I'd be willing to pay more taxes to see a decent public transportation system.

Americans are in love with their automobiles, but I'm pretty sure that there is a substantial percentage who would be more than willing to leave the SUV, van, family sedan, or jitney sitting in the garage if they could get to where they want to go quickly and conveniently, and let someone else hassle the traffic while they sit back and read or just stare out the window. When I worked for Ma Bell a few decades ago, I knew a fellow who lived in Bremerton (across Puget Sound from Seattle) and took the ferry to and fro every day—about an hour each way. I asked him if this wasn't a real hassle. He said, "No. As a matter of fact, I value that time highly. I can catch up on my reading, or take a nap, or just lean against the rail and watch the seagulls and look at the water and the passing scenery. Mainly, I have an hour in the morning and an hour in the late afternoon when my time is my own and nobody can get at me. I love it."

Seattle is probably a couple of decades behind the rest of the country, which, in turn, is a couple of decades behind much of Europe. On Rick Steves' travel programs on our local PBS affiliate (Travels in Europe with Rick Steves), I keep seeing how easily he gets around on public transportation and how clean, fast, efficient, and convenient it is compared with what we have here. Recent surveys show Seattle as reputed to have anywhere from the first (used to be Los Angeles) to the third worst traffic congestion of any city in the country. Interstate 5, which runs north and south through the city, is bumper-to-bumper cars creeping along a few inches at a time during peak commuting hours, pouring crap into the (used to be) pure and pristine air that wafts in from the North Pacific, turning it into acrid smog. Sometimes the air looks amber. Driving downtown, even in off-peak hours, has become a test of patience and self-control. Parking is either impossible or very expensive.

About all The Powers That Be have come up with so far is a monorail spur system that, unfortunately, serves only a couple of districts in the city, and a cockamamie plot to dig a multi-billion dollar tunnel under the Lake Washington Ship Canal and Capitol Hill for light rail, which will also serve only a small portion of the city. Neither of these plans have passed the drawing-board stage and each is being fought tooth and nail by supporters of the other system (monorail versus ground-base [or subterranean] light rail) and by a broad range of NIMBY* factions, or those who say, not without reason, "Why should I have to pay taxes for a system that doesn't even serve my area!!???" They're so busy either nit-picking or surreptitiously trying to line their own wallets that nothing is happening—except that the traffic congestion just gets worse and the air gets fouler.

I visualize the fairly ingenious inter- and intra-city monorail system that was planned as far back as the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, which everyone around here seems to have forgotten, and/or the sleek rapid transit systems I see in operation on Rick Steves' travels around Europe and wonder if The Powers That Be around here have misplaced the City Brain Cell.

I get kinda surly when I think about it.

Don Firth

*"Not In My Back Yard!"