Sounds like a pretty good bill to me. Although, I agree with the author that much of the money should be spent to maintain and repair our current highways, for example, I-5 through downtown Seattle.

As for transit: transit users need to start paying their own way through much higher fares, instead of freeloading on the backs of taxpayers. IN our area, transit systems get only around 25% to 30% of their OPERATING costs covered by fares, and zero of their capital costs. This is NOT sustainable. We need transit users to start paying for their own transportation, as motorists do.

"Zero of their capital costs" from fares? Really?

I've never seen you post anything at this site about the financing practices of transit services providers, "Lincoln". This is an inauspicious beginning to your forays into that realm.

There’s a statement by Sound Transit and WSDOT in their FEIS submissions to the federal government about the sources of funds used for the capital spending on Sound Transit projects. This is what that FEIS says about the sources of funds to build out East Link (this is from page 49 of Chapter 2):

“Sound Transit's regional transit programs are typically funded through a combination of voter-approved tax initiatives, FTA grants, issuing bonds, and fare box revenue.”

http://projects.soundtransit.org/Projects-Home/East-Link-Project/East-Link-EIS.xml

That just begs the question, Lincoln . . . are you not telling the truth, or are WSDOT and Sound Transit not telling the truth?

@Crossrip, Well actually Lincoln has done pretty well for first post on this topic since he is pretty much 100% right. The fares that transit agencies collect in our area typically do not cover even the majority of their operating costs and so all the additional capital costs of constructing transit systems are effectively 100% covered by tax payers. Of course transit agencies can cook the books by shifting tax payer subsidies to cover even more of the operating costs and then devote the fares they collect towards the capitol costs. This makes their statement technically true and deceives gullible people like you.

Perhaps you could search on the Sound Transit web site to find out how it will cost per journey on their East-Link-Project (capitol costs of construction amortized over 50 or even 100 years + the operating costs). You will not find an answer because they do not publicize these kind of figures - if they did the voters (including perhaps even you) would never have voted to approve the project in first place

Perhaps you could search on the Sound Transit web site to find out how it will cost per journey on their East-Link-Project (capitol costs of construction amortized over 50 or even 100 years + the operating costs).

Thanks for the suggestion, David.

I'm not sure you've done a good job of describing how a "cost per journey" should be measured though. For one thing, you have ignored all the financing costs of the pile of bonds that would be sold if this financing plan continues.

You also ignore completely all the public tax costs. The tax costs to the public of the security terms in the bond sales contracts could well total $85 billion over the next 40 years. That makes the ST2 capital costs of $13.5 billion look like chump change. Is there some reason you don't want to draw attention to the public tax costs? That is the elephant in the living room.

The lack of repair funding sounds bad, but the one-third cut in bike funding is a good start. Until bicyclists pay the same dedicated vehicle taxes paid by motorcyclists, I think funding for bicycle infrastructure should be a big, fat zero.

The combination of self-righteousness and parasitism on the part of the bicycle lobby is very unappealing. In Washington State, the owner of a Vespa pays $85 a year; he must be licensed to ride it, and must display a tag on the vehicle. The same requirements should apply to bicyclists. Until they do, I will oppose any and all spending for bicycle projects, whatever they might be.

The ban on using federal funds for transit operations is very good policy, in my opinion. The riders of transit should be paying for operations. If they cannot or will not do it, then maybe they don't really want it very badly.

Similarly, the parking deductibility issue goes at least halfway to what the deduction ought to be: zero.

If one actually wanted to see a transportation system that
actually works, look to Japan. Their entire bus, and rail
system is privately owned and operated WITHOUT government
subsidies. The individuals that use their buses, and rail
system pay fares that actually allow the stock holders to
make a profit, and to maintain the excellence of their system.

The only part that the government had any part of in their
successful transportation system was that it guaranteed bonds
that were used for the land acquisition and construction phases
of their world renown high speed rail system. I believe that
those bonds have now been paid off by the profits from the
privately owned high speed rail system.

One major difference is that about 80% of the population use
bus, and rail systems versus 5% to 7% usage here in the USA.

Population densities, and proximity of nearby cities might also
play a significant roll in the success of their rail/bus
services.

Can we please stop using the phrase "Mass Transit"? It's a holdover from Cold War times, when programs benefitting "the Masses" were pegged as Communist. It's "public transportation," or "shared transit."

Perhaps we should start referring to private cars as "Selfish, wasteful personal transportation."

The campaign slogan for ST2 was "Mass Transit Now". Just sayin' . . .

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