I’m going to vote against Sound Transit 3. I would ask everyone to vote against it as well.

Like many proposals, light rail sounds good. Rail has worked well in Europe. On the other hand, populations are much more concentrated in Europe. That means that many more potential riders are in a smaller area wanting to go to similar or the same places, for example, between towns.

In the U.S., and specifically the Puget Sound area, we’ve spread out a lot, and while a number of people want to go to several popular destinations, such as the University of Washington, downtown Seattle, Bellevue or the Boeing plants, not a large number want to go from any one housing location to one of those employment, population or college locations. That means we won’t have enough riders for the trains to be self-supporting. So, we’ll be paying to subsidize the people riding the trains.

Well, I guess we could have it all if we were willing to pay for it. We could have a leaky waterfront tunnel someday. And we could have light rail to everywhere that no one would use.

Maybe it is time to consider a more reasonable approach.

Buses can go anywhere there’s a road. They don’t require a dedicated line and massive dollar construction projects. Buses can be clean—electric, and/or more efficient.

Bus routes can change to better serve ridership changes. Buses are more efficient to operate when ridership is lower than maximum. Buses can be individually replaced when technology improves. Buses can change routes for seasonal variances in ridership.

Buses could be used as school busses as well. Using them as school busses could help get a new generation of riders used to the bus system. Using regular buses as school buses could eliminate us having fleets of school buses sitting idle most of the day. School districts could contract with Metro to provide school bus routes.

Buses would be more effective after the great earthquake we’re going to have eventually in Puget Sound. Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management says there is an 80 percent chance that we’ll have a 6.8 or higher earthquake in the Seattle area. Assuming there are roads that will remain open or can be quickly made passable, we can move survivors on busses. We can cobble together a transportation network. How long would we project it will take to get a train system repaired and operable?

Sound Transit has spent huge sums of money to cobble together political agreement on where lines should go. It would seem that more reasonably, they could just have looked at Metro King County and community transit data on destinations, departures and ridership to determine where people already ride busses and assumed that rail travel would mirror that. Instead, they seem to be assuming that new riders will come in droves to non-existent- park and ride lots to ride trains.

Maybe we could agree on a couple of items:

1. The King County growth plan has designated several towns for higher density population. This is a good first step, and we should commit at least bus lines to serve those areas.

2. New riders will come after you’ve provided the transportation. Make it a commitment that we will have bus lines to serve those areas, but as well, make it clear that we will not provide bus or train transportation to everyone that wants it if they live outside the designated density areas.

3. Commit to a ceiling of property tax and sales tax that the state, county, cities, school districts and other taxing districts can exact. That is, assure homeowners that there is a limit to their real estate taxes.

4. Commit to a certain level of quality of life. Don’t develop every park or plot of vacant land. Maintain some places where you can walk and not be overcome by people walking their yappy dogs.

5. Listen to the voters. We don’t all think we should scoot over so you can crowd in some more people, or make more money on your development or construction business. We moved here and bought homes because of how the area felt to us.

6. Save our money. Govern effectively. Don’t buy more than we need. Some things are ridiculous. Some things are unneeded. Some things can be prevented by saying no to greed. Sometimes we need to realize that we don’t need it all and we don’t want to pay for it.

Roger Stone

Kirkland