Bush budget would end night time lock-throughs in Seattle
 

According to the Local section of this morning's Seattle Times,
President Bush's budget proposal would significantly reduce funding for
the Chittenden Locks and the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

The largest expense at the Chittenden Locks is payroll, and total
operating expenses there are about $6mm a year. Under the Bush budget
proposal, that would be cut to $4mm a year. The Corp of Engineers has
suggested that among other steps, the locks (always historically open
24-hours a day) would close every day from 10PM until 6AM the following
morning. Others savings under consideration include closing the very
popular tourist attraction to visitors, thereby saving money currently
spent for gardeners, janitors, and others not directly involved with
the actual operation of the locks.


While only a few pleasure boaters use the locks during the middle of
the night, there is a steady flow of tugs, fishboats, etc. at all
hours. Under the Bush proposal, all of that commercial traffic would be
waiting on one side of the locks or the other first thing in the
morning, and trying to crowd through in the last few hours of the
evening. (A 10PM closure means that during some weeks of the year the
locks will close just as it's getting dark). As commercial traffic has
priority over pleasure boats, there is no doubt that pleasure boaters
would need to curtail boating earlier each day to be certain of making
the locks before the 10PM shutdown.

I'm all for the FEDGOV saving money and reducing the 1.26 billion
dollars it is currently borrowing, every day, to meet expenses. (see
national debt clock site)

When I divide $2,000,000 (savings by shutting down the locks) into
$1,260,000,000 (current daily overspending by congress and the
administration) my math, (not always the best), shows that shutting
down the locks would save enough money to eliminate federal borrowing
for about 1/610 of a single day each year. Isn't that less than three
minutes a year?

Seems like a huge sacrifice to bail out Bush's spending spree for three
short minutes a year. Must be payback for being a blue state.
:-)

wrote in message
oups.com...
According to the Local section of this morning's Seattle Times,
President Bush's budget proposal would significantly reduce funding for
the Chittenden Locks and the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

The largest expense at the Chittenden Locks is payroll, and total
operating expenses there are about $6mm a year. Under the Bush budget
proposal, that would be cut to $4mm a year. The Corp of Engineers has
suggested that among other steps, the locks (always historically open
24-hours a day) would close every day from 10PM until 6AM the following
morning. Others savings under consideration include closing the very
popular tourist attraction to visitors, thereby saving money currently
spent for gardeners, janitors, and others not directly involved with
the actual operation of the locks.


While only a few pleasure boaters use the locks during the middle of
the night, there is a steady flow of tugs, fishboats, etc. at all
hours. Under the Bush proposal, all of that commercial traffic would be
waiting on one side of the locks or the other first thing in the
morning, and trying to crowd through in the last few hours of the
evening. (A 10PM closure means that during some weeks of the year the
locks will close just as it's getting dark). As commercial traffic has
priority over pleasure boats, there is no doubt that pleasure boaters
would need to curtail boating earlier each day to be certain of making
the locks before the 10PM shutdown.

I'm all for the FEDGOV saving money and reducing the 1.26 billion
dollars it is currently borrowing, every day, to meet expenses. (see
national debt clock site)

When I divide $2,000,000 (savings by shutting down the locks) into
$1,260,000,000 (current daily overspending by congress and the
administration) my math, (not always the best), shows that shutting
down the locks would save enough money to eliminate federal borrowing
for about 1/610 of a single day each year. Isn't that less than three
minutes a year?

Seems like a huge sacrifice to bail out Bush's spending spree for three
short minutes a year. Must be payback for being a blue state.
:-)

Maybe you should have to buy a ticket to go through the lock. Or buy a
yearly pass.
Are the locks funded by user fees, or from general revenue?

del

Maybe you should have to buy a ticket to go through the lock. Or buy a

yearly pass.
Are the locks funded by user fees, or from general revenue?

**********************

The locks are funded by general revenue, as they are a public, federal
waterway.

Pleasure boats are at the bottom of the pecking order for using the
locks, and that's probably OK. The military has first priority, other
government agencies have second priority, commercial boats (tugs,
fishboats, charter cruises, etc) have third priority and finally
recreational users.

