On a side note, keep in mind with 520, one of the bigger issues with expansion, that becomes a serious engineering and cost issue, is that traffic flowing off of 520, south on to I-5, is already creates a serious congestion problem. The expansion of a couple lanes on the bridge actually creates a bigger problem once you consider that expanded bridge capacity would flow right into an already congested bottleneck that has little prayer of expansion.

I will bet you money that certain wealthy liberals consistantly stand in the way of expanding the 520 floating bridge through use of “transportation studies” and redirecting focus to public transportation as an alternative.

Republicans seem afraid to confront them on this issue. It is important that Washington Republicans differentiate themselves through legislative proposals even if they don’t get passed. Then continue to point to them as the liberal enactments fail.

I know many conservatives would like to dispose of HOV lanes. But, that isn’t going to happen for two reasons. One, it wipes out the effectiveness of a lot of commuter bus service, which is not something you want to do to have any hope of the minimum support you need in King County to pass a plan, either at the polls or in the Legislature. More importantly, I believe it results in a serious loss of federal funding for transportation specifically targeted for roads. That’s not palatable at all, though we do retain the option of HOT lanes, modified hours for HOV lanes, etc.

I think we need to recognize that our ideas as conservatives that we might view as “common sense” on transporation are necessarily not those shared my a majority of the electorate…especially in the Puget Sound area, which will be next to vote on a significant transporation plan and taxes, just for King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties.

Our best bet is to fight for important road projects and a high bar for accountability provisions. And deal with the fact transit is here to stay in the Puget Sound area, and candidly with the GMA has some real value if done reasonably, and with proper accountability.

I think all that gets back to your point earlier that fiscal responsiblity and accountability in government remain strong issues for Republicans to exploit.

I am not against spending money.

I am for a fiscally responsible plan that does not try to control the way we use the transportation system. Rather, that provides solutions that improve transportation and is common sense in its approach.

The first item should be removal of the “carpool lane” restriction. This has to be an educational process in order to alert the public to the foolishness of continuing to promote it as a viable remedy for our transportation problems.

The trick is that any transportation plan requires new money. Talk to even the most conservative Republican who has delved in the issue of backlog of projects (mostly roads) versus available funding and they admit new taxes are required…especially in the Puget Sound area. It’s just a question of what it gets spent on. And, since we live in a state where King County/Democrats have a lot of impact on transportation issues (for understandable, though not always enjoyable reasons), it’s almost impossible for Republicans to fashion a proposal that has a prayer of passing the Legislature (or a popular vote statewide) without seriously ticking off the base, which at this point is reflexively anti-tax, especially on transporation.

I’ve in the past been very critical of the Republican legislature for not tackling this issue in the 90’s when a fair amount of our transportation problems could have been addressed at a much cheaper cost. But they didn’t, and here we are.

It’s important to define the opposition in terms that the general public will support.

I am not totally convinced that I 912 failed because of a lack of support from washingtonians.

When I looked over the voter turn-out for King County, it appeared that there was not much interest (as seen in low turn-out) in certain King County districts. If you remember, David Irons even came out against I 912. This along with no real push by republican politicians, doused enthusiasm and kept voters at home.

You are right about the fact that republicans did little to counter the spend crazy ideas that are the basis of the current gas tax. I do not mean squishy, generalizations; I’m talking about specific proposals that the business community and the public would approve of.

To date I still have seen nothing. Washingtonians are not interested in platitudes, they want specific ideas and proposals.

I agree with a lot of what you’re saying with one caveat. There is a difference between bold and foolish. If we’re talking about Ronald Reagan and Dino Rossi’s type of bold I’m all for it, if it’s Ellen Craswell or John Carlson’s type of bold then I’m not sold on it. I think you’re arguing for the former, but I also think some conservatives don’t realize that just because the candidate is saying what they want to hear doesn’t mean that candidate has all the ingredients for electoral success.

That last point is particularly relevant in this state. Nationally, it is easier to form a winning electoral strategy around a conservative candidate than it is in Washington state. As such, while the idea of being bold holds true, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact boldness alone won’t get the job done. Which as Timothy noted to some degree, is evident in the defeat of 912. It was bold, but it didn’t sell very well for a lot of reasons. Many of which are related to my point about some conservatives getting fired up because they like the issue, rather than thinking through what it takes to win in a state where there is not a decisive, conservative-leaning majority as exists nationally.

As for a sane proposal, you’re right, I’d love to see one, and that’s something we’ll be dicussing here.

Agreed: Tunnel=bad. (See also, Big Dig, the)

As for fiscal responsibility, have you listened to the Podcast? Dino agrees with you–and so does Republican leadership in the legislature. And so do I, for that matter. We’ll have LOTS more on that in the future.