Orphan Road

Eric Earling, proving once again that he's the only interesting writer over at Sound Politics, has a very smart post on why things got to be the way they are:

The whole reason the RTID came into being is because Olympia refused to find a way to foot the bill for the road improvements this region so desperately needs. Once state government punted to the locals, the County Councils of King, Pierce, and Snohomish were able to cobble together a compromise that began to address the stunning backlog of overdue projects. That's why Prop 1 was so amazingly large to begin with.

Yet, we have the Joni Balter's of the world proclaiming the package just needs to be smaller. The problem is that the measure was so large to begin with because people like Balter have spent years saying "let's slow down and talk about it some more until we feel comfortable about this." As delightful as that Seattle-way of doing business is, at some point somebody has to start making tough decisions and living with the consequences.

Read the whole thing.