Sound Transit CEO Julie Timm has announced her resignation, effective January 12th:

Sound Transit CEO Julie Timm announced today she will be leaving the agency in order to return to the East Coast to take care of family matters. Since joining Sound Transit in September 2022, Timm has overseen a renewed emphasis on the rider experience as Sound Transit approaches the opening of several new extensions, starting with East Link next spring. Her focus and leadership in centering current and future riders in the agency’s capital and operating programs will benefit the region for years to come.

Timm’s time as ST’s CEO was not long but saw its ups and downs. The Tacoma Link extension to Hilltop opened on her watch and her tenure was also characterized by working around East Link construction mishaps, Link service disruptions, and evolving fare policy. We wish her the best as she moves on and for Sound Transit to quickly find a qualified replacement.

84 Replies to “Julie Timm leaving Sound Transit”

    1. Poor hire? I’m not sure if anybody even applied who was better qualified. Sound Transit CEO is the maybe the second worst job in the State, right after Seattle Police Chief. The problem Sound Transit has now is that anybody who is “qualified” enough to run the agency is also smart enough to know they don’t want the job.

      It’s hard to tell exactly what went down between Ms. Timm and the ST board, but because she’s only giving a months notice, it’s quite possible the board fired her or at least she’s not leaving under good terms. I would have guessed at least a 90 day notice/transition period for a smooth transfer of power if her relationship with the board wasn’t complete crap.

      I have no idea what the next step for the ST board is… or even should be. Of course they need a new CEO, but also a plan to keep the next one around longer than 14 months.

      1. I thought being the head of the regional homelessness authority was the worst job in the State of Wash

    2. Tlsgwm, I greatly respect and look forward to reading your posts. I’m wondering why you think that she was a poor candidate for the position. I grant that the size of the agency and budget was a large step up from her previous responsibilities, but she seems to have a strong commitment to transparency and ethical governance, things the agency badly needed after Rogoff.

      Care to say more?

    3. I think it is basically an impossible hire. The folks who could do a good job aren’t interested. The pay isn’t good enough, nor is the prestige. If you take a job in New York and make big improvements, people think you are amazing. A bureaucratic god. Do the same here, and people think you are a decent caretaker. Folks don’t realize what terrible shape we are in. The job is much tougher than most of the board realizes.

      With that in mind, I think she did an OK job; about as well as you can expect. It is highly unlikely that someone will come in here and fix what ails ST.

      1. I can’t think of anything specifically wrong with what Julie Timm did. She didn’t solve all ST’s problems, but that’s too much for one CEO to do in their first year. Timm did help passenger experience in her own way, releasing more real-time information about operational snags than ST previously did, observing the Pioneer Square switcheroo in person to see how well it was going, and maybe she improved escalator reliability (?). Ideally we’d have a brilliant visionary who could make more structural network best-practices happen, but Timm was at least average if not above average for what ST has had.

  3. I hope that in the days to come, Timm will present to the public the level of backroom dealing that seems to be going on between developers and certain Board members.

    The station location changes that were apparently already in the works before Timm’s first day are highly suspect as to their public benefit. The Board made changes in the preferred alternative station locations without even looking at impacts to ridership. All the public saw was a diagram that looks like the game of Chutes and Ladders with multiple escalators that could break down. The scheme would force tens of millions of riders over the next century to slog through this underground 3D maze taking an extra 5-10 minutes each and every time to transfer.

    As I sit here listening to Republicans present fake outrage over anytime a Biden family member gets a check of a few million without connecting it to any action of the Biden administration, I can’t help but wonder who has been getting checks to get the Board to act in favor of such a rider unfriendly scheme that was never approved for study in the EIS in 2020.

    Private property owners and developers will gain tens of millions of dollars based on how ST spends public money building DSTT2. When an action by the Board to suddenly move any station to the huge detriment of riders I’m suspect of the motives.

    1. Ah, Ms. Timm isn’t going to say a damn thing negative about Sound Transit. That’s not the way professionals do things.

      The official word is she stepped down because of family obligations. The end. If Ms. Timm was to write a tell all op-ed in the Seattle times, she’s never work in the transit industry again. For all we know, the board canned her…. once again professionalism prevents that from ever being public. She’s gone in 30 days and that’s pretty much the end of it.

      One thing I’m completely sure about…. Sound Transit controlled Julie Timm more than Julie Timm controlled Sound Transit.

    2. She doesn’t have long-term ties to this area and is going back to the east coast, so why would she spend the time to write out an exposé and remain involved in Pugetopolis politics? She doesn’t seem like somebody who would do it out of spite or revenge.

      “I can’t help but wonder who has been getting checks to get the Board to act in favor of such a rider unfriendly scheme that was never approved for study in the EIS in 2020.”

      One baseless accusation deserves another?

      The most substantial station move ST has made is CID/N, and it’s obvious who the beneficiary is and who wanted it: the King County government. CID/S is a side issue and I’m not very convinced it will be built. The Denny Station move of one block at Vulcan/Amazon’s behest seems within the normal variation of station siting, and it doesn’t seem to affect the walkshed much, so who cares?

  4. ” Sam
    JUNE 4, 2022 AT 8:38 AM
    My only question is why she didn’t stay longer at her previous jobs. Four years at one agency. After that, three years at another agency. After that, three years at yet another agency. If the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior …”

    Prophetic.

      2. It was a joke. Sam has often made funny, tongue-in-cheek comments about his expertise (I believe he reads the New York Times in seven languages).

    2. 3-4 years is a long time for a construction project. Project managers work for 3-4 years, finish something, move on. Sound Transit works on such a huge scale and with some little clear vision for the future 10 years out…. it’s got to be a terrible place to work.

    3. I think it is fairly common these days to spend 3-4 years at one place, and then move on. If you look at the Seattle School Superintendent (a similar position) the last person to serve more than 4 years was Kendrick, who left in 1995.

