The October 26th Sound Transit Board meeting again exemplified a Sound Transit Board of Directors who don’t recognize “voter approved” extensions won’t reduce area’s congestion. In this case it’s their response to a Sound Transit Staff draft of the 2024 Rail Service Plan and a request the Board approve 2024 major rail service changes.
The service plan began with a chart “Riders continue to return to transit” claiming new light rail openings will drive ridership growth in 2024”. That ridership had increased to 80% of 2019 levels. An earlier quarterly service provided performance report for showed 80,780 daily 2019 Q4 Link riders. So current ridership was approximately 64,000.
Yet the current ridership included the Northgate Link debut in 2021. Sound Transit had projected it would add 41,000 to 49,000 riders. Thus, the 64,000 current ridership was far short of Sound Transit projections. Yet the Board didn’t comment, apparently not recognizing either the Northgate Link was far short of projections or the Line 1 Link to UW station was far short of recovery.
The ridership chart also showed the 2024 East Link Starter Line and Lynnwood Link debuts would increase ridership to100% of 2019 levels or add approximately 16,000 daily riders. Yet Sound Transit, who initially claimed the Lynnwood Link would add 37,000 to 57,000 riders, recently lowered projected ridership to 25,300-34,200.
They’d also projected the Starter Line would add 7000 daily riders. Thus, Sound Transit projection for 16,000 riders added by Starter Line and Lynnwood trains in 2024 are far less than earlier projections. Again, the Board didn’t comment, apparently not recognizing the shortfall.
The 2024 service plan began with the East Link Starter Line. The Board had previously approved spending $46M to fund the debut. It includes 8 stations with 2 car trains every 10 minutes for 16 hours between Redmond Technology and South Bellevue. Yet, except for parking at Redmond Technology and 130th station access will be limited to those within walking distance of stations. Riders will also be dissuaded by the need to transfer to and from buses at South Bellevue. Yet the Board didn’t question the ridership projections.
The “1 line extension to Lynnwood” will add 4 new stations, with a combination of 3 or 4-car trains, 8-10-minute peak headways and 15 minutes during early morning and late evening. The concern was “Likely crowding between Northgate and West Lake”. The reason being Sound Transit and Snohomish Community Transit would use Lynnwood Link to replace 400 and 500 routes into Seattle.
The Board apparently didn’t’ recognize forcing bus riders to transfer to and from trains and the hassle of accessing light rail in DSTT for the return might dissuade commuters from using transit. Instead, they were told Sound Transit would address the crowding by spending $2.5M to add two Sounder trains that added 300 to 350 rider capacity and consider implementing ST Express routes to downtown Seattle.
The Board should recognize that the ST Express route from Northgate to Lynnwood and back costs one tenth that of a 4-car light rail train. The more the bus routes the greater the savings. Yet their use will likely be limited to peak hour operation to make up for light rail train's lack of capacity.
The bottom line is the Board's approval of 2024 Rail Service Plan is another indication they don’t recognize their goal should be to reduce congestion into Seattle by attracting more riders to public transit. The lack of access and need to transfer will severely limit Starter Line ridership. That using “voter approved” extensions to replace bus routes doesn’t increase transit ridership, they only restrict access for current riders and exacerbate the farebox revenue recovery shortfall.
The Board's approval is just another example they still don’t “get it”.
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