The video of Sound Transit’s System Expansion Committee March 10th meeting exemplifies a transit system that, for a decade, has had a board of directors made up of elected officials with no understanding of what constitutes effective public transit. The video showed a Sound Transit Board approving additional funding for Lynnwood extension typifying their intent to spend whatever was necessary to fund “voter approved” transit system extensions. The costs of which have increased from the $54 billion voters approved for ST3 in 2016 to the $138 billion in the 2022 budget.
In doing so they chose to ignore the “likely” problems demonstrated by the Northgate Link debut in October. (It’s “likely” because Sound Transit refuses to release results.) That Sound Transit ridership claims for the Prop 1 and ST3 funded “voter approved” extensions in 2016 were delusional. A 2004 PSRC study, funded by Sound Transit, concluded that Central Link capacity was limited to one 4-car train every 4 minutes with 148 riders per car. The result, 8880 riders per hour in each direction, was a fraction of what's needed to reduce multilane freeway congestion.
The light rail extension from UW to Northgate did nothing to increase that capacity. Thus, it's "likely" the transit riders added by the extension weren’t sufficient to reduce vehicular traffic and I-5 congestion, they only reduced capacity for University Link commuters. The Northgate Link ridership was also limited by Sound Transit’s decade long failure to add parking with access to Link stations or with bus routes to the stations. Instead using light rail to replace existing bus routes for riders, reducing transit capacity into Seattle.
The Link’s debut “likely” demonstrated the lack of capacity and access limited ridership to a fraction of Sound Transit’s website claims for 41,000 to 49,000 riders. That the Northgate Link was certainly not “Transit Transformed” as heralded by Seattle Times Traffic Labby with claims the three Northgate Link stations would add 42,000 to 49,000 riders.
The limited ridership from lack of capacity and access, especially off peak when lots were full “likely” resulted in farebox revenue being dwarfed by operating costs. Sound Transits 2021 budgets Light Rail Car Revenue Vehicle Mile costs as $30.17. Thus, every mile of extension adds two miles and $241 for a 4-car round trip. The Northgate Link’s 4.2-mile extension from UW Stadium adds $1012 per trip, $126,500 for their schedule of 125-weekday trips, a "likely" extremely high cost per boarder.
It should have been self-evident 4-car light rail trains lacked the capacity to reduce multi-lane freeway congestion. That Sound Transit ridership claims for the Prop 1 and subsequent ST3 funded extensions were delusional. It was that recognition by potential transit CEOs that led to the failure of 2-month long effort by CPS HR Consulting to find a replacement for CEO Rogoff.
Again, it’s “likely” the Northgate Link debut demonstrated that “voter approved” extensions didn’t reduce I-5 congestion. They only reduced access for University Link riders. That using the “voter approved” extensions to replace buses reduced transit capacity into Seattle. That their limited ridership and high operating costs resulted in farebox a small fraction of Sound Transit’s 40% target
The bottom line is it should not have taken the Northgate Link debut to demonstrate the problems with “voter approved” extensions. However, once it was done, the "likely" results should have “informed” Sound Transit’s funding decisions. The March 10th System Expansion Committee video decision to approve additional Lynnwood Link funding shows it didn’t.
That the Northgate Link debut was a precursor to more billions spent on “voter approved” extensions that do nothing to reduce freeway congestion, further reduce access for Central Link riders, replace bus routes reducing transit capacity into Seattle, and add operating costs that dwarf any farebox recovery. And the Seattle Times Traffic Lab continues their decade of abetting them.
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