  5. Exiting after only 1 year of a 3-year contract… either she recognized the excruciating futility of ST or has a personal calling she can’t ignore.

  6. I hope they find someone a little more focused on running the system well not just building it. Both are important but st has seemed to have tons of operational issues from escalators to power outages suspending service..

      1. Perhaps so but link operations continue to be pretty sucky. I suspect it has more to do with the bloated bureaucracy of st than the ceo but still.

      2. And yet…when it became necessary to do repairs on station platform tiles the agency decided that running the “spine” once every 15-20 minutes at peak periods for weeks on end was preferable to finding people to do the work overnight and operating the trains at a semi-normal schedule during the day. Looks like they’re planning to do much the same again in January. How many weeks per year should we expect this system to be borderline unusable due to single-tracking?

    1. Seems aggressive – they must be skipping several rounds of outreach and alternatives study in order to achieve that timeline…

    2. “It’ll take us between six months and one year to get the job description written for the ad with some language other than just ‘scapegoat,’”

      That’s funny.

  8. > We wish her the best as she moves on and for Sound Transit to quickly find a qualified replacement.

    Looking at TAG suggestions for sound transit (hopefully probably) what the board will look into for the CEO.

    * Rebuild trust and clarify roles among staff and boardmembers;
    1. Hire an executive team experienced in managing mega capital infrastructure programs;
    2. Push down decision-making to the lowest levels possible and promote decision-making;
    3. Improve procedures modeled on industry standards by eliminating unnecessary steps and delays;
    4. Reform the agency betterment policy and strongly enforce it; and
    5. Enhance the relationship with the Federal Transit Administration to improve project delivery.
    6. Enhance the relationship with the Federal Transit Administration to improve project delivery.

    The first 2 points are most relevant here.

    > Crunican offered some tough advice to the board to fix the division of roles so that “the board stays in the board’s lane, and the staff stay in the staff’s lane, and for the board it’s primarily the role of policy and budget.” In TAG’s view, the board has been micromanaging agency projects far too much, contributing to a very slow pace of decision-making processes as a consequence. Delayed decisions then cost the agency significant money. “When the organization is functioning as it should, staff would brief the board periodically on project activities, without seeking board direction or approval on what should be staff-level decisions,” the report said.

    Secondly the report mentions what I’d talked about as well that. Where Sound Transit staff oddly does not ‘voice their own opinion’ on matters and just lets the board lead them around.

    > To aid the board’s decision-making, where needed, the TAG believes that staff should be empowered to provide their technical expertise through corresponding recommendations — a practice that the agency generally does not use. Crunican was frank and unfavorable on the board’s modus operandi. “You pay these people a good salary, you get highly skilled people here and then you don’t ask them to deliver to the board a recommendation,” she said. “And perhaps it’s out of fear that’s what’s going to come to you is not what you want to hear…but that issue of what you do and what they do, and changing that, changing the way Sound Transit operates is something you need to work on.”

    Perhaps it doesn’t need to be as tense of a relationship as it was with Rogoff, but perhaps there should be more disagreements between the CEO and the board. It’s probably not the best to just get the most ‘agreeable’ CEO. A bit ironic and perhaps a bit hard but the board needs to find someone that will keep themselves in check.

    For the second part on technical expertise this was more for the megaproject czar than the CEO itself, but the report did suggest Dennis O’Neill.

    https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23692964-2023_0227-sound-transit-technical-advisory-group-final-report
    https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/03/14/sound-transit-needs-tune-up-less-board-micromanaging-expert-panel-says/

    1. Also from the Urbanist link above….

      “Crunican also emphasized the importance of boardmembers seeing their roles as deciding what is best for the whole transit system, not just their individual jurisdictional projects or interests. “The boardmembers, when they go to sit in the Sound Transit seat, need to represent Sound Transit,” she said. “The staff is sorely missing a group of people that are there to solve the region’s problems as opposed to representing the jurisdiction from which they came…What the program needs is a board that is worrying about the whole picture and getting to the end goal.”

      Where the Hell did Sound Transit find this guy at? He’s a rube. It’s like he just fell off a turnip truck at 3rd and Pine or something. How could anybody ever believe… or even suggest… an elected official, “look at the big picture”? Dude, politics just don’t work that way…. since Rome was a po’dunk village. There’s absolutely no way any subarea is giving up anything they’ve been promised, or even have it delayed for Seattle. “For the big picture”! What a joke.

      A hornet’s nest is hornet’s nest. I’m afraid the infighting and back room politicking is just what Sound Transit is, it’s core. I hate it…. but then again I would never support Sound Transit.

      1. Um, tacomee, Grace Crunican is a “she” and quite respected throught the western states for her management experience and acumen.

      2. Part of the problem id say is the board make up itself of having mayors directly on the board.

        Other transit agencies use appointees or a separate elected board member who deals just transit.

      3. Yeah, WL that’s what Translink does. The board of directors are elected to the board by an independent screening panel with a list given to them by Mayors Council. Which is all the municipal mayors of Greater Vancouver, Chief of the Tsawwassen First Nation, and and the elected representative of Electoral Area “A”(unincorporated Metro Vancouver)
        https://www.translink.ca/about-us/about-translink/governance-model

        https://www.translink.ca/about-us/about-translink/board-of-directors

        The system isn’t perfect, but there is generally enough political separation from the broader local politics that they are able to make better decisions without dealing with the varying politics of local mayors who honestly are better suited for building broader vision and wishlist stuff than trying to figure out what we should with x in terms of operations or budget.

        This is also why I am also cautious of people who are currently advocating for directly electing the ST board on the ballot. Because I live in Denver and we do that and that still results in the same problems that ST currently has, But you also have to deal with a suburban heavy board and board members who’ve never ridden the bus or understand what they are truly doing in their position. I’ve asked my own district board members some transit specific questions and they looked as if I was speaking tongues. I’m not saying they need to understand nitty gritty, but I’d prefer people who are at least baseline knowledgeable or can say “I don’t know but I can someone else about this since they’re better equipped to answer your question.”.
        Alongside I dislike giving another thing for people to vote on the ballot during election season, we have enough people to vote for on the ballot already we don’t need another special district to vote on that most people will not understand how they should vote or just pick a candidate at random for whom they pick.

