Prop. 1 Defeated

15 Replies to “Prop. 1 Defeated”

1. Forget it, we lost, transit is dead. America is doomed.

2. washington said yes to extra hummer parking on the eastside tonight.

3. Rather than histrionic lamenting, let’s look at what actually happened. “Transit is dead” and “extra Hummer parking on the Eastside” are ridiculous things to say when you will have an opposing counterpart on the other side.

   Both sides–roads and transit–shot for the moon. They represented the most aggressive attempt to build missing parts of the 1967 freeway plan and the 1968 Forward Thrust plan since both plans were originally rejected for all unbuilt portions.

   Lots of finger-pointing is about to ensue as transit and road advocates blame each other, while Ron Sims, Kemper Freeman, Jr., and the Sierra Club basically sit around chuckling at all us serfs living in the tri-county area while pushing their pet visions.

   Let’s not participate in the flamefest about to ensue. Instead, let’s figure out what the core essentials of this plan were and return with a package with a lower price tag:

   – Light rail to Northgate, downtown Bellevue, and Federal Way.
   – 405 expansion to match the gross imbalance in capacity between the northern and southen halves, 167 completion, and the 509 bypass extension to I-5.

   Returning with these six improvments–the easiest links to build–is less ambitious, but ultimately is of greatest benefit to the region as a whole. The price tag is significantly lower and offers enough to the tri-county area to have a chance of passing.

   SR-520 is excluded because as one of two extant cross-lake routes, we’re going to get it by legislative fiat since the consensus plan failed.

   People didn’t reject this because there were “sprawl” roads, or because there was “useless” light rail. They rejected it because no one could definitively quantify the pinch to their pocketbooks.

   Pick up and fight another day. Somewhere in that grand list is a set of projects that people *will* commit to.

4. I like Jonathan’s idea but here is another.

   Rail/Link;

   A starter line in Downtown Bellevue to Downtown Redmond following the ST routing. Think of it like a Streetcar but with either the ST vehicles or something with similar capacity but it does not cross the I-90 bridge, leaving the option to take SR 520 as well.

   Extend Light-Rail still to Lynnwood and Ash Way/164th per ST2 but less tunneling and cut and cover unless necessary.

   Rail/Streetcar;

   Extend the South Lake Union Streetcar to the University of Washington campus with the line ending at 45th and Brooklyn.

   Build Streetcar from 5th & Jackson to First/Capital Hill with connector to University of Washington line (Yes, modern Streetcars could cross the University Bridge. It has in the past)

   Extend and restore Waterfront Streetcar to Terminal 91 at Amgen and future Cruise Terminal site.

   Extend Tacoma Link to Tacoma Community College (South-NorthWest) and Tacoma Mall (South-East)

   Rail/Sounder;

   Build Pedestrian tunnel from King Street Station into International District Station (This used to exist but was torn out after remodeling of Union Station)

   Build permanent Sounder/Amtrak Tukwila Station (Funds would be split 3 ways between WSDOT, Sound Transit, and Amtrak)

   Build new additional parking garages at Auburn Sounder Station and Kent station (no more space at either which keeps ridership from growing and Kent Station shoppers have no additional parking during Green River Community College hours)

   Alternative to building a new garage at Auburn and Sumner, Build new station and garage at Lakeland Hills. 8th St E and E Valley Hwy.

   Build new garages and pedestrian overpasses (or read above) at Sumner Station and Puyallup Stations.

   Work with BNSF Railway (owner of railroad tracks that Sounder uses and limits) to allow for more trains including mid-day and a few more peak hour trains, including weekend trains, even if it is 2 trains.

   Partial funding for a new maintenance facility at Seattle’s Coach Yard (Between Lander Street and Royal Brougham) that would increase the service turn around for locomotives and passenger cars and additional storage tracks. There is not enough room for personal to do maintenance in the yard and equipment is often shuffled between the station and the yard. This would eliminate this. This would be split between Sound Transit, Amtrak, WSDOT.

