It all becomes moot if King County prevails at the Supreme Court and the initiative is thrown out as unconstitutional. However, he did note that if an appeals court throws out I-976 in its entirety, that would moot Burien’s claim; so to that end, he issued a stay to any further proceedings in his court on that claim until the appeal is resolved. Since I-976’s section 12 is mandatory, the court found, it is a separate subject. And like a good system we do have express overlays – north and south Sounder, and anSTX route from Redmond to downtown is effectively an express route for East Link to connect Redmond to Seattle. In March, King County Superior Court Judge Marshall Ferguson ultimately ruled most of I-976 was constitutional–except for the provision requiring private company Kelley Blue Book determine the valuations for car tabs. Look at the other stops along the line. You simply don’t have those sorts of trips with a typical commuter line. Or, David, honor the will of a lot of other people who’ll organize and completely overturn I-976 at a new set of Polls. You can’t expect a train to run more frequently, just because it is a train (if anything, it is the opposite). We recognize that our decisions, how we reach them, and how people are treated when they come to court, matters. And, even if it is, the dealers would just move a few blocks down the street to avoid it. P.S. I am hopeful it’s uphold by the court. Even though the RTA is a tax. Q. This supplanting of broader stakeholder capitalism by narrow stockholder capitalism is a key tenet of the current economic inequality. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike. It isn’t what Pierce County needs from a regional standpoint, let alone what it needs in general. I think you made a horrible mistake. OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Tim Eyman's I-976 initiative that would have reduced car tab fees to $30 has been ruled unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court. The cost of fully defeasing these bonds is an inverse function of treasury rates which are low, and recently trending even lower. If we treat Tacoma as just a bedroom community to travel to downtown Seattle from, Link there doesn’t make much sense. Also, you keep saying it will be 12 minutes or 15 minutes and others say 30 minutes based on other cities. At recent interest rates, it would require about $2.9 billion in cash to defease the bonds. Adjusting for one makes the other worse if the service always runs the full length of the line. Which those of us now forced to commute to and from our Seattle jobs every day would be more than willing to do, in return for, like, the ST 574 extended to the Capitol and our new Transit Center with a Sea-Tac Airport transfer to Link whether the elevator works or not. However, there are public transportation services and mobility projects in Kin… Unless some of them own the stock, of course. Very efficient, fast, clean, runs all night Friday and Saturday. The problem is, defeasence is expensive, since lower interest rates force a higher principle in order to generate the same monthly payment amount. The lower those rates go, the more expensive defeasement becomes. The 590/592/594/595 never did that. The Sounder trains are stored overnight in Pierce, so ending train service in Auburn would require building a new storage yard. The London Underground has also extended some lines to a group of stations that are all shared with mainline rail, and the main difference seems to be that it comes more frequently than regional rail did, this giving the area better access to the region. It wasn’t just Pierce County, it was overwhelmingly approved in the South King subarea too. I cannot afford those prices, nor can I take them off my income tax. Tim Eyman. It is like Capitol Hill, but it goes for miles and miles in every direction. “In extreme cases, issuing new bonds to defease old bonds could even save money.”. Tacoma Link will be a big improvement connecting them to South King. While I have no children of my own, I voted to approve every Bond measure to fund local education. The City touches King County on the bluffs east of the Port, so the District would be contiguous, though the buses would pass through non-District territory on I-5 through Fife and Milton. The Urbanist is a non-profit that depends on donations from readers like you. Apologies for the Stream of Consciousness. