This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Well, I guess it’s all over but the shouting. Â Barring a major upset, Referendum 1 is going to be approved and the deep bore tunnel will happen. Â At least we’ll get a new waterfront out of it. Â I’m sorry we couldn’t convince our neighbors here in Seattle that this project was a poor use of limited dollars. Unlike Matt, I’m not interested in continuing to fight this battle.
On the plus side, it’s great that we’ve moved the debate this far. Â The battles of the past few years were about the legitimacy of mass transit in general and light rail in particular. Â Those battles were, in a sense, easier, because they didn’t involve zero-sum tradeoffs. Light rail is funded primarily by new tax money. Â The tunnel project, on the other hand, would have meant taking existing tax money and spending less of it on single-occupancy vehicles and more on other forms of mobility. Â That’s a bigger deal. Â So, no surprise that it lost on the first go-round. Â But considering the tunnel lost 70-30 a few years ago and then won 60-40 yesterday, I’d say public opinion is still pretty flexible on the subject. Â And that gives me hope.