Group questions Sound Transit contributions Seattle Post Intelligencer - Jul 8, 2008 By LARRY LANGE A Seattle think-tank frequently critical of Sound Transit has raised questions about contributions made by the agency to groups that ...

Washington Policy Center released a new report showing Sound Transit officials using public money to contribute to special interest groups. The study was featured in an investigative report on KIRO (CBS) television this evening (video of the story is available here). Through public disclosure requests, Sound Transit provided a list of non-governmental interest groups that have received direct financial contributions from the agency since it received taxing authority. According to Sound Transit records, the agency has contributed more than $164,000 to special interest groups ...

Team 7 Investigation Sparks State Audit Of Sound Transit KIROtv.com, WA - 18 hours ago We discovered that Sound Transit, King County Metro and some other taxing authorities may have figured out a way around that. With gas prices skyrocketing, ...

File under “if you build it, they will come?” The P.I. wrote today about contributors to both sides of Prop 1.

Advocates of prop 1 are consistently sending the message that there will be significant population growth in the Puget Sound region no matter what. This means we need to prepare now by building out transportation capacity in anticipation of these unstoppable new arrivals. I’m confused by a couple items though.

One is the growth management act passed in 1991 which mandates that: “State and countywide planning policies require transportation services and improvements to be concurrent with new development. Specifically, road improvements must be in place at the time of development, or a financial commitment made to complete improvements within six years of development approval, to maintain the level of service standards established by the county.”

If acurate, this means congested roads inhibit developers from building residences to accomodate those newcomers. This would certainly inhibit that inflow.

The other item to consider is the top contributors to the yes campaign. Here are the top 3:

 

Washington Association of Realtors, $300,000 (primarily makes money from selling houses and condos to newcomers)

Microsoft Corp., $300,000 (hiring agressively, 90 percent of new hires come from outside Washington)

The Boeing Co., $175,000 (huge driver of new home sales to newcomers)

If all these people are coming no matter what roads are built, why do we have a Growth Management Act? Why would these organizations spend so much money unless it’s to bring in more residents than could be accomodated otherwise?

Is Prop 1 about economic development, or about congestion relief? Economic development is an excellent reason to expand infrastructure, why is it not the primary message?