In regards to the Seattle Times' editorial, and RTID:

This morning, I read the editorial in the Times regarding transportation funding. For the most part - I agree. Lawmakers should allow an RTID vote this year. Voters need to see the monorail tax disappear as a show of good faith before asking for it for another agency.

This year will bring us I-917, and further claims of government waste from Tim Eyman and his vocal minority. To counter this, I believe that the RTID bill should be bulletproof - fund extremely high priority projects and those WSDOT partially funded with the 2005 Partnership. Be careful to pay attention to the Potato Hill projects - things easily attacked by detractors through misinformation. Potato Hill was a great example last year of how good existing information from WSDOT, a solid response from legislators and bloggers and a response from the Times to their own editorial page made a surprisingly ill-informed attack fizzle.

When defending against I-912 last year, the biggest issue I ran into was a failure of WSDOT to keep their project web pages up to date until it was nearly election time. WSDOT had a page with links to various lists of projects, and very late in the game added project lists by county - missing links to most of the project pages. Many of the smaller projects still do not have web pages (like this one for Point Defiance Bypass) describing their importance and funding sources. If the RTID bill is to pass this year, WSDOT will have to be very clear on their site which projects are to be funded, and they will have to provide a self-contained list, with all proper links to project pages, accessible from a large, friendly button on the main page (as they've done before).

Here's where I'm really concerned: I think that if the monorail tax has not already been retired, any Sound Transit plan on the ballot will fail. It was extremely ill-advised to even discuss not allowing the tax to sunset. Taxpayers need closure! Look at this letter in yesterday's News Tribune - the author seems to be confusing Sounder commuter rail with the light rail project. Monorail and light rail are one and the same to many - our agencies are too complex to be distinct; I know people in Snohomish and East King who believed that they were paying for the monorail mess. Dropping that tax must occur to restore faith before we can ask for more money, and it must stay dead for long enough that people understand what they are paying for.

This brings me to my conclusion: Barring polling suggesting a solid win when offered with RTID, Sound Transit should wait to go on the ballot until 2007. The monorail tax should be retired as soon as the agency repays its debts, and the RTID should be limited to already partially funded projects and safety issues - no new ideas unless they enjoy popular support. As the monorail tax expires and Central Link construction takes shape, Sound Transit could offer demonstrations of their project as trains are delivered and enjoy increased popular support.

Yes, it's a year delay. I suspect that the alternative will be a lot worse.