I read with interest your Oct. 9 article “Big money paves way in battle over I-745.” We all condemn it when special interests attempt to buy votes by making large contributions to a politician. Here we have a special interest group attempting to buy an initiative.
Initiative 745 is not on the ballot because of grass-roots support. It’s there because asphalt industry paid people to collect signatures. Tim Eyman said, “There’s not 270,000 asphalt pavers in Washington,” but what did these professional signature gatherers say to people to get them to sign? The thing I heard over and over again was: “Do you want to sign an initiative to improve the roads?”
“Hey, I’m all in favor of that!”
Something needs to be done to improve the roads, but I fail to understand the logic behind I-745. Do the advocates of this misguided initiative have any idea how many thousand people ride the buses into Seattle from Pierce, King and Snohomish counties? Do they really want all those people back in their cars? Look at the recent news about the bus strike in Los Angeles if you want to see what happens if you take the buses off the road. Commuting would be far worse.
How much more would it cost everyone in both time and money for extra gas due to the increase in traffic gridlock, if I-745 passes. Have any of these people tried to park in Seattle? Where are you going to put all those extra cars? Let’s say I-745 passes and you took away the money from transit tomorrow and diverted it to building roads. How many years will it take before the first road is even approved to be built with the new money?
Vote no on I-745.
Mukilteo
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