Modified Transit Plan Will Go Back To Voters Supporters Will Determine Whether Plan For Light-Rail, Bus System Too Big Or Small

It’s back to the drawing board for transit planners, whose grand scheme for a regional light-rail, train and bus system was slapped down by voters.

The problem now is to figure out which transportation plan will win favor from the people who have to use it - and pay for it.

“Is it too big? Is it too little? Is it the wrong mix?” asked Greg Nickels, a Metropolitan King County Council member and key rail supporter. “The balance was delicate. Trying to reformulate it would be a very difficult proposition.”

The $6.7 billion Regional Transit Authority plan won narrow approval Tuesday in King County, but was overcome by big “no” votes in its neighbors to the north and south, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Overall, the vote was 53 percent against the plan, which was designed to ease traffic congestion in the central Puget Sound region.

Tom Matoff, executive director of the RTA, said his staff would await guidance from the RTA board, and then likely come up with a variety of options for the board to consider.

Some RTA board members vowed to return to the voters.

“Nobody, either pro or con, can say that something doesn’t need to be done about congestion,” said board member and Snohomish County Executive Bob Drewel.

“The only thing that would keep it from going to a vote in the fall or sometime after that was if the reading was such that there was no way we could make it pass in all three counties,” added Bruce Laing, a King County councilman and chairman of the RTA board. “We really need to analyze it (Tuesday’s vote) based on individual precincts.”

The board will meet Friday in Tacoma to begin discussing the next step.

“I think they would all be inclined to get something else on the ballot, but as to its size and scope - that will be the meat of the discussion,” RTA spokesman Denny Fleenor said.

To opponents, the rejection wasn’t a surprise.

“It was $6.7 billion in new taxes for a new system that wouldn’t relieve traffic congestion. People just weren’t willing to pay it,” said Kris Wilder, coordinator of Families Against Congestion and Taxes.

A Seattle Times poll of 400 people in all three counties found that many voters who opposed the project thought it would have alleviated traffic congestion. But that wasn’t enough to overcome their fear of higher taxes and suspicion that construction costs would soar above the advertised price.

“If it’s $6.7 billion, I would bet you my house it will end up closer to $9 billion,” said Elizabeth Sebastian, who lives in the Kent area. “This is the way they operate.”

The poll, conducted Saturday through Monday by Elway Research of Seattle, sampled people who had voted in at least three of the past four elections. The margin of error was 5 percent.

“It’s been the same for six years, congestion vs. cost, and people haven’t really resolved that,” pollster Stuart Elway said.

Fleenor said Wednesday that the RTA had already received “a pretty good string of phone calls this morning from people telling us how we could change it to win their approval.”

“The problem is, the public doesn’t agree among itself,” he said.

The 16-year plan would have been financed by increases in local sales tax and vehicle license fees, plus state and federal aid. The cost for a typical household was estimated at $100 to $125 a year.

The plan now can be modified or submitted to a vote again as early as September.