The Big Issue: A wise architect once gave me some sage advice as I finalized my career choices. Urban Planners, he said, control nothing. While the legal profession controls everyone , including the planners.

Unfortunately the integrity of this control does not extend to financial matters, or the appropriate allocation of same. Some might also use the word responsibility .

Instead we have a legal practice in King County which does consist of two parties - debating things socratically, if you will. One side says, spend tax money on social programs. The other side says spend tax money on privately constructed boondoggles.

But make no mistake, appearances aside, they always agree on raising taxes for the benefit of **their** clients, which never includes the public.

Now there are strict standards of 'fiduciary responsibility' as it applies to the handling of money, but as senior Attorney's will tell you, including Washington Transportation Commission Chair, Mark Sidran, those don't apply to Attorneys, officers of the court, even those employed by, or agents of, a governmental body.

In any case, to close the tangent, perhaps 'we the people' should bill the Lawyers for the cost of a Bellevue Tunnel - just like the State has already told the citizens, er excuse me, Lawyers, of Seattle that they need to do with the viaduct.

That's a simple answer to a big question, no? If you want the gold plating, pay for it yourself.

Oh, and BTW, I'd bet the RTID is dead on arrival already. Good concept, very poorly executed, as John Ladenburg already has said. And I think I just did too.

-Douglas Tooley
Tacoma, WA

Why? Are Tunnels the new fashion?: About 90 years ago, light rail was achieved and successful without tunneing. One could take the Interurban from Tacoma to Everett. Sadly, we tore it out or paved over it in the late 1920's. Today, we're taxing ourselves over 3 BILLION dollars to re-install 15 or so miles of the original 60 mile plus long line. That was such a good deal, that now the EASTSIDE has Tunnel Envy.

The Eastside line that the county claims it would like to turn into a trail, the one the country wants to 3 way swap for the Airport, would suffice with very little additional modifications to serve ALL the Eastside, and do so with NO multi billion dollar tunneling needed. That is exactly what that spur line USED to do... Before Redmond Town Center, there were rail lines that connected Renton with Bellevue (actually Wilberton then) and Redmond. That is how grain and supplies got to downtown Redmond back when it was noted for dairy cattle.

Once again the question is how much can we spend while overlooking the practical answers solved decades back.

Redmond - NO Tunnel. Get over it.

For that matter, the idea that we need for a tunnel under Capital Hill to the UW is just as foolish. Look at old photos of the Univeristy Bridge to see the Light Rail Line that once ran there. Only back then, we called it a Trolly.

I am all FOR light rail... But would someone PLEASE apply some practical logic?

_: The trolleys had nothing like the capacity or speed of our light rail. Unfair comparison.

I like trolleys too, but they're best suited for shorter, moderately-popular routes.

The Region Transportation Fatted Citizen Sacrifice District: The RTFCSD (sometimes called the RTID) through its bonding will create an enormous financial moral hazard, since those benefiting from the direct expenditures of such projects won't actually incur its risks. Thus the cost/benefit ratio is really a pay-me-more benefit ratio of increasing costs with negligible risk and little accountability to those who benefit most. The risk is all on taxpayers. And the accountability for fixing congestion problems is nowhere.

Because of ZERO EFFORT to lower the costs of construction for any of these projects, they're all several times the cost of what would be spent in the private sector to produce them. Each public infrastructure project is now a FATTED CALF to be gored by attorneys, bankers, construction firms, environmental firms, and prevailing wage unions. That's why HUGE bloated environmental mitigation costs. That's why LITTLE to NO CONCERN for the revenues generated by the infrastructure investments (but close eye on revenue from sales tax or property tax increases). That's why $50/hr workers for work that alien workers would competently and very happily do for $20/hr. That's why so LITTLE CONCERN about really developing a traffic system that works and pays for itself. That's why FINANCE COSTS that are double and treble the initial capital costs. That's why taxing authority that extends out FIFTY YEARS for when projects that will take TWENTY YEARS to build to solve problems that are here right NOW. Too little, too late at treble the cost.

The Redmond extension versus the Bellevue tunnel is a perfect example of how we WASTE money catering to huge wants without really measuring any transportation value. Would either city or the citizens of either city willingly vote for these expenditures?

Do either of these fine cities need light rail? Nope.

Do the governments of either city WANT it? Yep.

And why do they want them? Because they have the same addle-brained vision of a great city: a bunch of down-town high-rise office bldgs and condos generating lots of property tax revenue all connected by light-rail links. That is the extent of the GMA vision for a great place: urban density ala Shanghai, gridlocked traffic ala Manhattan, economic apartheid through unaffordable housing keeping out the middle and lesser classes, and sprawling extreme environmental dedication of our open spaces to salmon so that fishermen can kill them and we can eat them. That in a nutshell is what the GMA has wrought.

To make this Shangrila real, we MUST have light rail, otherwise people will drive cars and want to live in homes with backyards in neighborhoods with schools and grocery stores. I will vote for the latter vision because I prefer cars to trains, homes to condos, backyards to salmon habitat mitigation projects, neighborhoods to urban housing projects, and grocery stores to freeway on-ramp beggars holding out signs that read "Will Bond for Trains."

Why aren't we putting special light rail taxes on the high-density office towers who are going to benefit from Sound Transit? And why hasn't the Port paid for half the cost of the ludicrously useless tourist line to and from the airport? I'm not happy subsidizing tourist travel into downtown Seattle. I'm a citizen with "more important things" on my mind such as education and affordable housing. People first, salmon second. Education first, trains second. Affordable housing first, luxury condo towers second.

(see next post for rest of rant...)

More Fatted Citizen Sacrifice ...: (rest of rant...)
If government were to give ST2 to Boeing and Microsoft and tell them to fix the problem they'd get it all done in under ten years for under $10B because they'd think like a business. Even And they'd want to make sure that eventually (in say 20 yrs) investments were SELF-SUSTAINING. Compare that to the $30B over 50 years that Sound Transit has the gall to beg for to serve 4% of the people while the remaining 96% are stuck in traffic living on scraps. I certainly don't want to be subsidizing the commutes of lawyers and software engineers who can easily pay for the construction of the light rail they use themselves.

But don't get me wrong, a rational investment in a technology that paid for itself would be fine by me. If Sound Transit BONDED its toll-box revenue stream, then I'd be perfectly happy to let them build anything because they'd be motivated to self finance and to be accountable for costs. But they're BONDING our general sales tax revenue, which means they ARE UNACCOUNTABLE and are motivated to tax us and charge us as much as possible.

_: It's still cheaper to build infrastructure for people rather than cars. Even this way.

Sound Transit Brakeperson: One thing about light rail is that steel on steel brakes much, much slower than rubber on asphalt.

Sure, classical trains are still safer than cars - but surface light rail through the Rainier Valley? I'm sceptical, though perhaps Mossback can whip out some safety stats from Portland's Max lines.

Practical logic you say is missing? Not at all - the logic is quite simple - anyone who disagrees with you is obviously a violent sex pervert racist and that's why they deserve 37 Billion financed over 50 years.

Quite practical that.

-Douglas Tooley
Tacoma, WA

Bike Tunnels?: Here's an idea - how about Bike Tunnels?

Seriously, how about a bike escalator up Queen Anne, or for that matter, Continue the Rainier Square concourse up First Hill to Seattle University.

-Douglas Tooley
Tacoma, WA