Smarter Transit, too Little too Late.

The 8/08/24 Seattle Times Opinion page letter, “Demand greater accountability, transparency before ST3 expands” details another belated attempt to mitigate the Sound Transit debacle.  It’s something this blog has been attempting to do since 2012.  At this point the Smarter Transit approach reflects a failure to recognize “that horse has already left the barn”. 

The “horse”, effective transit, “left the barn” for east side commuters when the WSDOT allowed Sound Transit to confiscate the I-90 Bridge center roadway for light rail.  Likely in exchange for not implementing BRT on SR520 that would reduce WSDOT toll revenue. That confiscation precluded a transit “horse”, two-way bus only BRT routes on center roadway. It could have provided 10 times the capacity of 4-car light rail trains, ten years sooner, at I/10^th the cost.  

Sound Transit exacerbated the lack-of-capacity problem by choosing to use it to replace cross lake bus routes and routing it through DSTT, halving Central Link trains to SeaTac.  It’s something Sound Transit can continue to do without breaking another inch of ground. However, the delay due to the need to redo the rail attachments has delayed demonstrating that debacle..

The ”horse left the barn” for SR520 commuters from both sides of the lake when a 2013 Sound Transit “Master Implementation Agreement (MIA)” with Univesity of Washington included the following: 

Sound Transit shall aggressively pursue funding to extend the Light Rail Transit System beyond University property toward Northgate as expeditiously as possible

 

Thus, Sound Transit agreed to not implement a T/C at University Station that would have provided an interface between SR520 and Central Link.  Commuters from both sides of the lake would have benefited.  It also ended plans for a 2nd Montlake Cut Bridge that would have facilitated access for SR520 commuters to a UW T/C and Central Link.

The MIA result was a $2.8 billion, 4.8-mile tunnel extension to Northgate. It doubled the cost of the ride from UW to Westlake but nothing to increase transit capacity. Rather than add parking for access for additional commuters they used the extension to replace bus routes into Seattle. Reducing access for University Link commuters, transit capacity into the city and nothing to reduce I-5 GP lane congestion.  

Commuters were forced to transfer to and from light rail at Northgate and use DSTT stations rather than more convenient stops on 3^rd Ave for egress and access downtown. Yet, when it debuted, Oct 2^nd, 2021, the Seattle Times abided Sound Transit not releasing data "likely" showing ridership was far less than the 41,000-49,000 they’d predicted

The bottom line is the “horse left the barn” when the Seattle Times abetted Sound Transit extending light rail across the bridge on I-90 and beyond UW and SeaTac on I-5.  They refused to include an outside audit of Sound Transit as one of ten top legislative actions. The “likely” result would have been recognition 4-car light rail trains don’t have the capacity to accommodate the riders needed to reduce peak hour congestion on I-90 and I-5 and cost too much to operate off peak. 

The. Lynnwood Link debut this fall will again “likely” demonstrate the folly of the light rail spine. While Smarter Transit may be able to stop future extensions the “horse that's already left the barn” must be “fed.”  That operating costs for light rail trains on the existing extensions across I-90 Bridge and from Lynnwood to Federal Way will inevitably dwarf any fare box revenues.  

A burden for tax payers for far into the future if they win but a fraction of what the costs will be if they fail..