      4. How could anybody ever believe… or even suggest… an elected official, “look at the big picture”?

        I’m reminded of what Nathan wrote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor.

        There is definitely some politicking going on, but the biggest problem, by far, is ignorance. There are lots of people *in Pierce County* fighting hard to make sure Link goes to the Tacoma Dome. Do they have any evidence to suggest it is the best way to spend transit money? Of course not. It is highly likely it isn’t.

        Similarly, there are people who from time to time advocate for things that aren’t necessarily in their wheelhouse. If memory serves, very early on, the mayor of Edmonds pushed for the initial line to go from the U-District to Mount Baker. Not because it would benefit Edmonds, but because it had the highest ridership of anything they were proposing. Of course he was overruled, but again, that was as much ignorance as it was politicking.

      5. Tom Terrific,

        Well I’m sorry, maybe Grace Curnican isn’t a total fool. She got paid for a report that pointed out problems everybody already knew about…. and also had zero real recommendations for fixing Sound Transit because…. it can’t be fixed. Good money after bad. And this stupid report is only one of what will end up of many stupid reports about why Sound Transit is failing. All of them could have been written by a 8th grader pointing out obvious problems…. with no realistic solutions.

        WL and Zach B.

        When the voters said “yes” to ST3, they gave power to a board of elected officials to make choices to run Sound Transit. Want to run Sound Transit in different way? That would take another public vote…. that won’t happen because it opens the door to a major restructure/downsizing of Sound Transit. So we’re stuck with that we got.

        Ross Bleakney,

        “There is definitely some politicking going on, but the biggest problem, by far, is ignorance. There are lots of people *in Pierce County* fighting hard to make sure Link goes to the Tacoma Dome. Do they have any evidence to suggest it is the best way to spend transit money? Of course not. It is highly likely it isn’t.”

        Maybe you haven’t figured out here who really suffers from “ignorance” as far as Sound Transit is concerned? Absolutely nobody on the ST board gives a shit about what you think about transit. Or anybody else on this blog. Transit nerds carried water to pass ST3… but once the board was in power… class dismissed. The problem here is you see this whole mess from a transit point of view… and I see it for the political shit show it truly is.

        Here are the 3 stages all transit nerds will go though about Sound Transit.

        1. Jubilation because ST3 passed and unmitigated joy about the light rail future of Puget Sound. (this stage is over)

        2. Anger and despair over the Sound Transit board doing “bad transit” things and a general corruption of the “big picture” master plan. (and here we are!)

        3. Lamentations about “what could have been” with Sound Transit, if the board would have “done the right thing” (this stage never ends BTW)

        You can disagree with me… but here’s the truth. The negative comments on this blog outweigh the positive ones something like 10 to 1. For Sound Transit supporters, that’s an awful lot of bitching.

      6. @tacomee

        I’m not sure what you’d expect people on a transit blog to be talking about? Did you expect everyone to just be writing praises.

      7. >When the voters said “yes” to ST3, they gave power to a board of elected officials to make choices to run Sound Transit. Want to run Sound Transit in different way? That would take another public vote…. that won’t happen because it opens the door to a major restructure/downsizing of Sound Transit. So we’re stuck with that we got.

        First, we’re identifying the problem and proposing solutions.

        Secondly the change actually can’t be modified by a st3/st4 like referundum, it’s a state legislature change. Not saying that it’s easier/harder but it’s a quite different process.

        https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=81.112.040

      8. “When the voters said “yes” to ST3, they gave power to a board of elected officials to make choices to run Sound Transit.”

        The board structure was created by the Legislature and Sound Move voters in the 1990s. The ST3 vote in 2016 didn’t change it; it just authorized a set of projects.

      9. “Grace Crunican is a “she” and quite respected throught the western states for her management experience and acumen.”

        She was a disaster at SDOT for 7 years and most transportation professionals were happy to see her depart with the Nickels administration.

        Is our memory that short?

  9. [spam. And a different products from the one that was posted simultaneously in the last article, but with a similar URL in the middle, and the author’s initials also A.S.]

  10. I support giving the CEO some power to temporarily reduce service, though I think, in practice, they’ve already been exercising that power since the beginning of the pandemic. Or at least someone has.

    Timm could do us a favor and cut some of the least painful fat to cut on the way out.

    In particular:

    (1) Truncate STX 510 with Northgate as its new southern terminus.

    (2) Eliminate the portion of STX 560 between Burien TC and Westwood. It is pretty much empty, and will go away anyway when the Stride line opens in a few years. The H Line provides much better frequency, and is nearly as fast, for that unpopular trip. Since that is an all-day savings, it ought to buy enough platform hours to keep the popular peak runs going on other routes.

    (3) Make Downtown Bellevue Station the new northern terminus of STX 566.

    (4) Run the trip-time numbers on making Kent Station or Tukwila Sounder Station the new southern terminus of STX 566.

    (5) Reduce STX 586 runs to better match ridership. STX 577/590 + 1 Line compete quite well with this legacy route.

    Thank you for your service, CEO Timm..

    1. The resolution is now available. Metro and Community Transit expect to have enough staffing to cover current ST service levels. CT must be doing well on hiring, given their plan to open the Swift Orange Line in March.

      PT is requesting to reduce its ST Express service by 8-10 percent in March.

      Routes 580 and 590 are included as “such as”, hinting they be at the front of the list. I’m surprised to see 590 suggested over 586 for pruning purposes.

      The form of 590’s reduction could include elimination of some stops served by other routes (which I’m guessing means starting and ending runs at Tacoma Dome Station), with up to 25% of service hours on a route allowed to be temporarily shut down.

