Reply #18: Portland actually proves my point. Portland is as progressive... [View All]

[newswolf56]

as Seattle is reactionary and xenophobic: the core of the Portland system -- which makes all the rest of it possible -- was built during the 1970s with UMTA money. During that same time the Seattle establishment was busy killing three separate rail-transport proposals, two local (1969 and 1970) and one statewide (1980).

The statewide system, proposed through the legislature by Tacoma's Sen. Ted Haley, envisioned building a core high-speed light rail network on the Interstate 5 median -- land already owned by the state -- and using the savings to build into the major Puget Sound area cities: Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, Bellingham. Had the system been build, it would by now be running from the Canadian border to the Oregon state line and would link to the Portland-area system.

But the Seattle establishment killed it: the Seattle Old Guard didn't want ANY rail system because they regard rail transport as "Manhattanization," and Metro (the Seattle-area bus system) didn't want to be subservient to a regional transit authority.

Indeed, it was only because of a huge three-county voter-mobilization battle in which Tacoma was once again the leader that the present system was approved in 1996 -- a system the Seattle establishment has bitterly fought every step of the way since then. Now of course -- nine years behind schedule -- the system will never be completed.

In this context it is especially interesting that Seattle repeatedly claims to be the most environmentally enlightened city in the nation -- a claim that this shameful public transport situation reveals as outrageous hypocrisy.

At least though we have our painfully slow herky-jerky limited bus service: most parts of the United States don't even have that.