Greg, meet Ron. Ron, meet Greg.

King County Executive Ron Sims on Tuesday proposed a tax to improve bus service across the county — his shot at coaxing people from their cars.

Just last month, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels hinted at a tax on downtown parking — his shot at coaxing people from their cars. This after he had just proposed $25 million a year in new property taxes to repair run-down streets and bridges. I have to wonder: Do these two leaders ever talk? Sit down and hash out a unified plan to handle the region's trains, planes and automobiles?

Or do they eye each other across rubber-chicken banquets, a Wild West whistle in the air, wondering who will draw the first tax proposal?

"They talk all the time," Sims' spokeswoman, Carolyn Duncan, assured me. She called their seemingly fractured approaches to the region's road woes "a coordinated effort."

To me, it looks like tit-for-tat, tax-for-tax.

And it could come to a head in November, when Seattle voters may puzzle over these two competing transportation-related tax proposals, and wonder why Sims and Nickels put them to it.

If we can car pool, can't they?

It started on March 6, when Nickels said there was a $500 million maintenance backlog on roads and bridges, saying the city was in "a bit of a fix."

Two weeks later, Nickels unveiled a Seattle plan for meeting the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty to reduce climate-changing gases. One idea: Tax parking to discourage people from driving to work.

Curiously, the day before, Sims trotted out his plan to cut the county's contribution to global warming by increasing the use of renewable energy sources, protecting additional county lands and cutting people's dependence on cars.

Wouldn't it have made more sense if Nickels and Sims had called a news conference, presented the region's transit woes, offered their solutions, threw in the Kyoto goals for good measure?

A dog-and-pony show, perhaps. But it would show unified leadership on a city and county scale getting things done.

"It would have been nice," Sims said of my suggestion.

But his "Transit Now" isn't just for Seattle voters, he said. It's also for those in the suburbs who have been crying for better bus service for years now.

"Our responsibility is to move all the people in every jurisdiction," Sims said.

As for his relationship with Nickels? "Everybody is trying to create a conflict where there is none."

But voters will surely be conflicted over two tax proposals on November's ballot.

Sims shrugged: "The voters will choose one over the others. They always do."

To be fair, "Transit Now" is a great plan. It matches transit service with employment growth. The average household will pay about $25 annually — about the cost of a half-tank of gas. The buses run on biodiesel.

But how do our leaders lead? In two separate cars, racing to the same place.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. each her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

And Dubya rides in an SUV.