The article mentions it, but I’ll reiterate: The margin of error is +/-6.7%.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but, yes, Prop 1 is a fairly liberal partisan cause, not necessarily in a bad way. Liberals and Democrats are way more in support of transit for environmental and other reasons than Republicans.
I don’t support transit because I care about the environment, though I do care about the environment.
I do see how urbanization and density breed a certain type of liberalism.
It shouldn’t be a cause for one side or another really. I don’t know how or why infrastructure improvements suddenly became partisan arguments. More infrastructure = more mobility = a good thing regardless of if its transit,roads,ports,rail,or whatever.
Yes, but in general, conservatives like to drive their own large cars, and don’t want to pay for something that they won’t use. Partisanship isn’t necessarily a bad thing; liberals and conservatives are for the most part ideological groups that agree on most issues.
Nice, those numbers look almost the same, so that’s a good second datapoint.
Increased mobility is not, on face, a good thing as you suggest. First off, the ‘good’ isn’t mobility so much as it is access: the ability to access the destinations that you want to access. Access is a function of time and comfort, which can be, but are not necessarily proportional to distance.
One can increase access either by increasing mobility or by increasing proximity. If people are closer to where they want to be, then they have more access, even if they aren’t moving as fast. The problem comes in when society increases mobility, the market responds by spreading destinations out over a larger area. I.e. freeways => sprawl. While freeways initially promised better access, the sprawl that has resulted has created a region with less overall access than we had before. Total journey-to-work time is higher today than it was before we built the freeway, not to mention journeys to school, shopping and recreation.
This does not mean that all mobility investments decrease access, in fact many such investments increase it, but the arrow does not always point in the same direction. There are those of use who are still hesitant about Prop 1 precisely because it amount to a huge taxpayer subsidy for the minority of the population who chooses to live more than 20 miles away from where they work. That is the group that benefits, they and downtown Seattle property owners.
Secondly, infrastructure is a partisan issues because of the economic concept of opportunity cost. Essentially, every dollar that one spends, as an individual or as a society, is a dollar that can’t be spent on something else. Ben S. has alluded to this many times when he has argued that if Prop 1 does not pass, the money will be shifted to road construction. Note that shifted is the optimal word. If we spend it on light rail, we can’t spend it on roads, and vice versa. Likewise, for anti-tax folk, if we spend it publicly, say on light rail, then the private citizens don’t have the money to spend privately, on things like flat screen TVs, vacations, jetskis or whatever.
Spending priorities is at the very heart of partisan politics. Liberal priorities tend to be environmental, social services for the poor, health care, education, etc. Conservative priorities tend to be military, private consumption (via lower taxes), law and order, and business interests.
Here, we have a liberal priority, the environment, which liberals consider roads, the sprawl they induce and the pollution cars create to be the enemies of, at odds with two conservative priorities: 1.) low taxes and 2.) road building and the sprawl, i.e. development, i.e. business interest, that they facilitate.
There are also underlying philosophical differences between liberals and conservatives that cause this issue to fall along ideological lines. Liberals tend to think more communally and conservatives more individualistically. Mass transit is a communal experience. You physically share space on a train car. You all go to the same place, etc. Driving is a more private, individualistic experience. You are physically separated from your fellow drivers by private metal boxes on wheels, and people have total autonomy over destination. Liberals, who tend to be more comfortable with the mental idea of communal experiences like transit, can picture themselves using it, even if they don’t live or work near a proposed station. Conservatives on the other hand tend to be more repelled by the idea of a communal experience like transit and thus have a harder time imagining themselves choosing to use this system. I.e. they, statistically speaking are more psychologically attached to roads.
Finally, there is a critical difference between saying it isn’t a partisan issue (Andrew) and saying it shouldn’t be a partisan issue (Brian in Seattle). The former is easily refuted by the poll, which shows that democrats overwhelmingly support Prop 1, while Republicans overwhelmingly oppose it. The latter comment, the idea that this shouldn’t be a partisan issue is more sinister. The comment seems to imply two things:
1.) usually political differences are trivial, and that they are entirely a matter of subjective opinion.
2.) That this issue, infrastructure, should somehow “rise above” partisanship, because unlike partisan issues like environment, war, and abortion, infrastructure is actually important.
