No big surprise there. Every county council member in the Prop 1 District signed the op-ed piece. Only Kathy Lambert didn’t, and her district is outside the Sound Transit Region.
I’ve turned off comments, so if case you want to comment, please do it over there and try to change some people’s minds.
Thanks!
These photos are actually legally taken this time:
It was a pretty nice event. Governor Christine Gregoire spoke, as did Senator Patty Murray, Pierce County Executive and Sound Transit Chair (and cowboy boot enthusiast) John Ladenburg, Port Commissioner Lloyd Hara, and State Representative Dave Upthegrove. The station looked great and it was actually raining during the speeches but I didn’t feel a drop on me. Beneath the station is a wonderful bus transfer section where buses can pick up and drop off on both sides of the station. There’s a lot of room for multi-modal transfers there.
There’s going to be a really nice mezzanine between the platform and the ground where the buses are. I wonder what exactly that space will be used for. They have already finished the elevated section between Rainier Valley and Tukwila so the only concrete construction left is from Tukwila to Seatac itself.
Some random things I learned at the event:
Van Dyk (the guy who worked on Herbert Humphrey’s Campaign all the way back in 1968!!!) gives us another doosy of an old man rant in today’s PI:
King County Executive Ron Sims, a former Sound Transit chairman and sparkplug, broke ranks with the political establishment recently to publicly oppose Prop. 1. It was a difficult decision for him but the right one for his county. It is never too late to correct a mistake, especially if the mistake in question is a world-class whopper.
Oh man, it keeps coming back to Ron Sims. The man who was chair of Sound Transit during the planning phase. The man who appointed a majority of the people on the board. The man who said during planning, “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.” (That’s four digs) If it was such a difficult decision to make, why didn’t he make it back when it could have been easy, back when he chaired the board, back when he was appointing the majority on the board, back when the plans weren’t finalized?
That would have meant building a line from Sea-Tac Airport to downtown, throwing a party and using Sound Transit resources thereafter for more sensible transit alternatives. Instead, Sound Transit has willfully pursued with public funds a non-stop push for light rail expansion — even though it is a decade late and billions of dollars over budget in completing its so-called Phase I line from the airport to Northgate, with many initially promised stations cancelled.
Um, that’s not what the audit said… So do you just make up the requirements for Phase one completion, Van Dyk? I think I’m starting to see why Walter Mondale, who Van Dyk was a “senior advisor” to, carried only one state: if your advisors don’t read the documents before passing judgment, who’s going to find you credible?
The present misleading media campaign for Prop. 1 has been funded by contractors and outriders who see it as providing them a generations-long cornucopia of public money and who, coincidentally, are a major source of campaign funds for Prop. 1’s political sponsors. Major corporations locally have fallen into line, apparently buying the premise that a dreadful transportation proposal is better than none. CEOs of the corporations supporting the huge taxpayer-financed package would not tolerate for a moment the same wildly cost-ineffective allocations of resources within their own companies. Investors would demand their resignations.
Wow. This essay would not have gotten a B- in my 12th-grade writting class. Misleading in which way? How do you know that major corporations think this is a dreadful proposal? I know that my employer has never told me it was a dreadful proposal before they donated cash to the yes campaign. And whose resignations would be demanded? The CEOs? It’s a very confusing read.
Anyway, Van Dyk is not just a crazy old man, he is a classy old man:
I disagree in one respect with P-I columnist Bill Virgin’s characterization of it as an “8-foot-tall steaming pile of elephant dung.” I believe the pile to be at least 10 feet high.
Nice. Van Dyk, you are so old there’s no way you will either ride the trains or pay for them. What the hell do you care? Leave the decisions on the future to those who will be alive to live in it.
Increased density. Displacement and interruption of businesses. Low incomes. High unemployment rates. Increased noise. Visual Blight. Crime. Will the Martin Luther King Way south neighborhood follow suit and show a resemblance to neighborhoods near Portland’s MAX line? Will crime statistics be far behind?
