The Sept 24th Seattle Times headline "Sound Transit Board ousting CEO" was a surprise to many. The board apparently made the decision to replace CEO Rogoff during their monthly Sept 23rd meeting with Sound Transit . It must have been a surprise to Rogoff since the Board meeting agenda had included the following:
9. Business items (Continued) A. Motion No. M2121-47": Authorizing the first of three one-year employment agreement extensions to retain Peter M. Rogoff as Sound Transit's chief executive officer.
Prior to the Sept 23rd meeting (and that meeting's agenda) the Board had given him authority to implement multiple actions and had unanimously approved those he had previously done. Thus, it's not clear why they decided to replace him and include the following in their October 28th meeting agenda: (the meeting itself was "off-air")
F. Resolution No, R2021-18: Establishing a CEO Selection Committee for the period of time necessary to develop a recommendation to the Board on a candidate to serve as the next Sound Transit CEO and appointing Board members to serve on the CEO Selection Committee in addition to their current committee appointments and leadership roles.
Sound Transit's problem is going to be finding someone competent who's willing to replace him. It's not that he shouldn't have been fired, it's that he should have never been hired in the first place. Rogoff's prior position with the FTA would normally have indicated extensive transportation system experience and competence. However, it seems County Executive Constantine hired Rogoff because he agreed with his approach to light rail in a July 2015 post on this blog:
"What we can do is create light rail to take you where you want to go, when you want to go, on time, every time, for work, for play, for school"
Constantine clearly didn't understand the limitations of light rail in Seattle or the basics of transit system operation. That a 2004 PSRC study, funded by Sound Transit, had concluded routing light rail through DSTT limited capacity to 8880 riders per hour in each direction. Prior to the 2016 ST3 vote Rogoff demonstrated similar problems with a Sound Transit 3 Map with ridership claims for "voter approved projects" that far exceeded DSTT capacity.
Those problems however preceded Rogoff's hiring. Ridership claims for the 2008 approval for Prop 1 extensions beyond UW, across I-90 Bridge, and beyond SeaTac had also ignored the DSTT limit. Sound Transit's decision to divert half the DSTT trains across I-90 Bridge to Bellevue was especially egregious. It halved DSTT capacity to SeaTac and precluded two-way BRT on bridge with 10 times light rail capacity, 10 years sooner at 1/10th the cost.
Since Prop 1 passed Sound Transit had refused to increase bus transit capacity that could have reduced travel times into Seattle. An additional 100 bus routes an hour on a restricted access lane could've accommodated more than 10,000 commuters, the equivalent of 5 lanes of freeway traffic traveling at 45 mph, reducing congestion on remaining lanes. They'd also neglected to increase access to transit with added parking near stations, planning instead to provide riders by forcing current transit riders transfer to light rail for the commute into Seattle.
The bottom line is the Seattle Times Traffic Lab heralded CEO Rogoff's "six years of accomplishments". What he's done is exactly what Constantine hired him for, spend those years continuing the fatally flawed Prop 1 extensions. A fraction of the $10B he's spent on the extensions could have been spent increasing transit ridership with added parking with access to BRT routes into Seattle.
His position as CEO has resulted in the 25-year, $54B ST3 package voters approved in 2016 extended to 30 years with $113B in spending and taxes extending for decades beyond. When operational the extensions will replace bus routes, reducing transit capacity into Seattle, limit current rider access during peak commute, and incur operating costs that dwarf farebox revenue during off-peak operation.
Constantine's re-election with Seattle Times support for his policies, will likely result in Sound Transit continue implementing Rogoff's plans for "the largest transit system expansion in the country". Again, it's not clear why Sound Transit fired CEO Rogoff. Their problem now is going to be finding someone who's competent that's willing to replace him.
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