Editorial

Sound Transit’s light-rail project may be the region’s first step toward a desperately needed transportation alternative.

Or, Sound Transit’s light-rail project may be a boondoggle the size of which this region hasn’t seen since nuclear power under the acronym “WPPSS” became a mothballed “whoops.”

Regardless, Tim Eyman’s latest statewide initiative is wrong, not because it assumes that light rail is a train to nowhere but because it puts a plan approved regionally, that has regional impacts and potential payoffs to a statewide vote.

The political career of King County Executive and Sound Transit board chair Ron Sims could derail right along with the trains if the project fails. Despite his personal stake, Sims is right when he says “… it would be neither fair nor appropriate for voters outside this community to dictate transportation policy here.”

Eyman shows his true colors in saying part of his motivation in filing the new measure comes from a judge overturning I-776, which would have limited Sound Transit funding sources.

Eyman said the new initiative “is the revote on light rail,” but he wants to ask people who didn’t have a voice the first time around and wouldn’t have a stake this time. Also, Eyman’s initiative doesn’t add flexibility to the decision making process. It just says anything but light rail, regardless of the route.

There is lots of opposition out there to light rail, with many groups and individuals working hard to make change.

Indeed, Sen. Dino Rossi, R-Issaquah, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, has said he wouldn’t mind putting Sound Transit before the voters again. Rossi may be right, but the correct approach would be to ask voters in the same area that approved the project in 1996 and not open the question to a statewide referendum. Do voters in Spokane or Yakima or Vancouver really want to set a precedent that could have Puget Sound voting on their projects?

The problem with Eyman’s initiative is he is once again using the wrong tool for the job.