Today, Tuesday, April 22nd, is the deadline for getting your ballots in for the Proposition 1 election. Do it do it do it.
Wallyhood encourages you to vote yes.
Proposition 1 would increase the cost of tabs from $40 to $60 and increase sales tax by one tenth of one percent, to help fund our public transit system. If it fails to pass, Metro will be forced to eliminate 74 bus routes entirely and reduce hours on many others, for a total reduction of over a half million hours per year.
Among those facing elimination is Wallingford’s 26, but please don’t approve of it for that reason. Yes, losing that route and seeing other routes that run through our neighborhood reduced will hurt us, but more important, the thousands of low income people who rely on the bus system to get to work every day will be impacted, while other people who might otherwise take the bus will opt to take cars, exacerbating our traffic problems, air pollution problems and accelerating climate change.
Bus cuts are all around bad.
The “No on Prop 1” folks spin a tale about how they oppose the bill because it’s regressive (sales taxes and car tabs impact the poor more than the wealthy), and it’s true: it’s imperfect. But marking “no” on Prop 1 doesn’t magically cause a progressive solution to manifest, it just means that even worse things happen to the poor (i.e., reduction in affordable transportation options).
And why isn’t there a more progressive option on the table, like a motor vehicle excise tax (MVET) on the value of people’s cars, so that those who pay less for their cars would also pay less for their car tabs? The Republican legislature in Olympia eliminated it. So, now you have them eliminating progressive taxes, then pretending that the only reason they oppose Prop 1 is because it’s NOT progressive.
(Photo by Elena Acin)
Can’t support this. Raise the fares and practice better fiscal management. Despite what our government seems to think, Seattle isn’t an endless ATM it can keep dipping into (at least not at MY house)…
I’m a democrat and I agree with Lisa. You take the bus, you pay for the bus. It should be a self sustaining system.
Should roads also be self-sustaining? Currently they’re not, they’re funding primarily through sales taxes and property taxes, which everyone pays whether they drive or not.
Folks who drive the most are getting a cheap ride from those who hardly drive at all. It would be nice if they could return the favor by helping to fund public transit.
Furthermore, getting people onto buses (or bikes or walking) frees up space on the roads for those who have to drive. Raising fares will likely cause more people to choose to drive instead of taking public transit, clogging up crowded roads even more.
In the end, I’m a reluctant “Yes” on Prop 1, but only because it is regressive. MVETs should be based on a formula of vehicle value and weight. It’s absurd that the owner of a $1000 motorcycle will have to pay the same $60 a year as the owner of a 7000lb 2014 Escalade.
Don’t forget these other road-costs:
– Cost of traffic policing.
– Cost of ambulance service when people drive into things & other people.
– All major road projects (Bertha sure ain’t covered by gas tax).
– All that free neighborhood parking. I can’t put 3500lbs of non-car stuff on the side of the road for a couple of days, then call the cops if it disappears.
– Rent on real-estate for roads that are way wider than they would be if there weren’t any cars using them,
– Health costs incurred by conditions that could’ve been prevented by not sitting in traffic for many hours a week.
– Health costs incurred by everyone due to air-pollution.
In fact, there was report in 2010 that put the health-costs due to air-pollution generated by traffic at $160-255 per person, per year.
Most of the streets in Seattle seem to have been designed for horse and buggy anyway, so we can always go back to that. Again, however, the roads benefit everyone, including bus riders, whereas our boondoggle bus service itself benefits very few.
If anybody should be subsidizing the bus system, it’s the downtown employers. Actually in Japan, companies generally pay all the commute fares of their employees, which are pretty high.
You’ve conveniently left out gas taxes and tolls, much of the proceeds of which go to mass transit already.
Whether one drives, bikes, uses a ride-sharing service or walks, EVERYBODY uses the roads; in contrast, mass transit is used by relatively few, especially considering how heavily subsidized it is. For many, mass transit is not a good option even now — my commute is 10 minutes by car, 45 and up by bus.
It’s really arrogant of you to tell people it’s GOOD for them to be taxed out of their cars so that they can cram into buses in order to leave more space on the road for the elitist fat-cats who can afford the new taxes.
Eh? What makes you think the buses see a thin dime of gas taxes & tolls?
http://metro.kingcounty.gov/am/budget/revenue.html
Currently, during the 520 bridge & viaduct construction, part of the budget does pay for additional buses to help mitigate the construction traffic, but that funding (and the extra buses on specific routes) will disappear once those projects are finished.
Taxed out of their cars? You really think there’s anyone, even one single person, that could afford to own, maintain and use a car that now won’t be able to because we increased their taxes by $20 per year?
Also, I’d encourage you not to make the discussion poisonous and personal by saying “it’s really arrogant of you”. You can think the statement is wrong, but saying that the speaker is arrogant for suggesting it only makes people angry / less able to consider the merits of your argument.
Doug’s argument is that raising car taxes will get people out of their cars. Either it will or it won’t, but you can’t have it both ways.
He was suggesting that by providing convenient public transit options, people would OPT to get out of their cars, not that they would be forced out of their cars by a $20 / yr tax. That’s why it’s a good idea to be polite: you may have just misunderstood!
