I don’t like it when our state and city mishandle money for mass transit.

Most commuter-relief attempts in Seattle have been laughable. The monorail is a cheap copy of a Disneyland ride, the Seattle Streetcar has about four daily riders and the Sounder train doesn’t yet reach North Seattle, where many of our freeway-clogging brethren come from.

But a solution has been proposed.

It starts with a rail line, coming in 2009, from SeaTac Airport to downtown, and it’s going to eventually join Northgate, the UW, Capitol Hill and the Eastside. Much like a communist regime redistributes income, car commuters will be appropriately funneled into different modes of transportation. I won’t wave any red flags, but I will support Proposition 1.

Imagine being able to travel from Tacoma to Everett. Well, I actually don’t want to imagine being in either Tacoma or Everett, so I’ll just be happy with the SeaTac linkup. Imagine being able to go to the airport and skip traffic and departure lines. You’ll even be able to go downtown from the Eastside or the U-District. By 2020, as the rail lines expand, you could even shop at the Targets in Northgate, SoDo and Tukwila, just in case the first two were out of Bugs Bunny sneakers and Lil’ Wayne albums.

I choose to support Prop. 1 not because I think it’s perfect, nor because it will solve all of our region’s transportation problems. If you go to masstransitnow.org, the Web site in support of Prop. 1, there’s a glaring lack of concrete evidence. How many commuters will be taken off the road during peak hours? How many cars will be removed from the sparkling river of I-5 traffic? These questions are important, but they stem from a deeper problem.

We live in a region that is still heavily reliant on the automobile, but I think that Prop. 1 is what’s needed to remove some of this dependency. First, it will restore our area’s faith in public transportation. It’s hard to estimate ridership because everyone is content with driving a car right now. But when the glorious train lines are completed, and trains are running on 15-minute or better frequencies, opinions will shift. Like crows attracted to shiny objects, dark-clothed Seattleites will inquisitively flock to the rails. Our infrastructure needs to grow before our faith can be restored in it.

This can be somewhat of a slippery slope. Sound Transit hasn’t been a very effective spender in the past, and while the plan promises strict auditing, these are the types of projects that can leech public money like a divorcee on alimony. So it’s important that we all use the lines once they’re up. Not only will we save money, time and energy, but our region’s health will improve. We’ll have less car pollution, more time with our fellow commuters and more ads for Beacon Plumbing plastered across the sides of our public transportation.

Prop. 1 will also include an immediate increase in bus service, both express and standard. Although the rail lines will take time, money and energy to complete, we’ll have immediate bus relief, which will pave the way for a connected and less congested Puget Sound region. For a minute tax increase of 0.5 percent, Prop. 1 has my money, my occasional criticism and my support. I even wrote an anti-Prop. 1 article last fall when the plan looked too expensive and too convoluted, but now that it’s been reworked for the better, they deserve our collective support come Nov. 4.

Reach columnist Jackson Rohrbaugh at opinion@dailyuw.com.