The January 8th Seattle Times Traffic Lab article "Costs soar to extend light rail to West Seattle and Ballard" exemplifies a decade of Times abetting Sound Transit incompetence. Neither has apparently recognized one of the basics of public transit; light rail train capacity is limited by the number of train cars per hour.
A 2004 PSRC Technical Workbook, "High Capacity Transit Corridor Assessment", funded by Sound Transit, concluded DSTT stations limited trains to 4 cars and safe operation required 4 minutes between trains. Thus Sound Transit ridership projections for the light rail spine are delusional.
Ten years ago a competent Sound Transit would have opted for routing light rail from Ballard and West Seattle into Seattle rather than extending light rail routed through DSTT to Northgate and Bellevue. Rather than tunneling to Northgate, Sound Transit would have tunneled to Ballard. Rather than confiscating the I-90 Bridge center roadway for light rail Sound Transit would have tunneled to West Seattle.
The Ballard and West Seattle links would have increased transit capacity into Seattle by 100,000 daily. Both extensions would likely already be adding thousands of transit commuters into Seattle. Instead Sound Transit recently approved a 2021 budget response to COVID-19 with a "realignment" delaying the two links for 4 years and Traffic Lab lamenting their "cost is much higher than initially predicted".
Yet this same Traffic Lab ignored the Sound Transit Board's recent approval of a CEO Rogoff 2021 budget that spends $21 billion on "Transit Improvement Plan" over the next six years. That the October 10th "Financial Plan update & Proposed 2021 Budget" they approved "neglected" to even include the $21 billion spending; instead a chart showing no increase in "Outstanding Debt" until 2029.
Today a competent Sound Transit would've recognized that, even with the higher Ballard and West Seattle costs, the two should be expedited. That part of the funding could come by diverting funding in 2021 budget from extensions beyond Northgate and Angel Lake to the two links. The rest would come from a revised Transit Improvement Plan reflecting their priority The concern, "half of the increase is due to higher prices for land could be mitigated by tunneling. (Again as the did to Northgate).
The bottom line is the Seattle Times has spent a decade abetting Sound Transit incompetence. They've refused to recognize spending billions on light rail extensions routed through DSTT will do nothing to increase transit capacity into Seattle. That Ballard and West Seattle residents deserve light rail that will
Rather than lamenting the costs Traffic Lab should advocate Sound Transit expedite both Ballard and West Seattle light rail links. Their likely failure to do so or to inform residents of that option is one of the reasons I intend to file as King County Executive candidate this year
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