3.) Everyone should agree with the poster’s position, because unlike partisan issues, which are both unimportant and subjective, this issue, infrastructure is neither.
There is nothing about infrastructure that makes it less subjective or more important than the many highly partisan issues that our society debates. Infrastructure IS important, but other issues, partisan issues, are just as important. Also, infrastructure investments are value judgments, just like other issues. Failing to acknowledge that infrastructure is a partisan, value judgment undermines meaningful debate. So long as each side is convinced that they are “objectively right”, we will never listen to each other.
In short, this is a partisan issue, just as it should be.
Infrastructure decisions can be partisan, yes. But infrastructural investment often gains bi-partisan support because members of both parties believe the investment is valuable, even if for different reasons.
Back before the culture wars, for example, both parties believed educational was important, and a number of state colleges were built or improved in the 50s and 60s as a result. Conservatives may have been primarily interested in the economic boon of better educated workers while liberals may have been more interested in the social mobility brought by access to education, but both sides supported it.
So anyway, you can argue that transit infrastructure could have bi-partisan support: small-government conservatives could see it as a cheaper way to provide mobility (and/or access) than road expansion does, nationalist conservatives could see it as a way to reduce dependancy on foreign oil, etc. You don’t see this in the US, of course, but you do see it overseas (I believe the Tories just voted to expand high-speed rail between London and the Midlands, for example).
I think it’s interesting to look at *why* you don’t see this in the US. My guess would be that it’s related to the urban/rural split in our party system, but I’m not 100% sure.
All that said, you seem to think of the liberal/conservative split differently than I do: I wouldn’t have said that a party, say, worried about the effects of gay marriage on society is a party that looks at choices with an individualistic eye.
I actually think it’s simpler than all that, Tony. Infrastructure itself is too unimportant (boring) to be a partisan issue, but taxing methods are certainly partisan. Also people will vote based on self interest, for example if they see a proposed light rail station as beneficial to their personal commute or business. I also have to point out historical Republicans identified with industry and so would often support ugly infrastructure, including rail yards and polluting factories in most American cities. However, the late 20th Century GOP reinvented itself as a socially conservative party more popular in the suburbs. So in this case there are two reasons for suburban Republicans to vote no: opposition to tax increases and limited self interest (since they are usually so far from stations).
Also, while both sides are focusing on commuters, I believe light rail mobility to be more important for culture than commuting. In Seattle, all our major cultural institutions are in the central city, as well a large number of parks and other attractions. I used to live in a small town and loved it in many ways—as they say, it’s a great place call home if you can find a decent job—but it really cannot compete with the great theater and arts scene here.
Boy, with Prop 1 leading only by slim margins and 985 looking like it could pass with slim margins we may be in store for our worst nightmare: Prop 1 fails and 985 passes, putting transit expansion at least another 2 years behind and causing increased congestion in the meantime.
Discussion here is great, but it won’t get this passed. Volunteer! From Mass Transit Now:
Wednesday, October 29……….6 days until Election Day!
Seattle Phone Bank: Parsons Brinkerhoff, 999 3rd Avenue, Suite 2200, Seattle; 5:30pm to 8:30pm.
Thursday, October 30……….5 days until Election Day!
Morning Banner and Sign Waving: Meet at SR-520 Montlake Crossing; 7:00am – 8:30am.
Seattle Phone Bank: Parsons Brinkerhoff, 999 3rd Avenue, Suite 2200, Seattle; 5:30pm to 8:30pm
Friday, October 31……….4 days until Election Day!
Morning Banner and Sign Waving: Along I-5 south of Seattle, exact location TBD; 7:00am – 8:30am.
Afternoon Banner and Sign Waving: Along 15th Avenue West in Seattle, exact location TBD; 7:00am – 8:30am.
Saturday, November 1……….3 days until Election Day!
Literature Dropping / Canvassing: View Ridge Playfield, 4408 NE 70th Street; 11:00am (we’ll be out for about two hours; make sure to bring a raincoat, a bag for your literature if you’d like, and wear comfy shoes!)
Cell-Phone Bank: Transportation Choices Coalition, 811 1st Avenue, Suite 626 (Colman Building on 1st between Columbia and Marion); 2:00pm to 5:00pm. We’ll have a few open lines but please bring your personal cell phone to use free weekend minutes!
