Seattle Times Abets ST CEO Rogoff's Delusions?

Previous posts have detailed Seattle Times decade of failing to inform readers about the inability of Sound Transit Board and WSDOT to reduce area’s congestion.  Thus the Seattle Times March 24^th editorial, “Sound Transit performance audit is welcome” suggested they finally recognized the problem.   It included the following excerpts:

State Auditor Pat McCarthy is conducting a performance audit of Sound Transit.

Performance audits are done to ensure that tax dollars are spent as cost-effectively as possible.

They are especially needed for an agency that missed cost estimates by nearly $1 billion over the last two years.

The public eagerly awaits what should be the most thorough and expansive performance audit of Sound Transit to date.

The fact the Times was finally heralding an audit could have been “welcome news”.   Prior to the ST3 vote in 2016 they’d conceded in a Nov 4^th article ST3 would not reduce congestion.  Even that recognition wasn’t sufficient for the Times to include auditing Sound Transit as one of the top ten 2017 legislative priorities. Again, the March 24^th Times editorial “welcoming an audit” could have been good news for the entire area.

However the Times proposed the audit be used to answer the following:

Is Sound Transit effectively planning, designing and managing Link Light Rail to minimize all costs associated with the project, minimize unnecessary change orders and delays that increase costs, and ensure the project most closely resembles the project approved by voters?

Unfortunately those questions “suggest” they still don’t recognize the fundamental problem with Sound Transit’s Prop 1 extensions.  It’s not that they cost too much, it’s that they should have never been approved in 2008. 

Sound Transit Prop 1 clearly violated RCW 81.104.00 (2) (b) by ignoring the requirement to consider the lower cost HCT option of added bus service.  That capacity limits on Prop 1 light rail extensions will inevitably result in their being regarded as one of the biggest boondoggles in history. 

The “boondoggle” began when the Sound Transit Board simply ignored conclusions of a PSRC study they had funded in 2004.  The PSRC compared the ability of seven different HCT modes to meet the area’s public transit needs.   Four Sound Transit staff members participated in the study.  The results were published in an August 2004, PSRC 168-page Technical Workbook, “High Capacity Transit Corridor Assessment”.

It concluded the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) limited light rail capacity to 8880 riders per hour per direction (rphpd).   That capacity allowed Central Link routed through the DSTT to increase transit ridership into downtown Seattle from UW and from SeaTac. The UW station could have provided an interface between 520 BRT and light rail benefitting commuters from both sides of the lake.  

Central Link could have been extended to benefit West Seattle commuters.  Instead Sound Transit wasted billions and years extending Central Link beyond UW and SeaTac.  Sound Transit intends to boost light rail ridership by using the extensions to replace current bus routes.  They will do nothing to increase I-5 transit capacity into Seattle and any riders added will reduce access for existing Central Link riders.

The billions spent on East Link are even more egregious as it halves transit capacity from SeaTac further reducing efficacy of extensions to Angel Lake and beyond.  Again Sound Transit boosts East Link ridership by using it to replace I-90 bus routes.  Its confiscation of the I-90 Bridge center roadway will inevitably lead to gridlock on bridge outer roadways.

A competent auditor would also “likely” conclude Sound Transit’s decade-long refusal to increase bus ridership has played a major role in the area’s increasing congestion.  Since Prop 1 passed, annual ST express bus revenue miles haven’t increased and they have failed to add any parking with access to I-5 or I-90 bus routes despite the fact existing P&R lots have been full for years. 

However, the past decade of Sound Transit incompetence pales in comparison to what Sound Transit CEO Rogoff is proposing for the next twenty-two years. His 2019 Budget details Sound Transits plans to spend $96 billion over those years implementing additional ST3 light rail extensions and nothing to increase bus ridership.

Any competent auditor would “likely” conclude Rogoff’s 2019 budget claims for light rail ridership in 2041 were delusional and his failure to increase bus transit ridership totally incompetent.  Clearly any audit needs to go way beyond “missed cost estimates”. 

The Times assumes McCarthy, a former chair of Sound Transit, harbors no loyalty and her insight into the agency’s organization and culture could make the audit even stronger.  Yet it’s “highly unlikely” she will recognize that Sound Transit’s real problem is exemplified by a CEO she presumably helped hire.

The Seattle Times heralding a McCarthy audit “suggests” they continue to abet Rogoff proceeding with his "delusions" and incompetence.