Sunday, July 8, 2012

Give the Port of Seattle a billion dollars and your Hostages (Rails to Trails, and SODO arena) will be freed.

The Port wants about a billion tax dollars to fund the SR 509 project to get containers from the sea port to Kent.
If you think the Port just wants somebody else to pay for a $180 million dollar Lander Street Overpass, you're fooling yourself.
I-5/SR 509 Freight and Congestion Relief - Schedule and Funding
In order to complete the right of way purchases, design and roadway construction, an additional $975 to $995 million of funding is needed (in future expenditure dollars).
Anybody see the addition of an arena (and Rails to Trails) on this map, or the absence of a billion tax dollars, preventing this Port of Seattle 25 Year expansion pipe dream from happening?

(map from WSDOT project page)

The Port and King County revisited this billion dollar gift to the Port on June 18.
County Council, Port Commissioners discuss opportunities to strengthen regional collaboration
Here is a link to the King County Resolution 2012-0227 that commits the county to, in part, fight for state funding for the SR509 project as mentioned in the video from the 6/18/2012 meeting linked here.

The Port does not care about a warehouse in SODO becoming an arena, or a Rails to Trails project, they care about a billion dollar tax payer funded road to Kent. The Port holds somebody else's project hostage in order to force politicians to lobby for more tax money (roads and trails on the east side, the arena on the west side, all to go after a billion dollar road to Kent).
Wake up.

Seattle is a tourist destination for the cruise ships the Port makes money from, and a point where containers are unloaded, but that's the end of it for Seattle. The Port wants a tax payer funded billion dollar road to the Kent distribution center.