Washblog

The problem is that the roads are going to be built no matter what...

Fine. But why should I have to pay for them? It's like buying an alcoholic a six-pack and pleading "This is it. After this, no more. It's time for you to start acting reasonable. Okay?" Classic enabling behavior. What's required here is some tough love.

Seattle is the tax base for the region, for the state. We already subsidize most everyone else's standard of living (both the eastside and Eastside). We enable the sprawl.

Most rural and suburban dwellers think they carry us. It's an amazing, shocking amount of ignorance.

Our reward for this largess?

They hate us liberals.

I say fine, cool by me. The rest of the state can pay for their own roads (and ferries).

You want to drive your gas guzzlers? Fine. Knock yourself out. Gas prices will continue to rise. This, ultimately, will be a self-correcting problem. You want to rot in traffic and be a stranger to your family so that you can have two acres and a mule? Fine. That's your choice.

I used to be a utopian. For social justice, economic, and environmental reasons. Public transit for the masses. And happy to pay for it.

Now I'm selfish. I'll support any plan that directly and solely benefits Seattle. I'll support any plan where the partner meets Seattle as a good faith negotiator. For instance, if the Eastside wants to build their rail to our city limit for a link up.

In fact, everywhere else can do whatever they want, just so long as I don't have to pay for it.

Meanwhile, Seattle will continue to build ever more urban housing. People will vote with their feet. They'll choose to work where they live. They'll choose healthy lifestyles over long commutes. That's the open market at work. And the employers will have to follow.

What scares me the most about how the Sierra Club, and certain other anti-roads folks, approached this issue is that it was eerily reminiscent of the neocon mindset.

I don't even know what to make of this. It's like a new form of Godwin's Law. Agree with me or I'll call you names. How petulant.

There's a lyric that applies, from the Sneaker Pimps (I think):

Just because I understand doesn't mean I care.

We left-wing opponents get it. We're just no longer willing to forfeit a kidney on the hopes that someone else gets out of their car.

In general, I have some advice for proponents for public and mass transit:

• First, neutralize or buyoff the beneficiaries of sprawl. Like Quadrant, Behring and Kemper. They'll always scuttle any plan which threatens their racket.


• Second, address the root causes of the problem: urban areas subsidizing sprawl and land use codes.


• Third, first a little, then a lot. Make the projects modest. Incrementally improve the image of civic works. Small stuff, like how the design/build team for I-90 was given financial incentives for being on time and under budget.


• Lastly, and this will be the hardest one for everyone to accept, top-down centralized solutions no longer work. Sorry. This is the 3rd millennium. You'll have to find new innovative strategies.

That's all.