Wrong. My argument is that raising bus fares will get people into their cars. And it’s not just an argument, it’s a verifiable fact that when fares go up, ridership goes down.
Absolutely. Particularly multi-person families… It costs $7.00 for 2 adults & 2 kids to take an off-peak trip. If it cost the $19.50 that it’d take to make Metro independent of local tax revenue, even I would be driving…
My understanding of the tag fees is that we currently pay $40 every other year, bringing the increase to $40 per year, rather than the $20 per year increase quoted in here and in the press.
I’m with Insidious and Lisa; I voted NO. We have the highest-paid bus drivers in the country driving mostly empty 40-foot buses all over the county at all hours of night. We need to get back to basics and run articulated coaches only on a set schedule, mostly during commute hours, between community hubs and the downtown core.
The service we have now is nice, but not sustainable. Most members of the tax-paying public have to cut back on their own expenditures when things get tight, and so do businesses. County services must learn to do the same.
I’ll just quote Hanna Brooks Olsen (@mshannabrooks ) here:
“If you think voting no on #prop1 was sending any message other than “sorry, poors, figure it out,” you’re grossly misinformed.”
https://twitter.com/mshannabrooks/status/458811822334685184
I would appreciate it greatly if in the future my neighborhood blog did not tell me how to vote. (I guess I’m telling you how to blog, so there’s the kettle calling itself black) A diverse community also includes a diversity of opinions and political views.
It’s hard to have a diversity of opinions if you don’t express one.
Oh, I definitely believe that, and my issue here is that I don’t like how one-sided this blog post was. It would be very different to have a post saying something like “There is an issue on the ballot that will directly affect our community. What are everyone’s thoughts?” and then give links for information. Open up the debate. Posting a directive to vote a certain way is not respectful to those that might disagree, and also does not invite a healthy debate, as many may feel that their voice is unwelcome, or discredited from the get-go.
Jordan’s post is pretty standard for a blog:
• Vote today…
• Here’s how I’m voting…
• Here’s why.
And let the comments do the rest. I think there’s a pretty good diversity of opinion here.
Most major newspapers (not that I’m comparing us to most major newspapers, but just saying), publish endorsements. That’s what I did. Here’s the Seattle Times’s endorsement on this issue, for example: version: http://seattletimes.com/html/editorials/2023409525_editproponemetro19xml.html
I get it, but it’s a neighborhood blog designed to promote discussion. You’ve lost a reader and gained some bad word of mouth.
No transit system in the country is “self-supporting”. I also believe that no major metropolitan area can continue to thrive without an extensive public transit system. Auto-philes may not wish to leave the comfort of their single-occupancy cocoon, but continue to receive benefits of having an alternative for those willing to do so – less congestion, not spending $20 to $30 million a mile to widen freeways, available parking when they arrive, etc.
Metro made a tremendous mistake by not highlighting more the fact that current funding is highly dependent on sales tax AND that they successfully managed to survive, and even grow ridership, during a 20 percent downturn in sales tax revenue caused by the downturn. Yes, the legislature should by funding transportation improvements, but the $40 increase in tabs and approximately $50 increase in sales tax paid per household would not bankrupt anyone, and would have been money well spent.
I’m deeply disappointed in the outcome as well. I hold out hope that the City of Seattle will step in to save some of the Seattle routes, like the 26 local, which is on the chopping block. (I had heard that option discussed many months ago.) A question for the educated Wallyhood readers: what was the intent in having only 60% of the funding go to Metro? I don’t recall hearing to whom and for what purpose the remaining 40% was intended.
Well, you bus-haters get your wish. I’m tempted to start taking my car for a lap up & down 45th each morning, before parking it & biking past everyone stuck in traffic.
Happy Earth Day!
The 40% was targeted to county “transportation infrastructure” improvements, likely to try to placate those that believe that transportation dollars should only be spent on roads (and frankly we need to spend something on repairs before everything completely falls apart).
The poop sandwich delivered by our state legislature allowed, in essence, only two ways to raise money – a sales tax increase and the tab fees. There may still be hope as the economy improves, however, and consumer spending provides additional sales tax dollars. Unfortunately, KC is an exporter of sales tax revenue, subsidizing the rest of the state, so ironically any revenue increase will have to be shared with the other counties who also happen to be the ones that repealed the progressive car tab fee structure that we used to have.
Never have understood the “I won’t support anything I don’t use myself” mentality. A benefit to our neighbors is also a benefit to us. It’s called community.
As of tonight’s numbers, our Legislative District (the 43rd) voted 78% in favor of Prop 1. That number is likely to go up slightly as late ballots come in. It’s a shame that the Eastside and Southend get to dictate the future of the 16, 26, 44, etc.
I was surprised to see the vote tally with the measure failing pretty badly. Now the CHS blog has posted the results by district and it passed overwhelmingly here. It was voted down by much of the rest of the county. It is clear that measures like this would easily pass in Seattle but countywide not so certainly.
Seven bucks a month per household (not per person) did not feel like a horrendous imposition for maintaining quality of life. It helps to look at the cost/benefit rather than blindly saying “heck, no new taxes”. It is what it is, however.