Last month, voters soundly defeated Proposition One, the $18 billion roads-and-transit package, an outcome we applaud.
Post-election polls showed voters really disliked the roads portion of the package, as well they should have. It was nothing but a recipe for more cars and air pollution. By contrast, those polls showed a majority would have supported a ballot measure with only the rail portion. The pro-rail lobby has seized on this and called on the governor and Legislature to put a light-rail-only proposal on the ballot next year.
We share the underlying goal: ending the expansion of roads, with a massive shift of our transportation dollars to mass transit. But we do not support a move to rail because that would only bankrupt this region of resources we need for real transit solutions that get more people out of their cars.
As critics point out, a fixed-rail system is expected to capture at best only 4 percent of all the region's commuter trips. And many of those riders wouldn't be new to mass transit but simply switching from bus to rail.
Here is our crack at offering real solutions to our regional transportation crisis.
Junk the expansion of the 520 bridge: In particular, junk the $4 billion Pacific Street option that would add two freeway lanes to 520, create a massive interchange at Husky Stadium and irrevocably damage the arboretum. Instead, support the neighborhoods' green, four-lane alternative that would cost at least $2 billion less and protect the arboretum and wetlands.
Retrofit and maintain the existing Alaskan Way Viaduct. A simple repair and retrofit would save at least $1-2 billion. The governor just convened a 29-member task force to look at alternatives, but it's dominated by the same corporate interests that pushed the budget-busting tunnel rejected by voters last March. The task force includes the surface-only crowd, which to date has put forth only options that would substantially limit capacity to move freight and would strand commuters from West Seattle and Ballard.
Yet a retrofit is not on the table.
Kill funding for the $350 million Mercer corridor proposal: It only serves Paul Allen's South Lake Union plans and does nothing, according to the city's own analysts, to relieve congestion. While we're at it, let's spike public financing for extending the streetcar. It can do nothing buses can't do more cost-effectively.
No further extensions of light rail. We paid billions for only a fraction of what we were promised. Put an end to talk of expansion to Northgate or anywhere else.
Now take the billions saved by the steps outlined above and put them into real solutions.
Repair and maintain ailing bridges such as Murray Morgan in Tacoma, the U.S. Highway 2 trestle in Everett, etc. And let's fix the 39 bridges identified by our city engineers as in desperate need of repair. Right now, most aren't slated for funding, even though we passed the $365 million "Bridging the Gap" levy in 2006, because the lion's share from that pot is going into South Lake Union.
Dramatically expand our bus system and move to Bus Rapid Transit. This costs far less than light rail to operate and maintain. And we could get it up and running within two years, not three or four decades as is the case with rail.
Create a series of smaller mass transit stations in existing activity centers where more of our regional job base is increasingly locating. Then run bus routes to and from those centers, with future residential development encouraged along those routes. That's the only way to buy our way out of sprawl - something we cannot otherwise afford if we expand light rail and highways that principally serve Downtown Seattle.
Improve efficiency and mobility by doing many little things. For example: really expand van and car pools, which dollar-for-dollar are the most cost-effective form of mass transit. Provide incentives to major employers to stagger their hours of business. Sequence traffic signals to increase traffic flows and save energy.
Experiment with the use of HOT (high-occupancy toll) lanes for buses, carpools, vanpools and solo drivers. And start pilot installations for congestion pricing - automated tolls based on demand or capacity on our most clogged highways.
In the end, however, the success of any of these proposals hinges upon our leaders' willingness to rethink their commitment to increasing office space and jobs in Downtown Seattle. There's nothing green or sustainable about cramming most of our region's office growth into Seattle's core.
Half the downtown workforce lives on the Eastside. No matter how many existing, affordable, tree-lined neighborhoods in our city are sacrificed for more condominiums and higher density, we can assume at least half the workers who'll take those new 50,000- plus jobs planned for downtown will live on the Eastside.
The greatest cost of a transportation system is the energy and infrastructure needed to move people long distances to work whether it's by road or rail or HOV or vanpool. Right now, the vast majority of our transportation dollars are being poured into that kind of system.
The long-term transportation solution is to cap downtown growth in Seattle and relocate some of that projected employment to suburban activity centers -where a growing portion of the region's commuters choose to live anyway-freeing up potentially billions for mass-transit hubs in these areas where there is no alternative to the car.
Let's work toward this polycentric approach to growth. Anything less is a blueprint for worsening gridlock and sprawl.
John V. Fox and Carolee Colter of the Seattle Displacement Coalition may be reached at this link.
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