Those of us who live in and around Seattle will vote this November on a huge package that's being sold as "roads and transit." Stay with me -- it's complicated but important, and it could have implications for transit projects around the US.
Of the $18 billion in the package, about $10 billion will pay for 50 miles of new light rail; the rest will pay for roads projects, including 152 new miles of general-purpose highways (and 74 miles of HOV). Because our state legislature, in its infinite wisdom, tied the two unrelated proposals together, rejecting roads means rejecting transit, and vice versa. Pro-transit supporters of the package (and there are lots of them) pretty much stop there. How, they argue, could we turn down the first opportunity we've had in a generation to more than double the region's light rail system? Yes, there are roads in the package -- including bad roads, like the four-lane widening of a major suburban freeway -- but a lot of those will actually help transit. Expanding SR-520 from Seattle to Bellevue, for example, will create two new HOV lanes. And look at all that light rail! Shiny, shiny light rail. How could you say no to all that light rail?
Well, let's look at what happens if this region does pass the joint roads and transit package. That will be our last chance to make a truly ambitious investment in transportation for a generation. It is, in other words, our last chance to do it right. As local Sierra Club chapter chairman Mike O'Brien told me, "It's not like we have pools of $18 billion just sitting around." If we pass this package, we'll have light rail, but we'll also be stuck paying for, and building, all those new roads -- roads that will just fill up, as roads do; roads that will contribute more to global warming than light rail takes away; roads that certainly won't be much help in easing congestion without a much larger investment in transit than the one in this package. And we'll send a message to transportation planners around the country: "It's OK to have transit, as long as you throw some new roads in there too."
A better message would be: "People want transit, so why do you keep giving us *$%! roads?"
One thing almost no one is talking about is the climate impact of a massive new investment in road expansion. They should be. Sure, boosters of the proposal pay lip service to reducing greenhouse gases, but when it comes to taking real action on climate change, they're still completely in the pocket of the pavement lobby. While the plan does include a "study" of the climate impact of the package, it also has strict "accountability" requirements that lock regional leaders into building every single mile of road in the package. So the study doesn't matter. A little-noticed regional study predicts that all the projects in the proposal get built, greenhouse-gas emissions in the region will increase roughly 43 percent. That's a lot of emissions for a region that says it cares about melting ice caps and polar bears.
There are other problems with the package. It's paid for with regressive sales tax instead of user fees like congestion pricing. Meanwhile, the roads in the package are mostly what enviros would call "bad" roads: massive expansion of suburban freeways, new connections between sprawling exurbs and the region's already overtaxed interstate, I-5, and a highway that will serve sprawl and pave over some of the last remaining oak prairie in Western Washington.
In an editorial in the Seattle Times, King County Executive (and light rail supporter) Ron Sims wrote that the 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. ... We must not make transportation decisions without considering the impact on global warming."
He's right. The roads package we're being asked to vote on represents the solutions of the past -- regressive sales taxes, toll-free general-purpose lanes, and pavement, pavement, pavement -- and, in doing so, sells out future generations.
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Comments
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:24 am
30 Sep 2007
Only in Libspeak are automobiles not defined as "transit" when they are by far the most used "transporation system" in Seattle and the world.
John Bailo
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nedruod Posted 6:14 am
30 Sep 2007
You are going to have to compromise to get the support of people who don't use public transportation however. So.. find another substitute, and show them why you're more willing to fulfill that desire, than roads.
I wrote about this topic, at my blog, because we have the same problem in Illinois. Here, their asking for schools as well as roads. I say more schools, less roads. I'm sure there are other ideas, possibly more appropriate to your locale.
Be creative, find something they want, and you're willing to part with and you'll get a compromise your much happier with.
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Colin Wright Posted 10:21 am
30 Sep 2007
A counterview is present in Walt Crowley's (RIP) "End of the ICE Age" (that's Internal Combustion Engine) piece in today's Seattle Times.
Either way, peak oil will soon be upon us. In my view, the most credible date is 2011. Not only do ASPO's extrapolations from previous discoveries point there, but totalling up the projects coming online give the same conclusion. (Of course, a not unlikely world recession may postpone the date a few years.) We may be one hurricane away from an Oil Shock, according to Shell's US CEO.
The entire debate will then be radically refocused. It is up to us enviros to get our heads out of the sand, and educate the public and be ready to push for huge investments in mass transit, both locally and federally.
