The Sound Transit Board's recent efforts to use "Realignment" to make their transportation system "affordable" has been matched by their decision to limit "transparency". For years Sound Transit has provided access to videos of Board meetings. That ended with their 2021 February Meeting video.
Sound Transit has been particularly "opaque" regarding financing. The Board was clearly alarmed with Sound Transit's April 22, "Financial Plan Update, April 2021" presentation. It showed costs had increased to where "Tax Based Debt" needed to fund transit system expansion exceeded the money they could borrow, "Agency Debt Capacity," by $7.9B.
The concern over increased costs resulted in Sound Transit Board Chair Kent Keel's April 30th letter to Sound Transit Board and to CEO Rogoff. It detailed the need to delay projects, "Realignment". until the could borrow the funds needed. Board members Constantine, Durkan, and Balducci urged delaying the realignment for a year.
Keel's April 30th three-page letter to Sound Transit Board and CEO Rogoff detailing the reasons for proceeding with the realignment was dropped from their website. The "Financial Plan Update, April 2021" that triggered the concern is not included on Sound Transit's list of Financial Documents. And the April 22 presentation to the Board detailing how Sound Transit planned to implement the realignment was also dropped.
An August 5th (updated August 12th) "Realignment Capital Program" detailed the "Original ST3 Schedule","Affordability Schedule", and "Initial Target Schedule" for completing all of the projects. Yet Sound Transit neglected to provide any information as to what the realigned schedule would cost.
Sound Transit's opacity continues with their refusal to provide any "Quarterly Financial Performance Reports" for 2021 in their list of "Financial Documents". They waited until August 11th to publish a "2020 Sound Transit Annual Report." It included data showing fare revenue had dropped from $97.1million in 2019 to $30.8 million in 2020. The Q4 2020 Service Delivery Performance Report reported the average Link fare collected, $1.43, was a tiny fraction of the $26.12 cost per rider.
The other issue lacking transparency is a result of the Board's July 8th following response to Northgate Link trains exceeding agreed-upon UW vibration and EMF thresholds under campus.
Authorizing the chief executive officer to (1) execute an amendment to the Light Rail Transit System Operations and Maintenance Agreement for Vibration and Magnetic Fields on University of Washington Transportation Easement During revenue Service with the University of Washington and (2) execute any necessary amendments to other agreements with the University of Washington to be consistent with the new terms of the Operations and Maintenance Agreement for the Northgate Link Extension.
Sound Transit paid $20M to tunnel under the campus. It's two months later, three weeks from Link debut, but no "transparency" as to CEO Rogoff's "amendments"to run trains through it.
The bottom line is Sound Transit's need for "realignment" has been matched by failure to provide transparency with access to current Sound Transit Board videos, Financial documents, and Service Planning and Ridership Documents. Doing so only delays exposing their problem and adds to the eventual cost, abided by the Seattle Times Traffic Lab lack of concern.
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