Election season is upon us! Will the Democrats hold on to their tenuous lead in the Senate? Who knows? We have no say in it! Patty Murray isn’t up for re-election until 2016 and Maria Cantwell sits tight until 2018.
But, we do have a few things that we can vote on, including Proposition 1, a Seattle-only alternative to the King County Proposition 1 transit bill that lost a special election this August. The Wallingford members of the Environmental Caucus of the 43rd District Democratic Organization sent in this policy statement on our new Prop 1:
Transit Vote Comes Round Again!
After the defeat by voters in rural King County of the country-wide Metro Transit measure in the Primary Election, the Seattle City Council decided to put a Seattle-only Metro Transit proposition on the General Election ballot. There’s more than one Proposition 1 but this one can be found all alone on the back side of your November ballot. You have look for it.
43rd District Democrats urge you to vote Yes. Why?
Wallingford and University district buses are some of the most over crowded routes in the system. A recent Seattle Department of Transportation study has identified the #16 as a route that scores low on three counts: reliability, crowding and frequency of service. The #44 scores low on crowding and reliability. The #31/32 needs to improve reliability and increase frequency of service. The #26 and #26Express need to improve reliability. All this adds up to a high priority for improved service on all the lines that serve Wallingford if Transit Proposition 1 passes.
Even the Seattle Times has endorsed the Seattle-only Transit Proposition 1. Despite an improved revenue forecast for Metro and the recent postponement of planned service cuts, the Seattle Times editorial board concluded that additional funding for Metro to support the growing need for transit in Seattle is justified and that Proposition 1 should be supported.
Why did we hear that there was no more need for additional taxes and the planned bus cuts could all be cancelled? In addition to improved revenue forecast, a majority of the County Council decided they could raid Metro’s rainy day fund to come up with enough more money to avoid this year’s planned cuts. But that is not a sustainable solution. If Metro does avoid cuts, we can use the Seattle-only funds in Transit Proposition 1 to improve bus service on the many very overcrowded routes in the City, including Wallingford’s buses. If they don’t, Seattle will have the funds to backfill and avoid further destruction of our bus system.
To find the Seattle-only Metro funding Transit Proposition 1, you will need to look on the back side of your ballot when you get it this Thursday or Friday. Here is the full text of the ballot title:
“If approved, this proposition would fund Metro Transit service benefitting the City of Seattle, by preventing planned service cuts and, if funds allow, enhancing transit service, at least until state or regional authorities provide replacement revenues. The measure would authorize an annual vehicle license fee of up to an additional $60 per registered vehicle with a $20 rebate for low-income individuals and authorize up to a 0.1% sales and use tax, both expiring by 12/31/2020, all as proposed in Resolution 12.”
The Environmental Caucus of the 43rd District Democratic Organization urges you to vote Yes to secure the future of the Seattle bus system.
A summary of the Proposition 1 can be found on the Seattle Voters Guide site as can the full text.
Nota bene: Proposition 1 is not the same thing as Propositions 1a and 1b (which concerns “early learning programs and providers of such services for children”) nor Citizen Petition 1 (which concerns the monorail).
(Photo by Oran Viriyincy)
Voting “no” on anything that raises taxes, esp. anything having to do with buses. After the Doomsday scenario trotted out for the last Metro situation, it didn’t play out that way at all, did it? And taxes didn’t need to be raised. All that’s needed is some financial efficiency with the vast amounts of monies we already provide the city/county/state.
@Lisa, what makes you say it didn’t play out that way? The 26 and a bunch of other bus lines are scheduled for elimination, per the predictions. This bill is the last ditch attempt to save them.
First off, most taxes are illegal and unconstitutional if you do a little reading and research into history… taxes were instituted in order to raise money for the war and were supposed to disappear after the war, but the government got addicted to spending our money and found excuses to not only keep taxing the people, but to find new tax revenues.
Personally, I rarely see a good reason to vote for any additional taxing of an already heavily taxed and extremely poorly served middle class. The more money we provide the government with, the more money they have to mismanage and dump into war profiteering and bailing out corporations and banks. Raising taxes is NEVER the best solution. There is ALWAYS a better solution… like being efficient. Lisa is spot on in my opinion. We have ridiculous priorities.
