The video of the May 26th Sound Transit Board meeting epitomizes more than a decade of elected officials pretending to be directors of a public transit system without having any understanding of what constitutes effective transit or an effective transit CEO. The video provided several examples of incompetence, but the most egregious example was the board’s accolades of CEO Peter Rogoff during his last meeting as Sound Transit CEO.
It was the end of a process that began with a Sept 23rd Board Meeting announcing the decision to replace him. It ended 8 months later with a CEO Selection Committee that still hasn’t found anyone to replacement him. That’s likely because anyone with a modicum of transit system competence would recognize the folly of attempting to implement what will inevitably be regarded as one of the biggest transit boondoggles in history.
A 2004 PSRC study, funded by Sound Transit, concluded 4-car light rail train capacity was limited to 8880 riders per hour in each direction; far less than required to reduce peak hour multi-lane freeway congestion. Yet, Rogoff’s tenure as CEO resulted in a 2016 Sound Transit 3 proposal promising ridership for “voter approved” light rail extensions that simply ignored that limit. That Rogoff and the Board also ignored the ST3 Map proviso requiring between 65-80% of the riders needed “motorized access”
The result’s been Rogoff proposed and the Board approved a 2019 Financial Plan and Proposed Budget Long-Term prediction light rail ridership would increase from 25 million in 2017 to 175 million in 2041; despite the fact the extensions did nothing to increase capacity. The budget ignored the option of using local bus routes for “motorized access” to BRT routes along limited access lanes into Seattle. That the riders added by the 2019 budget’s light rail extensions reduced access for existing Central Link commuters.
The subsequent budgets proposed and approved continued the delusional ridership projections and failure to add “motorized access”. Meanwhile, the ST3 funding the voters approved in 2016, $54B from 2017 to 2041, increased in 2022 to $135B from 2017 to 2046. By the time the board decided to replace him some $10B had already been spent on the extensions and nothing to add “motorized access”. Choosing instead to use existing bus routes for access, reducing transit system capacity into Seattle and nothing to reduce freeway congestion.
The Northgate Link debut in October demonstrated the result of the lack of motorized access. Sound Transit refuses to release a quarterly “Service Provided Report-2021Q4 that would provide riders added by each of the three stations. However, the increase in daily ridership between September 2021 and January 2022 indicates the Northgate Link added 8000 riders.
The 8000 riders validate the 20% fraction of the 41,000 to 49,000 commuters who had motorized access with parking and bus routes to stations. And, the 2016 ST3 Map need for more of that access for Prop 1 and ST3 extensions. Yet, the Sound Transit Board ignored that result, recently approving a Sound Transit System Access Policy update to continue “managing parking demand” by “maximizing efficient use of available transit parking resources”
The bottom line is the Sound Transit Board’s Rogoff accolades show they still don’t recognize the results of his tenure. While Rogoff was good at managing the construction of light rail extensions, he didn't recognize the extensions lacked the capacity and access needed to reduce congestion into Seattle. He and the Board ignored the Northgate Link demonstration of the need for access. They’ve delayed the East Link debut that will demonstrate the folly of diverting half the DSTT’s light rail trains across I-90 Bridge to replace cross-lake bus routes.
Those billions will be dwarfed by what Sound Transit will spend if they don’t recognize the debacle awaiting the area if they continue with plans to implement Rogoff’s “voter approved” extensions the Seattle Times continues to abet.
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