      I don’t think removing the handful of remaining trips on the very short route 580 yields much savings in service hours. Maybe staff meant platform hours? Furthermore, those few trips serve as Sounder connectors when PT doesn’t already have a run that covers Red Lot to Puyallup Station. If nobody is parking at the Red Lot to access Sounder, so be it. I do expect 580 to go away with the opening of Federal Way Link, at which time PT will have more service between Puyallup and Federal Way.

      If ST wants to reduce duplication with the stream of frequency connecting Tacoma Dome to Market and Commerce Streets (real downtown Tacoma), including the Tacoma Link streetcar, then removing the downtown Tacoma loop off-peak from STX 594 would probably be more fruitful and less painful than removing peak-hour trips between Tacoma and Seattle.

      1. ST Express does not duplicate local service in central Tacoma. It is a separate and additional transit offering with distinct operational objectives. It is well suited to serving the urban core of Tacoma and it should continue to do so. I am also skeptical that such a truncation would avoid the 10% cut regardless, while it would certainly harm the area transit system and its riders.

        However, the 594 could serve only the Dome and carry-on to points north and south, eliminating the city center detour. The 586 is a logical bus to explore a temporary suspension. In the future, that bus could be truncated in Downtown Seattle, and in Tacoma see it extended from the Dome to the Tacoma Mall regional growth center.

      2. Indeed, the 590 path through downtown Tacoma is not a detour, just the start or end of the route.

        I’d be curious to know why staff is targeting the 590. Wouldn’t that inconvenience the largest number of riders per platform hour saved?

      3. I want to revise my above comment (sorry, I know this is unrelated to the CEO departure).

        I’m realizing now that my 594 suggestion is nonsensical because it is the peak-hour version of the 590 featuring a Lakewood tail. It travels to Downtown Tacoma as it should.

        Sound Transit should explore the suspension of the 586 to capture some service hours, but I otherwise accept the targeted and temporary service reductions to the 590 if they cannot be avoided.

        Ultimately, the South Sound ST Express network is well suited for a broad restructure that fans out from Federal Way. From there, it will continue to be my position that buses (or light rail trains) that are destined for Tacoma should be terminating in its city center and not at the Dome.

      4. Yeah, the first thing I would do when faced with a reduction in ST Service in Pierce County is cut the 586. It is crazy it has lasted this long.

    3. “The H Line provides much better frequency, and is nearly as fast, for that unpopular trip.”

      The H doesn’t go to SeaTac. And the bus hasn’t been empty when I’ve had the pleasure of riding it. If you made the 161 frequent as well, then maybe we could discuss. Otherwise it turns it to a 45 to an hour transfer odyssey, compared to a 15 minute drive.

      1. If you are parking (illegally) at Westwood, or happen to live within walking distance, the 560 is a nice spread limo for getting to the airport on a 1-seat ride. Otherwise, there is a connecting bus or cab/ride hail/Lyft/Uber.

        Average wait time for the 560 is 15-30 minutes. Average wait time for the H is 5 or so minutes, except when it is delayed an hour stuck in traffic downtown (which has happened to me twice, and those RTA signs told me big white lies).

        The H line ought to be extended to the airport via the 161’s path once West Seattle Link is open, if not sooner, for all its blue collar riders using those stops, and the better transfer point at SAS.

        In the meantime, the 560’s days are numbered. It will be gone in ca. 5 years.

      2. There is kinda some difficulty in choosing a main ‘transit hub’ for the south west region. While the freeway allows the busses to travel fast it also kinda traps them. Like currently the 560 detours down to Seatac, while Stride 1 BRT will stop at TIBS instead. And then both of them skip Southcenter mall. While the H line and F line meet at Burien

        > The H line ought to be extended to the airport via the 161’s path once West Seattle

        I kinda suggested the H line extend to TIBS and take over that portion of the F line to make TIBS kinda more prominent hub. Though others wanted Seatac to be that hub.

        https://kingcounty.gov/en/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/maps/system/09022023/metro-system-map-sw

      3. “If you are parking (illegally) at Westwood, or happen to live within walking distance, the 560 is a nice spread limo for getting to the airport on a 1-seat ride. ”

        I actually use the 560 to get from Tacoma to West Seattle, transferring from the 574. Turning that into 3 seats makes it untenable.

        The alternative is to go into downtown Seattle and backtrack on the H, which is a little nuts when you look at the geography and the potential for congestion going through downtown.

        If S Sounder was made usable with all day and 2eeked service, I suppose TIBS to F to H, if F improved its frequency might work.

        Or just keep the 560.

    4. Brent: pretty good.
      yes, Route 566 could be between Tukwila and BTC (note Link).
      Routes 545 and 542 consolidated to feed Link at UW station.
      Streamline Route 574 to skip P&R north of FWTC.

      Note there are needs to add service. The span of Route 554 is weak. Route 522 and Stride3 should extend to Woodinville and have a base 10-minute headway.

      1. I was actually referring to just the March 2024 cuts called for in tomorrow’s resolution, which we now know were requested by Pierce Transit.

        Still, it would be quite annoying to keep the redundant portion of STX 566 between DBS and RTCS when Metro just suspended 20 routes in September for lack of operators. Those platform hours certainly have higher and better used by Metro, and ST doesn’t need to throw money away on route redundancy just because it can.

        The opening of the 2 starter line in the spring is exactly the right time to update the 566’s routing.

      2. So the cuts are limited to Pierce routes? Can you reassure me that Eastside and Northgate-Ash Way routes won’t be reduced?

      3. @Mike

        > At this time, it appears that Community Transit and King County Metro will have adequate operator staffing to maintain ST Express service levels in 2024 on the routes that they operate, but Pierce Transit continues to face challenges hiring and retaining critical staff and recently informed Sound Transit that they will not have enough personnel to continue current service levels in 2024. They have requested that Sound Transit reduce its service by approximately 8 to 10 percent at the March 2024 service change to match their available staffing.

