About this blog

My name is Bill Hirt and I'm a candidate to be a Representative from the 48th district in the Washington State legislature. My candidacy stems from concern the legislature is not properly overseeing the WSDOT and Sound Transit East Link light rail program. I believe East Link will be a disaster for the entire eastside. ST will spend 5-6 billion on a transportation project that will increase, not decrease cross-lake congestion, violates federal environmental laws, devastates a beautiful part of residential Bellevue, creates havoc in Bellevue's central business district, and does absolutely nothing to alleviate congestion on 1-90 and 405. The only winners with East Link are the Associated Builders and Contractors of Western Washington and their labor unions.

This blog is an attempt to get more public awareness of these concerns. Many of the articles are from 3 years of failed efforts to persuade the Bellevue City Council, King County Council, east side legislators, media, and other organizations to stop this debacle. I have no illusions about being elected. My hope is voters from throughout the east side will read of my candidacy and visit this Web site. If they don't find them persuasive I know at least I tried.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Today's Version of "The Emperors New Clothes"


 Sound Transit’s Prop 1 and beyond light rail extensions provide a modern day version of the Hans Christian Anderson fable “The Emperors New Cloths”.  Rather than some “magic cloth", the “weavers” in this version, played by Dow Constantine and presumably the rest of the Sound Transit Board, have proclaimed light rail as a “magic carpet” able to do the following:

“What we can do is create light rail to take you where you want to go, when you want to go, on time, every time, for work, for play, for school”    

The “wise men” in this version are all the media that proclaim anyone who doesn’t recognize light rail “virtues” should be ignored (It's "possible" ST "Ride the Waves" advertising revenue may have influenced this "wisdom" as they’ve ignored me for 6 years).  Of course they’ve managed to convince voters to provide funding, city councils of the need to approve the permits, and the legislature to provide them with means to tax the people for addition funds to pay for it.

Unless something is done to stop ST, sooner or later the "village" will see light rail is no "magic carpet" for themselves.  In the meantime, rather than spend a few million improving transit by limiting one of the two I-5 HOV lanes to buses only, or initiating two-way BRT on I-90 Bridge center roadway, ST will spend billions more on light rail extensions that will do absolutely nothing to relieve the areas 4th-worst-in-the-country congestion.
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