State Must Reform Sound Transit

Trevor Reed wrote an op-ed in the Urbanist about Sound Transit's shortcomings. To address them, he encourages readers to sign a petition by Transportation Reform asking the State to take action to audit Sound Transit and improve its ability to deliver transit services.

Trevor provides some great examples where Sound Transit has fallen short:

• Board members often prioritize their own local interest rather than the benefit of the larger region.
• The interest of cities (Tukwila, Bellevue etc) has not always aligned with the interests of Sound Transit causing cost increases and delays, sometimes they bully Sound Transit to get concessions. He cites examples where cities voiced concerns but even decades later, they have not materialized. Where interests align, such as in Redmond, projects happen much faster.
• He also mentions other transit authorities with more successful projects such as the REM automated light metro in Montreal or improvements Minnesota made after their light rail projects was late and went over budget.
• He quotes Eric Goldwyn questioning whether it is a good idea that projects such as ST3 or California HSR have to get voter approval so early in the process before any of the detailed plans are done. He has a point. Freeways neither need voter approval nor does their NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process gets as much scrutiny.

Trevor finally urges readers to sign a petition to ask law makers to give Sound Transit more authority. Would that solve all the issues he highlights?

I don't think it does. Ben Hopkins recently explained how Madrid was able to triple its subway network quickly and affordably: There is a single transit authority for the metro, light rail, and buses who does all the planning, construction and operation. Projects are selected and led by an elected official who is accountable to the voters to operate the network and build the next expansion within their 4-year term. This creates a strong incentive to make trade-offs to deliver projects on time and budget. At Sound Transit board members all have their own agenda and priorities. There is an incentive to delay schedules to be able to collect more taxes.

Sound Transit has a large staff for outreach/publicity and some project management while operation, design, and construction are mostly outsourced to local construction firms. If challenges are identified during the design process, the design contract still has to be fulfilled. Developing alternative solutions are usually not part of a design contract but would require a contract modification. For example, the original elevated station along Fauntleroy Way called for the dismantling of a large, recently finished 6-story apartment building. Moving the station a bit further north or east to avoid such was not considered. This made the elevated line appear so much more expensive and disruptive, that local officials called for a tunnel station instead. Only when the cost doubled, the board asked Sound Transit to explore alternatives. When staff then presented an adjacent location, the tunnel alignment had already gotten so much traction, that the adjacent location was not even studied further in the final Environmental Impact Statement. If the design had been done inhouse and alignment not finalized ahead of time, a staff planner could have easily pivoted immediately.

Expansive, though sparely used, Tukwila International Blvd Station (c) Oran Viriyincy

While some stations with low ridership became transit cathedrals", some important transfer stations don't even have down-escalators.

Sound Transit construction was often not well coordinated with other transit agencies. Transfers between Link and Metro buses at Mt Baker Station are still tedious and dangerous though recent stations are much better. While transit agencies usually evolve their transit network over time and don't invest in a rail infrastructure until the ridership volume justifies the construction and operations expense, the delivery of the Everett to Tacoma Spine became a goal politicians could rally behind independent of ridership. With ST3, West Seattle and Issaquah were added, again, without any regards to ridership. I guess cutting ribbons with shiny trains make for better photo opportunities than running buses more frequently. While Sound Transit received solid funding which even enabled the construction of large parking garages, the local transit agencies have had trouble providing basic bus services. This even impacts the lines which serve Link stations.

While Sound Transit is busy expanding service to Federal Way and Highline Community College, Seattle residents still can't get to hospitals on First Hill or Seattle U.

While transit agencies from Vancouver, BC, Honolulu, Los Angeles, and Montreal to Paris have started using automated trains, people movers, and gondolas, Sound Transit decided to use light rail technology to build affordably at-grade long ago even though that meant that travel time on the Spine won't be competitive with cars. Due to the high number of accidents and disruptions, Sound Transit now focuses on grade-separation, but they still have not considered any alternative modes. (Though they did publish a bogus study" to discredit gondola technology.)

I don't claim to have all the answers, but I think that we need a more integrated and accountable regional transit authority which is directly accountable to the voters of the region with long term funding to hire transit planners and transit architects to build a multi-modal transit network which serves our region. A new term in Olympia, selection of a new Sound Transit CEO, and a new King County Executive may support such making those adjustments. If you feel Trevor's petition would initiate such changes, sign the letter.