I thought most people considered increased density a good thing. But high unemployment caused by light rail? Crime caused by light rail? Are you kidding me? I barely even know how to respond to that argument. Light Rail will only increase access to jobs in the city’s core and the University District (the two highest employment centers in Seattle), and having tons of people walking around a neighborhood shouldn’t increase crime. The worst neighborhoods for crime in Seattle are those most isolated. Sure more people means more crime in total, but not on average. The argument is ridiculous.
Next the uncertainty, from John Niles of CETA
Do we want to double the bet on Sound Transit when the 1996 Sound Move Plan is reported in the most recent Sound Transit progress report to be only 50% complete? Is Prop 1 really just a bail out to cover the Sound Transit overruns that are supposedly old news? That would explain the seeming desperation to get Prop 1 passed and double transportation sales taxes beginning in 2008.
See the 50% completion number with your own eyes by clicking on the link at the top of the web page http://www.bettertransport.info/pitf/promises-v
s-reality.htm.
Yikes! There’s a lot of misinformation there. But the answer is no and no. John Niles and his friends at CETA are desperate to destroy Sound Transit, and Prop. 1 is their best chance for it. These guys spent years and tons of money to try to obstruct the process, get Sound Transit shut down, and get the car-tabs revenue taken away so they can come back and say “Look at all the trouble Sound Transit is having”. In reality, the trouble ended five years ago after the courts ruled Sound Transit should be allowed to stay and the car tab revenue with them.
Finally the doubt, from Erica “No Mind to Make Up” Barnett:
Prognostications about the future are just that—predictions that may or may not come true. It’s interesting to me that TCC and other environmental groups that support roads and transit assume nothing is set in stone about the roads side of the package (“Sure, we’re voting for roads, but only because we’ll take them out later!”) but are absolutely 100% rock-solid certain that Sound Transit will never be back on the ballot if this fails. Seems like serious cognitive dissonance to me.
Way to pick quotes to paint a specific picture! There is a pretty good chance that the so-called “cross-base highway” will not get built because there is no finally plan for that road. Some of what is in RTID, like the two-lane addition to I-405 and SR-520 assume that WSDOT will cough up money, and that we don’t know for sure. And Erica is forgetting that Ed Murray and others in the state legistlature have forced them onto the ballot this year for the exact reason that they don’t want to have to run their campaigns the same election year as the transit vote. We’ll see whether Sound Transit comes back on the ballot if Prop. 1 doesn’t pass, but I can assure you it will not come back on the ballot next year.
The better of the two dailies has endorsed Prop 1 in this rather guarded editorial:
For those who want more mass transit but no new roads, we hear you. We also empathize with those who fret about the sales tax increases, car tabs and the potential for light rail extensions and roads proposed by the package to cost closer to $160 billion. In an ideal world, Prop. 1 would be split into two separate questions, not one.
But, here’s the thing: It’s not so bad that we’d toss the baby (transit) out with the bathwater (roads). We’re already invested in light rail, and we can’t wait for the 2009 (that will be on time, right Sound Transit?) opening of the stretch connecting Sea-Tac Airport to the University of Washington.
That’s my feeling basically. ST2 includes hugely important rail infrastructure, and RTID includes a few bad projects (405) and a few really desparately needed ones (South Park Bridge). I think on the whole, it’s far more good than bad.
Goldy at Horse’s Ass has a nice round up of the audit news that shows Sound Transit had a realitively good audit overall. He also discusses the spin well. I’d talk about it, but I urge you to go there and read that piece.
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.
Crappy reporting explained:
But both of those numbers, which add up to $18 billion, are in so-called 2006 dollars, meaning that they don’t allow for inflation over the decades it will take to complete the work.
And those calculations cover only the cost of construction, not interest payments on money borrowed for the projects, administrative expenses or other outlays (including, for Sound Transit, the cost of operating and maintaining its system).
Considering the effects of inflation at the various times the money will be paid out, the road agency estimates that it will spend $10 billion on actual construction and the transit agency $18 billion. When both inflation and the other costs are factored in — including interest charges until the last of the 30-year Sound Transit construction loans are repaid in 2057 — the sums rise to $16 billion for RTID and $31 billion for Sound Transit. That’s a grand total of $47 billion — the figure the Seattle P-I uses in its articles.
