New ST CEO Could Expedite Light Rail “Spine” Demise.

The June 4^th Seattle Times Traffic Lab article, “Sound Transit names its nominee for CEO”, could be good news for the area.  The CEO Selection Committee has gone from replacing a CEO able to construct light rail extensions but had no idea of what constituted effective public transit with a CEO who has little experience in extending a light rail system but hopefully understands what constitutes effective public transit. 

 

The result may be Sound Transit inadvertently selected a CEO with the modicum of transit competence needed to recognize the futility of attempting to use a “light rail spine” to reduce congestion into Seattle. That effective public transit on multi-lane freeways requires a transit system with the ability to adjust capacity from what’s required to attract the riders needed to reduce peak hour congestion to what’s needed to meet off-peak demand.  That 4-car light rail trains don’t have the needed peak hour capacity and cost too much to operate during off-peak commute.  

 

Thus, her lack of experience in constructing light rail is of little import if she recognizes the futility of extending light rail lines beyond Northgate and Angle Lake.  That her experience in directing a bus transit system could provide the background for implementing a bus transit system with schedules to meet both peak and off-peak multi-lane freeway capacity demands.  Something CEO Rogoff has refused to do, extending a decade of the Sound Transit Board failure to add bus routes through 2041.  

 

The results been Sound Transit projected bus ridership remains relatively flat over the entire period with current 20,000 daily ST Express Bus Boardings eventually replaced with Stride Rapid Transit Boardings along I-405.  Her success in implementing the Richmond, Virginia’s bus routes 30,000 daily passengers, 50% more than Sound Transit’s, bode promise for avoiding that future.  

 

The ST3 Map ridership projections CEO Rogoff used to promote 2016 vote for the light rail spine extensions reflected his failure to understand extending light rail did nothing to increase capacity, it only increased operating costs. He ignored the ST3 Map "details" that 65-80% of the riders would need “motorized access” with parking near light rail stations or with access to bus routes to stations.  Instead, choosing to manage parking demand on the routes by “maximizing efficient use of available transit parking resources”.

 

That lack of access resulted in Northgate Link ridership “likely” a fraction of what Seattle Times Traffic Lab had heralded as “Transit Transformed” with 42,000 to 49,000 riders added by the links’ three stations. (It’s “likely” because Sound Transit has yet to release what used to be a  Service Delivery Performance Report for 2021-Q4 with the ridership added by each of the stations.)  

 

The lack of "motorized" access to all the "voter approved" light rail spine extensions portends similar results. A CEO with bus transit experience could recognize bus routes through areas where residents live could provide the access needed at a fraction of the cost of additional parking.  

 

The bottom line is the new CEO may or may not recognize the futility of attempting to use 4-car trains to reduce peak congestion on multi-lane freeways.  That reducing congestion on I-5 and I-90 into Seattle requires providing commuters with local bus routes to transit stations with access to BRT routes into Seattle.  A new Sound Transit CEO could expedite that recognition and the demise of the light rail spine.