A Taste of Life in the Other Washington

Posted by Nick Beaudrot

The Sunday Times-PI, which merges the two big papers in Seattle, has a couple of contradictory columns and op-eds today. Ted Van Dyk gets a prominent column on recent dysfunction in both City and County government, which is full of grousing about construction projects that end up over budget, and the connections between Paul Allen's real estate firm and several City Council members. Meanwhile the editorial board cogently argues that new high-density development will fail without support for services like grocery stores, neighborhood schools, and serious investment in public transit.

Washington state is gearing up for city and county elections and ballot initatives this fall, where there's a good chance there may be a revolt against both the decade long project to build a monorail in Seattle and a repeal of the state-wide gas tax increase (which did nothing more than keep the gas tax in line with energy inflation) that will help upgrade the state's woefully outdated and inadequate road system. Like its sister state of Oregon, Washington still has a very strong anti tax "libertarian" strain to its government, and the ballot initiative process has put a huge drag on infrasturcture improvements (it's this, and not the lack of corrpution, I think, that our public investment rate down). Of course, Mr. Van Dyk thinks we should just can all of our "wasteful spending", rather than make some real effort to increase city density and reduce sprawl. Perhaps he has some alternatives in mind.