A $286 billion transportation bill was passed by the House and the Senate on Thursday, a bill designed for projects running through to 2009. The bill directs money to a variety of sources across the country including road building, rebuilding, new transportation projects, boats such as Ferries, and so forth. The $286 billion bill was hailed by lauded by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels for the money it would give to the Seattle area. One of the major projects under consideration is a replacement of a vast elevated highway that runs in front of the Seattle waterline, rather marring the coastline; the Alaskan Way Viaduct Damaged in the 2001 ‘Nisqually’ earthquake, the viaduct which was designed for 65,000 vehicles per day but carries around 110,000 needs to be replaced and there are various options under consideration which involve rebuilding it, rebuilding it bigger, or building a tunnel instead. Google Maps Satellite Image
Mayor Nickels, in a statement, said approval would be “a huge victory.” But even Nickels, a relentless project booster, concedes the difficulty ahead.
Now I don’t think it’s bad that the bill has passed, but let’s look at the numbers. It’s $286 billion which if divided by 50 states equally would equal $5.72 billion each. But states don’t have equal needs or populations. No. If we divide the US Government’s Census estimate for the nation’s population of 291 million in 2003 by 50 states we get 5.8 million people per state. But Washinton State has more than that, it contains an estimated 6.1 million people, so you’d expect to get higher than the average overall spending from the transport plan, just as in everything else. But no, it’s $4 billion against $5.72. I’m sure the Washington State taxpayers could find a use for the extra $1.7 billion of their money, like a long-delayed monorail perhaps.
Take a state like Wyoming, the arid, under-populated home of our glowering vice president Dick Cheney. Wyoming receives the second-highest amount of federal aid in the nation per capita (Alaska, another red state, is number one), and it ranks second lowest in federal taxes paid (behind only South Dakota). Overall, the federal government spent about $2,413 per capita in Wyoming for the fiscal year 2002 (the last year for which data is available), compared with almost exactly half that amount, or $1,205 per capita, for Washington State.
From Urban Archipelago.com
So my question is this: why is it that politicians put a face to the public which implies that Washington State voters have done well, when in fact they’re being screwed out of more than $1.5 billion dollars of their tax dollars that are now going somwhere else. How can politicians carry on with a straight face, pretending that we’ve done well when in fact every other state ought to be laughing at us behind our backs. We’re too scared and timid and thankful to claim what the state deserves, thereby degrading the quality of live of our citizens by lumping them with poor quality public and private transportation options.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Highway bill passed, has $220 million for Seattle viaduct
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