        As Brent noted pierce is most likely going to cut 580 and reduce route 590

        https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Motion%20M2023-113.pdf

        Of course this is separate from any east link connections restructures.

      4. ST has no involvement in CT routes 810, 860, and 880 that serve Northgate and Ash Way.

        As for STX 512, I am concerned about the thinning of evening service that has already happened. But reducing span of service would cause far worse problems for riders (one of whom I know) who depend on the late trips.

        Hail to the operators willing to work the late shift! I hope they get a higher wage for the evening hours.

      5. “As for STX 512, I am concerned about the thinning of evening service that has already happened.”

        I’ll ask my friend in north Lynnwood about that. It’s her primary route.

      6. PT actually staffs the 560, which I find bizarre, as it doesn’t even touch Pierce. Maybe they should be staffing only routes that serve the county, and they wouldn’t need to cut.

      7. Back in 2018 or so, ST decided that Metro’s pay was too high and they would shift some routes in King to PT. IIRC this included not just the 560 but also the 541. COVID put an end to the 541 but the 560 arrangement lives on.

        Ironically, even before COVID, PT couldn’t provide all the drivers needed for the 541, so there were a lot of canceled trips, and I think ST was in the process of bringing the 541 back to Metro when COVID canceled it instead.

      8. Moving the 560 to being staffed by Metro (and pruning the low-performing Burien-to-Westwood segment that skips White Center , and will regardless be gone in ca. 5 years) helps achieve multiple social justice goals:

        (1) It avoids punishing the poorest county by forcing it to cut service because it can’t afford to pay operators more. ST has had a goal of increasing frequency to Pierce County, but in practice seems unserious about that goal.

        (2) It staffs the 560 with better-paid operators.

        (3) It removes a ridiculous amount of deadhead, putting those wasted platform hours back into revenue service, or at least cutting the carbon footprint of the deadhead.

        I’m not sure Metro has the operators to take over the 560 though. That seems like a lot more weekly platform hours than what is proposed to be cut from Pierce STX routes.

      9. I suspect the 560 is underperforming because those traveling from West Seattle to SeaTac and points south, connecting to the spine or express buses, have no choice but to detour through Burien, adding 15 minutes to the trip.

        Has there ever been a more direct connection for those traveling to and from West Seattle that doesn’t go through Burien, and hops directly on 509/518?

        That would be the true measure of ridership demand for that leg, not judging the route’s potential by the slow boat along Ambaum.

      10. The same question could be asked for any random shopping center in the region. But I don’t think illegally parking at a shopping center to get an express ride to the airport is a thing.

      11. That would be the true measure of ridership demand for that leg, not judging the route’s potential by the slow boat along Ambaum.

        The current pathway may not be an ideal measure, but it should give a rough starting point. For example, the 44 and 8 both perform fairly well, even though they are horribly slow. Speed them up and you would get more riders, but not that many more.

        One exception is when there is a good alternative. The 49 goes from the U-District to Capitol Hill to downtown. Ridership is way down, simply because catching Link makes more sense for a lot more riders (since they extended it to the U-District).

        The same thing happens with frequency. Run a bus more often and you get a lot more riders. But ridership doesn’t go up dramatically, unless there is competition. For example, the 73 just can’t compete with the 67. Run the 73 as often as the 67 and you get more riders than you would otherwise expect (since it could compete).

        With the trip you are talking about, there some alternatives, but they aren’t very good. You can take the 128 and Link or the H and the 161. From what I can tell, the 560 is almost always the best option. If just miss the 560, then the 128/Link combination will be faster. But that happens maybe ten minutes out of the hour. Even then, it only saves you a couple minutes. Basically, the 560 is it.

        There are other factors. One is competition from driving or catching a cab. In the case of the 44 and 8, I’m sure a lot of riders don’t have a car. Parking is often difficult along the route, and cabs would often be stuck in traffic any. Thus the baseline tolerance of slow (or infrequent) transit is much higher. With the route you are talking about, driving would be much faster, but if the destination is SeaTac, parking is more expensive. Catching a cab would be a good option, but not cheap. I think the baseline is relatively high.

        It is worth noting that prior to the pandemic, about 90 riders got on in Westwood Village, and about 120 got on at the stops between there and Burien. About 60 riders got off at Burien. That means there just aren’t that many riders going from West Seattle to SeaTac (or anywhere on the 560). In contrast, Bellevue had about 600 riders, many of who clearly came from SeaTac, and endured the detour to Renton.

        An express to SeaTac from Westwood Village would get more riders, but my guess is it wouldn’t get that many. If it ran every 15 minutes, and made not stops along the way, I think you are looking at less than 200. That would probably require a big subsidy, but by no means would it be the worst performing route (or section) operated by Sound Transit. It would be a reasonable route (for them) but you just can’t expect huge numbers of new riders.

      12. Discussing Route 560 should probably be its own separate post. There are so many partially parallel “fast” buses (RapidRides F and H, soon Stride 1) as well as (soon) East Link as a new transit option that its purpose and trip patterns will continue to change. Besides, it has little to do with Timm’s departure, which is the stated topic of this post.

  11. I think it is unlikely we will get lucky and find the type of person we need. The problem is the board itself. Specifically:

    1) Their mission (to build the spine) is stupid.
    2) They are ignorant of transit fundamentals.
    3) They don’t realize they are ignorant.
    4) As a result, they take on too much responsibility, and push for things they shouldn’t.
    5) Oh, and the agency is dysfunctional.

    There has been a lot of focus on the last item. It is definitely a problem, and there have been several published reports about it. This limits our ability to build what we are supposed to build. This is a major problem; but in the long run, it isn’t our biggest. Eventually ST2 projects get built, and we run into our core problem — ST3 was full of very poorly designed projects.

