Liberal Talk Radio

Certainly seems that way:

The budget provided long-awaited pay raises for state employees, cost-of-living allowances for teachers, money to keep 100,000 people insured under the state’s Basic Health Plan, college enrollments for more than 8,000 more students and class-size reductions as outlined by voter Initiative 728.

That, and a huge 16-year 9.5-cent gas tax package to boot. Including $2 billion towards replacing the crusty Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Interesting, though, that I-405 is marked for $972 million. Is it me, or does that project seem to be a sinkhole with no end in sight? Not to be Seattle-centric, but is widening 405 really going to reduce congestion? I doubt it. Maybe. More likely we’ll end up with what they have in the Bay Area, where bands of freeways billow out from the urban core. As I-405 expands, so will sprawl around it, necessitating — that’s right — I-605 — to serve the new hinterlands east of Redmond. that’s what they have in the Bay Area: 280, 680, 880… bands and bands of highways all the way out to the desert.

Fortunately we have some pretty hefty mountains that would ensure the sprawl stopped there.