Sound Transit 2019 Budget “Fantasy”

The 2017-2041 plan in Sound Transit’s Proposed 2019 Budget should be a “wake-up” call for those who believe Sound Transit’s ST3 “Prop 1 and beyond” light rail extensions will reduce congestion on the area’s roadways.  It’s just the latest indication Sound Transit CEO Rogoff plans to spend $96 billion over the next 23 years continuing Dow Constantine’s Sound Transit Board decade of refusing to recognize the reality of effective public transit.  That what Rogoff calls their new mission statement,  “We are connecting more people to more places,” is instead sheer fantasy.

For example Sound Transit apparently has its own approach to calculating transit system capacity.  The “conventional” way is to multiply the number of vehicles per hour times the number of riders each vehicle can accommodate.  The previous post detailed how a bus-only lane or an HOT lane with fees set to limit number of vehicles to achieve 45 mph could accommodate a large number of buses. (e.g. 900 buses an hour use a single lane to Manhattan). 

A 70-ft articulated bus can accommodate 119 sitting and standing riders so additional bus service could easily provide capacity far beyond what’s needed to meet future transit demand.  Yet Sound Transit’s 2019 budget plans for 2017 to 2041, like those for the previous decade, ignore the potential capacity increase from buses.   

Instead their 2019 budget “connecting more people” does so claiming light rail average daily ridership will increase from 59,118 in 2017 to 500,000 in 2041.  A 2004 PSRC study concluded Sound Transit’s decision to route Central Link through the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) limited its capacity to 8880 riders per hour (rph) in each direction.  They presumably based that capacity on the more “conventional” approach where the number of vehicles per hour is based on the assumption DSTT station lengths limit light rail trains to 4 cars, that safe operation requires 4 minutes between trains, and that 148 riders can be accommodated in each 74-seat “vehicle”.

Again, Sound Transit apparently has its own way of calculating capacity since it would take 28 hours for the PSRC’s 17,760 total hourly capacity based on "conventional" methods to accommodate their 500,000 daily riders. The reality is Sound Transit light rail ridership will be a fraction of the 2019 budget projections and that any riders added by the extensions simply reduce capacity for current riders. 

Sound Transit also apparently has its own approach for providing access to whatever capacity light rail has.  Transit commuters need to either live within walking distance of light rail stations, be able to be dropped off, or drive to, or carpool with others to parking within walking distance.    

Since all the P&R's with access to transit have been full for years the previous post proposed local bus routes to provide access.  A local bus route connecting commuters from near where they live to a T/C was preferable to spending more than $50,000 for a space to park their cars. 

Sound Transit doesn't add any local bus routes and instead waits until 2024 to begin adding 8560 parking spots over the next 17 years; making their 2041 ridership projections even more absurd. 

Sound Transit follows its failure to provide access and capacity for commuting into Seattle with failure to provide access to light rail out of the city for return commutes.  The previous post detailed how 4^th Ave could be converted into an elongated T/C, each bus route having one or two dedicated drop off and pick up locations for commuter egress from and access to transit. 

Presumably the vast majority of light rail commuters will want to use the two stations in the DSTT.  It's "unlikely" stations that limit the length of light rail trains to 4 cars will ever have the platform space needed to accommodate more than a fraction of Sound Transit’s projected 500,000 daily ridership.

The bottom line is Sound Transit’s 2019 Budget 2017-2041 plans for light rail extensions show CEO Rogoff and the Sound Transit Board still don’t recognize the realities of effective public transit.  They've spent the last decade and billions on light rail rather than increasing transit capacity with more parking and bus routes.  Those billions and years wasted are only a precursor to their spending $96 billion over the next 23 years on a mission “to connect more people to more places” that is sheer fantasy. 

The choice is clear between Sound Transit's 2017-2041 plan and that in the previous post "A transit System That Works".  Unfortunately, the Seattle Times, which played a major role in passing ST3, and is presumably aware of the budget, hasn't raised any concerns.  Thus it's doubtful their Traffic Lab, which for years has, if not actively supported has abetted Sound Transit's light rail plans, will advocate for changes.  They need to be persuaded.