Our region needs Sound Transit 3: NPI founder’s testimony in support of HB 1180

Edi­tor’s Note: On Wednes­day, I trav­eled down in Olympia to tes­ti­fy before the House Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee on HB 1180, which would give Sound Tran­sit the author­i­ty it needs to pro­pose an ST3 pack­age to vot­ers in urban King, Sno­homish, and Pierce coun­ties in 2016. The fol­low­ing is the text of my pre­pared testimony.

Good after­noon, Madam Chair and mem­bers of the committee:

For the record, my name is Andrew Vil­leneuve. I’m the founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, a net­roots pow­ered strat­e­gy cen­ter work­ing to raise Amer­i­ca’s qual­i­ty of life through inno­v­a­tive research and imag­i­na­tive advo­ca­cy, and I’m pleased to be here today to speak in favor of HB 1180, prime spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jake Fey. 

Since the found­ing of NPI’s Per­ma­nent Defense near­ly thir­teen years ago, we have been emphat­ic sup­port­ers of Sound Tran­sit and its mis­sion. As Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Fey said in his remarks ear­li­er, a strong region­al tran­sit sys­tem is the key to fight­ing traf­fic con­ges­tion and pro­mot­ing broad pros­per­i­ty for Washingtonians.

We were proud to stand with Sound Tran­sit as it reor­ga­nized itself into a mod­el pub­lic agency more than a decade ago, and we’re incred­i­bly pleased that ST now has a track record of deliv­er­ing projects on time and under budget.

Although we have sev­er­al Link exten­sions already under con­struc­tion or in final design, we need to set the stage for the next phase of projects so that our region’s rail spine con­tin­ues to be built out. There are many neigh­bor­hoods that are eager­ly await­ing to be con­nect­ed to Link, from Fed­er­al Way to Bal­lard to Everett.

Polling con­duct­ed for Sound Tran­sit just last month by EMC Research shows that the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton’s most pop­u­lat­ed region are very hun­gry for more tran­sit. When asked if they would sup­port a hypo­theth­i­cal Sound Tran­sit 3 bal­lot mea­sure, sev­en­ty per­cent of respon­dents said they would be in favor, while only twen­ty-eight per­cent said they would be opposed.

That’s a ratio of more than two to one!

Sep­a­rate­ly, respon­dents were asked if the Leg­is­la­ture should “def­i­nite­ly, prob­a­bly, prob­a­bly not, or def­i­nite­ly not give Sound Tran­sit new tax­ing author­i­ty so they can put a tran­sit expan­sion mea­sure on the bal­lot some­time in the future?”

Again, by a two-to-one ratio, respon­dents said yes. Six­ty-eight per­cent said the Leg­is­la­ture should def­i­nite­ly or prob­a­bly give ST the author­i­ty it is seek­ing, while only thir­ty per­cent said it should not.

These are com­pelling num­bers. This data backs up what my staff and I hear when we talk to urban Wash­ing­to­ni­ans: a size­able major­i­ty want more tran­sit. Giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote for more tran­sit, they will, in a heartbeat.

We know there is still some skep­ti­cism about how effec­tive light rail is at reduc­ing con­ges­tion. It is impor­tant to under­stand that light rail and bus­es com­ple­ment each oth­er. They are dif­fer­ent modes. We need both a strong rail spine and a well-designed net­work of bus routes to have a tru­ly great tran­sit system.

Cru­cial­ly, the expe­ri­ence of oth­er cities shows us that rail appeals to peo­ple who own cars and have a choice between dri­ving and riding.

Tran­sit-depen­dent indi­vid­u­als will use what­ev­er tran­sit is avail­able, because they don’t have a choice. But those who do own cars are much more like­ly to choose not to dri­ve if they can get where they need or want to go via train. This has been repeat­ed­ly doc­u­ment­ed through research.

For those mem­bers of the com­mit­tee who are Repub­li­cans, I’d like to call your atten­tion to sev­er­al excel­lent papers writ­ten by well known con­ser­v­a­tives Paul Weyrich and Bill Lind that have thor­ough­ly exam­ined the val­ue of light rail and high capac­i­ty tran­sit. These are all avail­able from the Amer­i­can Pub­lic Trans­porta­tion Asso­ci­a­tion in PDF. They are good reads, and they do a good job of dis­pelling the myths so fre­quent­ly prop­a­gat­ed by tran­sit bash­ers and tran­sit skeptics.

• How Tran­sit Ben­e­fits Peo­ple Who Do Not Ride It: A Con­ser­v­a­tive Inquiry
• Does Tran­sit Work? A Con­ser­v­a­tive Reappraisal
• Twelve Anti-Tran­sit Myths: A Con­ser­v­a­tive Critique

Sound Tran­sit is ready to move for­ward, but before it can offer the vot­ers of its juris­dic­tion an oppor­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther invest in an effec­tive tran­sit sys­tem that relieves con­ges­tion in our crowd­ed cor­ri­dors, it needs to have the author­i­ty to raise addi­tion­al rev­enue. House Bill 1180 would pro­vide this much-need­ed author­i­ty. We urge you to report HB 1180 out of com­mit­tee with an enthu­si­as­tic do pass rec­om­men­da­tion next week. Thank you very much for your time.