Many Seattle-centric environmental activists are all atwitter over the recent transportation proposal by the Senate Majority Caucus. Helping lead the charge against a transportation funding package that would actually focus on congestion relief, the online blog Sightline wrote a propaganda piece about the transportation package. Think what you will about the recent performance of the state Department of Transportation in managing major projects (abysmal comes to mind) or of a significant 11.5 cent increase to the nation’s highest gas tax, there is one thing anyone who drives or at the very least listens to traffic updates on TV and radio news knows – congestion in our region is terrible.
But Sightline doesn’t think that helping relieve that congestion should be the priority in a new transportation funding bill. They channel the complaints of other greenies by lamenting that a large majority of the proposed funding goes to funding highway projects, instead of bike lanes or more mass transit. They call it a “terrible and ridiculously lopsided proposal,” but in a paragraph that follows they say, “The Senate Majority Coalition Caucus (which could cease to exist after elections are held in November of next year) apparently thinks it has the Puget Sound region—and anyone who cares about making streets safer for kids, reducing pollution, and giving people convenient alternatives to sitting in traffic—over a barrel.”
The enviros at Sightline seem to know that congestion is a real problem, but their solution is to force everyone into mass transit or bikes. They don’t seem to care that congestion contributes heavily to air pollution, resulting in premature death and increased health care costs, at least according to a Harvard study. Nope, they only care about forcing their extreme green agenda on the rest of us.
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