Sunday, November 2……….2 days until Election Day!
Literature Dropping / Canvassing: View Ridge Playfield, 4408 NE 70th Street; 11:00am (we’ll be out for about two hours; make sure to bring a raincoat, a bag for your literature if you’d like, and wear comfy shoes!).
Cell-Phone Bank: Transportation Choices Coalition, 811 1st Avenue, Suite 626 (Colman Building on 1st between Columbia and Marion); 2:00pm to 5:00pm. We’ll have a few open lines but please bring your personal cell phone to use free weekend minutes!
Monday, November 3……….1 day until Election Day!
We’ll have activities going all day – phone banking, sign-waving, and door knocking. Please let us know if you can give us an hour or two of your time!
ELECTION DAY!
We’ll have activities going all day – phone banking, sign-waving, and door knocking. Please let us know if you can give us an hour or two of your time!
I can’t seem to find volunteer opportunities for 985, so I think we just need to work on our friends, neighbors and relatives to convince them it is a horrible idea.
The article mentions it, but I’ll reiterate: The margin of error is +/-6.7%.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but, yes, Prop 1 is a fairly liberal partisan cause, not necessarily in a bad way. Liberals and Democrats are way more in support of transit for environmental and other reasons than Republicans.
I don’t support transit because I care about the environment, though I do care about the environment.
I do see how urbanization and density breed a certain type of liberalism.
It shouldn’t be a cause for one side or another really. I don’t know how or why infrastructure improvements suddenly became partisan arguments. More infrastructure = more mobility = a good thing regardless of if its transit,roads,ports,rail,or whatever.
Yes, but in general, conservatives like to drive their own large cars, and don’t want to pay for something that they won’t use. Partisanship isn’t necessarily a bad thing; liberals and conservatives are for the most part ideological groups that agree on most issues.
http://www.washingtonpoll.org/results.html
Nice, those numbers look almost the same, so that’s a good second datapoint.
Increased mobility is not, on face, a good thing as you suggest. First off, the ‘good’ isn’t mobility so much as it is access: the ability to access the destinations that you want to access. Access is a function of time and comfort, which can be, but are not necessarily proportional to distance.
One can increase access either by increasing mobility or by increasing proximity. If people are closer to where they want to be, then they have more access, even if they aren’t moving as fast. The problem comes in when society increases mobility, the market responds by spreading destinations out over a larger area. I.e. freeways => sprawl. While freeways initially promised better access, the sprawl that has resulted has created a region with less overall access than we had before. Total journey-to-work time is higher today than it was before we built the freeway, not to mention journeys to school, shopping and recreation.
This does not mean that all mobility investments decrease access, in fact many such investments increase it, but the arrow does not always point in the same direction. There are those of use who are still hesitant about Prop 1 precisely because it amount to a huge taxpayer subsidy for the minority of the population who chooses to live more than 20 miles away from where they work. That is the group that benefits, they and downtown Seattle property owners.
Secondly, infrastructure is a partisan issues because of the economic concept of opportunity cost. Essentially, every dollar that one spends, as an individual or as a society, is a dollar that can’t be spent on something else. Ben S. has alluded to this many times when he has argued that if Prop 1 does not pass, the money will be shifted to road construction. Note that shifted is the optimal word. If we spend it on light rail, we can’t spend it on roads, and vice versa. Likewise, for anti-tax folk, if we spend it publicly, say on light rail, then the private citizens don’t have the money to spend privately, on things like flat screen TVs, vacations, jetskis or whatever.
Spending priorities is at the very heart of partisan politics. Liberal priorities tend to be environmental, social services for the poor, health care, education, etc. Conservative priorities tend to be military, private consumption (via lower taxes), law and order, and business interests.
Here, we have a liberal priority, the environment, which liberals consider roads, the sprawl they induce and the pollution cars create to be the enemies of, at odds with two conservative priorities: 1.) low taxes and 2.) road building and the sprawl, i.e. development, i.e. business interest, that they facilitate.