How else does the wealthiest country have the greatest debt? Corporate greed, gov. mismanagement of tax revenues, wars and upside down priorities are to blame. That won’t change by giving them more of our money to spend. It’s like giving a spoiled child what they want in hopes they’ll stop crying…
I ride the 26X and under the proposed cuts they were going to get rid of the 26 local and run the 26X every 10-15 minutes. This would have been great for me. I’m hoping that they still plan to do that if Prop. 1 passes. I’m voting for it, but I hope we see some positive impact concerning transit in Wallingford.
I’m not sure how recently this was, but I believe we had some good discussion here about the realities of transit service in Wallingford, including the #26 local.
The #26X is great for people who live near that route. But for those of us at the south end of Wallingford, the #26 local is critical for getting to and from work. It’s standing-room-only during peak commuting times, and sometimes, the drivers can’t take on the riders that are waiting at stops.
Metro has theorized that we could all switch to the #26X or the #16, but along with the significant added distance to those bus stops, it’s very questionable that there would be space on the buses anyway.
Yes, I too would like to see Metro address a slew of their administrative and operational efficiencies, but please, not at the expense of people who need bus service in their part of the neighborhood.
Correction: address their *administrative and operational INefficiencies” (and we may as well say “budgeting” while we’re at it). Sorry about that.
Why is it always automobile owners who are getting screwed when anyone needs money for anything approximating transportation? To add insult to injury, there is an attack on the capacity of our roads in favor of friggin’ bicycles who pay nothing for the reduced capacity that their “tracks” create.
So we are as usual expected to pay more to get less in return. No thanks.
Maybe if you tried floating a small property tax increase to fund transit, so that the major users of public transportation would participate in funding it, I would vote for it.
It didn’t play out that way, Jordan, as we do still have some 26 service. Everyone has to take a little bit of a hit in one way or another, but it wasn’t the Doomsday prediction that was advertised. And I’m in agreement with Wile E Coyote that automobile owners are getting screwed, but I definitely won’t vote for any sort of property tax increase for pretty much anything anymore. We’ve got the mayors taking away parking spots downtown and jacking up parking fees, parklets taking away parking spots and the social engineering of reducing road capacity so that people won’t use their cars and STILL the buses take a hit? What’s up with that?
Oh, and if our area has some of the most used buses anywhere, wouldn’t they create more income for Metro if they ran more buses instead of reducing service?
The bus cuts scheduled for February 2015 have indeed been shelved. For now. Increased revenues due to the recent booming economy have kept these cuts from occurring. For now.
What this back-and-forth shows is the ridiculousness of tying important infrastructure funding to volatile revenue sources like the sales tax. The transportation budget needs a more stable funding mechanism. A progressive MVET would be a nice place to start.
A better and more appropriate place for funds would be rider fees. Also add a tax at the same rate as vehicles to all bicycles using designated bike lanes and shared lanes.
Steve
@11: I’m totally with you, man. I think we should calculate the toll that both cars and bikes take on roadways and the environment, and each should pay accordingly. Vehicle weight and pollution would be a great way to measure these two factors. I figure if the average car was billed about $400 a year for the right to chew asphalt and spew emissions, my bike would pay about 70 cents. Round it up to a dollar and bill me.
But, Doug, what about the cost of the bike lanes and other bike amenities? That would cost you more than 70 cents. And, yes, please start pricing bus fares at a level that would start supporting Metro.
@13: You’re right, those 4′ bike lanes on a few Seattle roads are total space hogs…they’re almost half the width of a parking lane! Maybe we could eliminate bike lanes. Reduce the speed limit on surface streets to 15mph and truly share the road.
And, yes, totally raise bus fares to a point where they support Metro. At the same time we should do this with the price of gasoline–you know, pay for it’s TRUE cost. Let’s see, we’ve got vehicle emissions, environmental damage (remember the Deep Water Horizon…holy moly that was a gusher!), subsidized drilling and pipelines, and wars in the Middle East (look out, Russia!). I’m thinking $15 a gallon would be a good starting point.
