Bad idea: another transit vote so soon

Sound Transit is floating several proposals to put a sales-tax increase on the November ballot. This is the wrong year to do that.

First, the economy has slowed. Economists have not proclaimed an official recession, but the fact is there and you can feel it. The Seattle-Tacoma-Everett area is in a better economic position than most metro areas because we rely more on global trade. But "better" may not be good enough. The housing market hurts. State revenue forecasts are down. Layoffs have been announced at Washington Mutual and elsewhere. So far, the job statistics don't look too bad, but there is a sense of risk, and it is not a good time to ask taxpayers for more.

Secondly, taxpayers were asked these questions last November in Proposition 1, the "Roads and Transit" measure, and 56 percent said "No."

There has been a strange inability to accept that answer. The roads people said Prop. 1 failed because it was stuffed with rail, and the rail people said it failed because it was larded with roads. Each side reached for the comforting belief that its agenda had not been rejected. If only its agenda could be offered a la carte, a feast of taxing and spending could begin.

But the fact remains: 56 percent of voters said "No." Their wishes should be respected, at least for a while.

Sound Transit already collects a 0.3 percent tax on the listed value of a car — the car-tab tax — and a 0.4 percent general sales tax.

The agency has used the fountain of money for inter-county bus routes, commuter train service to Seattle, a small light-rail line in Tacoma and, most of all, a larger light-rail line from Sea-Tac Airport to downtown Seattle. This line is supposed to open in 2009.

Instead of adding another 0.3 to 0.5 percent to the sales tax, which in Seattle is already at 9 percent, Sound Transit should finish the rail line now under construction. Voters should get to ride on it for a year or two before they are asked to buy more.