Transit dollars would be very well spent in a place like Seattle, and Seattle voters are so hungry for transit investment that we will vote "yes" on almost any

Transit dollars would be very well spent in a place like Seattle, and Seattle voters are so hungry for transit investment that we will vote "yes" on almost any proposal to build more of it, even when it comes saddled with a lot of pointless suburban sprawl trains we don't actually care about. The problem is that the Washington State legislature refuses to allow cities to tax themselves for transit projects, and Seattle is therefore unable to build itself the transit network it needs. No, it doesn't make any sense, but that's the political reality we're dealing with. It has to do with a rural/urban divide in the state legislature, and a resentment of Seattle's financial and cultural dominance. The transit project described in the article may be centered on Seattle, but it is not a Seattle transit network: it is a regional project, and the region sprawls out across the entire eastern half of the Puget Sound - it's eighty miles long, from north to south, and 10-15 miles wide. It's not a city at all - it includes at least half a dozen different cities and a dozen smaller towns, plus all the suburbs between them, and a fair amount of rural land beyond the suburbs. Sound Transit is only building Seattle transit by accident, tunneling their way through our city as a side effect of the "regional spine" they're trying to extend all the way through the Puget Sound region. Seattle is simply trying to make the best of it by pushing them as hard as we can to build something that resembles a proper subway system while they happen to be passing through. It's costing a fortune and taking forever, but it's better than nothing, which is what we are allowed to build on our own.