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. In the future, you’ll take STRIDE to TIBS an catch the southbound Link train there. But almost all ridership is to Bellevue. Every bus, making every connection, runs frequently. There are just more trips that lots of people want to take. Many residents just don’t feel like they benefit. They will be at least 12 minutes all day, to ensure good quality of service. The 594 runs every 30 minutes off-peak. Even cities that are doing fairly well (e. g. Denver) saw a big decrease in frequency. That’s why when there’s a choice between building one or the other, I generally prefer a subway. So, I wouldn’t be too concerned about headways to Tacoma Dome. $2.3 billion of bonds are tied to MVET revenues. Honor the will of he people , and everyone can use the savings now in their car tabs. Because current taxes are pledged to bonds, Sound Transit states the reduction in MVET authority effectively only applies to future expansion plans. Ridership per mile of service is huge for this very reason. Justice matters. In general I’m not a fan of direct review except for certain exceptional situations. To me it was obvious: L, because it would be frequent. The “single subject” rule for voter-backed initiatives was intended to stop a practice known as “log-rolling,” in which initiatives contain more than one topic, potentially unrelated. The outcome of the I-976 challenge could determine if transit cuts reach catastrophic levels or if car tabs could be a budgetary lifeline amid a crisis. Incidentally, misleading ballot language was one of the grounds those agencies used in challenging the measure. The state Supreme Court will decide the fate of Initiative 976 sponsored by Tim Eyman, following oral arguments at a June 30 hearing and after legislative proposals to codify the initiative into state law failed during this year’s session.. Whatever Swedish is for “No thanks but you and Oslo can keep those 90′ Breda streetcars. We want the RTA taxes removed. Central Federal Way is an ST2 project, just as Lynnwood and Redmond Tech Center are. Pierce County Councilmember, and formerly State Senator Pam Roach got locked out of the Capitol Building by her own party. When funds exist, the whole thing could be double tracked. Holy Cow, it happened in the Bay Area! Is it that their legal (“fiduciary”) obligation? Today, I guess you ride the 560 to the airport and transfer to the 574. Also, I believe once Link is already at Federal Way, the marginal cost of having it reach Tacoma Dome isn’t that bad, since it’s all surface running. How about Renton->Tacoma when you don’t have Sounder? The bus from Northgate to downtown runs frequently. That’s too expensive. In my mind the gold standard is the NYC subway, London underground, and Moscow and St Petersburg metro. No matter how many People vote, and at what polling place including absentee, our Will is a one sharpie-poke at a time thing. I’d add the Chicago L and NJ PATH but I’m not sure of their exact frequencies, and I have some doubts about the elevated L lines that all share the same Loop track. If so, please consider subscribing or donating. How about Kent/Auburn to Tacoma when Sounder isn’t running? Since long before the world ever heard the term “COVID”, our whole country’s public life has been in serious political trouble, which is going to take a lot of fortitude, bravery, initiative, understanding, and patience to set to rights. More importantly, running Link from TIBS to the Tacoma Dome doesn’t magically create a South Sound transit network making transit a popular alternative for those sorts of trips, as rare as they are. But, that’s not the way the credit market looks today. The bus from Northgate to Roosevelt to the UW runs frequently. “The problem is, defeasence is expensive,…”. The initiative has an incentive to retire the bonds early by reducing Sound Transit’s future MVET authority to just 0.2% if taxes are not repealed by April 1 2020. Sound Transit’s expansion plans are obviously threatened by I-976, particularly now that the effects are magnified by an impending recession. If we need to overlay a line to boost frequency elsewhere in the system (i.e. For our November meetup, Erica C. Barnett of Publicola was our guest. If we’re going to the investment of building the track, we should run it at least every ten minutes to get the maximum benefit out of it. Link doesn’t just give express trips to downtown; it also gives express trips to Federal Way, SeaTac, south Seattle, and Capitol Hill/UW. There are far more spontaneous trips taken on the Pierce Transit 1 then will ever be taken on the south end of Link. I think ST really underestimated the political impact of the announced delay for Lynnwood Link within nine months of the last expansion vote and on the heels of the new property tax levy and higher car tabs that came with it. If there really were a lot of riders trying to get from Tacoma to Rainier Valley, they would fill up the 574. The obvious follow up question is: How come the subway runs frequently, but the commuter rail doesn’t? The line to the Tacoma Dome will struggle to run frequently because it simply won’t be that popular. Again, a long and unpredictable wait. Ah. That case was also expedited to the WA Supreme Court