal houses that can only be afforded by people who moved in decades ago or those who make incredible fortunes. But she’s not saying “I support development of super-flat, one-story housing that will be more affordable and will house just as many people.” Because that’s what the anti-light rail folks do. “We can build BRT that is as good as rail and costs $14 million a mile.”

Second, anti-transit people are incredibly well funded, and are much more dogmatic about their hatred of these projects. Kemper Freeman, the owner of Kemper Development Co (btw, I own Andrew Development Co and Andrew Enterprises International because first names are the best names!), dumps hundreds of thousands of dollars into anti-transit organizations while building 42 story high-rises because he thinks of public transit as a form of welfare. He puts more money into fighting transit than he’ll ever have to pay to build it. Why?

And why does a guy who’s building 42 story towers speak at conferences whose purpose is to “help you effectively oppose rail transit boondoggles, high-density urban zoning, restrictions on rural property rights, and other so-called ‘smart-growth’ policies”? He doesn’t care about high-density zoning or rural property rights, he just hates transit. If I can find the video, I’ll post it where he compares rail transit to terrorism. Seriously. No one has ever compared surface/transit to terrorism and been taken seriously. Why is anyone taking these people seriously?