For example, the Eastside communities were adamant they did not want tax money to go into the endless hole Seattle wanted to dig for light rail. To get Snohomish, Pierce and outlying King County voters to approve light rail through Seattle, the ballot question built walls inside the region to protect local projects. There's no other way to do it. The only way to convince Seattle voters that I-405 is in their interest is to make the vote more encompassing and include mass transit in the ballot package. Such is the difference between east and west inside our region that no vote purely on the principle of broad, regional improvements is expected to pass.
Every vote has to have a little something for everyone, otherwise it fails.
The biggest, looming example is that gothic horror, the Highway 520 bridge across Lake Washington. I'm sticking with early assessments that we are 12 to 15 years away from an improved 520 unless wind and waves intervene before then. I'd say they are as entrenched as the French were in 1918, maybe better. Sims asked, as if stepping up to the slaughter. Truth is, nobody has any answers.