where upon review in 2003 the court reversed the KC Superior Court decision regarding the initiative’s constitutionality and remanded the case back to the lower court to sort out the Sound Transit claims. Our meetups are second Tuesday of the month from 6:15pm to 7:30pm. I would be content to terminate Link at KDM or Federal Way; I never thought Tacoma Dome was necessary. Final briefs are due June 19th, oral arguments will begin shortly thereafter, and a final ruling is possible before Labor Day. Meaning able not only to vote, but to take Pam Roach’s seat on Pierce County Council as well. Link doesn’t just give express trips to downtown; it also gives express trips to Federal Way, SeaTac, south Seattle, and Capitol Hill/UW. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Two frequent routes, wait time reliably under 10 minutes at the connection point. Yet, I know that the people that will come after me will need good transit in order to live well. In a tight contest, one piece of luggage a passenger is forced to “lug” up five flights of stairs to the bridge after deboarding the 574 could enthrone Tim Eyman for life. You can roll your eyes at me all you want in derision and disbelief. Been years now. There are good reasons why we have a Court of Appeals as part of the judicial review process. ), all of which the debtor’s treasury team needs to consider before executing a defeasement of an outstanding issue. For example, if you take a look at any of the last three CAFRs for King County (2016, 2017 and 2018), you will see that they did several full and partial defeasements for general obligation bonds, revenue bonds and limited tax obligation bonds (enterprise funds) during that time period. Along with the whole United States of America, the whole State of Washington is only a day-to-day arrangement. King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Mar­shall Fer­gu­son pre­vi­ous­ly upheld I‑976 in part while rul­ing oth­er pro­vi­sions uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Because total trip time is travel time plus wait time, and there’s also a psychological effect in knowing there will always be a train coming every few minutes on every occasion you want it. The state Supreme Court held a hearing Tuesday on I-976, the voter-approved $30 car tab initiative backed by Tim Eyman.Among the big questions was whether it … Today, you’ve got to transfer between two 30-minute routes, making for a total travel time near 90 minutes. I only recite the history of the earlier initiative because it is frequently reported, incorrectly so, that I-776 was overturned by our state’s high court. Current cash on hand is just $1.6 billion, and there are ongoing operations and debt service. The Washington Supreme Court wants the constitutionality question for Initiative 976 settled for good and sooner rather than later. Running Line 1 trains for 40 miles every six minutes after 2030 will result in two things: – Lower line productivity due to low ridership on the long southern half of the line . Monthly donations are greatly appreciated from readers like you. Keep in mind, the buses to these other places have such low demand that Pierce Transit and Sound Transit justify running buses more often. KAPP-KVEW STAFF. FWIW, Federal Way voted 6322 vs. 3437 for I-976. This is why BART trips are dominated by trips within the urban core. But when it isn’t, the bus extends not only to the Tacoma Dome, but to the heart of Tacoma. Because I know someone before me paid for my public education and the roads that I drove upon when I was young. Look at population census maps (https://arcg.is/vmySa) and the amazing, widespread, continuous population density. If the frequency at Tacoma Dome falls below 10 minutes, it defeats one-third of the reason for building it. Agree turning back trains is good policy and the most likely operating plan when the line initially opens. But single tracking strikes me as very short sighted, as you lose a ton of operational flexibility for a relatively small cost savings. – is justified to meet the peak capacity demands, so you can ignore those when looking at the cost for span-of-service and non-peak frequency. You simply won’t get a lot of riders going between these places, whether Sound Transit provides for it or not. That is not what voters votes for in 2016. https://goo.gl/maps/e5aSyEZMk1ubJCiz7 Or is it more than that? It passed in spite of them due to conservative voters elsewhere in the state, for whom the result makes essentially no difference. The inhabitants want, want, want, but they don’t, don’t, don’t expect to pay for it. Tacoma can rejoin if it wishes to continue Sounder South, STEX to South Federal Way and Tacoma Link service. State Supreme Court strikes down I-976 that would have cut car tab fees. 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