   Transit/BRT; Transit Now, not RTID

   BRT from Sea-Tac Airport to Federal Way Transit Center OR to Tacoma Dome Station (which would make more sense IMO)

   BRT from Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel to Bellevue Express, only stopping at Downtown Stations, I-90 and Rainier, South Bellevue Park and Ride and Bellevue Transit Center. This would NOT replace the 550 which would become a “local” service

   Roads/Bridges;

   Funding for 520 bridge. I’m pretty sure it will simply be another I-90 type bridge.

   South Park Bridge Replacement

   Study to fix I-5 from 4th Avenue exit to Convention Center.

   Replacement of Tacoma Murray Morgan bridge

   Alaska Way Viaduct Replacement, which IMO should just be a BLVD from Spokane Street to Pike Street where it would climb back into the tunnel the battery street tunnel. After seeing the transformation in San Fran after there viaduct came down after the earthquake, it is amazing.

   That is all I can think of at this early hour.

   Roads/Tolling;

   HOT lane on I-405, SR-167, I-90.

   Regardless of funding from the proposal, I-90 and SR-520 would need to be tolled. The tolls on I-90 could fund other projects.

   IF we were to go the route of Congestion tolling, the cost could be split from the proposal and collected tolls reducing the overall cost of the proposal.

   Other Transit/Ferry;

   Provide funding for ferry maintenance and build additional ships to replace aging fleet of vessels. Places a cap on raising ferry fares further.

   That is really all I can muster up but the Rail portion drops from 11 billion to give or take 2-5 billion. I’d have to do some guessing on that to be exact but that number is pretty safe to say good.

5. Were there really a market for public transit in Seattle, private companies would be lining up to build it for profit. That’s how New York and Tokyo built up their immense transport networks. Seattle voters know better than to spend billions of dollars trying to predict population growth based on glossy pamphlets.

6. Great maybe by 2090 we will have transit!! What I would like to see is decent political leaders taking control and actually make their worth.

7. It is true, they did ask a lot. That’s why I voted against the Federal Way School bonds the first few times they tried to sneak in a new performing arts center and other things like that along with replacing so many schools. Hopefully they’ll regroup quickly and identify a few key rail projects and try again.

   Because the irony is that WSDOT will determine the road projects to still be a necessity and put them on the calendar.

   I would have benefited not at all from any of this; my 15-minute commute across Federal Way would still take 90 minutes travel time by bus and several transfers and a 1/4 mile walk. But I know that rail is the right thing for our future and for all the liberal tax-and-spend pro-environmental let’s-help-the-inner-city crowd, it’s downright astonishing to me how many short-sighted fools (to be polite) there are who take the time to vote but get it so wrong.

8. ha! flying cars and maglev trains all over the nation.. except Seattle where we will continue to use conventional rail =)

9. Jason’s right. I’ve always thought that if I struck it rich, I would make a private line.

   But I’m far from rich, so I just play with my Lionel Train Set.

10. Ok, here’s the next step forward. What do you think about a recycled, energy-free monorail that uses old Boeing airplane hulls as trains? Sounds like a perfect fit for Seattle to me.

    (oops, try this link:

    Rather than suddenly splintering into complaining on one side, and fancy unproven technology on the other, I like Jonathan’s ideas. Get some light rail on the ballot next year – reasonable extensions. Maybe make it King only, where it will pass.

    Don’t do Redmond-Bellevue. It costs about as much as Bellevue-Seattle, but doesn’t get connector ridership, and it’s a much smaller corridor anyway. That’s 5,000 daily riders versus 20,000.

11. I concur with Jonathan’ proposal, and Ben’s suggestion that it be King County only.

    The projects he proposes will be perceived as entirely benefiting King County, and will be crushed in the other two if presented there.

    And if Pierce & Snohomish want to connect at Federal Way and Northgate, that’s their dime.

12. I like what both jon and brian have to say.

    At very least, we should bring the northgate extension to the seattle voters.

13. Problem with not doing Redmond and Bellevue is that Microsoft was a big financial backer of Prop. 1 and big real estate holders in both of these communities.

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