    They were poorly designed because the board doesn’t know what they are doing, and thinks it does. I’ve mentioned this idea before (and my apologies if you’ve heard it before) but ask a friend of yours what they would do if they were on the board, and given around 50 billion dollars to spend on transit. My guess is, the first thing they will say is “I have no idea. I’m not a transit expert”.

    At which point, you reply “Exactly. You would be like every other member of the board. So, what would you do in that situation?”

    The right answer is something like “Well, I guess I would ask the experts. Maybe hire consultants to determine how best to spend the money. They would probably come up with an outline, with several options. I might ask a couple consulting firms, you know, to get a second opinion. Then I would have a public discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the various options. ”

    The incorrect answer is “Well, first I would start by running light rail towards Everett, with stops in Ash Way …”

    Yet everyone on the board chose the wrong answer. Every one. I don’t blame the board — I blame the system. The mandate to build the spine is ridiculous and arbitrary. As a result, it permeates every other aspect of the system. It results in arbitrary choices for massive expansion, even outside the spine. Issaquah to South Kirkland. West Seattle Link. Is there any evidence this is worth the money? Of course not. Even the areas chosen are arbitrary (why Issaquah? why West Seattle?). The mode, area and specifics are all arbitrary. Then, on top of it all, someone felt it was essential to build a new downtown tunnel. Existing riders will be sent to inferior downtown stations, and inferior locations north of downtown. There were promises of “world class transfers” downtown, to mitigate these issues; it is obvious that won’t happen.

    Various groups are trying desperately to put lipstick on this pig. What passes for a consensus on this blog supports the idea of a Ballard stub, with smaller stations, and smaller, automated (but more frequent) trains. It would intersect the other line at Westlake, and have tracks heading towards First Hill. Eventually it could be extended to serve several stations on the other side of I-5, and eventually connect to East Link and Mount Baker. It is clear this would be cheaper and better in the long run.

    But what about the rest of it? You still have West Seattle Link. All those trains go up to Northgate (as is the plan). Is it worth the money? Of course not. The East Side has the ridiculous Issaquah Link plan. The north and south suffer with the spine. We are basically working very hard to fix just one aspect of this terrible project, while shrugging our shoulders and saying “Well, what are you gonna do” about the rest of it.

    Meanwhile, writers on the Urbanist as well as Seattle Subway are even more delusional. They think of ST3 as some sort of beautiful plan that got sullied by Harrell or Dow. If only we stuck with the original plans — they were so great! Get real. No doubt things have gotten worse, but ST3 was bad to begin with. There are some parts that have potential, but most of it is just a bad use of transit money.

    If a new CEO comes in, looks at our long term plans and realizes it is crap, then yes, things will get better. We can basically scrap most of it, and salvage parts of it worth building. Or, you just start over from scratch. A new CEO (or new board members) are in a better position to do this. They can simply admit that ST3 was a mistake, and that there are better options (which we will explore). I’m not holding my breath though. There is little incentive for the board to hire someone who is willing to take that approach, and challenge the assumptions of the board. They are way more likely to just try and make this pig as pretty as can be.

    1. Well, I voted “no” on the ST3 for all the reasons you pointed out.

      How did you vote Ross Bleakney? Are you ready to take personal responsibility for Sound Transit?

      1. I voted against ST3, and wrote an editorial on this very blog against it: https://seattletransitblog.com/2016/10/26/why-im-voting-no-on-st3/.

        As for responsibility, it rests with the board members themselves and the legislature, for concocting a very poorly designed agency. I really don’t blame the voters, most had no idea why the plans were a bad idea. Many still don’t. They viewed it as a “Transit: Yes or No?” vote.

    2. I pretty much have the same opinions as you do on this, RossB. The only one I might dispute is that the Board is ignorant. I think it’s more that their priorities are warped. They seem to look more at Link as if it’s a service that doesn’t need ridership to justify its expense, and is instead it has a primary objective to make owners of nearby property happy (either “don’t inconvenience my property” or “take and use my property”). Of course, these private meetings probably include implied threats of lawsuits if they don’t get their way (as the memory of Downtown Bellevue Link alignment saga lingers in the air).

      I have a strong hunch that every Board member is courted by developer types on a frequent basis. They are not courted by riders nor drivers nor disability/ accessibility advocates on a regular basis. The developer types hire people who has “meet with Sound a transit Board Member X” in the job description — or is what we often refer to as “lobbyist”.

      I think that if there is any ignorance going on, it’s with the public being unaware that a backroom lobbying effort goes on about individual properties in these corridors.

      There are structural solutions that could nudge the system away from the warped mentality that Link is first and foremost as construction project, and that lawsuit (and thus delay) avoidance is the major thing that matters.

      Things in LA shifted because of the Bus Riders Union suing LA Metro for spending money to benefit areas that were less poor and non-white while ignoring overcrowded bus routes. We don’t have that here because ST is structurally separate from KCM.

      Rather than sue on individual projects, I think ST3 is the culprit. By specifying corridors it is on its face discriminatory. It’s however hard to prove because the geography of income disparities are not as racially identifiable here as they are in LA. Specifying corridors that go much more to wealthier areas or destinations is discriminatory. Consider how discriminatory it is to ignore Harborview or High Point or Lake City or Downtown Renton in ST3 while building stations expected to generate relatively few riders!

      1. I think both the public and the board are ignorant. Everyone is, really, because no one has done the study I suggest. I’m just one of the few who knows that we lacked relevant information when making these decisions (and that the choices we made are bizarre compared to what most successful cities do).

        Maybe the board knew this as well, and didn’t care. That is definitely possible, but I suspect they just assumed that building this was a good idea, or at the very least, pretty close. One of the striking things about what they have planned is how similar it it to our major roadways. If you don’t know much about transit, it is fair to assume that a subway should operate like a freeway.

        The problem is, that is just a bad idea. Building subways that follows freeways is almost always a bad value. It has trouble competing with the freeways for one thing. But it also doesn’t work well. Freeways are great for low-density long-distance travel. Subways are the opposite.

