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Pierce County turned down last year's Proposition 1 by a greater margin than either of its sister counties up north, and there's even less for Pierce County (from a light rail standpoint) this time around.
The Sound Transit board designed a plan that puts a lot of light rail in King County and pushes up to Lynnwood in Snohomish County. But the main spine comes only as far south as the northern city limits of Federal Way, and never crosses the border into Pierce County.
Tacoma could get an extension of its downtown Link if the city or someone else ponies up half the money to match Sound Transit. Instead, Pierce gets more regional bus service and Sounder trains and parking at train stations.
Most of the e-mail feedback I've been getting from readers suggests they feel slighted by the plan.
All of which begs the question: Will King and Snohomish counties approve this second $18 billion plan by wide enough margins to overcome a predominantly "no" vote in Pierce County? It's an all-or-nothing proposition, by the way.
Here's a look at last year's results, county by county, for Proposition 1:
Pierce County
YES............54,333....42.61 percent
NO.............73,170....57.39 percent
King County
YES...........170,982....44.75 percent
NO............211,070....55.25 percent
Snohomish County
YES.........41,444......44.36 percent
NO..........51,993......55.64 percent
NOTE: I used only the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority votes, not the Regional Transportation Investment District totals of the combined ballot measure for 2007. For Pierce County, they were identical.
If you'll recall, the last ballot measure had about $11 billion for transit and $7 billion for highways.
COMMENTS:
The already funded light rail lines from downtown Seattle south to Sea-Tac Airport is shown for 2009, and north running University Link to Husky Stadium -- local funding complete; federal share pending -- is shown as 2016 completion. These lines don't need Prop 1 to keep on being constructed.
Prop 1 is 88% for light rail, and it's called "Mass Transit Now." 2020 is a funny definition of "now."
The 12% "now" part of Prop 1 is more Sounder service to Pierce County, and a small addition to Sound Transit's bus service that only covers one year's past growth in surging ridership because of gas prices.
Sound Transit could have spent some of our money to relieve crowding on buses for the next five years with a much more affordable and immediate transit improvement project.
Instead citizens are asked to keep standing on buses, and to pay in advance for standing on light rail trains (supposedly) opening twelve years from now. Fact: the capacity of the Sound Transit light rail cars built by Kinkisharyo is 74 customers sitting down and standing room for 126.
On top of that, the Prop 1 plan requires a vast increase in transferring from buses to trains at the new light rail stations, supposedly more efficient than one seat express bus rides to where you are actually going. Yet overall across the six west coast cities with light rail, the trains cost 12% more per rider to operate than the buses in the same cities.
Pierce County citizens may not like Prop 1 because it's too tilted toward King County, but I'm in King County, I ride transit, and I'm voting "NO."
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