It’s a credit to Metro that they both come to us asking for money, and also find new savings in the form of cuts we don’t see (delaying bus purchases, administrative layoffs, etc.). Would people really rather Metro keep the status quo and just come to us for money? Vote yes.
We shouldn’t forget, though, that Prop 1 will only cover Metro operating expenses. It cannot pay for infrastructure improvements like bus lanes, queue jumps, curb bulbs, light rail, etc. For that, we also need to make sure that a renewal of Bridging the Gap is passed in 2016, when the current BtG levy expires.
I believe the credit for most the good parts of this really should go to the King County Council, particularly Dembowski. If this measure were a vote of confidence in Metro’s management, then it would be hard to be very positive about it. Well, maybe it’s hard to be very positive about it anyway, but there is some reason to hope that the county is going to ride them a little harder for a while – an auditor, etc. And a city with traffic problems like Seattle needs a bus system that doesn’t routinely leave people behind because they’re at capacity, that’s just stupid.
I am puzzled about the lack of funding for needed bus service at the same time Metro recently installed mechanical voice announcement for each stop on the bus routes. Besides being annoying, those robotic announcements must have cost $$. And they have not stopped riders from asking questions of the drivers, if that was the purpose of having them.
I use the #26 to get from Wallingford – Greenlake to Fremont and from downtown to Fremont. I so hope the #26 bus route is indeed saved.. again.
My understanding is that the need for the new assessment to maintain bus service had evaporated and that the assessment was now to be used for “enhancements in service”. Vote NO to rebuff these disingenuous yahoos such as Tom Rasmussen.
As far as Bridging the Gap 2.0 is concerned, sure if you want to see your dreams trashed by another heist like diverting a great deal of the available funds generated by BTG 1.0 to some wet dream of the Council to remake SOLU in a manner that Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos could well afford to do themselves, then by all means…
My bet is that this time the money would vanish into a grandiose waterfront park that is the apple of the ego-maniacal, hubris-filled City Council,
Regarding pricing Metro costs so it’s self-sustaining, you need to think about the whole system:
Every time you go to the grocery store, think about how many of the people working there take the bus to work, for example. If you increase bus far, many now can’t afford to get to their jobs, so the employers have to raise their wages, which raises the cost of your food.
Also, if you make bus riding less economically attractive, you see increased use of cars by those who can afford them, which means more cars on the road, which means we have to spend more on roads, or you won’t be able to get where you’re going.
Money spent on busses benefits those who don’t ride them by making the roads less congested and by enabling the service sector to function.
This sounds an awful lot like me having to subsidize another portion of the populace because they supposedly can’t. Again. Not interested in doing that anymore. This is the same argument put forth by people who want to keep illegals working in the fields at sub par wages so we don’t have to pay for pricier fruits and vegies. I support paying people a decent wage for their work, but I don’t support supporting Metro any more than we have been. Who can I get to subsidize ME? I can’t imagine supporting the cost of a car is less expensive than paying bus fare at a sustainable rate. The middle class keeps taking it in the shorts for everybody else it seems and it needs to stop or there won’t be anyone else left to pay for those who supposedly can’t or won’t.
Motor vehicles do indeed benefit from subsidies. The cost of road infrastructure is not covered by vehicle or fuel taxes, and indeed while fuel is taxed, that’s sort of a transfer of funds from the federal govt’s heavy support of petroleum to the state govt. – and as DOUG points out above, there are collateral costs that we don’t bother to even calculate. Mass transit is worth supporting because it’s more efficient – we get more for our money, when we fund transit. It’s unfortunate that bus fares are as high as they already are.
I’m slightly astounded that anyone would vote against increasing transit. Traffic in Seattle has become a nightmare, but buses are so slow and inconsistent that I almost always drive rather than taking the bus downtown, contributing to the traffic disaster. Have Seattleites never visited a world-class city—London, New York, Paris: all have fantastic public transit systems. The selfishness of “I have a car” I’m not subsidizing someone taking the bus is astounding. Public transit makes for better cities. Seattle has had its head in the sand since we first refused the federal goverment’s help on mass transit. Even if you drive, you win if more people take the bus as it gets them off the road. It’s not an either or proposition.
