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Stan LIPPMANN
CAMPAIGN ADDRESS
4500 9th Avenue NE, Suite 300
Seattle, WA 98102
Phone: 206-633-6086
Fax: 206-632-4012
Email: staff@stanforcity.org
Web: www.stanforcity.org |
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Written Voters'
Pamphlet Statement Submitted by Candidate |
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During the course of this campaign, I intend to develop a sensible
transportation plan for the lower Puget Sound Region. I am doing this
because with current leadership of the region left in place, we will
continue to follow the conventional path of more taxes, more roads, more
automobiles, more pollution, more stress, and more health care expenses from
the ensuing mental and physical diseases. I am doing this because this is
not the future that I want to live in, and because I believe by taking these
steps, I will be personally contributing to a better outcome. The cynicism
about politics today is understandable, but there is hope that through
rational dialogue about our problems, we together can build the future.
The only way to avoid the current path of slowly worsening
conditions of life is to face the fact that we have neglected to develop our
physical economy in a rational direction. It is understandable that people
will prefer to drive their cars as a means of transportation as long as it
is the best mode available in terms of a combination of time and comfort.
Whereas our current leaders call for us to sacrifice in the face of mounting
traffic woes, I believe we can make a mass transportation system so good
that most people will prefer it to driving, even without the traffic jams.
I propose building a 200 mile maglev monorail system,
stretching from Everett to Olympia, including local loops in the City of
Seattle, and a line on the Eastside. A fair estimate of the capital cost of
this system is $90 million per mile, for a total cost of $18 billion
dollars. This is the roughly equal to the expected costs of the I-405
expansion and the 520 bridge replacement alone, yet it will eliminate the
needs for these projects since automobile commuter traffic under this plan
can be reduced to less than half its current level. The maglev system will
be able to pay for itself through the collection of fares, saving commuters
money and time relative to automobile travel, and thus the plan will not be
costing the taxpayer money but instead saving the taxpayer much of the
projected $50 billion in taxes over the next 30 years that the government is
planning to spend not to solve the |
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