Prop 1 should be rejected. Just as any blackjack player would be foolish to double down before looking at their cards, voters for more light rail would be equally foolish to double their transit taxes before the first trains ever start running next year. Sound Move has built one of the most expensive systems to date (nearly triple the original cost estimate) and is taking twice as long to build it. Should we have reason to think the ridership estimates were equally bogus? You bet!

Here’s what Sound Move trains will actually accomplish next year, looking at the trip from Seattle to Seatac Airport. The 194 makes the trip to the luggage ramp from downtown in 27 minutes while the light rail will take 35, plus require a 5 minute walk from Hwy 99 to get to the terminal – with bags in tow. Metro charges either $1.50 or $2.25, while Sounder rail charges $3.25 from Tukwila to downtown. Will Sound Transit match Metros fares? I really doubt it. Will Sound Transit honor the ‘ride free area’ in the tunnel. No! So your Metro bus will still do all the heavy lifting through downtown.

How can any informed voter decide the cost/benefit to them personally, when Sound Transit only tells you how much it’s going to cost in higher sales tax per year, but withholds any mention of how much they plan to charge YOU to ride it? Surely they’ve thought that one through to generate all these ridership projections.

So what did our billions buy? A slower trip on a more expensive vehicle? Metro buses run on time, nearly all the time to the airport, and could have been made ‘traffic proof’ for much less of an investment with the extension of the E3 busway and a transit only flyover at SouthCenter for millions, not billions. Rails across I-90 eliminate the reversible lanes forever. Buses could be using that space, with the same capacity as light rail, and still accommodate 2,000 car and vanpools with a 3+ limit, carrying another 6,000 riders per hour each way.

Prop 1 will nearly double the taxes we pay to Sound Transit. Twenty years ago all transit in the region received about 30% of all transportation dollars. Today, transit gets about 50%. If Prop 1 passes, transportation spending will be turned on its head in the next 20 years. Roads will only get about 30%, while transits share climbs to 70%. That’s a complete reversal of spending priorities, but roads will still be required to handle 90% of the 15 million daily trips made in the region, while Prop 1 will only relieve roads of 62,000 new trips

Do we really want to starve our road and HOV system into 3rd world status of potholes and crumbling bridges, just to claim ownership of a bright and shinny railroad, that moves fewer than 5% of the trips?

Your right about one thing David, this region sure knows how to screw up a good thing. Light rail is being built elsewhere, at fractions of the cost Sound Transit has poured down the rat hole. Change is coming!

The first posted comment says it all. VOTE NO.

[LRT]
"5 minute walk from Hwy 99" You make that point a lot, but haven't you seen the station? It's at the airport parking structure. You have to walk pretty slow to take 5 minutes to walk from there.

"Will Sound Transit honor the ‘ride free area’ in the tunnel. No!" Really? That's news to me. Do you have a source for that?

"Metro buses run on time, nearly all the time to the airport" Heh. Except when you need to catch a flight. Last time it took me 2 hours to get to the airport from Queen Anne. Half of that extra hour delay was on the 194.

"and could have been made ‘traffic proof’ for much less of an investment" Sure, if our goal was to build an airport circulator. We're building a regional transit system here. Try doing that with completely separated paths for buses for the same amount of money as Link (hint: path separated BRT costs more than rail).

"Buses could be using that space, with the same capacity as light rail" At a much higher operational cost (think of all the additional drivers for all of the additional buses). Plus you'd need to traffic separate those buses all the way through Bellevue, through downtown from I5, etc. Plus you'd have to expand all of the downtown underground stations, since buses take too long to unload. Try doing that for the cost of Link.

"Prop 1 will nearly double the taxes we pay to Sound Transit." It's still just 5 cents per ten dollars. We pay 9 cents per ten dollars for buses, and in the end that just buys us service - we don't get a whole new rail system from it. It costs a lot of money to have wasteful infrastructure. A bus system works well for towns and very small cities, but we've grown well past the point where it's cost effective to have a bus system.

