The golden calf that isn't there

For explorers trying to find the golden calf of all transportation solutions, the jungle is pretty thick out there.

Somewhere in the forest of multiple transportation plans, committees, agencies and ideas there is a solution, and it is not the one closest to hand. Insiders say the November vote on Sound Transit Phase II (ST2) combined with a road package asking for $16.5 billion in new taxes is achieving about 42-percent approval ratings in private focus groups. Other circles claim 60-percent approval.

All I know is that it is a gloomy forest right now and among the fallen trees that make it so are the Seattle monorail debacle, the Seattle Alaskan Way Viaduct debacle and the coming debacle over both ends of Highway 520. Right now, the plan is for six lanes instead of four lanes across Lake Washington. The funding includes the part over the water, but not the parts where the bridge touches land.

Now comes the Northwest chapter of the Sierra Club with a strong position against the roads and transit plan going before voters — including its dictum that more money is needed for Sound Transit than for roads, and the package of $16.5 billion could be cut in half and still achieve desirable results for choke-point roads and mass transit.

Without doubt the knives are out, and will be through the long summer campaign, both for and against the largest tax increase in the past 50 years.

Moderates are by definition in the middle and, so far, on the sidelines. When a County Council member says "mainstream environmental groups" will back a plan the Sierra Club won't, you know everyone is getting marginalized, including the largely mainstream Sierra Club.

Among the SC's list includes the following:

"A policy of no unpriced, new general-purpose lanes on limited-access highways anywhere in the Puget Sound urban area. Additionally, dynamic tolling (i.e. congestion pricing) of all, including existing, limited-access highways should be introduced in the region."

Well, if Sierra Club membership will only vote for that, and most people in the region will vote against immediate tolling, you can see the truck careening into the retaining wall.

County Executive Ron Sims sees more chances for bus rapid transit to fill in the gaps, but that means dedicated lanes and gas consumption, although of a more efficient sort.

In a prepared statement, the Sierra Club's Cascade Chapter chair, Mike O'Brien, placed the rock in the laps of road builders: "We cannot sacrifice Sound Transit by weighting it down with an overreaching, fiscally irresponsible highway-spending bill that digs the global-warming hole deeper."

Of course, Sound Transit board members will work hard within the rules to try to get the package passed, conferring on the environmental groups the hard choice of supporting rail while voting for roads.

Oddly, the transportation package has so far been common fodder for Eastside activists who want more roads and Seattle greens who want more transit. Both are against it.

Expect a strong campaign to get voters to pass this package, especially the voices who say if not now, when, and we've got to stop delaying the inevitable costs of construction.

But the weaknesses of the multibillion-dollar proposal remain highly visible. There is no change in the way priorities are set, and by whom. Voters will be asked to endorse a system that has not proven itself to be efficient or even coordinated. We have five months of debate, decision-making and rancor to find a mythical golden calf.

Correction: I erred badly last Sunday in linking the lowly pikeminnow of the Columbia to the noble Northern pike. Several alert readers caught my mistake.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com