“Seattle should change its name to Whinerville.”
Screeching Sound
Roads are blocked though everyone has a plan to advance
Editor, The Times:
Once again, the fierce independence of Seattleites has caused a well-thought-out transportation package that would benefit many diverse groups to fail [”Huge roads-transit plan gets trounced,” Times page one, Nov. 7].
Liberals were against it because it provided too much money for roads. They were concerned more roads would aggravate global warming.
Businessmen were against it because it didn’t provide enough money for roads. They believe more roads are necessary to relieve congestion.
Conservatives are against it because … well, because they are against any new taxes.
So I sit in my SUV, stuck in traffic, polluting that air and unable to do my business in a timely manner. My $40,000 vehicle is rendered useless much of the time because people oppose a couple of hundred dollars in new taxes.
Ideally, voters would realize that compromise is necessary for the common good. Apparently that is not the case in Seattle.
- Joe Sullivan, KirklandA load of sand got dumped
For the past 35 years or so, the social architects and tinkerers have tried to change the way Seattleites travel and live. Proposition 1 is one more monument to their legacy, down in flames.
Voters were asked to spend $30 billion on rail, almost double the amount of funding for streets and highways. What would we have gotten? Another greenie, elitist dream, of people residing close to light-rail stops and riding into town, instead of driving.
Those light-rail lines would have taken a much-needed lane on our cross-lake bridges, lanes that will carry far more passenger traffic than light rail would.
Light rail is a nice fantasy for people with huge amounts of cash to burn, and more cash to subsidize, because they never, ever pay for themselves.
The dreamers want to get us out of our cars. That will happen when the gas supply dries up. In the meantime, voters will continue to flatten the sand castles these dreamers try to erect, and will patiently wait in the traffic jams for practical, useful solutions.
- Larry Stonebraker, SeattleWe tried the garden path
The roads-and-transit plan didn’t adequately address the problem. There was no transparency. It did nothing to address giving people incentive to get out of their cars.
I don’t think it was about paying too much in taxes, except in the sense that we are tired of paying and paying and then not getting what we paid for and being asked to pay again.
I believe citizens of King County will pony up for a transportation program that does what it says it will do, for the money we are told it will take to do it, but we are tired of being misled and manipulated.
- Megan Smith, SeattlePushing a lemon
Proposition 1 for roads and transit failed miserably at the polls despite the somewhat lopsided funding on the “yes” side. Now I read that the Senate Transportation Chairwoman Mary Margaret Haugen says, “There is no Plan B.”
Well, Ms. Haugen, the voters have spoken. Plan “A” didn’t work; it is your responsibility and your job to come up with a Plan “B” that will meet with voter approval.
It appears to come as a shock to politicians when the voters give signs of not being as gullible as politicians would like to think.
Proposition 1 was described as a finely crafted political compromise. Maybe less compromise is called for, now that the compromise approach didn’t work. Present me with something reasonable and I may well vote yes. After all, I live here and want solutions as much as anyone.
- Richard Shilling, ShorelineA cart of cabbage was overturned
Tuesday night, Proposition 1 was defeated. It is high time for our electeds to pay attention.
We don’t trust them enough to give them our money to start a huge list of projects knowing full well they would only start more than they can finish and then want more money. I view I-960 [making it harder for the Legislature to raise taxes] as a trust-in-government initiative and look what happened there [”Voters favor insurance bill, rainy-day fund; Eyman’s anti-tax measure passing,” Local News, Nov. 7].
Give us a project to replace the 520 bridge with a responsible estimate of the cost and schedule and I think the voters will approve.
Give us a project to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a responsible estimate of the cost and schedule and I think the voters will approve that as well.
What the voters won’t do is give our electeds a blank check by approving a laundry list of projects with insufficient funding and an open-ended schedule.
This isn’t about the voters having their finger stuck on the “no” button. This is about trust in government. The sooner our electeds understand that, the sooner we can start making headway on some of these issues.
- Hank Thomas, IssaquahStuck in our own way
Ignorant, rude, not advanced like those folks from Indiana [see “Spokes people: Translate biking into its very own code of behavior,” Northwest Voices, Nov. 7].
I routinely ride 100 miles a week on the streets of Seattle, from Carkeek Park to Seward Park and around Capitol Hill and downtown. I am always amazed at how upset and anxious motorists get when around bikes, taking crazy chances to overtake cyclists with little regard for the consequences of hitting one. All this to save what, 10 seconds in their life? Forty seconds? Usually three or four seconds. I have had drivers make very dangerous passing moves on me, only to turn left no more than a few yards down the road.
The amount of time drivers lose on the road when around cyclists is grossly exaggerated, compared with the time lost due to poorly timed signals and inefficient road systems.
It’s funny, drivers complain about cyclists holding them up, so we scoot through intersections and generally try to keep moving and out of their way, and they complain about that too.
Seattle should change its name to Whinerville.
- Rob Hone, SeattleBike to spare one
I for one would love to see even more cars on the roadway than we have today. This is a position of self-preservation.
I ride a bicycle on the roads. If you did too, you would understand that gridlocked streets downtown are very safe for bicycling. When the cars aren’t moving because of gridlock, it is very easy to bicycle between the cars and the curb.
I follow the rules of the road and stop at stop signs and stoplights, but when there’s gridlock for cars, I get to where I want to go faster than all that horsepower idling on $3.50-per-gallon gasoline.
Come on, Seattle - get in your cars and drive!
- Anthony Medina, Bainbridge Island