What is it about politicians these days? They all seem to be hooked on “comprehensive” solutions to complex problems. “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” comes to mind.

It seems to me that often these “comprehensive” solutions are often worse than the problems they’re trying to solve. What’s wrong with the “divide and conquer” approach anyway?

I write software for a living. There’s no way that I would even attempt to create a “comprehensive” software package all at once. Instead, I analyze the problem and break it down into smaller problems. I try to keep a big picture of the whole problem so that I have a guide for where I want to go, but I solve the smaller problems individually. It tends to work better that way.

It seems to me that solving society’s problems ought to be approached in a similar fashion. We need to keep the big picture in mind, but we need to deal with problems in a way that lets us tackle them as we can, rather than trying an “all-or-nothing” approach.

Of course, one of the reasons why politicians use the “comprehensive” approach is so that they can ram unpalatable things down the electorate’s collective throat. We’ve got a “big” problem, so we need a “big” solution. “Of course the bill’s not perfect. Are you going to throw out the good for the perfect?”

So it goes with the comprehensive traffic package that Sound Transit is pushing on the voters this November. The real problem we have is traffic congestion. There are a lot of people that need to go a lot of places, and our highways are running at or near capacity. Simply put, we need more highway capacity, or we need an alternative way to move people around.

So what’s the unpalatable part of the comprehensive traffic passage? That depends on who you ask, but for me it’s the light rail package. Our current “light rail” solution, the Sounder isn’t really light rail at all. It shares track space with freight trains. Because of this, it runs on a limited schedule. It’s subject to delays when freight needs to move on the rails. Even worse, the part of the system that runs to Everett costs about $33,000.00 per year per passenger to keep running, above and beyond ticket costs.

This sort of “efficiency” isn’t what we need. Especially when extending the system won’t help with traffic congestion at all. Why should we spend $23 billion over the next 20 years for something that won’t even solve the problem? Especially when the Seattle Times is reporting that we’ll have to pay another $14 billion to cover the construction debt afterward?

If Sound Transit wins voter approval to extend light rail far beyond Seattle at a cost of more than $23 billion by 2027, taxpayers would still owe an additional $14 billion in construction debt afterward.

Financing costs mean that voters in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties will be looking at a half-century commitment when they decide on a regional-transportation measure in November. The last bonds for the 50-mile rail plan, and other transit projects, would be paid off in 2057.

By then, Sound Transit’s spending would exceed $37 billion, counting inflation and interest charges.

Everyone knows this plan isn’t going to fix the real traffic problems in our area ? congested traffic. It seems silly to spend more than two thirds of our money on light rail and neglect the roads. This is especially true when King County’s own studies show that less than 10% of all daily commutes use public transit. Admittedly, those numbers are from 1998, but based on other, more recent, statistics it doesn’t look like a significant change has taken place.

Sound Transit’s proposal will be linked in a single ballot question Nov. 6 with regional highway projects.

Bottom line?

Add $37.9 billion in transit dollars to $16.1 billion for the roads, and the tally reaches $54 billion, including debt and inflation.

For the average household, this would mean $150 in new sales taxes next year and $68 in new car-tab taxes for the average automobile ? figures that would go up with inflation until at least 2027.

Just a few years ago the people of Washington fought hard for, and won a big reduction in the cost of registering a vehicle. All of those gains will go out the window with this “comprehensive” transportation package.

Sound Transit leaders have said that with the expense, they’re offering a far-reaching rail system to satisfy popular demand. “You’ve got a big problem, and you’ve got a big solution to solve the problem,” Ilgenfritz said.

It sounds to me like the solution is a bigger problem than the problem they’re trying to solve. Washingtonians already pay some of the highest taxes in the nation. It will be a tremendous shame to increase that tax burden for the next fifty years to pay for a “solution” that won’t even fix the problem.

Originally posted at Perri Nelson’s Website

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