Sound Transit begins a series of open houses this week designed to convince voters to pay for a series of rail and road projects.

It’s critical that voters approve the roughly $11 billion in funding, which would extend the light rail starter system that’s currently under construction. That’s why problems with the proposal are so painful to discuss. Here are three examples:

— The light rail line suffers from dimished expectations. For example, the Eastside line won’t open for almost 20 years (!) and the route already has been shortened, thanks to a dispute developing over how to route the future line through downtown Bellevue. It appears the line would end near Microsoft rather than in downtown Redmond.

— Sound Transit appears to have taken the most expedient route — not the best route — for commuter rail south of Tacoma, where the project may interfere with redevelopment of the neighborhood. Dan Voelpel correctly notes that the agency wants to avoid any further delays that could hinder this fall’s vote.

— Both costs and ridership are low-balled. The agency wants to keep the total bill down in order to avoid sticker shock. Meanwhile ridership figures appear based on current land-use patterns and don’t take into consideration future congestion or factors like tolls or more costly gasoline. It’s likely that density will increase around train stations, boosting ridership, and the region will need to spend more on the system once construction starts and people realize how much they really want it.

These are serious issues but shouldn’t derail the overall projects. I plan to be skeptical at the open houses, vote for funding this fall and then demand the projects be built as efficiently as possible.

The debate over replacing the Seattle viaduct and other transportation projects seems to have higher stakes than ever before, but the vehemence isn’t much different from earlier planning battles.

Walt Crowley points out that there was a fight between Seattle and the state over building a highway through Woodland Park in the 1930s. Here’s one lesson of that history:

In transportation policy, there is rarely an obvious “right answer” because issues like the viaduct replacement involve foremost competing visions and priorities for urban design, economic development and regional cohesion, and least of all the best way to get from point A to point B.

The political crisis over the viaduct, coming just weeks after a crippling snowfall, is cause to wonder how the Seattle area would handle a true emergency. Do we have what it would take to rebuild the city better?

The mayor, the city council, the county executive, legislators and the governor have all weighed in on the viaduct. The city is holding a non-binding election on the issues at a cost of $1 million. Yet there’s still no sign of a decision (which is why a surface/transit compromise seems likely).

The fact that we can’t find a plan to fix a major transportation corridor that may collapse in the next earthquake shows what we’re up against.

Consider that even resourceful residents are fleeing New Orleans, according to a New York Times article Friday: “Their reasons include high crime, high rents, soaring insurance premiums and what many call a lack of leadership, competence, money and progress.” Comparing Seattle and New Orleans may seem a stretch, but considering the mess we’ve made here, can we assume things would be any better if we had a disaster?

In New Orleans, the dedication of residents to make the city better has been a key theme. The article quotes novelist Poppy Z. Brite on the peoples’ devotion to the city at all costs: “If a place takes you in and you take it into yourself, you don’t desert it just because it can kill you. There are some things more valuable than life.” At a time when so many people in the Seattle area are clamoring for the cheapest transportation fixes and seem unwilling to think more creatively, I wonder if the same claim can be made here.

The political stalemate over how to replace Seattle’s viaduct freeway increases the chances of a comprehensive package of transit and street improvements because there is huge opposition to a new viaduct and the state apparently won’t agree to a tunnel.

This is a very long-term issue, which is why the state’s insistence on replacing existing car capacity along the waterfront is so odd. The question ought to be how to move people and freight around the city and region — not vehicles.

It’s also fascinating that Gov. Chris Gregoire is willing to alienate much of Seattle’s electorate by pushing for a new, more obstructive elevated freeway along the waterfront. She’s trying to salvage momentum in the current legislative session and must assume there will be no challenge from the left to her reelection in 2008.

One measure of the frustration with Seattle’s political process: put together a party with the explicit purpose of speeding things up and plenty of people will come. The trick, of course, is focusing the energy after the party ends.

It was no different Tuesday night at the launch party for Friends of Seattle, a year-old group that promotes development policies in the city. True, there was plenty of energy from a crowd of maybe 300 business and political types, but I left wondering if the group can keep the momentum.

The highlight was a speech by Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, focusing on adding transit and removing the waterfront viaduct freeway to help cut pollution. He started asking how many people walked or took the bus to the party. Many hands went up. How many lived nearby? Almost none. He noted the obvious: “Seattle is the most car-dependant city on the West Coast.” But beyond removing the viaduct freeway, there were few concrete policy proposals.

Yet others were less convinced, which was surprising at a party for a group that has made preventing a viaduct rebuild its first issue. Several people said they came to the party because they received an evite but weren’t sure about what Friends of Seattle stands for. One woman said she couldn’t see how Seattle could possibly survive without the viaduct.

Movements can start with platitudes, only to fizzle when it comes to finding a way to pay for big ideas or convince people to change their way of life. The party showed that frustration with the city’s status quo; the group that can focus that energy has its work cut out for it.

Two things stand out about the latest The Seattle Times coverage of the political maneuvering on how to replace Seattle’s viaduct freeway:

Most surprising, you can almost sense the voice of the reporters in the story. Maybe it’s the influence of David Postman’s blog at the paper, but the tone allowed the reporters to explain some of the motivations at work without citing a source for each. I’d argue allowing the reporters’ expertise to come through the story is exactly what could keep people reading the state’s largest paper.

The other striking detail is the presumption of City Council President Nick Licata (who insists on a new elevated freeway) that he represents “grumpy Seattle,” which he claims forms a silent majority. If grumpy is defined as opposition to investment in long-term causes, that’s not true (see recent voter approval for higher property taxes). It seems that most of the city’s newcomers and people under the age of 40 are here because of the future. People want a more liveable city — made possible through improvements like an accessible waterfront — not to turn the clock back to the freeway-happy 1960s.