ST Board System Expansion Committee Incompetence Continues

The Seattle Times August 19^th, Traffic Lab article “More delays for light rail to Bellevue, Redmond, Federal Way, Lynnwood” reports on this year’s problem, the results of the Sound Transit Board System Expansion Committee’s August 18^th meeting.  Last year’s problem wasn’t these extensions, but the inability to borrow the funds needed for further extensions. That problem led to Sound Transit delaying those extensions as part of a “Realignment”. 

The August meeting reported light rail service to Bellevue was delayed because of flawed concrete track supports and “unstable soil conditions” on delayed Federal Way route.  There were only minor delays due to four-month strike by concrete-truck drivers for the Lynnwood and downtown Redmond extensions.  

Yet the same System Expansion Committee in a June 9^th meeting adopted the following resolution:

Resolution No. R2022-17: Adopting the NE 130th Street Infill Station project baseline schedule and budget by (a) increasing the authorized project allocation by $203,738,000 from $36,417,000 to $240,155,000, (b) increasing the annual project budget by $9,833,027 from $6,584,030 to $16,417,057, and (c) establishing an open for service date of Q2 2026. 

One of the resolution’s “Key Features” was the following:

This action advances timely construction of station superstructure and platform work to be completed prior to activation of the Lynnwood Link Extension overhead catenary system. Completing this work earlier reduces construction risks, single tracking, and shutdowns of revenue operations for Lynnwood Link that may otherwise be necessary when working adjacent to a live system. 

Clearly the June 9^th System Expansion Committee anticipated the Lynnwood Link revenue service would be delayed beyond Q2 2026.  Previous posts have raised obvious questions for the committee concerning the resolution. Why construct a light rail station a mile away from the nearest parking at Northgate?  Why had the station’s cost increased by $204 million and how do they expect a $10 million annual budget increase to fund the additional funding?  Even more important what precipitated the anticipated revenue service delay.  Yet, the committee asked no questions, and the resolution was unanimously approved.

Again, the same committee members, on August 18^th, sat through a presentation showing the Lynnwood extension was a “Minor project risk” due to 4-month concrete truck drivers’ strike.  The committee didn’t ask questions and the 2-year “anticipated” delay disappeared.  Apparently the $240 million station implementation is continuing apace without any parking for access.

It typifies a decade of a Sound Transit Board willing to “rubber stamp” anything they are presented.  It’s the result of board members chosen to represent different districts rather than knowing what constitutes effective public transit.  They’ve never understood 4-car light rail trains don’t have the capacity to reduce multilane freeway congestion.  That commuters need access to light rail by living near stations, parking near stations, or parking near bus routes to stations.  Instead, they’ve ignored the Northgate results that first demonstrated the problems.

A competent transit board would’ve recognized the problem with East Link is not the delay, it’s that they should never have confiscated I-90 Bridge center roadway for light rail.  Doing so precluded 2-way BRT on bridge with 10 times light rail capacity, 10 years sooner, at 1/10^th the cost.  That the eastside didn’t have the number of commuters living near light rail stations or parking near stations to justify the cost of construction and operation of the 14-mile East Link extension. 

Sound Transit compounded the problem by choosing to extend the route through DSTT to UW, halving the number of trains to SeaTac.  That routing the East Link 4-car light rail trains to Northgate and beyond will increase operating costs, but without added access, the added capacity won’t increase ridership.   

The bottom line is a competent transit board would use the delay to terminate East Link at the International District/Chinatown station.  Commuters could transfer to Central Link if needed but eliminating un-needed train routes to Northgate.  It would allow East Link to operate with number of cars per train and frequency to meet demand for commuters from Seattle and those with access along route through Bellevue.  

Doing so would minimize operating costs and maintain current routes to SeaTac and beyond. I-90 corridor buses could bypass Mercer Island, avoiding forcing commuters to transfer to light rail for the commute into and out of Seattle.

Instead, Sound Transit has a System Expansion Committee that approves without question increasing funding from $34 million to $240 million for a light rail station with no access for parking. In June okays a two-year delay for Lynnwood extension that disappears in August, again without any questions.  

Sound Transit continues to refuse to release a quarterly Service Provided Performance Report showing ridership added by light rail stations and bus routes.  It would have indicated the futility of routing East Link to UW and beyond.  That incompetence is likely to continue.