During a special meeting of the Sound Transit Board of Directors’ Executive Committee this evening, the committee recommended “Candidate C” for the role of Chief Executive Officer of Sound Transit. The leadership position has been vacant since Julie Timm departed last January, with the role filled by interim CEO Goran Sparrman. Sparrman’s tenure as interim CEO has been extended multiple times but will end on May 15 at his own behest.
After an hour of closed-door “executive session”, the Committee returned to open meeting having apparently reached a consensus on who they would recommend to be the next CEO of the agency. Before officially making the recommendation, the Committee’s executive recruiting consultant, Gregg Moser, reviewed the process the Sound Transit board has followed to this point, including his efforts to recruit top talent locally, nationally, and internationally. The original candidate pool included 60 applicants, which was then reduced to 15 candidates who met the “minimum qualifications for the job,” according to Moser, and the applications were sent to Sound Transit’s “Search Committee” for review. That committee selected five candidates for interviews, after which three were seriously considered for the role.
The selection process became mired in controversy after The Seattle Times ($) revealed last month that King County Executive Dow Constantine was one of the five candidates under consideration for the job. The Urbanist reported on deep concerns expressed by Seattle Subway and other transit advocacy organizations regarding Constantine’s candidacy, arguing that his long tenure on the Sound Transit Board has resulted in significant conflicts of interest regarding his potential selection for the position. Despite calls for transparency in the CEO selection process, the Executive Committee maintained the confidentiality of the rest of the candidates but seemed to be listening to public input when they delayed their recommendation decision last week.
After returning from their executive session this evening, multiple members of the Executive Committee commented on the process and their selected candidate.
Ryan Mello (Pierce County Executive) stated “the next leader needs to understand the complexity of this place” and needs “experience getting big things done” while “navigating choppy waters” he recognized are ahead of the agency.
Nancy Backus (Mayor of Auburn) commented that she is thankful to have the opportunity to select a “candidate willing to make sure the Spine gets built as quickly and efficiently and effectively as possible”.
Hunter George (Fircrest Councilmember), the newest addition to the Sound Transit Board, recognized there were “a lot of voices in this process, a lot of stakeholders, system users, incredible advocates for mass transit” among the public input taken into account during the process. He also noted how “the [confidential process] is really uncomfortable but it’s how you get national candidates”, a nod toward the Committee’s decision to maintain the confidentiality of its applicants.
Finally, Cassie Franklin (Mayor of Everett) reiterated how it was “so important to have a candidate ready to make a commitment to build the Spine as quickly as possible”.
With that, the Sound Transit Board will begin employment negotiations with Candidate C, whose identity might not be revealed until the next meeting of the full Board later this month.
The elected official statements say it all. They still think that ST’s primary function is to plan the Spine. They don’t get that ST’s primary function is instead to actually provide transit services every day.
Until the Board realizes that ST in 2026 is not ST in 2014 the operation is doomed to mediocrity — and providing a less than good quality operation.
yes! Solving the current operational issues ought to be more important for Auburn, Tacoma, and Everett than a ribbon-cutting event in Tacoma or Everett as Express buses can carry people from Auburn, Lakewood, Tacoma, the Boeing plant or Everett to the stations in Federal Way or Lynnwood to catch a Link train. But if that train then gets stuck in Seattle, most riders will get frustrated while only a few will benefit from a direct connection to Tacoma Dome or Everett.
You’re completely wrong. Sorry, but you need to do a little homework.
Sound Transit is a rail spine along the I-5 corridor.
That’s what the people voted for. Was that a good idea? The jury is still out on that, but the ST3 vote promised a rail spine. If you voted yes, you’re not allowed to cry about it.
And before you get all high and mighty on me, you need to read this. The ST3 voters guide
. https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/sound-transit-3-mass-transit-guide-voter-information
“the ST3 vote promised a rail spine”
So did ST1 and ST2. It was extensions toward an Everett-Tacoma-Redmond spine.
I had the opportunity catch the end of the committee meeting and started taking notes on committee member quotes hoping they might actually say who the candidate was. When it became clear they wouldn’t say who candidate is, I was worried there wasn’t much of a story, but then I thought that maybe putting the Board’s comments on record would help provide a baseline of expectations for whomever they selected.