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Biodiversivist Posted 10:55 am
30 Sep 2007
Joe Blow thinks that more roads will mean less congestion. Counter intuitive as it sounds, more roads quickly lead to the same levels of congestion no matter how many roads you build. People find ways not to drive when congestion gets bad enough and a steady state of congestion ensues, as seen in New York City.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Michelle Parker Posted 11:28 am
30 Sep 2007
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Sam Wells Posted 3:50 pm
01 Oct 2007
I will admit one can never build our way out of congestion. Sure, new roads fill up as soon as they are opened but you added capacity to the system. The old hippie motto "if you don't build it they won't come" as to highways and transit is simply wrong, wrong, wrong.
But I agree, bundling the project with as a single, huge combined package was a huge mistake. People are too smart for that. Thank goodness, too.
Onward through the fog
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racc Posted 7:30 am
02 Oct 2007
Automobiles are not by far the most used "transportation system" in the world. More people bicycle, walk and use public transit than will ever be able to drive. There are over 6 billion people on the planet and around 800 million automobiles. There is simply not enough steel, plastic and oil on this planet for everyone to drive.
We have to stop thinking we in North America are the center of the world and we somehow are entitled to drive consuming resources that others in the world and future generations will require to have a good standard of living.
Everyone, liberal and conservative refers public transit as transit. I have never seen a conservative try and refer to the automobile as transit.
Richard
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Delay And Deny Posted 8:31 am
02 Oct 2007
Yes, but they are in Seattle. And yes, a car plus a road network is a "system". It is the most flexible, the best loved (when done right), more economically efficient way to have multi-nodal transportation across areas in the range of 50 miles and allow for the efficiencies, economies and benefits of sprawl.
I have never seen a conservative try and refer to the automobile as transit.
I do it all the time.
John Bailo
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Michelle Parker Posted 1:39 pm
02 Oct 2007
Your point is well taken. In fact, when I wrote my comment about bikes (with a hat tip to Kevin Costner's movie, Field of Dreams), I was also thinking about my mother, who is currently in a wheelchair. She would love to have miles and miles of smooth pavement to wheel around on.
One good bike-transportation solution to have, when one needs or prefers someone else to do the pedaling, is a cycle rickshaw. I've ridden in one, in Singapore, and highly recommend it.
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eriqa Posted 12:29 am
03 Oct 2007
Main Entry: tran·sit
1 a : an act, process, or instance of passing through or over : PASSAGE b : CHANGE, TRANSITION c (1) : conveyance of persons or things from one place to another (2) : usually local transportation especially of people by public conveyance; also : vehicles or a system engaged in such transportation.
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:33 pm
03 Oct 2007
Oh, btw, not that Grist would ever tell anyone, but the Seattle Times just printed an interview in which a distraught Ron Sims, the King County Executive, who promoted Light Rail for the last 6 years, said that he was "forced into" supporting it and thinks that its completely wrong from the ground up!
Read it and Weep Libs:
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/009341.html
John Bailo
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:36 pm
03 Oct 2007
Great definition of car.
Conveyance of persons or things from one place to another...yep, my 1991 Grand Prix does that great.
Local transporation: sure, it's right outside my apartment door.
Public: Yeah, all my neighbors can see it and I certainly don't drive in private but take it on "public" roadways paid for by "the public".
John Bailo
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PolluteLessDotCom Posted 12:40 am
04 Oct 2007
In the USA the automobile is considered transit and transportation.
Just because you do not like the way it is used does not mean it is not covered by a definition. Trying to find ways to exclude the automobile from a definition is missing the point. The automobile is popular and used by millions because it is convenient, belongs to you, gives you freedom to drive anywhere anytime, and may give you your dose of adrenaline (depending on your needs for compensating for other shortcomings). There are VERY GOOD REASONS for why fossil fuels and automobiles are popular. Not sustainable, but explainable. Excluding the automobile from the definition makes no difference. Making it easier to drive by car results in no change - just more cars.
And, yes, WORLDWIDE the automobile has little meaning, although I fear that the increased uses coming in the next decade will have tremendous impact.
If you seed roads you will harvest traffic. Without exception as far as I know.
Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com
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nedruod Posted 10:51 am
05 Oct 2007
It's a nice feeling to disrespect our shared planet. Hey better yet, how about we bottle up all your exhaust and pump it through your house? We can even be generous and dilute it based upon the amount of "air space" above your property.
I suspect you wouldn't approve of that at all, but it's okay as long as you have billions of miles to spread that pollution out over. I hope no one else does the same though or we'll all be screwed. That's unlikely though, right?
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