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October 27, 2005
End Seattle Congestion... an Actual Plan
Opponents of I-912 are placing signs claiming "I-912 won't fix this road parking lot!" But neither will their precious gas tax. Their taxes are being used to rebuild the very freeways that have been neglected over the years.
It turns out that we DO have politicians who understand we can't just keep taxing people and spending their money on mass transit instead of freeways. But for some reason nobody has been advertising this fact.
It's called the Kemper Freeman plan, devised by the man who is helping to rebuild Bellevue in Seattle's image. Freeman is one of the guys who gets it... a man who understands that the Seattle metropolitan area is about MORE than just Seattle.
The plan points out that trying to force commuters on to transit isn't working. Even though we spend nearly half of our transportation budget on transit alternatives, the percentage of commuters who use mass transit is still only around 5%.
The plan includes things like MORE lanes! The horror! That's right, up to 6 more lanes on some freeways.
And the Alaskan Way Viaduct... SR-99 that could collapse at any time? It turns out people don't even want to use the viaduct... the study shows that much of the traffic is displaced I-5 traffic. A freeway that had more than two lanes running through the downtown core would effectively eliminate the need to replace the viaduct at all. Just tear the thing down and reconnect downtown with the waterfront.
But opponents have effectively eliminated all public support for this plan. You never hear about it. The only place I could even find it, was on the opponents website.
And who is the most prominent support of the Freeman plan? David Irons. Irons is the man running against King County Executive Ron Sims. (Sims presides over a government larger than that of 13 states!) Supposedly David beats his mom. I don't know if it's true or not(... probably). I voted for him because the guy doesn't live in a fantasy land where people want to get on the bus with dirty homeless people. Even if the guy is scum, it doesn't make the plan bad.
Liberals are, of course, attacking this plan with their usual tactics. Living in la-la land, they want us to pay yet more money to provide yet more transit options, mostly in or near Seattle.
But I hope voters have enough sense to vote this bunch out, that is if they don't consider themselves disenfranchised. The last two elections I have marked prominently on my ballot envelope "Republican Voter: Don't Forget to Throw Out" because it doesn't seem my vote counts anyway. This gang will stay in power no matter what it takes. Eventually, people are going to get fed up and leave. By people I mean employees. By people, I also mean employers. You can't grow in an economy where the only affordable housing is in Enumclaw or Marysville, and the commute to get to work is two hours each way.
Posted by March at October 27, 2005 03:35 PM