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Extra Fizz: O’Brien Seeks Delay on Limits to McGinn’s Transit Master Plan

City Hall, News, Politics   June 14, 2010 at 12:24 pm Erica C. Barnett

City Council member Mike O’Brien asked council transportation chair Tom Rasmussen for a three-week delay on legislation, known as a budget proviso, that would bar Mayor Mike McGinn from spending money on his Transit Master Plan.

O’Brien is seeking the delay in the hope that the council and mayor can spend three weeks working out a deal that makes the limitation unnecessary.  “It doesn’t seem to be very likely that the mayo’rs office is going to spend a bunch of money in the next three weeks,” O’Brien says.

However, Rasmussen says he doesn’t think the council is likely to approve such a delay. “I think he may want to have it delayed three weeks, but we need to have the planing process underway right now,” Rasmussen says. “I don’t think we want to wait three weeks and if we reach an impasse, pass a proviso” at that point, he says.

Mayor Mike McGinn wants to use the plan, in part, to develop a proposal to extend light rail to Ballard and West Seattle. Rasmussen has said he isn’t sure light rail should be funded at the city level.




  • Building better relationships!

    At least O'Brien is trying to getting the two branches of government to work together!! I applaud him for trying to get them to work together to overcome this impass.

    So, does it feel like McGinn is getting along with City Council better or worse than Nickels? Discuss…

  • dpsea

    The longer this goes on, the more it looks like a reactionary temper tantrum to the previous tunnel debate with McGinn. Oh wait, it already looks completely that way, doesn't it?

  • Building better relationships!

    Good for Mike O'Brien! Finally some sanity.

  • giffy

    I can easily see why the council may not fully trust this mayor to spend funds wisely. I can't say I do.

  • N8

    Seems to me that the fact that the council and the mayor are butting heads so much show that Seattle has a somewhat healthy check to the balance of power. When you get an extremist controlling the mayors office, the less extreme council is checking his power.

  • http://twitter.com/Zelbinian Dustin Hodge

    How do “extremists” win by majority vote?

  • Brent

    I don't really have a strong opinion on whether the mayor (generically, not McGinn in particular) should have to get line-by-line approval to spend money, but it does seem like a rather bureaucratic and expensive approach.

    I do know that the city has been funding extra bus service, so there is nothing philosophically wrong for the city to do the same with rail. The same debate came up with the monorail, and the voters said they were comfortable having the city fund other modes of transit besides buses.

    Assumedly, Chairman Rasmussen supports the automobile tunnel in order to replace the capacity of the viaduct. If he believes that that capacity is in need of replacing, wouldn't West Link be the way to do it with transit? Or does Chairman Rasmussen have other ideas? (besides the tunnel — that doesn't replace much of anything, not even freight hauls)

    I don't dislike Mr. Rasmussen. But I do think he is going to bankrupt the city and ruin the downtown transportation system if he doesn't change his mind about the tunnel.

  • Comment

    The same way we got Bush (43) and Carter.

  • N8

    Extremist doesn't mean crazy, it means that they are farther away from center. I would say that having for sometime 60 senators aligned, a large majority in the house and the presidency, democrats have had an extreme position, this was caused because of the dislike of W. Bush and the souring economy. Not everyone that voted wanted such an extreme control of the government by one party, but a number of factors lead to it.

  • Wells

    Mr Rasmussen has drunk the deep bore tunnel Kool-aid and believes only wise men like himself can see the splendor of the emporer's new clothes; believes in a Republican form of government whereby elected leaders are 'The Deciders'; believes replacing old technology with old technology will save us from old technology; believes razzle-dazzle PR covers a multitude of sins.

  • morning

    The monorail was not funded by the city. The problem with the light rail scheme is that it will be a ST project. The cost of the mile of LR going south of SeaTac is estimated to be $300M – the 14 miles of the Green Line will cost more than that with two water crossings and much more expensive and developed properties. If it comes in low at $5B, it would require yearly revenues of $150M to $175M per year.

    Perhaps, at this point in the economic cycle, it isn't prudent to spend precious funds on a potential project that has no prospect of funding.

  • http://www.tunnelfacts.com Tunnelfacts.com

    Rasmussen says “I don’t think we want to wait three weeks and if we reach an impasse, pass a proviso” at that point.

    Bue he does think we want to wait a couple years, start building a tunnel, and when we reach an impasse (the tunnel machine breaks underground like Brightwater's), figure out cost overruns then?

    Hm..

  • Frustrated Transit Rider!

    Seattle has no statutory authority or money to build a light rail system anywhere, over, on or under the city. The planned METRO “Rapid Ride” program will have 6 routes, with three door new buses, two of which are planned to and from Ballard, and to and from West Seattle. The first route will begin in October between Seattle and Federal Way. Rasmussen is a member of the Regional Transportation Committee that was briefed on this new system last week. Why aren't you knowledgeable critics supporting and working positively on getting new revenue for increasing priority Transit services in our area from new road Tolls, or other sources so we wont have to build tunnels for gas guzzling CARS?
    chines,
    the