Sound Transit has a milestone this year for “Variable message signs at Sounder south stations begin including next bus schedule information”.

But yes, this idea was cover for the folks that wanted to kill LINK and the ST2 ballot. They lost it’s over.

I’d be right there with you if I thought the governance reform people were actually interested in achieving economies of scale, reducing duplication, and increasing interoperability.

The other issue with creating a super-agency is the possibility it will be seen as being out of touch with the people and cities it serves. This is a perception that lead to the Metro merger with King County. Unfortunately having the County Council as Metro’s board has led to many decisions being made on a political rather than an objective basis (20/40/40 for starters).

Time for a new idea. In fact, The Regional Transportation Commission did not recommend consolidating all the transit agencies. It punted on that despite encouragement from the Discovery Institute. It did end up recommending a new four county directly elected government which would be tasked with exploring the idea.

The idea was so flawed, and so poorly executed by John Stanton and Slade Gorton, that it actually lost more support the more they worked on it. Prior to their active involvement, it actually had some steam. But it is ancient history now, because the bulk of remaining support for the idea evaporated when Sound Transit successfully captured the sales tax last fall.

Stanton and Rice wanted to share that sales tax with state highways. And their whole plan hinged on a one percent increase in the sales tax, which seems like a belly laugh now. Is Susan for that tax increase? When she’s already tagging Sound Transit’s sales tax as “enormous.”

One governing body — fully elected, not appointed.

The power to tax, including congestion tolling.

Coordination of all transport modes — water, air, land (bus and rail) in a single system.

First just the elimination of massive duplicate overheads of staff and management would result in a major savings. Next the smart way to pay for things — fixed assets (improvements to infrastructure paid out of property taxes by those who most benefit from those improvements — the land owners), operations paid by short term financing (sales tax) — and overhead (management) paid by a combination of sources.

Next long term area wide planning — decide on an approach to the region’s transportation needs, file a single environmental impact statement, then answer those needs.

Finally be responsive to the needs of the people of the region. Move them and their goods as efficiently as possible and we’ll all benefit.

Quit playing around — this is a very serious long term survivability issue that needs to be answered by the region as a whole.