The News Tribune is calling out the City of Lakewood for renegging on a deal the city had with Sound Transit whereby the Lakewood would patrol and maintain the new train and bus station in Lakewood. The station opened last week but the Sounder service won’t reach Lakewood for at least another two years and – according to the News Tribune – Lakewood has decided they won’t pay for the patrols after all. The News Tribune’s editors put it better than I ever could:
Sound Transit has lived up to its end of the bargain … The agency also agreed to add millions of dollars to the project’s cost by agreeing to build a multi-story parking garage instead of a much cheaper surface lot.
That garage won’t be sitting empty until Sounder arrives in 2011 or 2012. Sound Transit is adding express bus service to the Tacoma Dome Station where passengers can catch Sounder trains, as well as 20 trips to an existing route between Lakewood and Seattle. Those services begin Sunday.
Lakewood is gaining a transportation hub at a critical time when commuters hit by high gas prices are taking a new look at mass transit. The key to getting people on buses – and eventually trains – is providing easy connections. Lakewood Station fits that bill.
Easy answer. Shut down rte 599. Those who have chosen to live on the fringes and are now unwilling to pay the communitarian price for getting to “work” in the cities by transit have a Republican lesson to learn: Put up or Shutt up!