Proposition 1 will bring transportation choices to Puget Sound

The Seattle Times recently published a story that shows that we are already altering the way we get around in the face of crippling congestion:

Data from several key traffic measures indicate that as traffic congestion worsens, many drivers may be starting to make significant changes in how they get around — including driving less and owning fewer vehicles.

• The average number of miles driven per person in the Puget Sound area has leveled off, growing just 0.8 percent a year for the five-year period between 2001 and 2006 after rising as much as 6 percent a year for decades, according to a Puget Sound Regional Council report in August.
• The number of new vehicles added each year to King County roads fell dramatically during that same period, from an average of 33,000 per year between 1980 and 1990 to just 11,000 per year between 2000 and 2006, according to calculations based on figures provided by the state Department of Licensing (DOL) in February.
• The ratio of registered cars to drivers — which reached 1.5 vehicles for every driver in 1990 — also dropped significantly to 1.21 vehicles per driver in 2007, according to calculations based on figures provided by DOL in September.

When we talk about structuring investment to encourage transit use, libertarians frequently label such planning as “social engineering” (yeah, right - as if all the suburbs along I-5 have always been there - but of course they haven’t).

Decades ago the people of Seattle and surrounding towns got around by streetcar, bicycle, and wagons or carriages pulled by horses. Cars were a rarity - if you owned one, it was because you could afford one, not because you needed one.

Today is quite different. It’s different because we made the choice to build interstates, highways, and wide suburban boulevards. We sold off and dismantled our streetcars and subsidized (sometimes violently) oil drilling, here in America and throughout the world. Along the new interstates suburbs bloomed. From Normandy Park to Sammamish and from Northgate to Fife, we engineered a car-centric world.

As Walt Crowley observed, today we stand at the precipice of an equally monumental change. Roads & Transit represents the next stage in a shift from car orientated development to transit orientated development. It dramatically expands Link light rail and improves bus service (among many other things). It's not perfect. But it is our best chance to move forward.

Proposition 1 is a big milestone: the first big step along a path towards a transit friendly future.

Without options there is only so much that individuals can do - as anyone who has tried to commute by bus from the South End can tell you. Roads & Transit is a progressive answer to our transportation mess: give people choices, and we have the opportunity to cut down on emissions, reduce sprawl, and change the way we think about civic planning.

What the Sierra Club and others fail to realize is that decades of car-centric social engineering cannot be undone overnight. We're not going to solve the climate crisis by punishing people for driving their cars.

We've already got hundreds of thousands of people living in the suburbs and the exurbs, and they have to get to work, go to the store, and take their kids to soccer. Right now, in many communities, doing that without a car is nearly impossible. (If you don't live in Seattle, you can see for yourself - plug in a suburban address at WalkScore).

What can we do? We can vote for carefully thought out plan that is built around transit as the centerpiece, instead of more roads. We can support a package that offers targeted investments aimed at making our existing roads better, and we can support a proposal that puts meaningful transportation choices on the table for Puget Sound residents. A proposal that was built upon mountains of public input.

In doing so we can start a change no less momentous then the one that birthed, as Walt put it, "The ICE Age" (for internal combustion engine).

Rail transit spurs development along its route. Development that is based around new rail lines is sustainable, dense, and more affordable. Moving close to where you work is a great idea, but if you work in the concrete and steel jungle of downtown Seattle now, there's a good chance that is not an option.

With quality transit, living in a community like Federal Way no longer has to mean an expensive, congested, emissions generating commute to a job further north.

Instead it can mean a clean, quick, and comfortable ride in a train that reliably arrives and leaves the station on time, every morning and every evening, no matter the weather, no matter how bad the traffic on the highway is.

As the Times story pointed out, people are tired of long commutes, expensive gas, and losing time with their families. They want transit options, and they will use them - if they exist. Without Link, without Sounder, without ST Express, without the streetcars and HOV lanes, without improved pedestrian and bicycle access, those options won't be there. That's why we need to approve Proposition 1.