Referendum 51 failed, which shows the public doesn’t trust the Legislature to do what they say they will. Constantly raising taxes doesn’t really solve the issue, and the Legislature is finding out that we are tired of throwing money at the problems this state faces.
But what do we do now? How do we solve the transportation issue?

We have heard of two alternatives to spending billions of dollars on our roads.

1. Alternate work hours: Most people work an 8AM-5PM Monday through Friday work day, and our traffic congestion times show that. However, for people commuting to the Seattle area, the work day is actually closer to 6:30AM-6:30PM after the commute time is factored in.
What about a 4 day work week? Working 10AM-8PM four days a week would not only lower your commute time (less than an hour to get to work if you live in Tacoma and work in Seattle, and closer to a half hour to get home), but it would lower the number of days spent commuting. It could drop an average Tacoma-Seattle commute to an average of 5 hours per week versus 15 hours a week fighting traffic on a normal 5 day work week.

2. Work closer to home: Many of the businesses in our area have several locations. For instance, Starbucks has locations all over Puget Sound, and many of it’s employees travel farther than they have to just to go to work. It’s a safe bet that there are some, if not many employees that have locations closer to home they could work at instead.
I worked at Sears in my youth. I lived in Tacoma, and worked in Federal Way. The Tacoma store was only 5 minutes from my house, but I couldn’t get a transfer for the two years I worked there.

Rather than spending money on widening roads, why don’t we get the Legislature to think smarter. These are just two ideas, but both will lower the number of cars on the road at a given time much more than the Sounder Train solution (they estimated the upgrades to the Sounder Train would lower the number of cars on the road by 3 for every thousand).
Rather than spending billions on transportation, why not give tax credits to businesses that lower the commute of employees? This not only would lower the commute time for thousands of people, it would make Washington more competetive in attracting new business.
What ideas do you have? Lets not tell the Legislature no on 51 and give them no alternatives. Write to them, tell them your ideas on how we can lower traffic in Puget Sound. Remember, they are supposed to be working for us.
Not sure who your representative is? This link, http://wsl.leg.wa.gov/common/maps/pugetsnd.htm, will take you to the Washington State Web site showing the legislative districts and give information on how to contact your representative.