Traffic Lab Ignores Decade of Sound Transit Fraud.

The Seattle Times touts their Traffic Lab as a “project that digs into the region’s thorny transportation issues, spotlights promising approaches to easing gridlock and helps readers find the best ways to get around.”   However two recent Traffic Lab Sound Transit articles exemplify their inability to “dig into the thorny transportation issues” or “spotlight promising approaches to easing gridlock”. 

The first was the Sept 8^th B1 page article concerning a judge dismissing a lawsuit over Sound Transit’s car tab taxes.  The previous post detailed how, prior to the ST3 vote, a Sound Transit website had lied about what car tabs would cost, dropped the website and later “lied about lying”.  The Times Traffic Lab repeated Sound Transit’s pre-vote car tab cost claims in a July 13 2016 article “Here’s what you’d pay to build a bigger Sound Transit network”.  Yet after the vote they allowed Sound Transit to “lie about lying” claiming they had never ”misled” voters.  The Sept 8^th article continues Traffic Lab’s failure to tell voters about Sound Transit’s car tab “deception”.  

A second Traffic Lab article on the same Sept. 8th B1 page, “Feds slot $100 million for Lynnwood light rail, but formal agreement pending,” exemplifies their failure to recognize Sound Transit’s 10 year failure to increase public transit capacity. It doesn’t take “much digging” to conclude Sound Transit’s decision to route Central Link through the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) severely limited its capacity.  That Prop 1 extensions to Northgate and beyond do nothing to increase that capacity and East Link halves capacity to SeaTac.  Prop 1 passage marked the beginning of 10 years of Sound Transit spending billions on light rail extensions that do nothing to increase transit capacity and spend nothing for add parking or bus service that would. 

The Traffic Lab not only ignored Sound Transits failure to increase public transit, they played a major role in passing ST3, allowing billions more to be wasted on light rail extensions.  Not only, as mentioned above, did they allow Sound Transit to lie about what car tabs would cost, they allowed them to make absurd claims as to the number of commuters who would use it. 

Prior to the ST3 vote the Sound Transit Board promoted an interactive map, “Sound Transit 3” detailing projected ridership from “Prop 1 and beyond” extensions.   The extension from Lynnwood to Everett would add up to 45,000 daily riders, which combined with their previous estimate for 67,000 riders from Lynnwood extension adds up to 110,000 daily light rail riders into and out of Seattle from beyond Northgate.  The ST3 projected ridership for extensions beyond Angel Lake would add up to 95,000 daily riders.

Yet the billions Sound Transit plans to spend on “Prop 1 and beyond” do nothing to increase DSTT capacity into Seattle.  Again, it doesn’t take much “digging” to conclude Central Link’s inability to accommodate more than a fraction of the additional 110,000 riders from Everett or 95,000 riders from Tacoma.   The projected added riders from Tacoma extensions are particularly absurd since East Link halves DSTT capacity on the extension.  The reality is, whatever riders added will simply reduce Central Link’s capacity to accommodate current riders.

Yet the Sept 8^th Traffic Lab article heralds the apparent $200 million federal grant for Lynnwood extension and hopes for additional federal funds for Federal Way extension as a boon for area commuters.  They quoted Sound Transit CEO Rogoff’s view, “The new allocation was a turning point in the Trump administration’s approach to transit funding”.  Rogoff, whose leadership of Sound Transit has been so inept, is probably wrong about additional funding. 

Meanwhile Traffic Lab needs to recognize, no matter how much federal funding is provided, the vast majority of "Prop 1 and Beyond" funds will come from local taxes.  Sound Transit should never be allowed to spend up to $3.2 billion on extensions to Lynnwood and $2.5 billion extending light rail to Federal Way.  Not only does the money spent do nothing to increase capacity, any extension ridership will reduce access for current riders and the longer routes will require a huge subsidy to cover the shortfall between fare-box revenue and increased operating costs.  

It's time the Seattle Times Traffic Lab recognized Sound Transit’s decade long fraudulent approach to public transit capacity is enough.