High Capacity Transit Open House Tuesday!

[Chief]

----- Original Message -----
From: RTC High Capacity Transit Study
To: RTC High Capacity Transit Study
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 4:03 PM
Subject: High Capacity Transit Open House Tuesday!

Open House on Tuesday!

The Clark County High Capacity Transit (HCT) System Study is having an open house Sounding Board meeting on February 26. The open house offers attendees the opportunity to provide input and guidance on which HCT alignments and modes should be carried forward for further analysis. Much has been done recently to study potential types of transit (modes) and potential alignments in several corridors. It’s now time to select which modes and alignments should be included in a system plan and the Regional Transportation Council would like your input. The open house will provide evaluation information on the corridors and modes, including ridership and relative cost estimates. Drop in anytime; staff will be available to answer questions about the corridor options.

February 26 from 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Community Room, Clark County Public Utilities Building

1200 Fort Vancouver Way, Vancouver

At the Sounding Board meeting in June, participants shared their public priorities for how an HCT system could look in Clark County. Since that meeting, the study identified five potential HCT corridors to advance for further study, including Interstate 5, Interstate 205, State Route 500, State Route 14, and the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad. Each corridor contains one or more alignment possibilities and choices regarding the use of light rail, variations on bus rapid transit, streetcar, or commuter rail.

Want to learn more?

For more information, or to share your comments, you can contact the study in the following ways:

§ Visit the study website at http://rtc.wa.gov/hct for more study information, public event announcements, further project information, and our comment form

§ Share your comments by email or calling:

Dale Robins at the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council

hct@rtc.wa.gov

(360) 397-6067

[Chief]

bumping back up...

Just got home and checked the mail, and there's an invitation there for me from Dean Lookingbill inviting me to attend this Open House, and an e-mail to RSVP to.

How can I miss this??

I attended a few of their meetings in the past, and they really were not prepared for Public input then. Now is a different story, and I think it's important to attend this one. The invitation says they will have estimated ridership numbers and projected costs of the different corridors and modes, so this will be a good one to attend.

I'll be there...

;)

[Waterbuffalo]

<kicks Chief in the rear..>

What have I been telling you in Email about RTC and C-tran board for more than a month about this? Don't think you saw the Light Rail numbers I saw....

Unless there is SOMETHING huge in the way, you will probably see me there as well.

[Chief]

This is the first time I've gotten a flier like this, and I've been signed up for a while.

See ya there...

:laugh:

[Waterbuffalo]

You didn't check your e-mail for the past two weeks?

I sent you the same information that is going to be posted at the meeting. Probably sent it twice or three times....

Thought you would have read it..

And I knew about this meeting at least three weeks ago.. So I'll probably heard about most of the comments that are going to come forth at it.

But I'll still try and come.

[tefen]

Chief, I've put it on my calendar. WB, why don't you just post the numbers you've got on the site? I'd love to see 'em as well.

[Chief]

I'll get them posted as soon as I'm officially off of vacation.

8)

[Waterbuffalo]

Chief has several copies of that information. And since his laptop "Officially" does not do email, it will have to wait until he gets home...

PS to Tefen, your PM's on Clarkblog are turned off AND no e-mail address I can send thing to you.. I would have sent this to you privately but I have no way to contact you..

[tefen]

My PMs are turned off? They weren't before. Hmm, now I'll have to figure out how to turn 'em on.

[Chief]

My PMs are turned off? They weren't before. Hmm, now I'll have to figure out how to turn 'em on.

Check your User CP settings...

[Waterbuffalo]

If you look, Chief posted the information I sent to him... So you can enjoy it in your own time and viewing..

[Chief]

Bumping as a reminder...the Open House is today.

See you there!

[Waterbuffalo]

See you at CPU some time between 6 and 8!

[Chief]

The material presented at the Open House this evening was interesting and informative. It's obvious that a lot of thought has gone into this study, but as always, it comes down to a matter of money.

I saw hundreds of millions of dollars worth of different proposals for High Capacity Transit tonight, some made more sense than others, but they all have one thing in common and that is finding a realistic way to fund any of it.

The problem with planning a system like this is the obvious desire to compete with Portland, and hook into their Trimet system some way. What seems to escape most people is that Trimet has been raising money via an Employer-paid tax for about 35 years. They tap every employer, including self-employed people in Washinton, Multnomah and Clacakamas Counties, and there isn't any way we can compete with that scale of fundraising. We haven't got the mechanism, nor do we have a dense enough workforce in the County to raise the money we would need for any HCT system.

I heard from more than one of the people there tonight that the Feds would pay for this, and the State would pay for that, but both have different priorities than any of the items I saw presented tonight. I'm not denigrating the dieas they presentd, but I am saying there is a great deal of naivete and wishful thinking about where the money for any of this will come from, and without a rational discussion of the costs, then all of this is an exercise in futility.

I'll have more on this later, but I want to give WB a chance to weigh in on this too.

[Waterbuffalo]

"I heard from more than one of the people there tonight that the Feds would pay for this, and the State would pay for that, but both have different priorities than any of the items I saw presented tonight. I'm not denigrating the dieas they presentd, but I am saying there is a great deal of naivete and wishful thinking about where the money for any of this will come from, and without a rational discussion of the costs, then all of this is an exercise in futility."