I know I feel like I’m beating a dead horse here, but we don’t know inflation with an accuracy over 50 year periods! The number makes no sense because three years of no inflation could shrink the end number by 20%, and three years of massive inflation could raise it by 50%. We don’t know inflation.
I’d like to welcome Ben Schiendelman as a guest blogger to Seatrans.
Ben knows heaps about trains, transit, urban planning, civic development, and the history of the process in our region. He’s travelled the globe riding trains, and has read extensively on transportation and environmental issues. Some of Ben’s other work on transit in the area:
Among others.
Ben’s a very busy guy, so I don’t expect him to post often or to post especially long pieces. But he’s going to be posting images of train systems in other places and to give us an idea of what has been done in other places and what works.
Welcome to Seatrans, Ben!
James Vesely, the man with the confusing title “Times editorial page editor”, in his editorial today argues that he cannot support the Roads and Transit ballot because it’s difficult to find a responsibility chain among bureaucracy
It’s tough for anyone, even those immersed n the public process, to tick off the names of all the seated members of the Sound Transit board, or the board of directors of the Regional Transportation Investment District. It’s easier to remember the names of the county executives of King, Snohomish and Pierce counties, but their direct responsibility for a successful roads-and-transit program is limited.
Certainly true. But the problem here is not with the package, but with the way we raise money in this state. Our leaders have no way to create the locally, and the legislature in Olympia is not willing to fork over the whole state’s cash for transportation projects in our area, even if we are more than half the state’s totally population. While Sound Transit is actually a regional government organization, Prop. 1 (aka Roads and Transit), is a funding mechanism to pay for capital projects. Who’s responsible for the package? For the transit side it’s obvious: Sound Transit, and ultimately its CEO Joni Earl, and its Board of Directors, 17 elected officials and the Washington Secretary of Transportation.
… That doesn’t mean the voters won’t accept the tax burden — but I think we are entitled to focus the responsibility on a few individuals and hold them accountable. Accountability eventually shattered the Seattle Monorail. Those who were accountable were discovered to have an overly optimistic financial plan. Accountability made a mess of the political decision over the viaduct. People knew the mayor, the governor and the speaker of the House were sometimes together, more often at odds about what to do next. They were accountable and we knew who they were. No one seems to be accountable for ST2/RTID. Even the name doesn’t conjure a face. It is a vote for bureaucracy.
Maybe it’s public relations that’s missing, maybe it’s hype, maybe it is the personalization of the political process. But, I have yet to find anyone who can tell me specifically who is in charge.
I’m not exactly sure what Veseley wants. A directly-elected regional transportation officer? I think that would just serve to expand the politicking surrounding the process. We already have enough politics when it comes to transportation and I don’t see the value in that sort of position. Having the board made up of elected members from within the region helps ensure that everyone’s needs are at least heard and considered, and having the board’s chair rotate from the county executives seems fair. Transportation is one of the most important local issues and part of the jobs of our elected officials. Setting up some sort of transportation czar would be passing the buck away from those who have it as part of their job already. So much for accountability.
It’s almost a Bush Administration type argument that we need some person responsible for the bill; “Brownie’s doing a heckuva job”. I certainly hope Joni Earl is doing a heckuva job, I’d rather than Sound Transit as a whole were.
So now the Sierra Club has gone one step past it’s usual greenhouse emissions line and has taken the bizarre step of criticizing the ST2 lines themselves.
A Sierra Club leader took the rare step Thursday of criticizing part of Sound Transit’s light-rail vision — a proposed track extension from the city of SeaTac south to Tacoma.
“I think it’s not the most efficient use of tax dollars,” local club Chairman Mike O’Brien said during a campaign debate over this fall’s multibillion-dollar Proposition 1.
He called the Tacoma line a “political decision” made to satisfy elected officials in Pierce County. “If transportation planners were in charge, they would come up with a more efficient solution,” he said.
In this country (and others) tax dollars are rarely efficiently used. Hell, I don’t even efficiently use my own cash. That doesn’t mean I should stop spending it or stop paying taxes. Sound Transit actually has a pretty decent record of not being hugely wasteful with tax dollars. The argument that the line doesn’t go to the right place is laughable. No matter where the build the line in South King County, that’s the right place: people will move to where the line is built and development will happen around the line!
