Seattle Times Decade of Failure

The Seattle Times March 2^nd A2-page article, “Traffic Lab Turns 2 and our Team is ready to steer you through the jams” epitomizes a decade of Seattle Times failure to deal with the area’s transportation problems.  The paper describes Traffic Lab as a “Seattle Times 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.” 

The reality is it also marks the end of a decade of Seattle Times failure to inform readers about Sound Transit and WSDOT’s incompetent response to the area’s transportation problems.  For example, ten yeas ago the Times should have told voters about a PSRC, August 2004 Technical Workbook, “High Capacity Transit Corridor Assessment”. 

It was funded by Sound Transit to compare different approaches to increasing area’s transit capacity.  Yet Sound Transit ignored the workbook’s conclusion light rail, routed through the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT), was limited to 8880 riders per hour per direction (rphpd). 

The Times should have told readers about light rails capacity limits and that Sound Transit could have provided the 8880 rphpd with 100 additional high capacity buses an hour.  That it made no sense spending billions extending light rail from the University Station to Northgate and beyond.  That any riders added by the extensions would, at least during peak commute, displace those currently riding Central Link.

The Times also abided Sound Transit ignoring RCW 81.104.100(2)(b) requiring any high-capacity transit planning consider lower cost options.  There’s no indication Sound Transit ever considered adding bus service despite the fact it was far less expensive and available within months rather than years.

The Times failure to inform readers about Sound Transit’s East Link impact was also egregious.  It diverted half the DSTT trains across the I-90 Bridge, halving any transit benefits of light rail south of Seattle.  That 50 additional bus routes an hour could have provided the 4440 rphpd without East Link.  And they could have done so years ago. 

There was no need to confiscate the I-90 Bridge center roadway or end forever Bellevue’s persona as the “city in the park” and the quiet solitude of the Mercer Slough Park.  All for an East Link extension that will forever limit I-90 Bridge center roadway to a fraction of the transit capacity needed to reduce cross-lake congestion.

Sound Transit’s rationale for East Link was it could replace cross-lake bus routes.  Again, it won’t have the capacity needed and whatever buses it does replace will have little effect on I-90 Bridge HOV lane congestion. Most I-90 corridor commuters won’t even be able to access East Link. 

The Seattle Times also ignored a Sept. 2004 FHA Record of Decision regarding I-90 Bridge transit options.  It concluded adding 4^th lanes to the bridge outer roadway would not make up for the loss of the center roadway lanes, inevitably leading to future gridlock on bridge outer roadways.  Thus the bottom line is the billions spent, the years wasted, and all the devastation will result in increased I-90 Bridge congestion and no relief for I-90 corridor commuters.

More recently the Times was presumably aware of a PSRC Stuck in Traffic: 2015 Report showing how HOV lane travel times had increased.  It included a “pie chart” showing in 2013, 9.8% rode transit, 10.3 % used HOV lanes and 73.6% drove alone.  It shouldn’t have taken much “digging into this “thorny transportation issue” to recognize the HOV travel times were due to more people riding in 2-person carpools than in buses. 

They should have recognized a “promising approach to ease gridlock” would have been to provide those in 2-person car pools or driving alone with access to increased bus transit capacity. A Seattle Times 4/03/16 editorial “Questions on Transit Need Clear Answers” did urge Sound Transit consider additional bus service for ST3.  (Their annual bus revenue hours in 2008, 10,290,367, only increased to 11,991,374 in 2017.)  

Sound Transit’s failure to do so presumably led to a Seattle Times Nov 4^th, 2016 edition conceding ST3 would not reduce congestion. The best they could say was the light rail extensions “offers an escape from traffic misery for people who can reach the stations on foot, on a feeder bus, or via park-and-ride”. 

Yet the Times continues to abet Sound Transit’s approach of spending billions on light rail extensions to replace existing buses on HOV lanes rather than adding bus service.  Sound Transit plans to spend $96 billion between 2017 and 2041 implementing what Rogoff proudly calls “the most ambition transit system expansion in the country”.  Rogoff’s “transit system expansion” also continues Sound Transit’s refusal to increase bus ridership for the next 20 years. 

Instead the Times abides Sound Transit 2019 budget claims ST3 will increase light rail daily ridership from 60,000 in 2017 to 500,000 in 2041.  It will take more than a 28-hour “day” to accommodate that number of riders through the DSTT with the PSRC 8880 rphpd capacity.

The bottom line is Traffic Lab, rather than digging into thorny transportation issues and spotlighting promising approaches to easing gridlock has continued the Seattle Times decade of failure to inform readers about Sound Transit incompetence.  Future posts will provide even more examples of failure.