Anne, I completely agree. As I mentioned above, I ride the 26 to work downtown. Unless, I have to be home early, or at work early, then I drive on I-5. If the 26 ran more often, I could leave my car at home more often. I would think that drivers would appreciate that.
Some numbers on funding for those who want Metro riders to “pay their way”.
Farebox recovery for Metro is almost 30%.
http://metro.kingcounty.gov/am/reports/annual-measures/financial.html
Gas tax funding for SDOT is about 4%.
Source: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/2010AnnualReport.pdf
(2010 most recent annual report)
Where does the other 70% come from for Metro? Where does the other 96% come from for roads in Seattle? A big part of both funding sources are federal grants, sales tax, and property tax. We all pay all of those one way or another.
I wish the people who are against this would just be a little bit more honest about their motivations. I get it. You don’t ride the bus and you’re cheap when it comes to taxes, so you vote no. Me, I’m voting yes because I do ride the bus and I don’t mind the additional taxes since I benefit from better transit service. Was that so hard? It’s not about making government more efficient or the illegals or national debt or whatever else you’re pretending it is.
Another plus about funding transit is to offer an alternative incentive to all these people using my street as a parking lot. I am so sick of my street filling at 8:00 am as all these drivers park to go to work at Brooks, Evo and what have you. If transit were more appealing maybe they wouldn’t be driving.
I don’t think they all really understand their motivations. There are a lot of people out there who have been encouraged to feel victimized by government that taxes them and curbs their liberties. Maybe ludicrous to an outside observer, but we’ve been hearing this for 40 years and many people accept it without question, and accordingly feel bitter over their lot. Of course this dovetails with the “I’m cheap about services I don’t use” sentiment, I’m not saying that’s not there.
On the other hand, it would be a shame if only those who ride the bus vote for it. Not only is there a case to be made (and that has been made, above), that it’s good for people who don’t use it, but moreover a transit system is normally a work in progress. We can’t turn a corner and come to the common realization that we need a good transit system, and say “OK, here’s a mountain of money – build it.” It takes decades for people to adapt their lives around transit, for urban development to adapt around transit. During that time, transit has to be available, in order for it to grow into the role it can and should play. People gnash their teeth when they see an empty bus riding around in the evening, but the people who are going to get on that bus, instead of driving, are never going to take that step until the bus service is there at some reasonable level – the bus has to take the first step. So by feeding the bus system you and I may have no use for today, we’re hopefully keeping it healthy enough to grow into something that tomorrow we may find more valuable.
And I really wish people would stop with the “world class” adjective they keep trying to affix to the front of “Seattle”. Seattle is Seattle. We don’t need or want to be New York or London. You don’t need to be “world class” to be a great and viable city. Hopefully Seattle will get its act together someday soon and be a more efficient city, but we don’t need to strive for “world class” for heaven’s sake.
That isn’t really the point. I suppose Los Angeles is in some way a world class city, as well, so if that were the objective, our transportation system is in world class company. Alas.
@Lisa, Whether folks consider us world class or not is irrelevant, because we’re already there. Even before our seaport merge with Tacoma, we were the 10th largest port in the country by TEU, and our airport is the 15th busiest. Our public university, UW, is the largest on the west coast, is the largest public recipient of federal research grant money and the second largest recipient among all private and public entities in the country. Finally, last year, Seattle was the fastest growing large city in the US. We desperately need a transit system to match. It’s unfortunate that we don’t already have it.
Especially galling when you go to Boston and realize their subway system has been going since the late 19th century!
I’m voting no for a reason that only I seem to be upset about- that transit lanes don’t allow carpoolers. Carpools are like little buses that go everwhere and run for free and build community. We would have no traffic and no need for more taxes if everyone that could carpool did carpool. Carpools are a better form of commuting than buses, yet are being completely ignored in transit spending by the city and metro.