        It is this ignorance that has fed Sound Transit from the very beginning. If the community were familiar with subways, we would wonder why going to Everett and Tacoma is even being considered, let alone a priority. We would express the sentiments of this comment even if we can’t articulate it as well. But the community isn’t that knowledgeable about transit, so we just go along with it. As a result, we will spend a huge amount of money on projects that will do very little good.

      2. I think Balducci has some understanding of what’s wrong, and maybe Millar and Constantine or a couple others do. But the Snohomish and Pierce boardmembers are the ones pushing for Link technology to Everett, Paine Field, Tacoma Dome, maybe later Tacoma Mall, and not downtown Tacoma (Pacific Avenue). It wouldn’t be happening without them and their predecessors making it happen. That’s not just failing to consult a transit-network export; it’s pushing through a contradictory image without even looking at whether it would work well.

        I could say similar things about Constantine’s West Seattle Link and the Issaquah mayor’s Issaquah Link.

  12. I honestly don’t know who’d want this job. ST has made huge promises to voters, but in delivering those promises, it is beholden to the whims of every random municipality they work in due to lack of permitting authority. Property and construction costs have gone through the roof since those promises were made. Staff have a culture of dithering and risk avoidance. Much of the board doesn’t care about transit, and mostly sees ST as a cash machine for their county transit agency, or random shitty parking structures. It’s very hard to be optimistic.

    1. I hear you, but I think you assume that someone taking this job is focused on transit outcomes. They know what works and what doesn’t, and find the situation a low-reward, high-risk job. That is definitely how I would view it.

      But what if they don’t care that much? What if their focus is purely to “GitRdone”. Just build it, and ignore the value to the rider. After all, they didn’t vote for it; they aren’t the board; their job is just to build it.

      Imagine this: Someone comes in, and focuses on the bureaucratic issues. They get the board and the agency to trust each other again (if they ever did). Over time, they choose the cheap options, at every turn. No CID Station, a Ballard Station at 14th, terrible transfers, etc. The end result will be a very disappointing system, but guess what? By the time it is built out, they will be gone.

      Consider the timetable. First we get Lynnwood Link — very nice. Yeah, maybe it doesn’t hit the original ridership estimates, but everyone understands that with working from home, they were optimistic. It still works well, and Community Transit does a nice job with the buses, so no complaints.

      Then East Link is finally open. You did it! Not too long after, there is Federal Way Link (finally)! More ribbon cutting, and we have a fairly solid system at that point. Around that time you have things like the Redmond extension and the 130th infill station in Seattle, along with various BRT projects. Things are really moving, and everything looks good. Hurray!

      Then there is a pretty big gap before anything major is built. The key here is to just keep cost estimates down, and keep everyone on the same page (even if they are building crap). By the time West Seattle Link gets here (in 2032) you are out of here. As long as you avoid the big cost overruns, you are seen as someone who righted the ship, and presided over several important additions.

      But let’s say you stick around anyway. When West Seattle Link gets to SoDo, I expect ridership to be poor. Everyone does. Metro will probably keep the existing buses, and so everyone just views this as a first phase. Expectations will be low, and as long as it works, you are OK. The next milestone is 2035 (Tacoma Dome Link) which is a very long time from now. There is a lot of time to hand the keys to someone else.

      By the time we actually notice the various flaws in our system, any leader will be long gone. If they play their cards right, they could parley this into a gig at an agency that pays a lot better (in a big city) or has a better sense of what they are doing (like in Canada). Or maybe they take a federal job, working for President Malia Obama.

      So yeah, I can see why someone would take this job, but I really doubt they will stick around long enough for the problems to show themselves.

      1. “ By the time West Seattle Link gets here (in 2032) … ”

        I don’t buy that West Seattle Link Will open in 2032. Even if things go right I think it’s going to be at least 2035.

        These things can create years of delay:

        1. Buying what appears to be hundreds of parcels. There is almost a certainty that some of those parcels will end up litigated.
        2. Digging stations for Avalon and Alaska Junction. Tunnels easily add 3-5 years to an initial surface only 5 year construction timeline.
        3. Financial capability to generate a full WSBLE scenario needed to get FTA funding. Without direct trains going between Downtown and West Seattle until DSTT2 opens, FTA may make ST demonstrate ridership without DSTT2, which will reduce the forecasts hugely to the point that it can’t meet an FTA threshold. At the very least, ST is going to have to iterate the project proposal to put it in the best possible light for FTA.

        And all of those things are dependent on Democrats in Congress and the White House in 2024. Canceling new FTA Grant agreements is not beyond the realm of possibility if Republicans get every thing. That alone would freeze everything a minimum of four years if not further.

      2. “Financial capability to generate a full WSBLE scenario needed to get FTA funding. Without direct trains going between Downtown and West Seattle until DSTT2 opens, FTA may make ST demonstrate ridership without DSTT2, which will reduce the forecasts hugely to the point that it can’t meet an FTA threshold.”

        Didn’t ST take FTA qualification into account when it made the stub plan in 2016? It bases projects on grant eligibility, so I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t have done so in this case.

        If it does depend on an FTA grant doesn’t get them and ST doesn’t find another way to replace the funding, then the stub won’t happen, so West Seattle Link won’t happen. That doesn’t bother people like me who thinks it’s unnecessary. ST can then start thinking about a bus alternative.

      3. > Didn’t ST take FTA qualification into account when it made the stub plan in 2016? It bases projects on grant eligibility, so I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t have done so in this case.

        Well I mean that’s why sound transit lumped the two of them together ws and ballard for the eis/funding plan.

        > If it does depend on an FTA grant doesn’t get them and ST doesn’t find another way to replace the funding, then the stub won’t happen, so West Seattle Link won’t happen.

