From this Times piece
Sims wrote: “While containing some good projects, this plan doesn’t solve traffic congestion in the short term, nor does it provide enough long-term relief to justify the financial and environmental costs. Tragically, this plan continues the national policy of ignoring our impacts upon global warming.”
It was a remarkable statement from someone who declared four years ago, while chairman of Sound Transit, “We’re going to dig and dig and dig and dig until the light-rail project gets to Bellevue, gets to Everett, gets to Tacoma.”
Hmm… Inconsistent…
There’s more:
And he says a proposed line through Federal Way to Tacoma would duplicate express-bus service that is being added by King County Metro Transit.
From the letter he sent out last year after Transit Now passed:
Increase frequency between Northgate, the University District and Downtown Seattle in advance of Link Light Rail completion;
South King County
• Improve east-west core connections to operate more frequently and/or over longer hours of operation;• Update local routes to connect with light rail and commuter rail;
Excuse me? His express bus service was planned around light-rail. Now he is walking backwards. This isn’t about rail or express bus services. This is about Metro losing the transit hat to Sound Transit, and Sims clearly doesn’t like that. Sims wants to show that “bus rapid transit” works, as he keeps saying over and over, and that will help get him a cabinet position in Washington. That’s all he cares about.
You should take the piece that Ron Sims wrote and dissect it piece by piece and blast each one of his arguments! What is really startling is that he not only opposes RTID but ST2 as well.