Okay, change “world class” to liveable. Seattle’s transit and infrastructure don’t live up to the needs of the growing population. 520 and 99 both needed to be replaced years ago, but our inability to agree on anything prevent us from having the civic services we need. Buses drive on the crappy roads too and get stuck in our traffic jams.
Starbucks, Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Nordstrom all need the city to grow up so they can keep attracting top global talent.
@Eric, many transit lanes do allow cars. For instance, the BAT (business access and transit) lanes along Aurora allow cars in them during off-peak hours, and right turns during peak hours. That said, more widespread use of transit lanes for carpools would run the risk of defeating the purpose of the transit lanes, which is to provide a cheap way to allow buses to avoid gridlock. I would point you to Danny Westneat’s recent article in the Times that describes how carpool lanes are as congested as regular traffic lanes now:
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024836257_westneat22xml.html
This is exactly what we want buses to avoid.
Thanks Skylar, but I think Aurora bus lanes are a good example of how wrong headed SDOT is- allowing SOV cars in the bus lanes off hours is not a carpool benefit, it’s a lame offering to the Tim Eyman crowd.
When carpool lanes are regularly backed up it’s not tough to mark more lanes or on ramps as HOV-2 only, then use congestion pricing to selectively let in single occupant cars until capacity is filled. Congestion pricing on SOVs would also be a far better way to fund transit than a sales tax.
Interesting points, Eric. HOV-2 for bus lanes seems like a low bar that would likely clog up the lane pretty quickly, but what if they were HOV-4? I could go for that. I wonder if that’s been done anywhere?
Hi Doug! Congestion pricing has been done in London and HOT lanes are catching on in California, but carpooling is an after thought in Seattle. The reason as I see it is that carpooling is not a “liberal” identity issue, so it’s hard to get people whipped up about it. There’s also no built in advocacy group like there is transit or car use in general. There’s a freight master plan, several transit master plans, a bike master plan, but zero attention paid to carpooling, especially in the city.
If I had my way we’d make I-90, 520, 99 and I-5 all congestion tolled on single occupant cars at a level high enough to prevent regular backups. Carpools would be free, everyone else has to pay the congestion toll, and the tolls would subsidize transit. There’d be no congestion toll at times when there’s no regular backups, but the tolls could be very high on november workday afternoons- basically, whatever level was required to prevent a regular backup from happening. As I see it, that would be transportation utopia, so I vote based on whether I see things moving in that direction or not.
wow, it is hard to know where to begin here.
suffice it to say, I’m voting “YES!” on prop 1.
Yes, I agree that I don’t want my FEDERAL tax dollars going to corporate bailouts and endless wars. Yes, I agree that the middle class is being undermined and needs to be bolstered. Yes, I agree that the current MVET is regressive – thanks to Tim Eyman and anyone who voted yes on his initiatives.
None of this changes my belief that we need more and better public transportation options in Seattle and the region.
“government” is the mechanism through which individual citizens pool their resources to provide services and infrastructure for all to share. “taxes” is how we pool financial resources, and “voting” is how we decide how to spend those resources (or choose representatives to make those decisions for us).
we ALL subsidize each other – with roads, sidewalks, parks, schools, utility lines, waste collection and treatment, farm and food subsidies, public servants who spend their time making decisions we don’t feel like thinking about…on and on. anyone who thinks they are not benefiting from other people’s tax dollars should think about it some more. try spending one day not using any government-supported service or infrastructure.
And, I am a bike commuter, telecommuter, bus rider, and I own a registered vehicle. I pay my MVET to subsidize our roads while my car sits parked each day instead of clogging up our roadways and parking spots. I am not complaining. This is how the social contract works.
Vote YES!
