In most normal, semi-sane democracies, politicians see something popular and trip over themselves to get behind it. “There go my people, I must find out where they are going so I can lead them,” goes the old saying.
Indeed, as one examines recent light rail successes in the American West (Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Denver), a pattern emerges: the state governments in all these cities saw their role as a willing partner to the urban transit agency. They chose to help it, to foster it, not to thwart it at every possible turn.
But as Andrew documents in great detail, this is simply not the case when it comes to our state representatives and Sound Transit. You’d think they would have got the message by now that their constituents love Sound Transit (“North Korea-style margins” is one of the funniest phrases I’ve read in a while) and want more of it. Bizarrely, this has not been the case.
When East Link is finally built out, and the ST2 map is complete, the resulting constellation of connected stations will resemble nothing so much as an extended middle finger, pointed South toward the capitol building that tried endlessly — and failed — to strangle it in the crib.
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