Weird, isn't it? "Elitists" used to be a term for fat cat Republicans -- symbolized by top hats, cigars, yachts, and the kids off in prep school playing lacrosse. Now, the term has somehow transmogrified into one of Republican scorn for any Democrats with advanced degrees -- scorn expressed as latte sipping, arugula eating, Volvo driving, and NY Times reading.
And, the latest pejorative is -- believe it or not -- "light rail riding"! Yeah, I read that devastating slur in some right wing article, cast hard on the heals of "latte (or was it Chardonnay?) sipping." And some irascible gent in, I believe, Texas, was quoted as declaring that light rail was just one more cog in a liberal elitist conspiracy to turn us all into Europeans. Not for him, by golly. The good old U.S.A. would do just fine, thank you. "I've never been on a light rail," he declared self-righteously, "and I never will."
W-H-A-T-E-V-E-R!! Anyway, this is all just my grumpy introduction to the great news that the Seattle metropolitan area voted -- finally -- to tax itself to pay for extension of our fledgling light rail system. Readers will recall my anguished lament last fall, when voters defeated a combined rail/highway funding issue. This year's measure, named Proposition 1, scaled back the 2007 proposal slightly, and stripped it entirely of the highway funding component opposed by the Sierra Club The measure was submitted to voters in the three-county (King, Pierce, Snohomish) Sound Transit region.
Proposition 1 passed with about 58 percent of the vote! The measure, along with virtually all taxation measures in the Puget Sound area, passed easily, despite the tanking of the region's economy. The large turnout of Democratic voters supporting Obama may well have produced the needed votes to push all these tax measures over the top.
As a result, Sound Transit's light rail transit line under construction at present, running from the University, through downtown, and out to the airport, will be extended an additional 34 miles -- extensions to the north and south, and a new line across Lake Washington to the east. Commuter train and bus service also will be expanded. Forty years after Seattle first voted down a heavy rail transit system, we finally will be undertaking construction -- at far more expense than the system originally planned in 1969 -- of a comprehensive light rail network that will serve the needs of the three-county metropolitan area.
In Seattle, patience is a necessary virtue for those of us favoring major municipal improvements to our infrastructure. But sometimes, patience is rewarded.
---------------------Photo: Light rail train on test run through downtown Seattle tunnel.
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