Build on light rail's momentum

The transportation we subsidize produces the land use we live with.

When our ancestors gave free right of way to the railroads, towns and cities grew along the rails. Cities built streetcar lines, and neighborhoods blossomed around the stops. The interstate highway system of the 1950s spawned low-density, auto-oriented tracts.

We as a region are about to complete the first phase of a new transit system — Sound Transit's Link light-rail line. Next year, you will be able to ride the 14-mile line that connects downtown Seattle, Beacon Hill, the Rainier Valley, Tukwila, and Sea-Tac Airport. A few years after that, light-rail expansion will take you north to Capitol Hill and the University of Washington.

Sound Transit has done extensive planning and public outreach over the past three years on extending our rail system. But, our plans to extend this first line to the north, south and east are mere lines on a map until regional leaders and voters summon the will to move forward.

I believe that now is the time for Sound Transit to present to the voters a modified light-rail and bus-rapid-transit plan, freed from last year's legislative mandate that married it to the roads package.

Now is the time for King, Pierce and Snohomish counties to agree on a set of real transportation improvements for the people of our region. Now, in 2008, is the time that voters should get the chance to push light rail north to Northgate, to extend the line south of Sea-Tac Airport, to connect downtown Seattle with downtown Bellevue and the emerging urban centers of the Eastside, and to do everything we can to hasten the day when Everett, Seattle, Tacoma and the Eastside are linked by clean, reliable rail.

Some members of the coalition that campaigned for last fall's roads-and-transit ballot measure may justifiably be gun-shy, given the enthusiasm, effort and money they poured into a losing effort. But our region already has waited far too long to build quality mass transit that will give people real choices for their daily commutes.

Construction costs rise steadily over time. The cost of land increases as well. The sprawl born of decades of massive road investments — and by the systematic dismantling of rail lines — cannot be contained with mere land-use rules and good intentions. Every day, we pay a toll for our failure to build transit and redirect growth — through environmental damage, longer commutes, lost productivity and less time with our loved ones.

I'm committed to working with the elected leaders of the three-county Sound Transit district to craft a measure for this fall's ballot. Clearly, the first extension of light rail cannot reach every part of King County or the region. But building a light-rail system that works will help create a culture for future transit expansion to benefit communities now underserved by our fledgling regional system.

If agreement cannot be reached on a Sound Transit expansion proposal, local jurisdictions should consider other options for moving forward. State law provides that both counties and cities may form "transportation benefit districts." The people of a single county could decide, in the absence of a regional package, to forge ahead with the creation of high-capacity transit service, such as new bus-rapid-transit corridors or the extension of light rail.

Delay may be the politically comfortable course. But delay in creating the rail system we should have had 30 years ago comes with real costs. Development pressure will continue to consume farms and forests. Green spaces will yield bit by bit to the bulldozer and the permit clerk. The highway investments of the Eisenhower era will continue to define our land use until we redefine it ourselves.

Now is the time to build on the momentum produced by Link light-rail construction and give voters the chance to get our region moving again.