{"id":409,"date":"2005-09-19T03:58:41","date_gmt":"2005-09-19T10:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/wp\/?p=409"},"modified":"2005-09-19T03:58:48","modified_gmt":"2005-09-19T10:58:48","slug":"letter-to-the-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/letter-to-the-editor\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to the Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In response to the Seattle Times article <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/cgi-bin\/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002504687&#038;zsection_id=2002111777&#038;slug=viaductmorality19m&#038;date=20050919\">Who&#8217;ll be to blame if viaduct, 520 bridge collapse?<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I agree that 520 and the viaduct need to be rebuilt. However, there is an straightforward and fair solution to the problem of crumbling infrastructure that doesn&#8217;t require an unpopular statewide gas tax.<\/p>\n<p>The solution is tolls. Tolls are fair because they place the costs of building infrastructure directly on those that use the infrastructure, instead of forcing residents of Spokane and Walla-Walla to pay for improvements in Seattle that they will likely never see or benefit from. Setting up tolling systems is also straightforward &#8211; it has been done many times before and the process is well understood.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, tolls can help solve traffic problems as well. By changing the amount of the toll by the time of day, free-flowing traffic can always be ensured. While I do not often use the viaduct myself, I would gladly pay a toll to cross the 520 bridge, if it meant I didn&#8217;t have to wait in traffic for hours.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, if government balks at the price of rebuilding these important roadways, then we can always follow the example of the French when the private construction group Eiffage financed the building of the world&#8217;s tallest bridge in exchange for the right to collect the toll for 75 years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In response to the Seattle Times article Who&#8217;ll be to blame if viaduct, 520 bridge collapse?. I agree that 520 and the viaduct need to be rebuilt. However, there is an straightforward and fair solution to the problem of crumbling infrastructure that doesn&#8217;t require an unpopular statewide gas tax. The solution is tolls. Tolls are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everything"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}