We were inbound a few years ago when the large locks were shut down for
repair.
We hung on the waiting wall, literally for several hours while the
traffic *didn't* move through the small lock. By some fluke of timing,
every time the small lock would be available for inbound traffic, the
PA announcer would call out, "Attention on the West Wall, next lock
through is for Argosy only!", and one of the tourist boats running from
Elliott Bay through the locks to Lake Union would go chugging past all
the waiting boats returning from a summer weekend. The poor tourists
from Cleveland, Omaha, East Bugtussle, et all......they'd line the
decks of the Argosy boat to call out "hello!" and wave to all the
waiting boaters as they motored by. When the second or third boatfull
got a good look at just how the local boaters were waving back, they
had to conclude that folks in Seattle must be rude and very unfriendly.

It wouldn't take much of a fee to keep the locks open as they are. I
would guess that a $5 toll wouldn't keep anybody from boating, and
would go a long way toward bridging the funding gap. By the same token,
they ought to charge the thousands of tourists that visit the locks in
any given week $5 or so at the gate- the vast majority of folks
enjoying the locks and using them for recreation will never go through
in a boat.

And what is
the rationale for having the other 299,000,000+ of us pay for something

we'll never use?

**************

The same rationale that takes some of my tax dollars to pay for the
interstate highway running through your location. There's a chance I
may never drive over any of the federal highways in your state, but as
a US taxpayer I am helping to fund them.

(I live in the largest county in the state, and on a state level we are
always hearing the same complaint from little counties. They say, "The
state is taking our tax money and spending it on road improvements and
buildings in King County!".....In fact, King is one of only three
counties in the state that are net tax "exporters"- collecting more tax
money in the county than is actually spent here, and the guys whining
in the rural areas are really getting the subsidies- not the urbanites.
Point is, it can be hard to determine just exactly where any individual
tax dollar is being spent.)

The boating industry, both commercial and pleasure, is a major
contributor to the regional economy. If we theorize that the national
economy cannot be healthy if the regional economies are not, we all
have a vested interest in keeping public transportation arteries,
including waterways, open and operating in all 50 states.

The greatest numbers of people actually using the locks for
recreational purposes have to be the thousands of out-of-state tourists
who consider the Space Needle, the Pike Place Market, and the
Chittenden Locks the three things they have to see in order to "do"
Seattle. The lock walls are jammed with tourists throughout the spring
and summer months.

I wouldn't be opposed to a small fee, but if imposed that fee should
also be charged to the spectators as well as the users of the locks.

What is odd, is the 9 cents a gallon gas tax that was approved just days ago
is going towards a fancy tunnel to replace the via duct and the 520 bridge.
Everyone in the state of washington has to pay for this gas tax, but how
often do people in other counties uses the via duct or the 520 bridge ? The
via duct tunnel is 3 times more than just replacing the old via duct. Why
does seattle have to have a tunnel ? I have lived here all my life, and
about to move out do to all the taxes we pay. Sorry I know this is off
topic but it just ****es me off about more fees and taxes in washington
state.

Thanks
Ed


wrote in message
ups.com...
Maybe you should have to buy a ticket to go through the lock. Or buy a

yearly pass.
Are the locks funded by user fees, or from general revenue?

**********************

The locks are funded by general revenue, as they are a public, federal
waterway.

Pleasure boats are at the bottom of the pecking order for using the
locks, and that's probably OK. The military has first priority, other
government agencies have second priority, commercial boats (tugs,
fishboats, charter cruises, etc) have third priority and finally
recreational users.

We were inbound a few years ago when the large locks were shut down for
repair.
We hung on the waiting wall, literally for several hours while the
traffic *didn't* move through the small lock. By some fluke of timing,
every time the small lock would be available for inbound traffic, the
PA announcer would call out, "Attention on the West Wall, next lock
through is for Argosy only!", and one of the tourist boats running from
Elliott Bay through the locks to Lake Union would go chugging past all
the waiting boats returning from a summer weekend. The poor tourists
from Cleveland, Omaha, East Bugtussle, et all......they'd line the
decks of the Argosy boat to call out "hello!" and wave to all the
waiting boaters as they motored by. When the second or third boatfull
got a good look at just how the local boaters were waving back, they
had to conclude that folks in Seattle must be rude and very unfriendly.

