So, we’ve all been inundated by WSDOT telling us to stay off the highways during the shut down on I-5 and today’s Seattle Times shows that they’ve done such a good job of convincing us about it that traffic has been better than the past 15 year’s time (my personal opinion on that timeline) because people are taking alternate routes, alternate transportation or just plain not getting on the roadway. While I am all in favor of alternate modes of transportation this August exercise in changing habits makes me wonder if the citizens of Puget Sound are willing to consider longer term changes in transportation.
Coming up this fall (November 2007) the tri-county area will have the opportunity to vote on a new roads & transit package for Sound Transit. The high-level overview of it is that it will provide improvements to current highways, 50 new miles of light rail (including to the Eastside), new HOV lanes, bike lanes/sidewalks/connections, and improvement on major freight routes. Each county has specific items that they’ll gain as benefits as well but what is truly important about the package to pass is that 2 contiguous counties must approve it for it to pass. That means we can’t have just Snohomish and Pierce pass the measure, it must include King County in there somewhere – and most preferably have all 3 counties agree to pass it so we can get all of the benefits that are part of the proposal.
As a member of the Government & Public Affairs Committee within Seattle King County Association of Realtors(R), I have been present at many discussions of the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID) along with many of my counterparts and we all support the plan. As real estate agents we understand how transportation affects our clients as well as the business community, which in turn affects home prices and quality of life. It is all enmeshed together.
One significant point that was brought up at the last meeting I was able to attend was that some of the issues with the Pierce County section of the plan are being held up or threatened by an environmental group. According to one of the folks at the meeting this group is trying to protect a wooded portion of land that is made up of trees that are not indigenous to the area – they were transplanted here about 100 years ago. This may be a mis-guided attempt to conserve and the area in question is an important link to the military bases in Pierce County. Not being able to provide better transit access to these areas could cause those bases to be put on close down lists within the Federal Government which would then put Pierce County at risk for massive job losses. Surely some other kind of environmental mitigation could occur to preserve land areas that could allow for a work-around here.
Read the report and feel free to weigh in here about the plan!
This vote happens in November, but in the meantime don’t forget to vote in the August 21 Primary and Special Election! Part of this election has measures regarding parks and open space funding, including funds for the much beloved Woodland Park Zoo.