While several environmental groups support the joint “Roads & Transit” plan, the Sierra Club argues that more road lanes would worsen global warming. O’Brien says he could have endorsed a transit-only plan.
After the debate, O’Brien said South End* trains would take too long to reach Seattle, because of the system’s slow surface segment currently under construction through South Seattle’s Rainier Valley. He suggests building separate lines outward from downtown Everett and Tacoma, serving local riders into those urban centers.
What the hell is he talking about? Separate lines outward from downtown Tacoma? That is just insane. People living in Federal Way aren’t well served by a line that takes them around Tacoma.
I’ve noticed the Seattle Times is still using the $38 billion number which is before the $7 billion double counting was corrected for.
Joel Connelly actually makes a good point today:
Vote down the roads-and-rails package so we can “do a lot better” next time with a transit-exclusive measure, urged Mike O’Brien of the Sierra Club. The club has broken with most major green outfits, which back the November measure.
King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson argued that delay carries a human price on working families coping with longer commutes, and added, “Every year that we wait will cost another $500 million.”
Polls show a buffeted electorate: Voters want a solution to the mess and favor mass transit. They’re not that enthusiastic with a six-tenths-of-a-cent increase in the sales tax and a licensing tab of $200 or so on a new car. Didn’t we already vote to limit car tabs?
…
Other cities in the West have been transformed, positively, by light rail and commuter rail systems. Once a dark, cavernous place populated by hoody teenagers, downtown Portland at night has come alive with light rail. The SkyTrain in Vancouver, B.C., is often packed and has revitalized neighborhoods.
…
The best public transit systems don’t just supplant already used bus routes, but extend to and serve growth areas. I used Bay Area Rapid Transit to visit an old friend in the far suburb of Pleasanton, Calif. Benedictine monks in Mission, B.C., use commuter rail for trips to diocesan headquarters 45 miles away in Vancouver.
…
Sound Transit has shaped up after a chaotic start. The light rail line is no longer going nowhere, but ending at the airport. Still, it proposes to spend huge amounts of money, and is asking for a huge leap of faith. The $1.64 billion price tag to tunnel beneath Capitol Hill is more than the entire Forward Thrust system would have cost.
…
Are we building new freeways and stoking the fires of global warming, as the Sierra Club charges? Or does this package make safety improvements and fix choke points so Puget Sound-area families can get home rather than fuming in traffic? I sense that the Sierra Club has let itself get driven by ideology.
It’s a very good reason to get out of the office this fall, seek answers and write down observations … which will keep me from lying on the horn in rush-hour traffic and being pulled over and given a ticket.
I agree with Joel. The Sierra Club has been taken over by ideology on this issue and are no longer credible.
*I don’t like people using “South End” this way. Seattle’s Rainer Valley is the South End, SeaTac is not the end of anything, and thus not the “South End.”
Update: Does Will read this blog, or is the conclusion just that obvious?
The Seattle Times article today, “Seattle gets a glimpse of its transit future”, is a decent little round-up of the goings-on these few weeks with regard to transit.
• In the South Lake Union area, a red streetcar arrived by truck Monday afternoon, the first of three to begin service in December.
• Two Sounder commuter trains will be added Monday between Seattle and Tacoma, and one will be added to Sounder’s Everett-to-Seattle line.
• Link light-rail trains begin service from downtown to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in the second half of 2009. Train tests inside the tunnel will start in October, on nights and weekends, Sound Transit spokesman Bruce Gray said.
• And, high-occupancy vehicle lanes are being added in Everett, Tacoma, on Highway 99 south of the airport and on the Interstate 90 floating bridges.
Also, the bus tunnel reopens next week. Some people are worried the mirrors might start taking people’s heads off now that the tunnel floor has lowered eight inches. It’s funny that the times article spends half the space on unions and danger. Pandering to it’s suburban, anti-transit readership I reckon.
The street car arriving is great news, but I am sure it’s “unfortunate” nickname may actually boost its popularity. It’s a bit stupid anyway, since trolley means any transport with an overhead wire, so the electric buses are actually trolleys too. I guess I shouldn’t be so pedantic.
In other Seattle Transit news, the Elliot Bay Water Taxi has had its service extended through October. I’m not exactly sure why this doesn’t run year ’round. Is it a safety issue? Ridership drop-off?
