Sound Transit has made a habit over the last 20 years of making up stories to try and pry more tax dollars out of the wallets of people living in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties. As Shift has reported many times, whether it’s about finishing projects on time and under budget, or that light rail will reduce traffic congestion, Sound Transit bureaucrats will never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Now, with ballots getting ready to out for Sound Transit’s biggest money grab ever – $54 billion in taxes for projects that won’t be done for 25 years (or more) – the agency is training its site on the issue it hopes will move young voters its way – climate change.
Essentially Sound Transit has decided to declare its own “War on Cars”, based on a recent email sent by the campaign. The email sets up the battle in the subject line: “Proposition 1 v. #1 Polluter”
And that “#1 Polluter” is none other than the vehicle that gets most of us to work, or gets the kids to schools, or allows us to enjoy the place where we live.
Of course, the Sound Transit propagandists can’t help themselves, bragging that “Sound Transit Proposition 1 will curtail over 793,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas each year when the mass transit system is built out across the Puget Sound region.”
So, if you will only tax yourself $1,000 a year or so, for the next 25 years (at least), sometime after 2041 the allegedly complete light-rail system will reduce tons of pollution.
However, what all the environmentalists lining up behind Sound Transit 3 (or Regional Proposition 1) won’t admit is that the actual construction of the fixed-route rail lines – you know, the concrete and equipment required to tunnel and assemble the system, will be spewing pollution all over the region for decades.
And since, Sound Transit officials admit that their train set won’t actually reduce congestion, the alleged savings in “tons of greenhouse gas each year” is a bit of complete fabrication – as those cars will still be on the road for decades to come.
But, why let facts get in the way of a good story, eh? These Sound Transit folks have voters to fool, if they are to slip the state’s largest-ever tax increase past them next month.
But won’t all the cars be electric in 25 years? Seems the problem is solved and we just saved $54 billion.
Yeah, that’s true. ST is relying on 19th century technology in the 21st century that doesn’t do anything to actually reduce congestion, it merely gets people off of the busses and on to the trains, and has no effect on congestion. Additionally, technological advances already being developed will soon overtake and make Link light rail even more obsolete than it is right now.
Electric cars predate gasoline-powered automobiles by decades.
What new technology will be developed which won’t require dedicated rights-of-way?
Hey, stupid! I mentioned nothing about electric automobiles. The Reference to developing technology is about self-driving and autonomous vehicles regardless of the power source. Got it, dummy?
You haven’t answered my question. What new technology will be developed which won’t require dedicated rights-of-way? Self-driving and autonomous vehicles still take up space on the roads, and therefore can still get stuck in traffic.
Making the cars electric won’t in any way prevent them from getting stuck in exactly the same traffic in which the gasoline-powered cars get stuck now. There’s only so much room on the roads.
Light Rail uses electricity generated from Washington State hydropower. Busses on the highway emit greenhouse gasses. Therefore, even if all Sound Transit ever did was to move riders from busses to light rail, that would produce an environmental benefit.
You’re welcome. (If you need me to put the above explanation in all bold text, please let me know.)
What powers the bulldozers, dump trucks, track hoes, cement trucks and all the related construction equipment that will be building the inconvenient fixed line for the next 25 years? Unicorn farts? How about the majority of us that will still need transportation to access the inconveniently sited fixed line? Unless we borrow your bike with the “I heart big government” bumper sticker on the fender, we will still be spewing evil carbon all over Mother Earth. Therefore, Sizable Tax will produce no environmental benefit and no congestion relief. No benefit to anybody but construction companies, transit leeches and freedom-hating big government commissars.
(If you need me to put that in all bold text, please let me know.)
Yes Biff, building things costs money, uses resources, and can create pollution. Yet somehow, we all live in permanent structures with indoor plumbing, instead of drowning in our own waste. Yell all you like about that, then smugly congratulate yourself on how smart you are.