"Do we really want to starve our road and HOV system into 3rd world status of potholes and crumbling bridges" What? Prop 1 doesn't take a penny of your precious build-more-roads funding.

According to the ST website, the ride from downtown to the airport on light rail will take 36 minutes, then there will be an additional 1,000-foot walk from the light rail station to the terminal, which ST estimates will take 4 minutes, for a total trip time of 40 minutes on ST light rail.

I should add that walking 1,000 feet takes about 4 minutes for a healthy adult. For those that are not perfectly healthy, it will likely take longer, and for some, a lot longer.

Go to the Sound Transit website and read for yourself:

http://www.soundtransit.org:80/x1173.xml

"By 2020 approximately 3,000 riders are expected to board trains at the SeaTac/Airport Station every day.

SeaTac/Airport light rail station quick facts

The station will:

Be located near the northeast corner of the main airport parking garage, just west of the corner of the intersection of S. 176th Street and International Boulevard (SR 99).

Directly connect pedestrians to the airport ticket counters and SeaTac’s City Center. The walk from the station to the airport terminal building is about 1,000 feet and will take about four minutes.

Offer a 36-minute ride from the airport to Downtown Seattle"

But, hey, if we just wait another year or so for the first light rail segment to open, we can all see for ourselves how long light rail between downtown and the airport takes, and we won't have to speculate. What a concept -- see how well the first segment works, including ridership, before we decide whether or not we want to expand light rail.

Kind of sounds like common sense, to me.

Light rail will merely take people off of buses and put them on little trains at exhorbitant expense of taxpayers. The first light rail route is already well-served by buses. Light rail will not go anywhere that buses do not already go.

So, what's the point? It would have been far, far less expensive to increase capacity on that route by just adding more buses, if greater capacity is needed.

And now we know that light rail is going to cost about 67% MORE per passenger mile to OPERATE than buses cost.

Everyone needs to read this:

blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com:80/seattletraffic/archives/151610.asp

"It (Sound Transit) predicts its per-passenger mile operating costs will be $1.24 for the segment now being completed; constructions costs for the first 14 miles are about $175 million per mile."

ST light rail will cost about $1.24 per passenger mile to operate, according to Sound Transit. Metro buses cost about $0.75 per passenger mile to operate.

So we get an obscenely expensive light rail route, that just takes some people off of existing buses to put them on little trains, and not only did this light rail cost about $175 million per mile to build, but ST light rail will cost about 67% MORE PER PASSENGER MILE TO OPERATE THAN METRO BUSES.

What is your definition of "BOONDOGGLE"?

(psst... I think you'll find that your bus mile is per bus, and the ST number is for the route - meaning all of the trains that run on that mile. apples to watermelons.)

The case for BRT over LRT (light rail) can be found here:

http://www.bettertransport.info/pitf/padelford.htm

I'm still waiting, patiently, for a BRT plan to hit the ballot. But it quickly becomes much more expensive than a rail system when you get into the details. BRT is always used as a way to try to call rail expensive, because freeway-lovers know that building more roads just can't compete with rail. As I've told others here, I'll support any BRT plan you come up with if you bring it to the voters with a real price tag.

Prop. 1 will be defeated with out a doubt - and not exactly because of the merits or demerits. Much of it will be due to obfuscation and the continued whine by the lane-adders (a perverse kind of snake?) that fixed rail carries too little traffic to justify the cost and buses are the better mass transit alternative.

Let's not forget that rail - generally speaking - is much more reliable in terms of running on time than buses (as noted above in the Queen Anne-to-SETAC 2 hr. bus ride). Regardless, Prop 1 will fail, and it's more likely that getting it funded to Northgate is in the cards with Seattle voters.

Sincerely yours in Mukilteo. . .

Some people keep saying that we should wait until the first Link trains are up and running before we commit any more taxes to building more rail etensions ... as if light rail is new and untested. Light rail has been running for decades in dozens of cities all over the country. And, in almost every case, those cities decided to expand the rail system. These include many western cities ... Portland, LA, San Diego, Denver, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Phoenix. It's highly likely that voters here will also want to expand the rail system, either this November or sometime in the future. The big difference - it will cost billions more if we wait 'til the future.

