Friends, Washingtonians, countrymen. lend me your ears.
I write to bury Sound Transit, not to praise it.
The evil ST does has been noted
One good deed should not be interred
This week, then, I will say something nice about ST and a group of other transit agencies.
Sound Transit’s finance committee last week endorsed a plan to join with Metro, Pierce Transit and Kitsap Transit to adopt a new “smart card” program, to start in 2006 throughout a four-county region.
The plan, to be ratified by the agency’s executive board, includes a $31 million contract with Australian-based firm ERG to provide software and equipment, plus $33 million to cover operations. Money comes from several transit agencies, the federal government and Boeing, with King County Metro the largest source.
Smart cards are shaped like credit cards. They can be bought from machines at transit stations, from retail shops and employers, and online. Electronic readers on buses and train platforms deduct value for each trip. When the cards reach bottom, riders can “recharge” them by purchasing more value.
In addition to the groups that have already signed on. Washington State Ferries seeks money from the Legislature, while Everett Transit and Community Transit are expected to join. Green Line monorail officials in Seattle have shown interest.
A single-ticket ride was a key goal in the ballot measure voters passed in 1996 establishing Sound Transit.
However, officials say they are taking a risk because ERG has faced serious cash-flow problems in recent months. The transit agencies are requiring ERG to provide a performance bond and insurance, and there are escape clauses in case the project goes bad.
I hope to see the smart cards used on buses, ferries, trains and the monorail, but please not on a light-rail line through Rainier Valley or anything running through an expensive tunnel under First Hill or Capitol Hill.
Good and bad ideas
1) Sales taxes can use a tweak but not a general raise.
A proposal by Democrats in the state House of Representatives would add two-tenths of a percentage point to sales taxes in the state. It wouldn’t be much – a penny on every $5, but this state and its localities already depend too much on the sales tax.
One sales tax proposal has merit. It’s a change in the three-decade-old sales-tax exemption for food and medicine. The proposal would take candy and chewing gum away from the food exemption. Opponents say it would put a burden on kids buying candy bars, but the kid who would have to pay 27 cents for a 25-cent candy bar would be learning a lesson.
Besides, food and medicines are exempt because they are necessities of life. Candy and gum aren’t.
2) Raise the gasoline tax, but spend little on roads.
Another proposal would raise the tax on gasoline about half of the what was proposed last year in the voter-rejected Referendum 51. The proposal would pay for transportation projects, but let’s limit the amount that goes for roads. We need to fix the damaged Alaska Way Viaduct and the dangerous Pullman-Moscow Highway, but let’s not pave more of the state. Other money should go for transit projects.
Slow the third runway
A proposal would provide the proper soil for a third runway at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, but it’s time to stop. Air travel is down; so let’s hold off on the project.
Why not run a mass transit line to Boeing Field and let the small carriers fly to and from there if Sea-Tac is overcrowded.
Let’s go metric
On a hospital visit, someone asked me my height and weight. I responded 195 centimeters and 70-75 kilograms. No one could understand.
The metric system is so simple: Ten millimeters make a centimeter, 100 centimeters make a meter and a thousand meters make a kilometer The same principles are applied to measures of weight and liquid volume..
In addition, it’s the way the rest of the world measures things.
Most of us easily understand that 100 cents make a dollar. That’s a metric system. And we all agree that our monetary system is simpler than the British system of pounds, shillings and pence
Where once kids ran the 100-yard dash, they now run run 100 meters without a thought, They can just as easily adjust to trying to clear 170 centimeters in the high jump, and the rest of us can adjust to buying things in liters and kilograms..
Speaking English, part II
(More recent examples of bad grammar:)
1) Someone on television used the phrase “If I was you.” Shouldn’t it be “If I were you?”
2) At Seattle University, a sign says “athletic field.” Is the field athletic? Does it run or jump? No. It is a field for athletics. So, its an athletics field.
Evan Smith is Enterprise Forum editor.
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