There are two celebrations marking the bus-tunnels reopening on the 24th. The first is tomorrow at 11:30, and includes a chance to walk through the tunnel. The second is a party at Westlake Park on the 24th itself. From the press release:
What a difference two years makes. After being closed for construction, the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel re-opens on-schedule for weekday bus service Monday, Sept. 24, better than ever. In a giant leap forward, the 1.3-mile tunnel has been retrofitted to incorporate Sound Transit’s Link light rail service, which will begin running through the tunnel in 2009. Link will connect downtown Seattle with Sea-Tac Airport, sharing the tunnel with buses. Which means one thing: It’s time to celebrate progress!
Sneak Peek: Press Conference & Public Tours
Tuesday, Sept. 18
11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Westlake Station platform & mezzanine, Pine Street & 4th Avenue, Seattle (Enter through Westlake Mall’s Metro Level)Street Treat: Street Fair & Celebration
Monday, Sept. 24
11 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Westlake Park, Pine Street & 4th Avenue, Seattle
Sound Transit opened a the new reverse-commute “City of Destiny” train (a Seattle-to-Tacoma route).
From the press release:
Today Sound Transit announced expanded Sounder commuter rail service starting September 24th that includes two new weekday round trips on the south corridor and one on the north corridor. The new south corridor trains include the introduction of a new “reverse commute” train that will run from Seattle to Tacoma in the morning and return northbound in the evening.
The reverse commute train will for the first time enable commuters to ride Sounder to jobs in South King County and Pierce County. The additional runs expand Sounder service hours in both the north and south corridors, with the first train starting at 5 a.m. and the last train making its final stop at 6:55 p.m.
More trains, more hours, and the new reverse commute train all add up to more choices for commuters who want to ride Sounder commuter rail and leave traffic behind.
Pretty awesome! I have been doing reverse commutes for years, first from San Francisco to San Jose, and now from Seattle to Redmond, and this is going to open possibilities for economic growth through that corridor, and give people more options to work where they want, and live where they please.
So what kind of commutes do you guys have? Anyone else do a reverse commute?
I think the expiration date on Van Dyk’s writing has definitely passed:
The local establishment reflexively scorns Eyman. It, too, reflexively endorses proposals opposed by Eyman. Keep Washington Rolling, the front organization backing the Proposition One ballot measure, has drawn big dollars from the contractors, subcontractors and others who eat at Sound Transit’s trough. But it also has gotten $200,000 from Microsoft, $75,000 from the Seattle Mariners, and $50,000 each from PEMCO Insurance Co. and the Washington Association of Realtors, among other donors.
I had to read that five times to make sure I was reading it correctly. Did he just say that Microsoft, Seattle Mariners, Pemco insurance and the Washington Association of Realtors, among others, reflexively donated more than $375,000 to Keep Washington Moving because Tim Eyman opposes it?
Really?
That man has become senile. Maybe they donated money because they think it’s a good ballot measure and that it’s passing will mean they will get more than $375,000 worth of benefit out of it. And that just happens to oppose Eyman’s any-progress-is-bad, let’s live like cavemen reality. Eyman just doesn’t want to pay for anything. And we all know a society gets no better than what it’s willing to pay for.
If you can’t see that, Van Dyk, it’s time to get out of the business of writing op-ed pieces.
Update: Will at horse’s ass sums up the if-we-vote-down-this-we’ll-get-transit-only-next-year argument:
I respect the Sierra Club guys. I don’t disagree with them on most of the facts, it’s their political judgment I question. Most of the people I talked to are convinced that if the Roads and Transit package fails, our elected officials will learn their lesson and give us a transit-only package in ‘08.
In an election year.
With Gov. Gregoire on the ballot.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
I find it much more likely that if this package fails, Gov. Gregoire will take care of business. Her business. And that’s SR-520, not Sound Transit. Olympia politicians don’t care about rail, only roads. They’re waiting for an excuse to enact “governance reform,” which will “reform” Sound Transit, alright.
Right out of existence, come next year, if this package goes down
Emphasis theirs.
