The News Tribune (Lite) - If the transit plan won’t fly, the year won’t matter

TheNewsTribune.com
Section: Opinion

If the transit plan won’t fly, the year won’t matter

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Two questions have faced the Sound Transit Board since the region’s voters rejected last November’s roads-and-transit package: What package might the taxpayers approve instead? When should it be put on the ballot?

They need answers this month.

As far as the mix of projects go, the board is getting warmer. Its members had been considering 12-year construction plans that would have stretched light rail – the centerpiece of regional mass transit – from Sea-Tac Airport as far south as Highline Community College and as far north as Northgate.

The line now being completed in Seattle would also have been extended east through Bellevue.

The problem: Highline isn’t very far south, and Northgate isn’t very far north. Pierce, South King and Snohomish counties would have been asked to vote for light rail that didn’t reach them. They would have gotten big side plates of express bus and Sounder service; they wouldn’t have gotten much of the main course.

A new plan does a lot better. Spreading the same 0.5 percent sales tax over 15 instead of 12 years, it would get light rail to South 272nd Street in north Federal Way and – on the other end – to Lynnwood in Snohomish County. The trains wouldn’t reach the Tacoma Dome until a third round of construction – but they weren’t going to get there before 2027 even under last fall’s failed plan.

For cities on the periphery of the transit system – especially Lakewood, Tacoma and Everett – the flaw in any of these plans is the iffyness of that third round.

Some Seattleites have been losing interest in building the light rail system beyond Sea-Tac and Northgate. Erstwhile light rail supporters with 206 area codes have been concluding that express buses – which get stuck in the traffic that trains bypass – are good enough for people with 253 and 360 area codes.

If the board goes with the 15-year package, it must find a way to assure Pierce County that it will ultimately wind up with a genuine alternative to the congestion on Interstate 5. The promise has to be firm. Light rail, bus rapid transit, whatever – it’s got to have its own right of way.

If that assurance can be made convincing enough, the $10.4 billion 15-year plan looks better than the smaller, 12-year versions. If taxpayers are asked to pay an extra nickel on every $10 purchase, they’re likely to focus on the projects they’ll get in return. The difference between 12 and 15 years will be secondary.

That second crucial question – whether to take a package to the citizens this year or postpone the vote to a later year – must be decided in the next couple weeks. But the board must first get the package right. If the plan is wrong, no year is the right year.