Faith. The BUS! Transportation in WA

Dear Members of Faith Communities,


Yes, You! All of you, especially if you worship really differently than RantWoman does. What about transportation?????

Transportation?

Transportation! Roads! Buses! Trains! Ferries. Bridges. Sidewalks. Bikeways. Transportation is seriously trying RantWoman's soul!

When Quakers go all spiritual on a problem or a situation we often write queries. RantWoman sort of aspires to be conversant enough in other faith communities' argo to suggest equivalent terms but RantWoman is just going to trust her readers can figure this out:

To RantWoman's readers who think matters of faith and spiritual life do not belong in conversations about Serious Subjects like transportation, look, RantWoman feels obliged to pray but will try not to be intrusive about it. As Sen. Eide puts it, there are no Democrat roads and no Republican roads.

There are no Baptist roads or Catholic roads, no Jewish, Hindu or Mormon roads either. No megachurch roads, no house church roads, there are Washington roads.

But Nevertheless at least for RantWoman, praying helps a lot. Even by the standards of keeping RantWoman's own turbulent soul in order though, RantWoman is currently experiencing FAR too many reasons to pray while trying to get around!

But back to RantWoman's queries / examen

--Do people involved in your faith community complain about traffic, crowded roads, pothole pocked roadways, hazardous bike routes, poor quality sidewalks? What about our ports, freight mobility, overcrowded buses? How do these issues affect your congregation's sense of spiritual community? How do these issues affect time available for community activities?

--Do people in your faith community grumble about sales taxes, tolls, gas tax, the MVET, all the currently fashionable ways of financing transportation in WA?

--Do people in your faith community use paratransit, called ACCESS in King County, DART in some other places? Do people in your community rely on volunteers or local non-profit projects perhaps funded by the Special Needs Transportation Fund for ways to get around?

--Do people in your faith community talk about transportation problems in the Puget Sound region?

--WA is one of the most trade-dependent states in the nation. Regardless of what one thinks of many dimensions of global trade, the condition of our roads is an impediment to an important activity.

--RantWoman sat through two listening sessions and heard several major employers say that traffic congestion is a big reason creative high technology talented people are reluctant to move to WA to work in our technology sector.

--Has anyone in your faith community thought about the impact on your community if King County Metro does not get renewed authority for a local funding option and is forced to cut 17% of its service hours? Metro says the needed cuts would affect 80% of the routes in the system so almost everyone who ever rides the bus in the Puget Sound is likely to feel the effects. But the effects will fall most heavily on people already struggling, people with disabilities, seniors, homeless people, veterans, people doing the right thing by not driving

--Does anyone in your faith community object to legislators outside the Puget Sound refusing even to let Puget Sound jurisdictions vote about local options to fund our own transit and transportation needs?

--Do people in your congregation speak about stewardship of our environment, drive Priuses, tend community gardens and worry about smog and CO2 levels?

--Do you think your faith tradition has any suggestions about either the substance of debate about transportation issues or the process of how people representing different stakeholders talk to each other?

RantWoman should invite readers to stop here and come back to the rest of RantWoman's narrative.

RantWoman should do this, but RantWoman does not know when to quit. RantWoman is presently laboring with the Local Responses to Global Challenges Working Group of the Friends Committee on WA Public Policy about how people of faith, among others, can make a difference about transportation issues.

If you or anyone from your faith community is concerned about transportation and any of they themes above, please either leave a comment which RantWoman will personally follow up with or go to www.fcwpp.org  , click on the Get involved link http://www.fcwpp.org/getinvolved/


Hallelujah?

RantWoman has been meditating about how to bring the matters of transportation roiling her soul to the attention of faith-based activists for justice.

See, RantWoman has been following the entire series of listening sessions conducted by the WA State Senate about transportation issues. RantWoman offers blog posts to refresh her readers' memories.

http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2013/10/media-items-and-other-statements-about.html

http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2013/10/bellevue-transportation-listening.html

http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2013/10/transportation-listening-sessions-first.html

http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2013/10/transportation-listening-sessions-in.html

http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2013/10/seattle-transportation-listening.html

http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2013/10/whats-next-after-transportation.html


Rantwoman has been boiling the hearings down to:

--lots and lots of worthy things to spend money on.

