Class Action Complaint Against Sound Transit Reserved Parking

(This post is another attempt to use a class action complaint to prevent Sound Transit from adversely impacting large numbers of commuters. Unfortunately, the previous post attempt to garner legal support for filing a class action complaint against Sound Transit for failure to comply with RCW 81.104.100 has been ignored by several local “class action” attorneys   Meanwhile ClassAction.org, who thanked me for inquiring, has gone way beyond the 48 hrs they promised for a response.   Any suggestions?)

Anyone who uses one of the major P&R lots to access Sound Transit express bus routes should be concerned with Sound Transit plan to provide frequent solo drivers with reliable transit parking.  Up to fifty percent of spaces at their highest-demand lots will be reserved for train and bus riders who use parking permits.  They justified the  “new parking management strategy” with the following:

At the most popular transit facilities, people are arriving earlier and earlier to secure a space – which can increase crowding on early buses and trains while seats remain empty on later transit trips.

The latest WSDOT “Park and Ride Inventory” for Snohomish, King, and Pierce counties, Oct-Dec 2016, shows all the major parking facilities were essentially fully “in use” nearly two years ago. It’s not clear how they will choose the “most popular transit facilities” to implement the “parking management strategy”.

What is clear is wherever 50% of the stalls are reserved, 50% of those currently using the P&R will no longer be able to do so.  Those loosing access to public transit will likely be forced to endure the stress and costs of driving into Seattle and paying for parking. 

Sound Transit’s reserved parking plan harms a large number of people in the same way, a clear cause for a class action complaint.  Sound Transit could have resolved the parking management problem years ago by adding parking and bus routes.  In this case, any parking facility slated for reserved parking, could be cause for a class action complaint by those currently using the parking to prevent implementation. 

Law firms may welcome the resultant favorable publicity.  Also the sooner the better since Sound Transit plans to begin implementing the plan in October. 

48th District Class Action Complaint

(I’m back and looking for a Class Action Lawyer,  anyone interested?)

I’ve decided to file a class action complaint detailing how Sound Transit’s wrongful actions have injured 48^th District residents both financially and physically.  That Sound Transit has misled 48^th District residents with claims of both costs and benefits from their Prop 1 and ST3 light rail extensions across I-90 Bridge.  That as a result they have needlessly endured years of increased congestion, forced to pay and continue to be forced to pay thousands of dollars to fund a light rail extension that will do nothing to ease the area’s congestion and will increase the congestion they encounter on the I-90 Bridge.

The primary basis for the class action is Sound Transit’s failure to comply with the Revised Code of Washington (RCW).  RCW 81.104.100 details the code requirement for high capacity transit system planning.  The relevant excerpted portions of the RCW are as follows:

To assure development of an effective high capacity transportation system, local authorities shall follow the following planning process only if their system plan includes a rail fixed guide-way system component or a bus rapid transit component that is planned by a regional transit authority:

 (2) High capacity transportation system planning is the detailed evaluation of a range of high capacity transportation system options, including: Do nothing, low capital, and ranges of higher capital facilities.  High capacity transportation system planning shall proceed as follows:

 (b) Development of options. Options to be studied shall be developed to ensure an appropriate range of technologies and service policies can be evaluated. A do-nothing option and a low capital option that maximizes the current system shall be developed. 

When I raised the issue with A.G. Ferguson’s Consumer Protection Division I received the following response

Dear William James Hirt,

Thank you for contacting the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General’s Office. Your complaint has been reviewed and it was determined that the issues presented are under the regulatory authority of another agency. Your complaint has been closed accordingly.

We referred your complaint to the following agency. Please contact the identified agency directly with questions about the status of your complaint.  

Sound Transit Board of Directors

c/o Board Administrator

401 Jackson S

Seattle, WA 98104

While his office apparently admitted I had a “legitimate concern” they delegated the response as to whether Sound Transit had violated the RCW to Sound Transit.  The below excerpts from Sound Transit’s response gives a whole new meaning to attempting to “exculpate” their approach.