As you heard my answer, its too long to answer here.. Puget Sound probably has 20 to 30 billion dollars in unsolved transit needs along. If you count the Alaska Way Viaduct, 2 Billion, SR-520 bridge rebuild or new, 1.5 Billion, I-90 Bridge 1.5 or so, Washington State Ferries 125 Million just for the four boats they just took out of service. Sum total of all the boats because most, if not all of them are near retirement age, 1 billion AT LEAST to replace all 15 to 20 that they have. The eviromentalists killed the HIGH speed Passenger only service in the middle of Puget Sound because of wake and erosion issues on the land. No one wants to build bulkheads to protect against that.

So we're stuck with all of the HUGE car ferries..

SR 167 (?? Don't remember the cost. Still up in the air.) Puyallip Tribe is building a new container port near Olympia/Tacoma. That's going to need some state transportation help.

Skagit and Bellingham have a 250+Million Guide Meridian Project that is supposed to help a main 15 mile road between the border and I-5 allow LOADS of traffic during the winter Olympic games. Hope they are done before the Olympics open.

Chehalis River, what are they GOING to do about the I-5 Bridge that continues to flood out? Costs? Billions??? 2 Billion isn't going to cut it.

Vancouver's Columbia River Crossing is going to have some state matching. Right now the cost is near 4+ Billion for every thing. If you look above, do you think the state has ANY money? So we're going to have to come up with tolls to cover the billions that the state has no money to pay for.

Now this is the most Populated section of our state and probably pays the most taxes of any of the subsections of Washington state. If you split Washington state into 1/3s, Eastern Washington (Cascade Mountains east until Idaho Border,) Olympic Peninsula with SW Washington (Outside of I-5 Corridor ) and the I-5 Corridor from the Canada International Border to State of Washington's border.

Now my above comments were just the projects ALONG the I-5 corridor. There are TWO other parts of our state that have been CONTINUOUS ignored by Olympia for YEARS! I didn't include the multi-billion TRANSIT projects that Seattle and Puget Sound are BEGGING at the Federal Trough to get done like Portland does. If you look above, there must be at least 20 billion dollars of projects for Foot/Car Ferries, Olympic border, Seattle and Puget Sound ROAD projects, Chehalis River and many others I haven't mentioned.

So Chief has asked the question and now I AM asking it. Where's the sugar DADDY that's going to pay for all of this? MAYOR, City COUNCIL of VANCOUVER, Clark County OFFICIALS, WASHDOT, Where is the money?

The feds are not going to pay for every project that comes up. I've only MENTIONED 1/3 of our state. Where is the MONEY??? With the Earmarks process being cut down like a mower cutting down a lawn, the feds are going to tell us, we're only going to do 50 or 60 percent of the Columbia River Crossing.

In the movie Jerry Maguire is said, "Show me the Money?" Ok, gentlemen, the residents WANT to know, Where's the money going to come from??

[Waterbuffalo]

Oops.. I got a little long winded didn't I?

Chief, I posted some of the other things we discussed on another thread. But I think this gets down to the nitty gritty of the discussion.

[Chief]

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard some Transit related person use the phrases "Federal Grants" "State Contribution" and "Local Contribution".

Everyone in this area thinks they are going to tap Uncle Sugar for hundreds ov millions of transit and transportation dollars, but there are only so many times that we can go to those wells before they dry up.

And given the numerous other transportation problems in the State, if this area gets "tossed a bone" like I was told last night, it won't be a very big one, especially if there is another Republican in the White House next year. In addition, the Southwest Washington State Delegation is weaker than I've ever seen it, and as long as people like Jim Dunn remain in office, I don't look for any meaningful attention in our area any time soon.

I'm not denigrating the work that's been done here, but all of this talk is moot without the money, and there is just no realistic way to raise the amounts of money that will be required to build 1/10th of what this Task Force is looking at.

8)

[Waterbuffalo]

I'd like to JUST NOTE for the record, I did not include Eastern Washington or the Olympic Peninsula in my long missive. If you ad those two into the sphere, you loooking at more than 20 Billion I was just pulling out as a pie-in-the-sky estimate.

[Chief]

Olympic peninsula?? They barely have passable roads up there; they don't need to worry about Loot Rail any time soon...

Besides, the Indians aren't giving up their trucks and SUVs any time soon...

8)

[Waterbuffalo]

You mean they won't try to climb one of the Olympic Mountains with a Prius?? <grin..>

Is the whole peninsula covered in reservations? I thought most of it was covered with a national park and loads of creeks that flow into the Chehalis river??

[Chief]

The Olympic Peninsula is mostly either Reservation, National Park, State Park, and nearly all of it is essentially a rainforest...

Great place to camp, as long as you are prepared....and that usually includes being armed for bear and cougars, et al...

[Waterbuffalo]

Should I bring along my triage and group of Portland and Seattle tree huggers along for a Mountain lion without weaponry for every one but me search party?

I've wanted to go over there and camp. Must be a wonderful place. Have to investigate how to do it...

Now moving this thread BACK to the open HCT process. (Got to get off that tangential plane some time..)

So what does every one think of the corridors being studied?