Early Years
In 1996, voters in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties approved increases in sales taxes and vehicle excise taxes to pay for a US$3.9 billion transit package that included $1.7 billion for a 25 mile light rail system. The system included a line in Tacoma, Washington and another line from the University District in north Seattle to Sea-Tac Airport south of Seattle, originally planned to open in 2006. Two years later the recently created Sound Transit revealed an environmental impact study that increased the cost of the project to US$2.2 billion and added three miles to the line by adding connections to Northgate. However, the EIS was quickly met with objections from the poorer neighborhoods south Seattle in Rainier Valley that complained that the plan unfairly impacted their neighborhoods by having the line running on the surface instead of below ground like much of the rest of the route starting at Beacon Hill. Tukwila city leaders were also concerned that route bypassed the important shopping district around Southcenter Mall.
Read more about this topic: History Of Link Light Rail
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“For the writer, there is nothing quite like having someone say that he or she understands, that you have reached them and affected them with what you have written. It is the feeling early humans must have experienced when the firelight first overcame the darkness of the cave. It is the communal cooking pot, the Street, all over again. It is our need to know we are not alone.”
—Virginia Hamilton (b. 1936)
“Youth is rather to be pitied than envied by people in years since it is doomed to toil through the rugged road of life which the others have passed through, in search of happiness that is not to be met with in it and that, at the highest, can be compounded for only by the blessing of a contented mind.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)