Wells: these comments are way off. There wasn’t some godfather ordering, “Central Link will not go to Southcenter. Link will not have a ride free zone or 2-hour transfers. Let’s build Hammering Man to snub labor.” These were all individual compromises with their own set of influences.

1) The Link route was due to opposition from the city of Tukwila from what I’ve heard.

2) ST asked the public a month before Link started whether to participate in the ride free area, the tradeoff being a 25c increase in all Link fares. Most people wisely said no because their daily commute fares would go up to subsidize a few people who already have alternatives for intra-downtown trips. It will make more sense when buses quit the DSTT. How does it cause a delay anyway, when Link does not have onboard fare collection?

3) Re no Link transfers, you can also ask Link fares are distance-based rather than flat. Portland MAX, NYC subway & PATH, Chicago el, and SF Muni all charge a flat fare, which is usually the same as their buses. Only SF BART has distance-based fares, but it gives much more extensive service than Link. This was decided by ST bean counters trying to maximize revenues with no regard to how the price of the trip compared to its value, the same as the new ORCA system’s impacts, but c’est la vie. There’s no need to imagine an “establishment” conspiracy, just the blindness of bean counters.

4) Link will be the same or cheaper than Metro after Metro’s fare increase January 1st. Downtown-Beacon Hill: $1.75 (Link)/$2 (Metro off-peak)/$2.25 (Metro 1 zone). Downtown-Rainier Valley: $2 (Link)/$2 (Metro off-peak), $2.25 (Metro 1 zone). Downtown-Tukwila: $2.50 (Link)/$2 (Metro off-peak)/$2.75 (Metro 2 zone).

5) Link’s ridership does seem to be whiter than the buses in Rainier Valley, but that’s not ST’s fault.

6) I have no idea what your UW comment means. Light rail must serve the largest pedestrian destination in the city, which is the UW by far.

7) The Hammering Man comment is just conjecture. It was intended to honor the working man. What irritates me is the imitations that have the man chugging a beer.

These questionable decisions suggest Link ridership is being segregated, the establishment-approved tourists are to ride Link while the under-class are encouraged to ride buses. Link’s next expansion is a multi-billion dollar tunnel to UW where the cost of an ‘In Crowd’ certificate went up even further beyond the means of most of us.

Seattle’s establishment is alive and well and perfecting their frequently seen around town ‘Seattle Snoot’ expression for fending off the underclass. Hammering Man is a blatant insult to Labor whom the upper class views as 2-dimensional, featureless flat black workers embroiled in endless, strenuous, monotonous toil in the midst of the leisure class, and who’s artistic sentiment is no more refined than a whirlygig. Have a nice day.

But it was real once, and anybody who doesn’t think so should bone up on the 50s and 60s and the careers of people like Wayne Larkins and Gordon Vickery in the 70s. That was bare-knuckle sexism, racism, and urban corruption bundled into one. Does Roanoke Reef ring any bells?

The ‘Thrusters’ eventually became a succession of ‘reform’ mayors who could afford to clean up urban politics because the City Council passed the rezones they needed for their other jobs as developers. The real change agent as Mayor recently was Nickels, the first mayor in about 25 years who didn’t also become a millionaire by developing properties.

It is interesting that McGinn is now being urged to keep Grace Cunigan, the head of Seattle Transportation Department that Nickles installed to do a little bare-knuckle housecleaning. My personal feeling is that if McGinn chooses someone else, the agency will just eat them for lunch.

What I suspect will happen for much of Seattle is that advocates will generally face a Sisyphean task of bringing their groups demands to McGinn, and being told their input is of great value and they should go back and find out what their group wants to do. That’s what we’ve seen so far.

As for whether there really is an ‘establishment’, just ask yourself this- How can a city with so many skyscrapers be short of tax revenue to fund schools and transit?

McGinn is, at this moment, among the luckiest of political surfers- as a huge wave of change looms to combat global warming, McGinn appears to be a green candidate, with almost no political past or experience to sully his image. What he does with this lucky political capital will be interesting to see.