Friends of Seattle Forum

Update, see below.

Last night, I went to the Friends of Seattle Forum at what was the old Sit'N Spin and is now the Spitfire bar. There was a panel with Jan Drago, Seattle City Council member, Mike O'Brien from the Sierra Club Cascade Chapter, Rob Johnson from Transportation Choices, and Greg Walker from Sound Transit. It was moderated by CR Douglas, who writes for Crosscut. I didn't learn a tremendous amount, but I did notice the following:

• It's still not obvious that ST will be back on the ballot this year. I asked Dow Constantine and he said that he wanted it to be, which is the same thing the mayor told me at his barbecue, but others on the board, including Snohomish Executive Aaron Reardon (he wasn't there, I didn't talk to him personally) were on the fence about it. Ron Sims is flat-out against it, apparently.
• Mike O'Brien was non-commital about whether the Sierra Club would support ST2. He said they would support it if it were greenhouse-gas friendly. What was bizarre about the whole thing, was that when people asked him what that meant, he couldn't come up with an answer rather instead said that Sound Transit would need to convince him. Every thing he said was vague, and it was clear that he did not have a good grasp of facts, figures or statistics. He said he lives in a single-family home and drives to work, but everyone else should take the bus. It was odd.
• Jan Drago is very sharp, and had some interesting facts about the Bus Tunnel.
• Greg Walker did have a good grasp of the facts, and did a great job explaining the Sound Transit position.
• Rob and Mike both were enamored with congestion pricing, which I am sure will be a complete political disaster for whoever tries to implement it.
• Will from Horse's Ass is hilarious.

It was a great forum, and the Friends of Seattle did an awesome job. And it was cool to meet Carless in Seattle, see Frank again, and chat with others interested in transit in our area. FoS is looking for bloggers, so if any of you are interested, you should go over there and send a mail to them about it.

Update Will brought back to mind Jan Drago's mention of the Discovery Institute's plan for the transit downtown tunnel, which would start at the stadium area and go to north of downtown. I lost my business laughing, and I was laughing so hard I was shushed. What a complete waste of time, even talking about it. The Discovery Institute itself says it would cost more than $10 billion... as much as all the light rail in prop 1!