I agree with David's conclusion that if you want to do anything, anytime soon, to improve transit, you'd want to see the current ballot measure pass. The wait for necessary agreement on something better is probably 10-15 years away.

Rail is not just Seattle's dream anymore. It is also a a dream for communities east of Lake Washington. That dream will not die easily or quickly. Rail north of Seattle to Northgate will never die - it makes too much sense to anybody who has seriously looked at it for over 40 years.

Portland does not have a directly elected regional government running a three county combined transit system. Portland's Tri-Met serves the most urban areas of greater Portland and is run by a board appointed by the Governor. The 3 county Portland Metro Board is elected by district (turfs), doesn't run transit, and has never put a tax measure on the ballot to fund transportation improvements.

John Stanton and Norm Rice looked at Portland and didn't find much that would work in this region. So far their proposal to reform regional government has failed because of bad timing and deeply flawed methods. It is a Medina money backed cabal that has divided King County and alienated most everybody in the other three counties Rice and Stanton seek to change. There are simple fixes to the Rice and Stanton proposal that could lead to widespread consensus on a better government and a major breakthrough - provided the timing is right.

If Prop. 1 fails this year. The timing will not be right for at least two more years. A forced initiative to change something would be unlikely to produce more investment in transportation for maybe 10 more years. Any actual improvements would come after that, provided voters buy it.

The problem is not rail at all, in contrast to what the advocates of more roads and so-called "bus rapid transit" claim. Rail works well all over the world -- in fact, it is virtually impossible to have a great city without rail. The problem is Sound Transit's poor planning and deception, which is destroying our chances of getting the type of rail system that we deserve and could afford. For example, there is no reason that Sound Transit has to spend five to ten times as much per mile for construction that most other systems in the U.S.

The solution is to reject this rehash of last year's bad plan and vote NO! on November 4 so that we do not get locked into a bad plan for decades. This will allow the region to begin immediate work on a rail transit plan that can be constructed at reasonable cost, will be truly regional and can be implemented much faster than Sound Transit's proposal.

If you need still more convincing, see "29 Reasons to Vote "No" on Proposition 1" (www.eastsiderailnow.org/proposition_1_redo.html).

[stupified] ST certainly had problems in the beginning, but all of their audits since then have been spotless, and now they're on time and under budget. The 5-10x number is just wrong (are you comparing to past projects? that doesn't seem fair using future dollars).

Starting over with a whole new agency is a terrible idea. It took years for ST to work out the bugs and start performing. They're in shape to get federal funding, something impossible with a new agency. Please consider what you'll be doing to transit by not voting yes.

Well, some turnover in the upper ranks, based on what I've seen in Tacoma, would be a good thing.

I'm not totally convinced that the measure will fail - though gas prices have dropped they are still high just as the market is still dropping, even with an occassional rally.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that this was the environmentalist's shot to get a proposition voted on it's own. Those self-appointed folks chose to partner up with the traditional Seattle problem children rather than actually create a good package.

FWIW, ST Counsel Foster Pepper Shefelman should be removed prior to the election - the mess up at WAMU, an institution they control is sufficient grounds for that. And if the electeds don't do so quick we should be looking at a financial RICO suit for all responsible parties.

Brewster is correct that ST2 is a gamble in 2008 and Nickels wants to ride the Obama tide.

Subarea equity does not stand in the way of a more sensible plan. Bus and transit investmenets on the BNSFRR-POS ROW could substitute well for the esat and south Link LRT extensions. There are plenty of good transit investements in the outer subareas. Rationales for delay included establishing the tolling regime first, getting another revenue source, and the coming recession. Governance reform must be done carefully; we could get something even worse. A basic need is for more and fairer revenue; a multicounty governance structure often gets in the way of sound decisions and lowers the rate of investment overall.