Washblog

Keeping in touch with voters in your precinct

I was out multitasking today, lobbying against the Highland Park jail proposal, registering voters, and doing candidate/issue ID.  One of the voters had quite a bit to say on transportation.  He's in construction and looking at the issue from that perspective.  Anyway, he communicated with the governor about it and passed me a copy of the letter.

My issue junkie areas are health care and election integrity, and I rely on discussions with other people to keep up to speed with education, transportation, land use, etc.

3-19-08

Dear Governor Chris Gregoire

I am very disappointed and concerned with our government's attitude toward our transportation problems.

I am for sales, property, and or gas taxes to solve these problems.  Our taxes should be over as wide a base as possible for we all benefit from a good transportation system even if we don't use a particular portion of it.

I am against all toll roads or bridges, vehicle or mileage taxes, and or fees to drive in SOV lanes.  These taxes are to narrow in there base and create resentment (the Monorail is a good example).  Toll roads create traffic jams, waste time and gas, limit freedom of travel, creates more bureaucracy to collect tolls, and offers an opening to Big Brother i.e. passes like at the Narrows Bridge.

I wanted to vote for Prop 1 in the last election but couldn't for the following reasons:

1)    A lid for 520 at Medina.  If Medina wants a lid, let Medina pay for it.  509 goes past my house, can I have a lid too?  Of course not!

2)      I am concerned about 520's impact at the Arboretum.  The Arboretum is a jewel for Seattle and the island walkway one of my personal favorites.  Going over the parking lot at the museum for an off ramp would be a wiser alternative.

3)    All tunnels or lids should be used as a last resort.  They are overly expensive (remember Boston's Big Dig) and being stuck in one because of a traffic jam is miserable for anyone with lungs.

4)    We need a Transportation system that is 100% independent of the road system.  Light rail is not.  Like buses, wherever there is a traffic jam and light rail meets the road they're stuck too.  How many accidents has Paul Allen's SLUT caused so far?

5)    Although I was against how it was funded, the Monorail was the best solution to our problems, and a system I would ride (I hate buses!), why was all of government almost unanimously against it?

6)    If the Alaska Way Viaduct needs to be replaced, it needs to be replaced with something similar, maybe an additional lane.  No tunnels! (See #3).  It is one of my most important routes of travel and a beautiful way to show visitors Seattle.

7)    Light rail is a joke.  It doesn't go where people want to go (it bypasses South Center Mall and the airport was only an after thought two weeks after the Monorail passed).  The over-head lines make it ugly. I did a two-week short call at the station by the airport.  It was unanimous among the workers that on a cold wet windy Seattle day that this station was designed to make passengers as miserable as possible.  It's a wind tunnel that blows rain everywhere, and all you have to comfort you is stupid sayings on the ground like "I love my church family".

I hope my opinions can help you make wiser decisions.

Sincerely
Patrick D. LeMoine

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