Hmmm… I’m not quite sure how to address the last few transit suggestions being made here. Sounds vaguely socialist/communist/whatever. As far as I know, we still have the personal freedom to choose our transit method as bus, car, bike or on foot and, also as far as I know, we car owners pay a large part of the infrastructure that exists to support ALL of those methods. I rarely take the bus because I don’t want to waste hours of my life getting places I can reach faster with my car most times, although the #26 Express is pretty handy. I am not a diehard biker who will ride in heavy rain even though I have fenders. Some of you are and I applaud you. I’m hoping some transit savant will eventually come along and help us figure some of our problems out and in a way that won’t cost billions in taxes. In the meantime, I will never support taking away the rights of cars, in general. If you want to carpool, great, carpool. If you want to ride the bus, more power to you. If a bike is your choice of transportation, I wish you/me safe travels. But removing parking spaces, installing parklets, increasing the cost of parking meters and the hours of operation and suggesting congestion pricing? Forget it and I will fight those actions at every opportunity.
A couple observations on HOV bus lanes:
– I read that the Rapid Ride A Line does use an HOV lane on Pacific S. So, Eric, you are now free to vote for the proposition if you wish.
– I also read (I had no idea though it’s much closer to home) there was an HOV-3 lane for a short while on N Pacific, headed towards Montlake. It didn’t work, mostly because 50% of the vehicles in it were cheating, so they went to a bus only lane. To some extent that just represents a characteristic weakness in Seattle engineering, inasmuch as they’ll try any weird stunt with no apparent insight into how things really work on the ground, but any time you want to get an idea how good HOV compliance is, you can stand for a few minutes down by the southbound freeway entrance at 45th, while there’s a backup in the regular lane.
@Lisa: Care to cite specific ways that “car owners pay a large part of the infrastructure that exists to support ALL of those methods”? Because unless local transportation funding has changed since I woke up this morning, you’re wrong.
And you say “vaguely socialist” like there’s something wrong with that. We could learn a lot from the social democracies in this world, most of which kick our ass when it comes to public transit, health care accessibility, obesity & child poverty rates and general happiness. We do have more billionaires. Yay.
donn- Buses may use carpool lanes, but the point is what this measure will change. The proposition doesn’t move us any closer to congestion pricing and provides no carpooling benefits, so I voted no. More buses is good, but more aimless regressive taxes and more bus-only infrastructure is not good, so on balance I voted no.
If people cheat in the carpool lane, it’s super easy to enforce, because the enforcement pays for itself. Very few people cheat on the HOV 3 520 traffic lane because it’s enforced.
I know that this is slightly off topic, but I’m torn about the HOV lane cheating getting onto I-5. I hate bumping along in the left hand lane watching cars with single people fly by me on the right. But, my wait would be longer if they got in the left hand lane. Maybe the signal should be faster so that more cars from the left can get on the freeway faster. Then people wouldn’t have to cheat. Sorry for the off-topic post, but I’ve been thinking about it recently.
I hear it’s super easy to enforce, so maybe you should bring this to the attention of the authorities? Don’t feel sorry for them (“Then people wouldn’t have to cheat.”) They can wait in line. The regulated access is there to keep the freeway itself from getting jammed up as people merge in from the entrance (which in turn is largely because people follow too close on the freeway, but what can you do …) The more people wait the access lights, the quicker the freeway mess clears up and the entrance can go back to unregulated access.
How about property taxes, gas taxes and vehicle tabs? Ring a bell? I realize we get some federal funding, too, but all these methods of transportation use roads in one form or another and people who own cars and other motorized vehicles pay the additional vehicle-related fees that, say bicyclists who don’t own cars, don’t pay.
And, Doug, let’s keep socialism in socialist countries where it belongs.
citizens take note:
looking out for each other = socialism.
democracy = socialism.
government in any form = socialism.
It’s not about socialism. It’s not about making the lanes HOV lanes. They don’t take the bus and they don’t like to pay taxes. That’s it. For god’s sake, own it people.
If they actually would be directly affected by this measure I’m sure these things would be overlooked.
You know, scratch that last part. They will be affected. They’ll get dinged with the tax but they won’t use the benefit. My gripe is that people in Seattle seem to want to justify their selfishness as part of some grandiose ideology. They are missing the point. Voting is our opportunity to be selfish. We should vote in our own interest. But can’t we just own it?
