My thanks to Bill Hirt for his insightful letter (East Link system not rapid transit) in the August 26 Bellevue Reporter. The respondent Sherwin Lee makes many of the same arguments that we have heard for years and are unconvincing. The following addresses their positions and also some of the issues raised in your editorial “Navigating the future.”
Mr. Lee doesn’t realize that Mr. Hirt was right in unfavorably comparing the local system with the 100+ year old Paris subway system. Apparently neither did the other supporters, politicians, Sound Transit planners and managers, and the expensive consultants they retained.
The correct time to build a commuter rail system in the Puget Sound area was 100 years ago when it could have been done at reasonable cost. Then land was cheap and sparsely occupied. Expensive environmental, social, and other concerns and restrictive laws, though needed now, were not an issue then. Labor would have cost a fraction of what it does now in constant dollars, in part because labor unions did not then have the clout they now exert. Although I appreciate my health insurance, retirement program, and other employment benefits they benefited few workers then and were an insignificant labor cost. Technology was simpler then; I could go on.
If an extensive commuter rail system had existed 100 years ago factories, offices, and residential neighborhoods would have been located to take advantage of it. Lacking that, we developed our present scattered commercial and suburban areas and the road system that serves them, with commuters, shoppers, etc. driving in every direction for varying distances. Our extensive use of cars and trucks cannot significantly be replaced by any rail system.
The Sound Transit District has taken in billions of dollars in taxes, provided very little for it, and will provide very little more in the future. The best thing Sound Transit can do for us now is finish the projects now under the shovel, then give those projects and the few miles of currently operating rail to local transit systems. They should then cancel all future plans, turn off the lights, close the office, and go home.
H.W. Petersen, Bellevue