It wouldn't take much of a fee to keep the locks open as they are. I
would guess that a $5 toll wouldn't keep anybody from boating, and
would go a long way toward bridging the funding gap. By the same token,
they ought to charge the thousands of tourists that visit the locks in
any given week $5 or so at the gate- the vast majority of folks
enjoying the locks and using them for recreation will never go through
in a boat.

"Del Cecchi" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
oups.com...
According to the Local section of this morning's Seattle Times,
President Bush's budget proposal would significantly reduce funding for
the Chittenden Locks and the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

snip

I'm all for the FEDGOV saving money and reducing the 1.26 billion
dollars it is currently borrowing, every day, to meet expenses. (see
national debt clock site)

Good. Everyone has to pitch in. Some sacrifices will be needed.

So stop your whining already.

Good. Everyone has to pitch in. Some sacrifices will be needed.

So stop your whining already

*********************

The first group to "pitch in" should be the GOP controlled congress and
the GOP controlled presidency. There is no shortage of money for the
things that they, or their special interest contributors, find
important. We little people would sacrifice more readily if there were
*any* sign of fiscal restraint in Washington DC. What we hear is,
"Government spending is taking off like a rocket, Bush isn't using his
veto power on anything....oh, but the stuff that the average American
citizen finds important? That's being cut out so that the record
setting spending can be concentrated in certain specific areas designed
to benefit some very specific groups, companies, and industries."

That "whining" is called freedom of speech. You may be against that,
and as a non-boater you would certainly be watching from the wall if
you ever visited the site in question. If they implement my suggestion
and charge all the tourists $5 a head, I'm sure that if you came to
Seattle you'd want to pay at least $10 so you would be "pitching in."

It's not quite that cut and dried.

The 9 cents goes to a large number of road projects all around the
state.
Some of it is earmarked as "seed money" for the Viaduct and the 520
bridge, but not a dime of that state money will be spent on either of
those projects unless King County residents come up with a way to tax
ourselves for the balance of the money (a few billion)
before 2007.

There has not been a final decision about tunnel vs. elevated structure
for the viaduct.

You may not drive on the viaduct or the 520 bridge or the viaduct, but
look around wherever you live at whatever you've got. "If you've got
it, a truck brought it."
Those two structures are keystones in our statewide transportation
system.
Assuming you shop at WalMart, a whole heap of the stuff you buy is
unloaded from Chinese and Korean ships on the Seattle waterfront and
trucked to your local community. Even if you never drive across the 520
bridge or the viaduct, a whole lot of the commerce and economic
vitality for the entire state flows along those highways.

Here's an interesting exercise you might consider. Add up all the
local, county and state taxes collected in your county. You should be
able to find the numbers pretty easily.
Then compare the total local, county, and state expenditures in your
county. Unless you live in King, Snohomish, or Pierce County you will
see that the total expenditures in your county exceed the total taxes
collected. Only the three most populous counties actually "export"
taxes, so don't be taken in by the radio rabble rousers trying to
increase tension between the red and the blue counties. (This is one of
the reasons that the bill to split off Eastern Washington and make it a
separate state got *nowhere* in the legislature this year) :-)

Don't leave the state, I've been lots of other places and its worth a
few tax dollars to stay here, IMO. :-)

"Kubez" wrote in message
...
wrote in
oups.com:

And what is
the rationale for having the other 299,000,000+ of us pay for something

we'll never use?

**************

The same rationale that takes some of my tax dollars to pay for the
interstate highway running through your location.

In other words, none.

Thank-you.

The Interstate highway system is part of the US defense infrastructure.
Ike when he was a mere junior officer had to take a convoy across the US.
Took a couple of months. And when he saw the German Autobahn, he knew we
need better transportation infrastructure for our own self preservation.
And 1 in 5 miles is supposed to be able to work as an airstrip.

The same rationale that takes some of my tax dollars to pay for the
interstate highway running through your location.



In other words, none.

Thank-you.


*************

You oppose the federal funding of interstate transportation arteries?