Will Seattle Times Continue Enabling ST Incompetence?

 

Again, my campaign is over, but this blog continues detailing a decade of Seattle Times allowing Sound Transit to perpetrate one of the biggest public works boondoggles in history.  They did so by refusing to urge legislature require a performance audit of Sound Transit’s Prop 1 extensions. 

Any competent performance audit would have confirmed a 2004 PSRC study, funded by Sound Transit, that light rail trains were limited to 4 cars and that safe operation required a minimum of 4 minutes between trains.  That Sound Transit had concluded the 74-seat light rail cars could accommodate 148 riders, limiting capacity to 8880 riders per hour in each direction. 

Light rail extensions do nothing to increase that capacity. Thus, light rail extensions and 4-car light rail trains won’t have the capacity needed to reduce peak hour congestion on multilane freeways.  Yet the Times has enabled Sound Transit to ignore the PSRC light rail capacity limits. 

Since 2018 they’ve published yearly Financial Plan & Adopted Budget Long Range Plans with “Ridership by Mode 2017-2041” charts.  They show Sound Transit claims the extensions will increase ridership from 48 million in 2022 to 162 million in 2041.  The budgets also reported the $54B the voters approved in 2016 for from 2017 to 2041 has increased in 2022 to $142B from 2017 to 2046 to fund the extensions.

A competent transit performance audit would also have reported Sound Transit needed to increase access to light rail with parking near stations or near bus routes to stations.  A Seattle Times November 2016 article reported the 51 existing park and ride facilities next to express bus or train stations in Snohomish, King, and Pierce County were already 95% full of 19,948cars.

Yet the Times has enabled Sound Transit to “manage access” by “maximizing efficient use of available transit parking resources”.  Planning to spend nearly $300 million on an 85^th St NE transit station along I-405 and a 130th St Infill Station on I-5.  The “infill’ station’s costs have increased this year from $34 million to $270 million and neither has parking for access. 

Rather than add access Sound Transit is attempting to force those currently using parking for bus routes to transfer to the Northgate Link for the commute into and out of Seattle. It doesn’t take an audit to recognize replacing bus routes with trains does nothing to increase public transit ridership or decrease congestion into the city.

Again, a competent performance audit would also have exposed the folly of extending light rail beyond UW station. That light rail extended beyond UW to Northgate won’t have the capacity needed to reduce I-5 congestion into Seattle. The original Central Link plan was to terminate light rail at the UW stadium, using the T/C as an interface between 520 BRT and light rail into the city.  The original plan had included a second Montlake Cut Bridge to facilitate access for thousands of commuters from both sides of the lake.

The lack of the audit allowed Sound Transit to use the Northgate website to predict the Link would add 41,000 to 49,000 riders by 2022.  The Seattle Times concurred heralding the debut as “Transit Transformed” with the 3 Northgate Stations adding 42,000 to 49,000 riders.  Last year’s October 2^nd Northgate Link debut was the first actual demonstration of the benefits from Sound Transit Prop 1 extensions.  

Yet, since the debut, Sound Transit has refused to release a quarterly “Service Delivery Performance Report”.  It would have detailed how many commuters were added by the Links three stations, what it cost to add the riders, and how many chose to ride bus routes into Seattle rather than transfer to light rail.  The Seattle Times Traffic Lab project that “digs into” transportation issues continues to abide Sound Transit “opacity”. 

The problems with Northgate Link “opacity” will be dwarfed by those with the East Link debut.  Again, a competent audit would have concluded 4-car light rail trains didn’t have the capacity to justify confiscating the I-90 Bridge center roadway.  That it also precluded two-way BRT with 10 times the capacity, 10 years sooner, at 1/10^th the cost.  

As with the Northgate Link, Sound Transit decision to use East Link to replace I-90 Bridge buses does nothing to increase the transit ridership needed to reduce congestion.  Those living within walking distance or parking near East Link stations will be a fraction of what's needed for Sound Transit's claim for 50,000 daily riders.

Sound Transit’s August 5^th release of their June Agency Progress Report included the following regarding East Link debut:

 ST is currently working to determine a new target Revenue Date

Whenever it happens the question remains whether the Seattle Times Traffic Lab will “dig into” the results or continue enabling Sound Transit incompetence.