Lisa: You realize we have an elected Socialist right here in Seattle, right? And she’s our second most popular Councilmember. Look out, they’re taking over!
Also, Lisa, gas taxes and vehicle tabs are a drop in the bucket when it comes to SDOT’s revenue stream. So your statement that “car owners pay a large part of the infrastructure that exists to support ALL of those methods” is (unfortunately) totally false.
Doug, you and I pretty much don’t agree on this issue at all, clearly. But if the methods of funding I listed don’t meet with your criteria for actually providing money for transportation, could I count on you to support doing away with all those fees? If they aren’t helpful, I’d sure like to not have to pay them! And being the second most popular member of our city clowncil (and who determined that?) isn’t saying much 🙂 Hopefully the majority of Seattle’s registered voters will cast their votes next election and her time (as well as most of the other council members) will be cut short. It would be fantastic to have a city council that is actually concerned with ALL of Seattle for a change!
No, you want to raise those taxes and fees, don’t you? You won’t settle for that socialistic nonsense of raiding our wealth to fund your lifestyle. You’re not going to believe those car tab fees and the price of gasoline at first, but fair is fair.
Hey Lisa…With district elections looming next year, I wouldn’t hold my breath that future city councils will be “concerned with ALL of Seattle”. And there’s a rumor that Jess Spear will run for the District 4 position (that’s us), which means your representative on the City Council in 2015 just might be a Socialist!
Jess Spear? Yeah, that’ll happen, lol…
While I think this is mostly name calling at this point, I figured I’d use the forum to ruminate on a rainy Saturday…
The socialist angle is that government should provide desired services to everyone without asking for anything back and then get the funds by any means necessary. This leads to rationing, political resource fights, and then failed states like the socialist dreams in Africa and Latin America, or in the first world look at indebted government-heavy countries in Europe. Worrying about creeping socialism is a fair concern.
On the flip side, paying only for what you use is also a horrific system, just look at
countries with failed governments. In those societies, you only pay for what you need, such as getting your children back after they’ve been abducted by armed gangs, and if you are poor or disabled you will suffer horribly. Capitalists duke it until the most vicious succeeds and then uses their monopoly position to victimize their customers and hoard wealth in the interest of controlling and extending their monopoly. Just look at Windows 8.
The best solutions don’t grow government, but instead redirect capitalism to fix issues like monopolies, traffic and homelessness. The earned income tax credit is a great example of good government that allows people to work out of poverty. It preserves capitalist incentives, flexibility, and benefits while also not ignoring a problem- it is wealth redistribution the good way. Congestion tolling on single occupant cars is similar- it doesn’t rely on government to come in and create large new agencies to pay money to fix the problem, and it also doesn’t simply ignore the problem of traffic. It directs market incentives into solving the problem instead of just relying on the market economy to fuel government giveaways. People laugh when I say I’m a libertarian liberal, but that’s what it means to me- shrink government, but factor externalities into the capitalist system.
@abigal, re the next stop announcements, these are actually required by the federal government to maintain ADA compliance. Metro needs to be mindful of this in order to remain qualified for FTA grant money.
The best thing I ever did was bag the bus and get on a bike. In the morning all I do is pass a parking lot of cars waiting for the lights to change, and then they speed away, only to meet me again at the next red light. It’s nice to have Metro as backup, but buses are depressing to ride on and really aren’t that fast during commuter traffic time. I invite anyone to join me, seriously, biking is the best decision I’ve made for my health, sanity and outlook on life! It takes the “edge” off in the morning and wipes the works stresses away at the end of the day! Drive/Bike safe:) I’m not just a biker, I’m a dad!
Skylar- thanks for the information. ADA compliance? Not all buses have them? This is a regulation we could do without , perhaps.
It might be very useful to audit carefully and weed out the causes of Metro’s system failure to thrive. I want our bus system to be supported while this is occurring. A well run bus system is necessary for our area to thrive financially as well as socially. Is social suddenly a bad word? In Seattle people riding the bus talk to each other. Information is shared. Riders smile at each other. We get to know our neighbors. Businesses thrive because we get there and spend our money ( and pay retail taxes).