As you noted in your complaint, Chapter 81.104 RCW requires development of a high capacity transportation system plan, and RCW 81.104.100 specifically sets forth the requirements that must be included in that system-wide plan. Sound Transit developed draft and final system plans that complied with these requirements and included extensive public outreach from 2005 to 2008.

Yet there is no indication Sound Transit ever considered BRT on limited access lanes as a low cost alternative for any of the Prop 1 light rail extensions.  The below Sound Transit response concerning East Link was even more "problematic".

Project level reviews are not subject to the requirements in RCW 81.104.100. As noted in your complaint, the project level review of the East Link project did include a no-build option. Your presumption that this was due to the requirement in RCW 81.104.100(2)(b) is not correct. As indicated above, this statutory requirement applies to system-wide plans, not project level reviews.

Sound Transit simply “decided” East Link wasn’t required to comply with RCW.   When I contacted Ferguson’s office attempting to hold Sound Transit “accountable” for their refusal to comply the response included the following:

Thank you for your recent e-mail to the office of the Attorney General regarding Sound Transit RCW compliance.

Regarding Sound Transit, our office does not advise or represent regional transit authorities, nor does our office have the role of supervising or correcting the activities of such authorities. 

Clearly 48^th District residents deserve better that what they’ve been getting from Sound Transit and the state Attorney's General.   Even a cursory attempt to comply with RCW would have concluded Sound Transit could have added 4^th lanes to the I-90 Bridge outer roadways for non-transit HOV and implemented two-way bus only service on the bridge center roadways.  

They could have done so 10 years ago, providing 10 times light rail capacity, at 1/10^th the cost and avoided the need to devastate the route into Bellevue.  48th District residents have been forced to pay increased taxes and endure years of congestion as a result. Instead Sound Transit has been allowed to locate their Operation Maintenance Facility (OMF) in the 48^th District meaning Sound Transit light rail trains will be trundling through the area for servicing between 12:00 am to 5:00 am beginning in 2020.

Sound Transit’s failure to comply with the RCW regarding East Link is surely reason for 48^th District resident class action.  Even more important, the vast majority of their future taxes will be spent, not on East Link, but on light rail extensions to Everett and Tacoma.  48^th District class action regarding Sound Transit’s failure to comply with RCW for those extensions is even more imperative. 

Again, there is no indication Sound Transit ever considered implementing added bus service along limited access HOV lanes as a "low cost" alternative.  Something they could have done years earlier.  Their refusal to add bus service is demonstrated by the fact their annual  “Revenue Vehicle Miles Operated” in 2005, 10,254,710, only increased to 11,991,374 in 2017. 

Sound Transit compounded the problem with their failure to comply with RCW with added bus service by routing their light rail spine through a Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel that severely limits its capacity.   That neither 48^th District funds nor the entire area's ST3 funding of the light rail extensions will do anything to increase transit capacity into the city.  If allowed to continue the operating costs for the extensions added route lengths will create a financial black hole for the entire areas transportation funds. 

I intend to try to use a class action complaint to mitigate impact of Sound Transit debacle for 48^th District. 

My Blog Lives On

Once again my candidacy has ended in the primary.  While I earlier thought Tom’s decision to file as a Democrat would cost him votes, his support from Seattle Times and extensive campaign will keep him on the ballot.  He has my full support.  While Patty Kuderer seems very pleasant personally, she’s advocated some really screwy ideas; single payer health insurance, a state bank, capital gains taxes, and climate change as the most serious problem facing the state.  Tom will hopefully do much better in the general election.

Meanwhile my blog will take a weeklong hiatus for a round trip cruise to Alaska, part of my “Travel is the spice of life” philosophy.  However I do intend to resume using this blog to explain why the entire area deserves more than what it’s getting from those responsible for the areas transportation.   A recent survey of Bellevue residents reported their biggest problem, three times that of any other, was the congestion they faced on the area’s roadways.   My guess is surveys of residents in the other Seattle suburbs would show the same concern.  