--some Boondoggle of the Month projects that make some people not want to give the Department of Transportation a dime for anything, even really necessary basics like road maintenance.

--almost no discussion of where money to be spent on anythig to do with transportation is to come from. RantWoman heard various flavors of "we really hate" this source or that. RantWoman is aware that various lawmakers, public figures and other hard to avoid people are attached to different recalcitrant positions about some of these funding options for different parts of the WA state transportation network. RantWoman heard use of the word investment. But RantWoman heard almost no discussion of funding patterns that might meet different criteria of effectiveness.


the first challenge is to get a bunch of people of different religions, both spiritual and policy into rooms to talk to each other.

Tonight on Faith Action Network's very own website http://www.fanwa.org/ , RantWoman has found ONE conceptual door in:

"The Faith Action Network is a statewide, multi‐faith partnership that has had remarkable growth since it was launched in September 2011. With a network of over 6,000 individuals and 70 faith communities that have joined the FAN network, FAN mobilizes its constituency to put faith into action by advocating for more just and compassionate public policy. Primary issue areas include wage theft, gun violence, hunger and poverty, criminal justice and tax reform.

Say that again: Primary issue areas include

--*****wage theft,

--gun violence, (RantWoman calls to mind, among other things, the passenger who had a gun but no bus fare recently on a bus in downtown Seattle but the transportation problem is a lot bigger than one guy with a gun.)
--hunger and poverty,

--criminal justice and

--*****tax reform!

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Tedious commutes on crowded roadways and packed buses are a form of wage theft, a non-monetary tax. We are called to a better deal

Ding! Ding! Ding!

There is all kinds of hostage-taking going on right now. Politicians oppose specific road segments or use of transit on new bridges funded by tolls. At the hearings RantWoman heard multiple people say multiple ways "We would happily PAY MORE to save our buses... It's just that the wacky laugh riot nailing the resources is so afraid that the Puget Sound will get crazy and actually buy ourselves some transit that we do not even get a vote.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Tedious commutes on crowded roadways and packed buses are a non-monetary tax. We are called to a better deal.

Ding! Ding! Ding!
There are problems with every revenue stream WA currently uses to pay for transportation:

--Gas tax leaves out of the financial picture all the bicycle riding, Prius driving, shouldn't be driving anything masses in the Puget Sound, not to mention port workers and people in shipping who need roads to bring them things to ship.

--The MVET: good because it affects all vehicles. Inadequate by itself. Radioactive for Tim Eyman although a speaker or two at the Seattle Listening Session suggested that WA transportation funding has been screwed up since long before Tim Eyman's initiative machine.

--Sales tax: RantWoman regularly hears from people in Snohomish and Pierce County about drastic cuts to transit because sales tax measures failed. RantWoman at one of the hearings talked about how what the state can get in sales tax out of what people like RantWoman can buy with our social security is not going to cut it as far as all our region's unmet transportation needs. Cue faith community and MAYBE some sense of shared sacrifice?

RantWoman does not know about Tim Eyman, but RantWoman suspects that his watch sales suffer when the sales tax goes up too; he forgot to talk about that at the hearing and there was not time to point out that every bus full of people not driving is 40 fewer cars for Tim Eyman to have to share the road with. RantWoman again notes that one thing most faith communities bring to the picture is a spirit of compromise, of give and take, rather different from the meat cleaver of initiative wording.

--Tolls: RantWoman does not feel competent to comment in-depth about tolls except for one point: if the point of a toll is to add transportation capacity including both road segments and increased capacity to move people over the road segment, RantWoman thinks using tolling revenue to help finance transit makes perfect sense in terms of just and compassionate public policy.

Anyway, the legislature needs as soon as possible to give local jurisdictions the authority to decide about taxation options.

And all of us need to keep having conversations about sustainable, equitable, well-performing investment in transportation!

So please have at it!

Sincerely,

RantWoman