        Well… maybe. I’m sure sound transit discussed it with fta first before splitting it so the fta might still approve it. But it partly will just depend on the other projects throughout the country.

        If the rest of the projects throughout the US have much better ridership/cost ratio then it is unlikely west seattle will be funded, on the other hand if a lot of projects are like san francisco’s downtown caltrain 8 billion dollar extension maybe west seattle might still get funded.
        https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2023-12/CIG-Public-Dashboard-12-01-2023_1.pdf

      4. “Didn’t ST take FTA qualification into account when it made the stub plan in 2016? It bases projects on grant eligibility, so I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t have done so in this case.”

        The original decision to create a giant WSBLE EIS was well after 2016 (2019?). I have always been suspect that the reason for that was to line up the project for FTA New Starts funding because West Seattle Link Extension would fail to get a good FTA rating on its own merits.

        If ST didn’t expect a second downtown subway would create more cost and constructibility challenges than sections south of SODO or north of Seattle Center would (including an unstudied segment between Westlake and SODO), that would indicate a level of stupidity that would be off the charts. I have felt for years that the single massive EIS was a huge mistake because it involved two lines and because the lines had very different opening dates and because the Downtown portion would be so messy in a number of ways (as we are finally seeing).

        It’s easy to forget that Rogoff’s hiring was driven by the fact that he was at FTA and potentially could help get grants easier and sooner. With Rogoff gone, that familiarity is lost. In fact, the FTA EIS/ funding dance may have had a role in affecting Timm’s status.

        PS. I fully expect the West Seattle starter line to end up as a third DSTT line and only run every 10-15 minutes when it finally opens. I expect that East Link will also operate at 10 minutes in peak hours when fully open. That is only 12 trains an hour per direction, leaving 8 trains an hour for the 1 Line. As long as there is a Link train every 5 minutes, riders won’t care whether or not the trains are evenly spaced.

      5. It’s way more likely there will be a “Hochführer Eric Trump” than a “President Malia Obama”.

      6. FWIW Ross, from my time at Sound Transit, what the agency needs it someone who knows how to structure an agency to operate effectively, and a leader who holds other executives to accounts and quickly manages out people who cannot or will not deliver. I don’t think the CEO needs to be a transit expert and focused on “transit outcomes” as much as the CEO needs to be someone who empowers and trust the actual experts. The core concepts can be learned by anyone who is curious and takes the time to reads Human Transit and a few Alon Levy blogposts; the details can be left to the professionals, of which ST has many.

        I was generally impressed with the rank & file engineers, and the staff at ST is passionate about building a great system, but with rapid growth after ST2 and then ST3 the agency is one large manifestation of the Peter Principle. The agency is riddled with bad culture*: the decision making process is opaque**, the org chart doesn’t communicate who actually has power and where decisions are made, teams are siloed, and executives are incapable of articulating what their team are NOT working on. Much of this is already covered by the TAG, but what ST needs is someone to overhaul the organization, which can then present the Board and the Public with the right context and decision frameworks. If the Board still selects bad projects, well that’s democracy for you.

        *I’ve been lucky to work at several (private, for profit) organizations with great culture. I quickly figured out that most people at ST had only worked at dysfunctional governmental agencies (lots of transplants from KCM or other mid-tier US transit agencies) and were oblivious that work could be done more effectively, efficienctly, and transparently.

        **I had one executive say to me, “I’ve been at this agency for 6 months and I have yet to observe a decision get made. I’ve been attending a lot of decisions where I’m told decisions are made, but all the decisions seemed to be made elsewhere and I can’t figure out where.”

      7. AJ, why do the “professionals” seem never to push back against the cluelessness and actual craven toadying to development interests that the Board puts out? Post after post by people who have attended ST “Open Houses” say that the staff present are low-level, non-technical flacks who know nothing and are unable or unwilling to deliver feedback where it needs to be heard.

        Does “professional” imply timidity?

      8. I don’t buy that West Seattle Link Will open in 2032. Even if things go right I think it’s going to be at least 2035.

        Which gives the CEO even more time to get out of Dodge. To be fair, any delay would hurt the CEO politically, but they can blame it on the dysfunction that has been well known and verified by an independent group. So someone can come in here, take care of the day to day, but if it looks like they won’t make the timetable, they can call for a full investigation. The investigators will find all the problems that you suggest, and then come up with a new timetable. Make that timetable and you seen as a great executive. It has happened before, with this very agency.

        I don’t think the CEO needs to be a transit expert and focused on “transit outcomes” as much as the CEO needs to be someone who empowers and trust the actual experts.

        I don’t think they need to a be a transit expert, but they they need to be focused on transit outcomes, otherwise they will build crap, and say “Ta-Da! I built what you wanted. Isn’t it pretty!”.

        It will take years before people realize it is crap, and even then, many will just assume this is normal. They will make all sorts of other excuses as to why we lag our neighbors to the north in every available metric (ridership, modal share, etc.). It will be like the bike share system we installed. Folks will blame it on the hills, the weather, and a dozen other things instead of actually looking at the science, which clearly shows that we did it wrong.

        It isn’t enough in my mind to “just build it”. We have to make sure that what we build is actually good. The problem is, what they said they were going to build with ST3 simply wasn’t good. Dealing with that fundamental disconnect will be crucial, and if the CEO is oblivious to the fundamental problems with ST3, or is aware but unwilling to push back against the board, we will be in trouble.

      9. Tom, those folks are not engineers. Also, see my point above about a broken culture and opaque decision making. The staffers are open houses aren’t timid, they are unempowered

    1. We can’t move it. All we can do is the same thing you would do (copy it). It is better if you do it (since it would have your name on it).

      When it is copied, we can delete this thread though. Mwah ha, ha! So much power! Sorry, got a little excited there. Anyway, yeah, once you move it I’ll delete the thread (with your blessing).

  14. Sound Transit 1 Line got worse under her watch. I don’t put the blame all on her. The procriminal culture was here before her arrival.

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