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ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.seattlepi.com/local/politics/article/The-voters-derailed-rail-mass-transit-in-1970-14818272.php\nVoters derailed rail mass transit in 1970 -- and again in 2019 with Initiative 976\nBy Joel Connelly, SeattlePI\nUpdated 11:10 am PST, Wednesday, November 27, 2019\n\"I didn't line up all that money to build a rail system in Atlanta\" -- Sen. Warren G. Magnuson\nPhoto: / P-I File\nKing County voters in 1968 and 1970 rejected a rail rapid transit system in what former Republican U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton would describe as \"the stupidest vote the people of Seattle ever cast.\" Actually, voters twice turned down plans that would have been paid for largely by the federal government.\nWe could have had a rail system up and running by 1985.\nInstead, the Puget Sound area is still auto dependent, and voters have struck again. They passed Initiative 976 on Tuesday, the Tim Eyman $30 car tab measure, and put at risk $20 billion in Sound Transit spending for light rail expansion, commuter rail and bus rapid transit going out to 2041.\nEMAIL NEWSLETTERS: Get breaking news, Seahawks coverage, Joel Connelly and award-winning photography in your inbox\nLaunching the Forward Thrust rail campaign, in a 1965 speech to the (then all-male) Seattle Rotary Club, visionary Seattle civic leader Jim Ellis warned that half-a-million people would move in the \"most livable\" corner of America in the immediate future.\nEllis low-balled it. We have a million more people than when he spoke to the local power structure.\nThe Forward Thrust rail package needed 60% of the vote. Actually, powerful Sen. Warren G. Magnuson had secured $900 million in federal funds, enough to cover 75% of its cost. The 49-mile, 30-station system would have sent four lines out of downtown Seattle, one of them crossing Lake Washington.\nRELATED: Tim Eyman takes on Trump-like presence with I-976 approval in early returns\n\"You know who got our share of the federal money? Atlanta, and they built a beautiful light rail system,\" Ellis said years later. He pushed through money for youth service centers, the Seattle Aquarium and a stadium -- but transit failed to secure the needed 60% of the vote.\nThe Sound Transit 3 system, approved by voters in 2016 , aims at a 62-mile light rail system, stretching from Everett south to Tacoma, across Lake Washington to Bellevue and Redmond, with connections to Ballard and West Seattle. During the recent ground breaking for a station in Lynnwood, officials warned that fast-growing Snohomish County will add 200,000 residents in the years immediately ahead.\nEllis talked about growth, saying \"not even a second freeway could carry the traffic\" headed toward Seattle in the future. He also discussed geography noting that the Emerald City (then called the Queen City) is shaped like an hourglass and situated between Elliott Bay and Lake Washington.\n\"Rapid transit is the essential link in a balanced transportation system, which is missing in Seattle,\" Ellis argued.\nIt still is.\nRELATED: Initiative 976: A car tab decision and a referendum on Tim Eyman\nThe local political class made mistakes then -- just as it has now.\nThe Forward Thrust rail system had one central thrust: all lines would lead to downtown Seattle. There were no suburb-to-suburb links, and the system was entirely in King County.\nThe asphalt lobby fought Forward Thrust. The King County Labor Council was at that time under control of construction unions. Voters were not willing to approve a $400 million-plus property tax hike, especially (in the 1970 vote) after the Boeing Recession had resulted in thousands of layoffs.\nAnd we did not yet have three or four (depending on surveys) of the worst congestion points in the nation. When the Chicago Daily News shut down, columnist Jon Hahn migrated west to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He wrote an early, delightful column on the ease of his Bothell-to-Seattle commute. Nothing like the Chicago Skyway or the Dan Ryan.\nThe three-county 2016 Sound Transit 3 vote should have raised a warning flag. King and Snohomish counties voted Yes, Pierce County voted No. Pierce County went on to approve I-976 by a two-to-one margin on Tuesday night.\nPierce County has been a hotbed of resistance to the inflated valuation formula used by Sound Transit to figure car tab fees. State Sen. Steve O'Ban, R-University Place, put in a bill to cut the Sound Transit portion of car tab fees by 55% and scrap the valuation formula.\nHe couldn't get a vote. The transit lobby zealots of Seattle screeched at the proposed legislation, and came down heavy on Seattle-area legislators who flirted with supporting it. Sound Transit lived up to the old adage: Hell hath no fury like a bureaucracy defending itself.\nSEE ALSO: Statewide Republican group opposes Tim Eyman's I-976\nThe result: Passage of I-976 will cost Sound Transit $6.9 billion in lower motor vehicle excise tax revenue, plus more than $10 billion in additional borrowing to make up for lost revenue. And it will cost more than 60 cities across the state the local tax revenue they need to maintain and fix streets.\n\"Sound Transit has earned an unfortunate reputation for being non-transparent and heavy handed,\" state House Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox, a Pierce County lawmaker, wrote Thursday on his Facebook page.\nOne important note: Courts have not smiled on past Tim Eyman car tab initiatives. In the aftermath of a 2002 measure, which repealed a state law authorizing local car tab taxes, the state Supreme Court ruled the initiative unconstitutional, saying it would arm Sound Transit's contracts to borrow money by selling bonds.\nRep. Wilcox argued that I-976 is not the end of the world, writing Thursday: \"What seems like a tragedy to those who are most invested in the status quo of transportation is an important opportunity to prove to the voters that we can listen, learn and improve.\"\nBut listening and learning can take an awful lot of time.\nAfter rejection of the 1968 and 1970 transit measures, Puget Sound area voters would not fund rail transit for more than 25 years, until in 1996 then approved Sound Transit and a $3.9 billion package.\nThe Forward Thrust rail system would have been operational in 1985, paid off by 2006.\nShortly before his death in 1989, the colorful Sen. Magnuson rumbled: \"I didn't line up all that money to build a railroad system in Atlanta.\"\nColumnist Joel Connelly has written about politics for the P-I since 1973.\nEmail Joel at joelconnelly@seattlepi.com and follow him on Facebook."