Tap into wave of enthusiasm for a better transportation future

Voters who rejected the Roads and Transit ballot measure (Proposition 1) last year had many reasons for doing so -- concerns about cost, the environment, the size of the package, accountability. But what's abundantly clear is no one wants elected leaders in the central Puget Sound region to do nothing about our transportation problems. That's why Sound Transit must come back to the ballot with a transit expansion measure in November 2008.

Traffic in our region is bad and getting worse. Those who turn to mass transit as an environmentally friendly alternative to congested roads and high gas prices are faced with a system that's overcrowded and inadequate. Imagine that system when our population increases by 40 percent in the next two decades. The time to invest in expansion is now.

What I've heard from citizens since Prop. 1's defeat is that they continue -- by a wide margin -- to rank transportation improvements as their top priority. They favor expanding mass transit as a transportation solution and as a means to manage population growth, help the environment and improve our economic future.

Anyone who attended a presidential caucus in February had the opportunity to witness a record number of voters energized for change in November. Now is our one chance to tap into that wave of enthusiasm for a different, and far better, transportation future.

The Sound Transit Board is working to redevelop the transit expansion plan -- called ST2 -- that comprised the "transit" in last year's Roads and Transit measure. The goal is to choose ST2 projects that can be built sooner and provide the most benefit for their cost.

ST2 will not include road projects. Highway projects such as replacing the State Route 520 Bridge are back in the purview of the state, where they belong. The state Legislature made progress this year on funding the most urgent of these projects.

ST2 will focus on important regional priorities like extending light rail to Northgate and Bellevue. Getting light rail to Northgate is critical because the Interstate 5 corridor north of the ship canal is by far the highest transit demand corridor in our state. By 2030, transit demand there will reach 171,000 daily trips -- nearly half the daily trips on Metro in all corridors today.

Building light rail between Seattle and Bellevue will connect the two largest job, retail and housing centers in the state with rapid, reliable transit 20 hours a day.

With ridership on Sound Transit's Sounder commuter rail and Regional Express buses increasing an astounding 12 percent in 2007, ST2 will also include urgently needed expansions of those services.

We must work together to develop the best possible package but we also must not get too bogged down in process by second-guessing vetted projects and holding out for some illusive "perfect" plan while this opportunity passes us by. We've done that before; bad idea.

As a young person when the Forward Thrust rail plan failed at the ballot in 1968 and 1970, I watched my parents' generation squander the opportunity to bring real transportation choices to this region. It's chilling to think how long it took to bring rail back to the ballot after Forward Thrust failed. It's incumbent upon us now to seize the day and make transit expansion a reality in 2008.