Their concerns are well founded.  Commuters throughout the area have seen dramatic increases in commute times.  Yet Sound Transit, since 2005, has refused to add any significant parking or bus “revenue vehicle miles” needed to attract more commuters to public transit.  Instead they plan to implement a “New Parking Management Strategy” where “50% of the stalls at the most popular transit facilities” are reserved for those arriving later.  It’s their way to “reduce crowding on early buses” and fill seats that currently “remain empty on later transit trips”.   It typifies Sound Transit’s refusal to increase public transit capacity. 

Sound Transit’s refusal to add parking and bus service is compounded by their failure to recognize their decision to route the light rail spine through the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel severely limits its capacity.   The billions spent on extending light rail beyond UW or SeaTac along I-5 or across I-90 Bridge do nothing to increase the capacity.  Any riders they do attract will simply displace existing Central Link commuters.  The longer routes operating costs will create a financial black hole for the area’s transportation funds.  Their plans to use two DSTT stations for thousands of commuters to exit and access light rail is a sure recipe for havoc..

 Meanwhile, the WSDOT plan for implementing 2 HOT lanes on I-405 between Lynnwood and Renton demonstrates a similar level of incompetence.  The standard rationale for implementing HOT is the number of two-person carpoolers exceeds the number of vehicles an HOV lane can accommodate and still achieve the desired velocity, e.g. 2000 vehicles per hour for 45 mph.   HOT lane fees can be set to limit the number of drivers willing to pay the fees to what’s required to achieve the desired speed.   

However, the WSDOT rationale is their claim HOT lanes “Can accommodate 35% more than regular lanes because fees can be raised to prevent clogging”.   They use that absurdity to justify not one but two HOT lanes along I-405 between Bothell and Bellevue and plan to so along the rest of the route.  They ignore the fact the two HOT lanes have increased GP congestion and failed to maintain the 45 mph average velocities for 90% of the commute. 

The problem is limiting GP use to the remaining three lanes increases congestion to where more commuters are willing to pay the WSDOT HOT tolls than the lanes can accommodate and still achieve the 45 mph.  The WSDOT plans to limit GP to only 2 of 4 lanes on the rest of I-405 will surely exacerbate the problem.

The DOT could solve both problems be implementing HOT on one lane and setting fees to limit the number of vehicles needed to achieve 45 mph, and using the second lane to reduce congestion for GP commuters.  Instead their plan for 2 HOT lanes along the rest of the route is clear indication the DOT is more interested in increasing revenue than reducing congestion.   The single HOT lane would provide reliable BRT routes if Sound Transit could be persuaded to add transit capacity beyond their totally inadequate ST3 plans.

The Sound Transit and WSDOT incompetence is matched by the Seattle Times Traffic Lab’s failure to dig into the region’s thorny transportation issues and spotlight promising approaches to easing gridlock”.  It doesn't take much "digging" to recognize Sound Transit's failure to increase transit capacity with added parking or bus revenue vehicle hours.  Even they recognize the ST3 extensions won’t reduce congestion but fail to advocate an audit to prevent Sound Transit from proceeding.  Rather than objecting to WSDOT 2 HOT lanes on I-405 they advocate for tolls on all the main roadways as a way to reduce congestion.

My blog will continue to raise these concerns.

A Decade of Public Transit Incompetence Continues

The below paragraph from Sound Transit’s July Platform heralding  “Permit parking program expanding” is just the latest example of more than 10 years of incompetence in dealing with the area’s public transit needs.

In order to provide frequent transit riders with reliable parking, the Sound Transit Board today voted to offer reserved permit parking options to solo drivers. Permits will give their holders access to priority parking areas on weekdays during the morning rush hours. Up to fifty-percent of spaces at our highest-demand lots will be reserved for train and bus riders who use parking permits.

Interested?