“building things costs money, uses resources, and can create pollution”
Seriously? Enough heavy construction equipment operating that it costs an average of $891 million per mile maybe CAN create pollution? Heavy construction equipment would be belching carbon into the atmosphere at a rate that 100’s of years of electric train “savings” couldn’t begin to equal. Yell all you like about that, then smugly congratulate yourself on how liberal you are.
The North-South Freeway in Spokane fails every one of the criteria Shift told you to use for attacking ST3: it won’t reduce congestion, building it will cost money and create pollution. It fails the pollution metric harder than does ST3, because the vehicles it will convey also create air pollution.
But Shift hasn’t told you to attack Baumgartner’s pet pork freeway boondoggle, so you don’t, because following your Party’s orders blindly with no questions asked is the highest ideal of personal freedom you’ve ever imagined.
The N-S fwy in Spokane is irrelevant to the issues regarding ST3.
Your petulant whining about a freeway construction project approved by the legislature should be taken up with your elected representative. You comrades are always telling us about how egalitarian you are until it’s something you don’t like, then your true greedy, selfish, hypocritical nature comes out.
That’s the same legislature which approved our upcoming vote on ST3, so you can quit your petulant whining about ST3 any time now. Good luck with that.
Every argument made against ST3 works even better against the North-South Freeway in Spokane. You may have reflexively submitted to your Party’s order to not recognize this, but the rest of us tax-paying voters can think freely for ourselves, and we’re not all as pampered and clueless about the real world as is our pet spoiled ex-government bureaucrat, below.
(I think the part about ST3 which really bothers you the most is us tax-paying voters actually deciding directly how our money will be spent, instead of by sleazy back-room deals amongst politicians who despise actual voters. You’ve been on the losing side of most local elections for many decades now, so why should you value our democracy?)
“That’s the same legislature which approved our upcoming vote on ST3”
Why wouldn’t the legislature send the biggest tax increase in state history to the voters? Should they have just rammed it through like the Seattle Silly Clowncil does?
“Every argument made against ST3 works even better against the North-South Freeway in Spokane”
Even the 1.6 cents on the dollar price tag?
“It fails the pollution metric harder than does ST3, because the vehicles it will convey also create air pollution”
Like enough heavy equipment that costs $891 million per mile won’t be belching a prodigious amount of carbon into the atmosphere, rendering any “savings” moot for a hundred years.
You want to talk failure? Let’s talk ST2. Sold to us in 2008 as funding light rail for 15 years, Sizable Tax has blown through $17.9 Billion in only 8 years and now has their hand out for 300% more. But hey, it’s now possible to go from Sea-Tac airport to the UW in less than an hour on somebody else’s dime, even though the overwhelming majority of us don’t travel between those 2 points.
“You’ve been on the losing side of most local elections for many decades”
Unlike “normal” you, who proudly votes (D) on every candidate, up and down the ticket, in every election, like a good Democrat should.
You comrades are always telling us about how egalitarian you are…
Actually, I told you about how we liberal taxpayers here in King County subsidized the rest of the state to the tune of over $2.4 billion in just one year alone, and you foolishly labeled this as “ridiculous”. So you’re not exactly a reliable source of information on how we liberals actually behave.
…true greedy, selfish, hypocritical nature comes out.
Luckily, even though you don’t know anything about how we liberals behave, you still have many opportunities to lecture your fellow Washingtonians on their “greedy, selfish, and hypocritical nature[s.]” Just direct your lectures at the people who preach self-reliance and small government, while they actually wallow in chronic welfare dependency. (You know, your political allies all across our state.)
Tensor you really think there will be enough hydro-power once cars on the road are largely converted to electricity? The amount of excess hydro-power in Washington is shrinking due to economic growth, electric car charging, inconsistent water flows, data farms, etc. Every liberal around here thinks they have their “indulgence from the Pope” cause they push for electric cars but in the end they will be charged by fossil fuels. By the way owning a dog causes as much CO2 emissions as owning a car. Lets regulate dogs too.