Times Editorial Wrong Again,

When I first glanced at the Wednesday (10/24) Times Opinion page headlining “No Way to Run a Commuter Line” I thought they’d finally decided something had to be done.  Boy was I wrong!   Somehow the Times concluded that the reason for “Sounder ridership not meeting expectations” was “Sounder North had not met expectations” for reliability with comments “getting to work cannot be a roll of the dice”  

What an absurdity! First of all, anyone whose ride on the train was cancelled can easily switch over to the ST510 bus that leaves the same station every 10 to 15 minutes and takes them to 5^th and Pine in less than an hour.  Second, since most of the cancellations are due to mudslides it’s not clear what the Times is suggesting as a remedy.  Surely any attempt to prevent future blockages would be expensive or they would have been done long ago.

The editorial touches on the fundamental Sounder problem that most commuters would rather ride a bus that takes them to near where they work rather than a train to the King Street Station.  Their solution is “Sound Transit needs to simplify things”.  What the hell does that mean?  Simplify what?

For years the Times has turned a blind eye to Sound Transit’s mendacity and incompetence.  The fact they would chose this rationale to finally criticize them continues their refusal to meet responsible journalism standards.