The road to infinity

A go-for-broke plan to transform the region's transportation system

It started as such a simple plan.

Picture a square, the kind you make to play X's and O's. The square was sketched on a piece of paper several years ago by the newly minted Washington state secretary of transportation. He said this is what confronts us: a square bounded by Interstate 5, Interstate 405, Interstate 90 and state Highway 520, with each line extending beyond into the cities and towns around Seattle.

The conundrum of planning sophisticated mass and private transportation on an isthmus with millions of trips traveled daily by moms, workers, construction crews, softball teams and delivery trucks had both the stark simplicity of tic-tac-toe and the enigma of the sign for infinity.

Because where once there was a simple plan, now we are on the road to infinity.

The arc of transportation planning for this region began with a failure. The failure of a vote before the people in the 1960s meant that bonds were not issued and a mass-transit incubator system for Puget Sound was never started. By 1989, we are reminded by regional patriarch Jim Ellis, 20-year bonds on the 1965 vote would have been paid off. We would not be off the hook, for surely as the lights turn yellow before red, there would have been added spur lines, connectors and more miles of track. But, it would have been started.

Now we are asked to pay for the sins of our fathers. A remedial vote for the 1960s rail rejection now squats before us, a ballot arriving in five months that will ask our approval for the largest regional tax increase in 50 years, and enough added to the cost of the cars we drive and the money we spend to raise more than $30 billion in the lifetime of the projects.

In shorthand, it's a combined plan called ST2 and RTID, awkward acronyms that stand for phase two of the Sound Transit burrowing and building that is going on now, and funding of a Regional Transportation Investment District that splashes like a spilled glass of milk across the highways and ridges of most of three Puget Sound counties. The asking price in November is currently set at $18.9 billion, with $14.6 billion of that from renewal of existing taxes now being collected.

In return, the transportation system will be transformed into tunnels, bridges, bikeways, ramps, auto lanes, rail lines and decades of construction dust. The good part of this plan is that it goes for broke. The bad part is that it goes for broke.

Fran Conley comes into a conference room at The Times and sits down. She is a sparkling, little motherly woman with an infectious smile and nothing but good manners floating in her eyes. She brings dour news.

Of 19 community groups that are within eyesight or spitting distance to Highway 520, all have voted against supporting the November ballot plan to replace the floating bridge. Although the current plan is still about $1 billion short of completing the span, even if approved by voters, these community organizations have seen the future and don't like it. They don't all agree on what a new bridge should look like, or where it should lie, but all agree the proposed six-lane floating bridge within the RTID plan should be dropped like a stone. Within the groups, 17 of 19 also oppose the Pacific Interchange alternative, an idea for a large intersection over the water that would connect to the University of Washington and other points west.

Conley speaks for Committees Forming Agreements on SR-520, for which she acted as facilitator. "It's hard to work against something instead of for something, but we can't support a plan that is not clearly defined," she said. "If the RTID vote is approved in November, they don't have to come back to us for approval of a final plan for the bridge. We urge them to postpone the vote on 520 until we know what we are voting on."

Such was a similar concern for another project within the total plan — a conniption over the building of a highway across Fort Lewis. Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg discovered that after six years of work, the Cross-Base Highway had been pulled from the project list because of oak trees and the birds they nest — causing his fury to overflow into a promise to actively work against the November vote. Things were patched up within a week, the highway is back on the project list, some environmentalists feel jilted, Ladenburg's wrath was assuaged and like Napoleon in Russia, a fierce silence falls.

In a region looking for answers, we are getting more questions. Each piece of the $18 billion-plus bill seems to be necessary for the rest to fit. Those in favor of the plan point to a 30-year delay in building almost anything that carries wheels, the declining road stock and lack of rolling stock, and the growth of a region spilling over in good jobs and brimming with promise.

Sound Transit 2 and the RTID road package are joined in symmetry for a total redo of the way we move from Snohomish to Pierce counties and within King County — north to south, east to west.

The people, to generalize about everyone you see in the next car, are not amused by what has happened so far. Polls say there has never been such deep desire to see change in the commute, the simple act of getting from one place to another.

A private poll conducted by Moore Information and EMC Research concludes:

"... A strong majority (61 percent) support the current Roads and Transit package ... which includes the cost of $16.5 billion [now $18.9 billion] but not household costs.

"Support drops (to 49 percent) after voters hear the typical household costs early in the survey. Support returns to a strong majority (63 percent) after voters hear a description of the major components of the package."

No sane person would derive from those numbers that the transportation plan is a lock. Those who strongly support the package drop to 39 percent after their own tax costs are presented, although the total rises to higher than 60 percent when you lump in moderate support.

In the sweet afterlife, perhaps there is a glideway back and forth to work. But in the autumn, when our roads are dashed with rain, the homecoming of years of transportation impasse and contention will take place.

Steve Mullin, president of the Washington Roundtable, a business group endorsing the plan, asks when, if ever, this vote will take place again if it fails.

Yet, it must be said that we are left with many unanswered questions. Everyone close to where the rubber meets the road says we must toll the bridges over Lake Washington, but that speculation hovers in the mists of the lake rather than pointedly asked of voters.

A concluding estimate of costs and benefits written by the sages over at Sound Transit poses unanswerable questions framed as answers, but they are not. The report cites as benefits questions such as, "What is the value of a human life saved from a needless traffic accident? What is the value of having the contribution of senior citizens in community activities?" These and other epistolary questions are, again, about the sins of our fathers in doing so little for 30 years.

I don't think this thing can pass the voters if they are asked to presume their own guilt. The woman trying to get to her job in Kent from Bonney Lake is not in a selfish mood if she gets into her Kia. The guys with briefcases hanging from their wrists and iPods in their ears swaying to the tunes of a packed bus are not in a guilty frame of mind.

The region should have paid more attention to the efforts to change the way decisions are made about roads and transit.

A stellar pair — former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice and entrepreneur-businessman John Stanton — proposed direct elections for those who would rule our pocketbooks and our commuting sanity. Their plan will not come before voters because the way the money is spent remains within the purview of the established boards and commissions. One could say, "But that's their job." And it is. But transit imperiums and road politics are the bane of the region. Someone still has to answer the question about the $18.9 billion: Who is in charge of it?

Autumnal politics are a long way down this road for predictions. Politicians and planners tell me the coalition in favor of this bow-tied package will gel in the early summer and enough campaign money and community thrust will propel it to victory.

In the meantime, consider the $18.9 billion a sin tax.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com