Aran's Political Corner: Election 2010 Light Rail, One Year Later: A Train of Broken PromisesABC Attends WCIC Planning Conference 
With the election just a few short months away, now is the time for both business owners and their employees to take action and make their voices heard.
The primary election is Tuesday August 17th. Washington has a “top two” primary format, meaning the two candidates who receive the most votes in an election, regardless of party affiliation, move on to the general election. The general election is Tuesday, November 2nd.
To register to vote, you must be a citizen of the United States, a legal resident of Washington State, and you must be at least 18 years old by Election Day. You may not register to vote if you have been convicted of a felony and not had your voting rights restored, or if you have been declared by a court to be mentally incompetent and ineligible to vote. Washington State does not register voters according to a political party.
Online and paper registration applications must be received by October 4th to vote on November 2nd. You can register in-person only (not online) until October 25th. To register to vote online, or for more information, visit the Washington’s Secretary of State’s homepage at www.sos.wa.gov.
It’s important to know what you can and can’t talk to your employees about during election season. First, you must know who within your company is part of the “restricted class.” This includes the company’s executive and administrative personnel and their families who are paid on salary and have policymaking, managerial or supervisory responsibilities.
ABC members may send partisan communications to its own restricted class. Use of corporate funds and letterhead beyond the restricted class is not allowed. If an employer spends more than $2,000 per election on communication supporting a candidate, it must be reported to the Federal Election Commission.
With that said, employers are allowed to talk to all of their employees about particular issues, known as issue advocacy. For example, “America needs more pro-merit policies” is an example of issue advocacy that’s perfectly acceptable. However, issue advocacy pieces targeted at the non-restricted class (hourly and non-managerial employees) may not contain words and phrases such as “vote for,” “elect” or “defeat,” which are designed to influence an election by expressly urging support or opposition of a candidate.
Employers are welcome to use any resource available to talk to their employees. Posters and bulletin board announcements may be put up to promote a stance on an issue. Envelope stuffers, or informational flyers that fit inside paycheck envelopes are effective tools that can easily deliver short messages about why a worker should get involved.
ABC has a variety of materials that can help you get involved in the election process, ranging from English and Spanish voter registration forms, recommended candidates, individual legislator voting records and more. To learn more about ABC’s election involvement, contact Aran Buchan at (800) 640-7789, or visit www.abcvotes.com.
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As our first year with light rail comes to a close, Sound Transit officials are certain to declare the experiment an unqualified success. Yet, a closer look at the actual performance shows citizens are not getting what they are paying for.
In 1996, Sound Transit officials promised voters they would build 25 miles of light rail for a total cost of about $1.8 billion, and they would be finished by 2006. In fact, officials were so confident in their “conservative” projections they called it, “Sound Move, The 10-Year Regional Transit System Plan.”
Fourteen years later, Sound Transit officials have reduced the planned line to 21 miles, and have only delivered about 17 miles for about $2.6 billion. The rest will not be finished until around 2020 for a total cost approaching $15 billion. In other words, Phase 1 is smaller, billions over budget and more than a dozen years late compared to what officials originally promised voters.
Here are some other promises from 1996 that Sound Transit officials have failed to deliver (quotes are from the Sound Move plan adopted in May 1996 and passed by voters in November 1996):
- Promise: “[Sound Transit] is committed to building and operating a ten-year system plan that can be confidently funded and completed as promised to the region's citizens.”
- Reality: Today, the initial segment is already four miles shorter, billions over budget and more than a dozen years late from what was promised in 1996.
- Promise: “If voters decide not to extend the system, [Sound Transit] will roll back the tax rate”
- Reality: Voters rejected an extension in 2007, but Sound Transit officials did not roll back taxes. Instead, officials pushed for a second measure the following year, which voters ultimately approved.
- Promise: Light rail will carry 32.6 million riders per year, or 107,000 per weekday, by 2010.
- Reality: Today, light rail carries 17,000 to 20,000 riders per weekday and will likely carry only 5.6 million riders for the year.
- Promise: “Sound Move is based on extremely conservative cost and ridership assumptions.”
- Reality: Despite claiming seventeen times that Sound Move’s cost and ridership projections are based on “conservative” estimates, Sound Transit officials are spending billions more and carrying fewer riders than what they told voters.
- Promise: Riders will pay more than half (53 percent) of the annual operating costs of light rail.
- Reality: Today, Sound Transit officials say riders will cover only 40 percent, but actually are on track to recover far less than that.
- Promise: “The light-rail system will provide significantly greater reliability than all other types of public transportation in the region.”
- Reality: Today, the Central Link light rail segment has an on-time performance of only 71 percent, while other modes average above 90 percent.
- Promise: Sound Transit’s initial light rail facility can carry 22,000 passengers per hour, per direction.
- Reality: Today, the facility carries about 425 passengers per hour, per direction.
The region’s light rail system is not living up to its expectations because Sound Transit officials deliberately overestimated benefits and underestimated costs to make the project appear attractive to voters. Once the agency won higher taxing authority, its promises fell apart.
Even the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) says passenger rail will carry about half of the riders from what Sound Transit told voters.
Even if Sound Transit’s ridership projections somehow come true, light rail will still only carry about one percent of all daily trips. Worse, Sound Transit says two thirds of these riders will come from the existing bus system.
For example, Sound Transit forced King County Metro to eliminate Route #194, one of the county’s most popular bus routes. Sound Transit officials hope these displaced bus riders will be forced to shift to light rail.
The average cost for King County to operate a Metro bus is about $4 per passenger trip. The average cost for Sound Transit to operate light rail is $7.62 per passenger trip. So we are building a redundant system for billions in capital expenses that costs nearly twice as much to operate.
City and county officials recently closed the aging South Park Bridge, saying they don’t have the $130 million needed to replace it. The bridge serves as many daily travelers as the entire $3 billion light rail system. Many regional transportation projects go unfunded while Sound Transit officials spend billions on a train few people will ever ride.
Our first year with light rail has proven to be a massive waste of taxpayer’s money.
Michael Ennis is transportation director at Washington Policy Center, a non-partisan independent policy research organization in Washington State. You can reach him at mennis@washingtonpolicy.org.
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ABC participated in the Washington Construction Industry Council’s (WCIC) annual planning conference on July 26-27. Representing ABC were current WCIC chair and ABC President Kathleen Garrity, ABC Vice President of Government & Labor Affairs Aran Buchan, and ABC lobbyists Cliff Webster and James Curry. The goal of the retreat was to coordinate for the upcoming election and 2011 legislative session.
The WCIC is a coalition of construction-related business and associations, whose goal is to be the collective voice of the construction industry in Olympia. A variety of topics were discussed, including a key political races update, and an update on Washington State’s transportation and infrastructure plans. Featured speakers included John Lynch, from General Administration, and Michael Transue who discussed an emerging garbage and recycling coalition.
The WCIC also took a position on some key ballot measures. The group voted to support I-1082 (privatizing Washington’s workers’ comp system), support I-1053 (reinstating the requirement for a two-thirds legislative majority, or voter approval, to raise taxes), and oppose I-1098 (imposing a high-earner income tax on annual incomes above $200,000 for individuals and $400,000 for couples). ABC is very active in a variety of industry groups that support business and free enterprise, such as the WCIC, the Association of Washington Business and the Liability Reform Coalition. To learn more about these groups, please contact Aran Buchan at (800) 640-7789.
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