Comparing the slaughter, and resulting rhetoric, of Gettysburg (and the issues that sparked our near-miss with disunion) and our little transportation issue is a bit over the top, Roger.

Try something a bit more modest--like, maybe, "Can't we all just get along?"

Or even more succinct and suiting: "That's all, folks!"

The author cautions: "And don’t forget the financing." Too bad he failed to describe the abusive financing plan Sound Transit employs!

I like trains as much as the next guy, but not at the cost of grossly excessive and regressive taxing.

The capital costs of ST2 were estimated at $13.5 billion in that 2008 ballot measure (YOE$). That measure also estimated $6.4 billion of long term 40-year bonds would need to be sold to cover those capital costs. Alone among its peers, Sound Transit issues bonds backed by pledges to collect heavy sales taxes at or near the maximum rates while any bonds remain outstanding. That means this unique, and uniquely punishing, plan for paying for trains will result in tax confiscations over the next 40 years of something on the order of $85 billion.

NOBODY finances light rail using new regressive taxing on that magnitude (hundreds of dollars per year per family for decades). Plenty of regions build out light rail at little or no new tax costs to the people there.

The unaccountable appointees on Sound Transit's board are hiding the truth about the tax costs. That taxing district has not estimated how much tax it will pledge to secure the bonds it plans on issuing, the East Link EIS submissions ignore the tax costs and the bonding requirements that would result from that project going ahead, etc.

Finally, and contrary to what this piece intimates, Sound Transit's financing plan is worse than what the SPMA (the monorail authority) had. They are very similar in that they are based on new local taxes pledged as security while any of the long term bonds are outstanding. That similarity is due to how the same lawyers drafted the enabling legislation the two taxing districts use (it is based on the old-Metro authorizing template). The situations also are similar in that prior to the votes the amounts of taxes that would be required were not disclosed to the public, and after the vote the revenue projections were proven to be overly-optimistic (resulting in MUCH longer payoff periods, which means much higher tax costs to the public).

Because of its financing plan this particular light rail undertaking is, and will remain, a financial disaster for the region. Not to put too fine a point on it, but NO amount of TOD near the several-dozen planned stations would begin to justify this kind of financing plan.

It would be great if some supporter of what Sound Transit is up to would present a tax cost estimate. I believe the bonding would cost the people (mostly) and businesses of this region about $85 billion in taxes through 2052, which is when the last of the ST2 bonds might be paid off. Who REALLY thinks $85 billion in regressive taxing is a justified cost in light of the negligible economic and environmental benefits this particular train line would provide?

There's a reason no peer region pays for light rail in this manner - it's abusive to people and it can not be justified in terms of any fact-based metrics.

Thank you, crossrip, for the distressing take on rail finances. At least we will hopefully get something useful out of it, unlike the car tunnel. Oil is getting scarce and the dollars we buy it with are being printed by the trillions. Can the 5 percent of the world's population in this country really expect to keep on burning 25 percent of the world's oil in such circumstances?

I'm totally willing to accept that the present light rail financing setup is wrong, but we still need to start preparing for the day when fuel costs multiples of what it does now in real terms, when many or most people simply won't be able to afford it. We need to figure out a better way to pay for rail, but we've got to start building some less oil dependent ways of moving about and functioning while we still have some capability of doing so.

And thanks for a good article, Roger Valdez. I agree, the tunnel won't be built no matter what the vote. It might just possibly be started, but never finished. Just like the tunnel from "Brightwater" to the Sound probably never will either.

I'm moving on from Roger Valdez fatigue.

"That’s my greatest concern about the election: It won’t matter. Tunnel warriors will simply regroup, and lawyers, politicos, and others will stoke the fires for the next tunnel battle."

"Others" being the self-appointed, Party-affiliated "experts" who have been given far too much access to the microphone.

I'm with Ivan.

I like Knute's article better. It points out that even if the tunnel is built there are still a host of other related problems that it will create that need to be worked on.

I've got "stupidity" fatigue. And if/when this tunnel is built I doubt I'll ever use it. Since I don't live in Seattle I won't be paying for it.

But this project isn't over until they issue the bonds and pull the digging machine out at the other end. Until then I wish them lower rates and no middens, grave sites, hidden boulders or broken machines. Good luck!

Roger, I love the "devil child" and "ATM withdrawal" references.
For the record, light rail is a Puget Sound system not just Seattle, but the proper TOD must accompany the massive taxing/financing or we will be yet another case thwarted by an odd alliance of NIMBYs and political and economic parties that use sprawl as their business model.

Also, densification along with strategic green-space creation/preservation should be used more aggressively to decrease the need for massive transit taxing/building.

While articles like this are designed to slam the door on the AWV story the truth remains that there are still a majority of voters who would choose to replace the viaduct if ever given an honest forum in which vote. This most recent charade is as much of a distraction from the truth as was the phony referendum of 2007. It's amazing to me that this article would fail to even mention this facet of the AWV story.

The tunnel has now almost reached poster-project status for virtually everything that’s wrong with the country. Tax payers experience reduced service, quality of life, and value in their own cities while footing the bill for needlessly expensive projects and self-serving agendas benefitting a few powerful special interests. I invite you again to get a pencil and a map of downtown and discover where this tunnel actually goes and who it actually benefits.

Hopefully, still time to do the right thing.

"If the tunnel is rejected, the supporters should back off."

What?

Light rail is the most-expensive, stupidest mistake this area has ever made. There is nothing that can be done to make Link light rail anything other than an insanely expensive boondoggle.

When do we wake up and admit: "We're outta money folks?"

When the viaduct is torn down.
Tunnel unfinished.
Traffic snarled.
Pretty, billion-dollar, slow-moving trains (streetcars really) that nobody rides - either sitting idle or moving along, slowly, empty.
Sky-high property taxes and regulatory fees.
Bankrupt city coffers.
We could have seen it coming, but the vision of Utopia proved intoxicating.

Well written. I've had fatigue of reading folks' comments trying to overturn the decision and degrading it, known as "The Seattle Way."

Does anybody remember the impetus to doing something about the AWV? It was the Bay Area earthquake in 1989, when a freeway of similar age collapsed. The AWV was the first thing I thought of when I saw the pictures of the Bay Area freeway. I wasn't surprised to find that they were ~the same age. Yet, here we were, up until this election, trying to overturn a well-vetted decision that had been reviewed and reviewed and reviewed and had advisory vote and advisory vote. My call to those who are still unhappy: run for office. Volunteer to be a appointed to these committees (you may need to serve on others to get the necessary visibility)! Respect the decision of the folks who spent hours and hours and hours studying the issue instead of second-guessing them.

We're still rolling the dice that we won't have a major earthquake before the tunnel is finished: five more years. This project should've been done years ago, would've saved the taxpayer a lot of money, but in Seattle, we like to spend more and get less, we prove it over and over and over again. See: the 520 bridge for exhibit B.