Last week's decision by the Sound Transit board to put a $23 billion proposalon the November ballot is testament to just how confident board members are about the public's light-rail delusions. Even though the trains will serve a fraction of the voting public, the board is betting that in the face of $4 gasoline people will feel the need to do something, an urge that will outweigh their fear of big-money projects at a time of economic gloom.
The "light-rail = action" sales pitch we can expect in the coming months was perfectly embodied last week by Greg Nickels' op-edin the Seattle Times. It didn't so much make a case for expanding light rail as pour scorn on anyone who would dare question the plan. According to Nickels, the time for questioning is over. It's time (as it always is when a politician wants to tap voters for money) to move forward.
Which is fine for a large segment of the voting public. To the light-rail faithful, there's nothing to discuss, and price isn't relevant. You could say it'll cost $100 billion to get to Northgate and they wouldn't blink. Light rail is just something you do—other cities have it; of course Seattle should have it. People who live nowhere near the planned light-rail stops will nonetheless tell you they can't wait for the convenience of light rail. But how will they get to it? Where will they park? What makes them vote for this thing that'll be five miles away from where they live when they don't take the bus that stops two blocks away? Who knows.
This is the choir to whom Nickels preached in his satiric op-ed, which offered "10 Lame Reasons to Delay Mass Transit." (It was a retort to an accompanying piece by Ron Sims, who argued that new taxes should be put off and the package more heavily weighted toward bus service.) Nickels' piece set up the customary false dichotomy: Our choice is between continuing to fill up the gas tank, sitting in congestion, paving over Puget Sound, standing in overcrowded buses, or...buying this $23 billion light-rail plan.
Talk about not moving forward. It drives me nuts every morning to be stuck on a packed Metro bus at one red light after the next, as single-occupancy vehicles whiz across (or, even worse, the intersection sits empty). How can we not be giving buses signal priority? Every single Metro rider could tell you 100 more ways to make riding that thing more useful, efficient, and appealing, as it travels through every nook and cranny of King County. But instead of expending political and financial capital on that, we're supposed to pony up billions for a fixed line going alongside the freeways, where cars won't be inconvenienced at all.
I'm really not dead-set against light rail. I actually voted for it in 1996. But that system hasn't even opened yet. What exactly has Sound Transit proven since then that makes a massive expansion justified—that they can build less than they promised in a third more time than they said it would take? For those of us who aren't true believers, it would be nice for Nickels, the chair of the Sound Transit board, to tell us what lessons have been learned. Has the Sounder commuter-rail service actually taken any cars off the road, for instance, or proven cost-effective relative to other options?
Instead we just get the snark, such as Lame Reason to Delay #8: "Local media need an infusion of advertising cash from a certain Eastside shopping center developer who wants another two years to tell you that freeways are still the best transportation for the region." An oddly misplaced bit of sarcasm, since Sound Transit appears to be one of the biggest advertisers in town. (They've certainly got more billboards up than Kemper Freeman.)
Then there was Nickels' Reason #4 to Delay: "Waiting for mass transit will give you time to bone up on the latest news about how our indecision and bad habits are torching the planet." Funny, but this "reason" only succeeds in raising the awkward question of what exactly the global impact will be of a colossal 15-year construction project like light rail. How long will it be before the environmental benefits of this transportation alternative balance out the energy and resource consumption involved in building it? Decades? I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but if you want to talk about global-warming impacts, well...let's talk about them.
I'd like to know exactly what problem this particular light-rail route is going to solve, why that problem is the one most in need of solving, and why light rail is the best answer to that problem. But I suspect we're just going to hear the usual blather. "Light rail is going to get people out of their cars," we'll be told. (Which people? Says who?) And "we can't build our way out of our transportation mess." Except we can, it seems—not by building more freeways; by building this other thing.
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Greg 08/11/2008 10:01:45 AM
I LIKE transit in most all forms, but would like to propose a pragmatic approach. Our tiny monorail route has carried more than 45 MILLION PASSENGERS since it was built in 1962. I never asked for it to run from Ballard to Alki - but I HAVE asked why it has NEVER been Extended SOUTH over to Second Avenue for a Market / SAM station. (perhaps as part of a condo complex, or sue of the current vacant lot) then down to our stadiums. OUR THREE BIGGEST ATTRACTIONS COULD all connected by a vehicle already paid for, and on its own easement, above the vehicle traffic. Want to get fancy? Loop one end of the west track around the stadiums, and attach it to the east track. Build a station above Edgar M. Way, with ramps to both stadiums. At the north end, repeat that concept of linking the east track around around the Seattle Center to better serve its 74 acres. Perhaps a station on Mercer between ACT and McCaw Hall and the theatres. Loop it around the Key Arena and attach to the west track. If we think we have the money to build three or four streetcar new systems, we certainly must have the money to extend the monorail to fulfill its original goal. For those who think the monorail was a big prop or toy, I would like to point out it has carried more people than Amtrak or our ferry system each carries in a year. Just a mile and a half and more than 45 MILLION Passengers. On its own grade, it never is caught in traffic below. That is the key reason 45 million chose the monorail over more than a dozen bus line options they COULD have taken. FOR the price of a few streetcar lines, we could UN-pinch the monorail, serve Pike Place, SAM and Benaroya Hall, and our billion dollars investment in Stadiums -- efficiently serving the three most attended places in town with a system that NEVER gets caught in street traffic. Pragmatic means The Benson Trolley should be the very next trolley project. We spent 20 years to get it up and running. We should extend the tracks NORTH to the NEW CRUISE SHIP PIERS... the ones that will, by 2010, have upwards of 6,000 to 8,000 folks a day trying to get in and out on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from May to September. Five years ago both AMGIN and the PORT OF SEATTLE said they might be interested in helping to pay for that... and there appears to be no progress. The entire line is in limbo as no one wants to make a move until AFTER the viduct is rebuilt. Rather than wait to see the fate of the Viaduct, I would propose that we look seriously at extending the tracks NORTH to Pier 90/91 through Myrtle Edwards Park, on the far EAST side of the Park. I would then ask the PORT to pick up the cost for a TEMPORARY Trolley barn on port property adjacent to Piers 90/91, perhaps even on city land, or city park land UNDER or adjacent to the Magnolia Viaduct. This would keep the north end of the line operational, and possibly up and functional by the 2009 Cruise Season to better serve the ship piers. It would serve the folks at the AMGIN offices and near by lower Queen Anne year round regardless of the status of the Viaduct. If the trolley goes all the way to Jackson, or just to Pier 52 to tie to the ferry dock, or even just to pier 66, it would serve as a functional money maker from the get go. The hardest part would be to wrap around the the west end of the Olympic Sculpture Park Rail overpass... but could be done by squeezing rails (trolley cannot pass if a train is rolling) or by running adjacent to the sidewalk... For all the money and time we as taxpayers have placed on the infrastructure of 6 cars and their refurbishment, let alone the Streetcar Branding and awareness, this could prove to be a very green win- win solution and the least expensive of all the streetcar plans. By extending NORTH, regardless of the Viaduct, you show progress, and maybe even turn a profit. Once the Viaduct is settled, it would be easy to extend into the ID, to meet up with Metro and Sound Transit Light rail, Heavy Rail, and busses. It would be a Terrific investment, and very INEXPENSIVE by comparison to other routes being discussed. Finish THESE two overdue projects... then we'll "chat" about Light Rail to Northgate.