There are also underlying philosophical differences between liberals and conservatives that cause this issue to fall along ideological lines. Liberals tend to think more communally and conservatives more individualistically. Mass transit is a communal experience. You physically share space on a train car. You all go to the same place, etc. Driving is a more private, individualistic experience. You are physically separated from your fellow drivers by private metal boxes on wheels, and people have total autonomy over destination. Liberals, who tend to be more comfortable with the mental idea of communal experiences like transit, can picture themselves using it, even if they don’t live or work near a proposed station. Conservatives on the other hand tend to be more repelled by the idea of a communal experience like transit and thus have a harder time imagining themselves choosing to use this system. I.e. they, statistically speaking are more psychologically attached to roads.
Finally, there is a critical difference between saying it isn’t a partisan issue (Andrew) and saying it shouldn’t be a partisan issue (Brian in Seattle). The former is easily refuted by the poll, which shows that democrats overwhelmingly support Prop 1, while Republicans overwhelmingly oppose it. The latter comment, the idea that this shouldn’t be a partisan issue is more sinister. The comment seems to imply two things:
1.) usually political differences are trivial, and that they are entirely a matter of subjective opinion.
2.) That this issue, infrastructure, should somehow “rise above” partisanship, because unlike partisan issues like environment, war, and abortion, infrastructure is actually important.
3.) Everyone should agree with the poster’s position, because unlike partisan issues, which are both unimportant and subjective, this issue, infrastructure is neither.
There is nothing about infrastructure that makes it less subjective or more important than the many highly partisan issues that our society debates. Infrastructure IS important, but other issues, partisan issues, are just as important. Also, infrastructure investments are value judgments, just like other issues. Failing to acknowledge that infrastructure is a partisan, value judgment undermines meaningful debate. So long as each side is convinced that they are “objectively right”, we will never listen to each other.
In short, this is a partisan issue, just as it should be.
Infrastructure decisions can be partisan, yes. But infrastructural investment often gains bi-partisan support because members of both parties believe the investment is valuable, even if for different reasons.
Back before the culture wars, for example, both parties believed educational was important, and a number of state colleges were built or improved in the 50s and 60s as a result. Conservatives may have been primarily interested in the economic boon of better educated workers while liberals may have been more interested in the social mobility brought by access to education, but both sides supported it.
So anyway, you can argue that transit infrastructure could have bi-partisan support: small-government conservatives could see it as a cheaper way to provide mobility (and/or access) than road expansion does, nationalist conservatives could see it as a way to reduce dependancy on foreign oil, etc. You don’t see this in the US, of course, but you do see it overseas (I believe the Tories just voted to expand high-speed rail between London and the Midlands, for example).
I think it’s interesting to look at *why* you don’t see this in the US. My guess would be that it’s related to the urban/rural split in our party system, but I’m not 100% sure.
All that said, you seem to think of the liberal/conservative split differently than I do: I wouldn’t have said that a party, say, worried about the effects of gay marriage on society is a party that looks at choices with an individualistic eye.
I actually think it’s simpler than all that, Tony. Infrastructure itself is too unimportant (boring) to be a partisan issue, but taxing methods are certainly partisan. Also people will vote based on self interest, for example if they see a proposed light rail station as beneficial to their personal commute or business. I also have to point out historical Republicans identified with industry and so would often support ugly infrastructure, including rail yards and polluting factories in most American cities. However, the late 20th Century GOP reinvented itself as a socially conservative party more popular in the suburbs. So in this case there are two reasons for suburban Republicans to vote no: opposition to tax increases and limited self interest (since they are usually so far from stations).
Also, while both sides are focusing on commuters, I believe light rail mobility to be more important for culture than commuting. In Seattle, all our major cultural institutions are in the central city, as well a large number of parks and other attractions. I used to live in a small town and loved it in many ways—as they say, it’s a great place call home if you can find a decent job—but it really cannot compete with the great theater and arts scene here.
Boy, with Prop 1 leading only by slim margins and 985 looking like it could pass with slim margins we may be in store for our worst nightmare: Prop 1 fails and 985 passes, putting transit expansion at least another 2 years behind and causing increased congestion in the meantime.
Discussion here is great, but it won’t get this passed. Volunteer! From Mass Transit Now:
I can’t seem to find volunteer opportunities for 985, so I think we just need to work on our friends, neighbors and relatives to convince them it is a horrible idea.