Will Washington's transportation fight foreshadow Oregon's future?

Right now in Washington state, a huge ballot measure fight is ongoing over a transportation funding package involving $47 billion in spending.  The package has elected leaders and groups with long histories of support for the environment split.

As a story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer outlines:

Groups including Washington Environmental Council, Transportation Choices Coalition, Environment Washington, and Governor Gregoire support the package.

Groups including Sierra Club, Cascade Bicycle Club, Coalition for Effective Transportation Alternatives, and King County Executive Ron Sims oppose the package.

Proponents point to the fact that most of the money will go for light rail and other alternative transportation.

Opponents say while those projects are nice, there's still to much new road building that the overall package will promote global warming.

Proponents say opponents math on the global warming part of it is fuzzy.

Opponents disagree (not surprisingly).

Doing the math, of course, on stuff like this is notoriously difficult, if not impossible.

Governor Kulongoski has publicly declared that in the 2009 Legislative Session, transportation will be a big issue.  He also had been a strong advocate for new state standards to reduce our emission of greenhouse gases.  It will be important that whatever package emerges meets the needs of the community on both fronts.  We certainly hope it will be a package that the entire environmental community can embrace.