The previous post detailed why Sound Transit was unable to find an "outside" replacement for CEO Rogoff. That no one no wanted to oversee spending billions on light rail extensions that attempted to use 4-car light rail trains to reduce congestion on multi-lane freeways.
This post details the Northgate Link debut results need to be released since they “likely” .demonstrated that failure. Prior to the October 2nd debut, the Seattle Times Traffic Lab heralded the Link as "Transit Transformed", claiming its three stations will "attract a combined 42,000 to 49,000 riders a day". Sound Transit’s Northgate Link website had claimed 41,000 to 49,000 daily riders by 2022. Yet neither the paper nor Sound Transit has released any information as to how many commuters actually used the three stations or what the Link’s operating cost was per boarding.
Sound Transit used to release that information in their Quarterly Service Delivery Performance Reports, yet those ended with Q1 2021. They also used to release Quarterly Financial Performance Reports detailing Budgeted and Actual, Revenues, Boardings, Operating Costs, and System Expansion Costs for each transit mode. The Q4 2020 report was the last quarterly report in Sound Transit Board’s list of documents. Agendas for five months of Sound Transit Board meetings have failed to include any mention of Northgate Link service performance results.
A March 7, 2021 post, “Northgate Link Debut Needed to Expose Prop 1 Debacle” detailed why the debut results were important. That the Link debut was the first demonstration of the ability Sound Transit’s Prop 1 extensions to reduce peak hour freeway congestion. A 2004 PSRC study, funded by Sound Transit, concluded the DSTT stations limited light rail trains to 8880 rider per hour capacity in each direction a fraction of what’s needed to reduce I-5 congestion during peak commute. The Link’s results “likely” validated the PSRC concerns and the futility of spending billions more on future Prop 1 extensions.
The Link debut also "likely" demonstrated the result of Sound Transit’s decade-long failure to add parking at light rail stations for access to even light rail’s limited capacity. Instead, Sound Transit decided to use bus routes to stations to provide riders for Link. However, parking with access to those bus routes was also limited. The result being when parking was available Sound Transit was using light rail to replace bus routes into Seattle. The Link debut “likely” demonstrated replacing bus routes not only reduced transit capacity into Seattle, it also demonstrated reducing bus routes did little to reduce I-5 congestion.
The Link’s debut also demonstrated once parking was full trains were essentially empty with little farebox revenue. Yet Sound Transit continues to schedule 125 round trips of 4-car trains during weekdays. Sound Transit's March "2021 Financial Plan and Adopted Budget" reported Link light rail operating costs as $30.17 per Revenue Vehicle Mile. The 8.4 mile round trip from UW to Nothgate and back adds $253.43 per car or $1013.72 per trip. Sound Transit's schedule for 125 round trips adds $126,715 per weekday, "likely"dwarfing any farebox recovery.
The bottom line is the Northgate Link debut was a precursor for all of Prop 1 extensions. That 4-car light rail trains lack the capacity needed to justify spending billions attempting to reduce I-5 and I-90 congestion. That reducing congestion along those corridors requires adding parking or local routes to stations with BRT routes into Seattle. It’s too late to do anything about the extensions to Northgate or to Bellevue. Sound Transit should not be allowed to delay releasing the Northgate Link results attempting to add another year and billions more to the debacle.
That’s why the Link’s debut results are important.
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