In other news, I976 passed this week putting the (complementary to Cascades) Sounder extension to Dupont on the WSDOT-owned Point Defiance Bypass in jeopardy.
Quote:
... Roads and bridges would fall deeper into disrepair. Arteries connecting industries to the Port of Tacoma would stay clogged. Unfinished transit projects would disrupt communities.
Eyman’s overriding goal is to sabotage Sound Transit; in a speech to a Republican group, he once said he loved that $30 car tabs would “gut” the agency “like a pig.” But with I-976 he’s wielding a butcher knife so indiscriminately, he’d bleed transportation projects at every level.
Statewide, the transportation budget would incur a nearly $5 billion loss, affecting everything from the State Patrol to the ferry system to the long-awaited completion of state Route 167 to the Tacoma Tideflats.
In Pierce County, nearly a dozen communities — as large as Tacoma and as small as Carbonado — would lose their transportation benefit district funding. TBDs, duly approved by locally elected leaders, generate needed dollars for local traffic projects. ...
And then there’s Sound Transit, in the center of Eyman’s bullseye. Pierce County taxpayers have helped fund major Sound Transit infrastructure up north since the ‘90s, waiting our turn, stuck at the end of the line. Planning’s now on track to extend light rail to Tacoma by 2030, and Sounder commuter service to Tillicum and DuPont by 2036. ...
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https://www.thenewstribune.com/opini...236367813.html
27% voter turnout. The mythical "inefficiencies" or "someone else will pay."
~11% of the annual state transportation budget.
People get what they vote for... All WSDOT projects postponed state-wide;
https://mynorthwest.com/1587556/gov-...cts-postponed/