The July announcement was a follow-up to a Feb 14th Sound Transit news release “Sound Transit, King County Metro seek public feedback on reserved solo-driver permit parking at transit facilities”.  It justified their  “new parking management strategy” with the following:

At the most popular transit facilities, people are arriving earlier and earlier to secure a space – which can increase crowding on early buses and trains while seats remain empty on later transit trips.

Note that neither of the announcements included adding more parking as a way of ensuring commuters have access to transit.  Sound Transit hasn’t added any significant parking for at least ten years.  Thus the only result of the reserved parking will be up to 50% of the stalls commuters currently use will be reserved for later arrivals.  The only way to be assured of parking is to be one of those able to reserve a stall.   It will be particularly disruptive to I-90 corridor commuters who have already had two P&Rs shut down for East Link

Presumably filling "empty seats on later transit trips" requires they give preference to those riding later trains, ending access to many current riders.  The Sound Transit Board apparently doesn't recognize forcing more commuters to drive into Seattle during peak commute is not the way to reduce congestion.

Sound Transit could have eased “crowding on early buses” by simply adding more bus routes. Sound Transit's refusal to do so is demonstrated by the fact their annual  “Revenue Vehicle Miles Operated” in 2005, 10,254,710, only increased to 11,991,374 in 2017.  More recently Sound Transit’s quarterly bus trips only increased from 115,163 in 2012 4^th quarter to 120,400 in the 2017 4^th quarter.  That comparable total average express-bus-weekday boarding only increased from 54,345 to 61,526 during the five years; hardly a “dramatic increase”.

Clearly very little of the billions Sound Transit has spent over the last decade on “System Expansion” was for added parking or bus service.   Their Central Link route from the UW stadium through the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) to SeaTac increased transit capacity within the city.  A T/C at the UW could have provided an interface between 520 BRT and light rail enhancing commuting for those on both sides of the lake. 

Rather than adding the UW T/C or a light rail extension to West Seattle, Sound Transit convinced voters to approve Prop 1 light rail extensions to Mill Creek, Redmond, and Federal Way.  They simply ignored the fact the money spent on Prop 1 extensions did nothing to increase the capacity through the DSTT.  Instead they managed to convince 70% of Seattle voters to provide the support needed to pass ST3.  The billions spent on the “light rail spine” will do nothing to reduce congestion and their operating costs will create a financial black hole for the areas transportation funds.

All of this could have been avoided if the Seattle Times Traffic Lab had demonstrated a modicum of competence.  It's totally failed in its mission to “dig into the region’s thorny transportation issues, and spotlights promising approaches to easing gridlock”.  It doesn't take much "digging" to recognize Sound Transit's failure to increase transit capacity with added parking or bus revenue vehicle hours.  They apparently don't recognize the incoherence of Sound Transit's "Parking management strategy".  Even they recognized the DSTT capacity problem with a Seattle Times 6/19/17 edition front-page Traffic Lab article “Here’s why I-5 is such a mess!” concluded the best they could say about ST3 was:

 Sound Transit 3’s light-rail system, as it expands over the next 25 years, will do little to ease I-5 traffic, but it will give some commuters an escape hatch to avoid it”.

Again, one would think, a newspaper would question the efficacy of Sound Transit spending $54 billion on a transportation system that won’t reduce congestion, something they could easily have done by urging they be audited.

Instead their 6/19/17 Times article, ”Can’t state ease I-5 traffic? Fixes exist, but most of them are pricey”, typifies their approach.

The most obvious way to reduce traffic on I-5 is to reduce the number of cars on the road.  The most obvious way to do that is to make it more expensive for them to be there.

Rather than increasing public transit capacity, their solution, a 6/26/17 edition headline “Time to pay?  Tolling doesn’t get much love, but it eases gridlock”, urges tolls on all the major roadways.  They fail to recognize that unless commuters have an alternative way of commuting, tolls only increase the cost.  They refuse to acknowledge Sound Transit’s failure to add thousands of parking stalls and hundreds of bus routes is the reason public transit ridership is still less than 10% of total. 

Until Sound Transit and Seattle Times recognize that reality the area's decade of increasing congestion is only going to continue.