Original post: I was writing a post about this article when I got a call from my friend at the Sierra club. Basically, she made the same point TroyJMorris made in his comment.
The Sierra Club really doesn’t want it’s name associated with the No on Prop1 campaign, because they agree on essentially nothing other than that neither supports this ballot. And they don’t support it for different reasons, No on Prop1 is a Tim Eyman-style anti-tax agency, especially anti-light rail, while the Sierra Club is actually very pro-light rail and anti-roads.
So the Sierra Club wants to split the ballot up into two proposals, one roads, one transit, so they can endorse the one they actually support, and then there’s a chance that the rail ballot could pass while the roads wouldn’t.
Even if the ballot does get split, I very much doubt that will happen. The roads ballot is almost a sure thing, and splitting them up only weakens rail’s chance.
These guys love the line “largest local project in American history” but, it’s pretty easy to see that it isn’t. Someone sent me this link showing what the typical family already pays in transportation taxes.
A Seattle Times review of major transportation taxes estimates that agencies collected an average of $843 per adult in urban areas of King County, including Seattle, last year. The figure for Seattle residents is $881. Roughly half the money went to transit, and half to roads.
Look at the graphic, of the $843 per household, $385 was for transit. Adjust that for transit now (increased property taxes), but eliminate the $30 sound transit car-tab fee has been retired, we stay at $385. So we get about 45% of the average county resident’s transportation tax spent on transit. With Roads and Transit, it would add $250 to each family for transit, and $150 for roads. I kow these are a bit “back-of-the-envelope” because I can’t know the exact number, but that still keeps transit under 50% of transportation spending, not the 90% the gas and concrete crowd crows about.
Things are really bad in terms of transportation here. Commutes just keep getting longer an there’s no reason to waste time will they get worse and our local economy is slowed because of it. That’s what Kemper Freeman doesn’t understand: who’s going to pay for his over-priced downtown Bellevue condos if no one can get anywhere?
Carless in Seattle has a great round-up of the anti-prop 1 ads that have just started airing. The comparison of the Pierce County ad with the Seattle Ad is pretty interesting.
King 5’s Robert Mak, whose show “Upfront with Robert Mak” is one of the most (unfairly) unintentionally hilarious programs on television because of Mak’s resemblence to Kermit the Frog, discussed the issue and sums up the anti-transit side of the story though in a little bit simplistic way.
“When you find out how little it does, and how much it costs, it’s the largest public works project ever proposed in America,” said Kemper. (STB – What? It’s the largest project works project because of how little it does?)
Some opponents are now running radio ads claiming the extra license tab and sales tax would add up to $157 billion by the time the last bonds are paid off in 50 years.
But transit supporters say the estimates are wrong, because after the year 2027, Sound Transit may choose to reduce taxes if it doesn’t need them.
Anyway now I finally figured out where the $157 billion number comes from, they assume that all taxes that are being collected will be collected for the 60 years that started in 1996 and will end in 2057 without building any more than is in the plan today. If prop 1 passes, the taxes will start to decrease after 2027 – when final construction finishes – unless new construction is approved by another vote.
The other thing, is the $157 billion number is mentioned in year-of-expenditure dollar amounts, which are inflation-adjusted. That means that the 2057 dollar amount is listed along side the 2007 dollar amount even though nothing in 2057 will cost the same as it does in 2007. Confusing right?
We’ve gone over and over again why using inflation-adjusted number make no sense (short recap: 1) All inflation numbers are estimates, so we don’t know the actual number anyway, 2) inflation adjusted numbers over huge time spans vastly over emphasizes later expenditures because inflation has increased those numbers, and 3) population growth increases the number of people who are paying the taxes, so per-person numbers are mis-estimated). By including money that is not being taxed (full taxes instead of debt-servicing from 2027 to 2057) 30 years from now, they are adding the largest possibly number because inflation will make costs 50 years from now so much higher than today. They are also dividing by current population numbers, to come up with a $94,000 per household figure.
Liars and crooks with deep pockets trying to confuse voters because of an ideological opposition to mass transit. Wow.
I can’t say who took this photos because I don’t actually know. Whoever took these, could you send me a mail from a real address? I don’t work for Sound Transit, and I promise I only want to talk about transit, nothing more.