Thanks for including the quotes!
It is painful when I read how naive board members are about what it means to run a transit system. They need to get a clue!
Maybe we need to encourage that service disruption and equipment failure complaints get copied to them. They need more reminding of what ST does.
The reason Tacoma and Everett want the Spine is to attract employers to Tacoma and Everett, and shoppers.
It is a misguided understanding of what a metro is good for — the same misguided attitude that led to West Seattle Link. A metro relies on the network effect. Northgate to the UW; Roosevelt to Capitol Hill — that sort of thing. That simply doesn’t exist to the north and south of Seattle (nor will it exist with West Seattle Link).
Consider this mental experiment: Imagine there is no Link at all. Would Tacoma build a light rail line from the airport to the Tacoma Dome? Would Snohomish County build a line from Everett to the Lynnwood? Of course not. But without a lot of riders on those sections they are much better off with express buses (which also connect to Link) and commuter rail.
Both are important
I was hoping to be able to glean a sense of whether the Board was leaning toward or away from Dow Constantine, but it’s hard to say. Are they highlighting a focus on the Spine because Constantine and Balducci were looking at diverting subarea dollars toward Seattle projects like WSLE or BLE? Or do they think Constantine has what it takes to navigate “choppy waters” and get “big things done”?
In the world of transit agency leadership, who might they have poached for a salary up to $675k?
Pierce and Snohomish boardmembers are focusing on the Spine because that’s what they’ve always done. They and their predecessors have emphasized that repeatedly for years, and have had concerns about extra Seattle projects delaying the Spine.
“Pierce and Snohomish boardmembers are focusing on the Spine because that’s what they’ve always done.”
The Spine has service today with:
1. ST Express
2. Sounder
3. Link just 12 miles from Everett and soon to be 10 miles from Downtown Tacoma — both with very large parking structures as well as local bus routes connecting to it
Yet the quotes act like they still have no service today. And they act like it doesn’t matter that the final stretches of Link are forecasted to have such low ridership when they open, and are expected take longer that ST Express buses take today.
Agreed. The idea that a light rail spine will be better for riders than the combination of express buses and commuter rail assumes a level of urban development to the north and south that simply does not exist. We aren’t Los Angeles. Federal Way is not the UW. Fife is not Capitol Hill. Without destinations along the way a light rail line just doesn’t make sense.
Al S.
Gosh, can we please live in political reality here? Pierce County ST board members can only really care about light rail in Pierce County. Doesn’t matter if you think it sucks, or even if it does actually suck. Go back and read the 2016 voter brochure… because that’s what we voted on.
Sound Transit = rail spine along the I-5 corridor
For the record, I didn’t vote for it and I think it’s a terrible idea. But ST3 passed. I’m sorry, but the Seattle Transit Blog isn’t in charge of anything. If you voted yes, you need to be happy about the “I-5 corridor rail spine”
@ taconee:
No one is disputing that ST3 says to complete the spine.
The point that me and others are making is simply that the greater purpose of the agency is to offer service every day including today rather than to complete the Spine.
Consider that the 1 Line has 80K wee heady riders today. By 2026, that may very optimistically grow to about 110K to 120K on the two lines between Lynnwood, Federal Way and Redmond (noting that some that will use Federal Way Link are already riding Link).
The Everett and Tacoma Done extensions will not increase that number 120K. It won’t increase it to 80K. ST would be lucky to increase it by another 40-50K. And even that 40-50K includes some riders that are on Sounder or ST Express today. (Note that Lynnwood Link is getting 14-15K today even though ST promised 47-55K next year — with over 10K they were already getting on or off Link at Northgate prior to the extension opening.)
And that doesn’t even include the current ~40K daily riders currently on Express and Link.
The completed Spine is a noble goal. It’s just that it shouldn’t be the ST’s primary goal moving forward. Serving the existing riders should be the primary goal.
Al S.
Here’s the ST3 voters pamphlet. Voters don’t care about the rider numbers. Voters do care that the light rail they voted for gets built. There’s absolutely no way for the ST board to walk away from “the spine” without huge political blowback.
https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/sound-transit-3-mass-transit-guide-voter-information.
Do you really believe Sound Transit has the right to change this? We all voted on it!
@ Tacomee:
Just before this pamphlet was prepared (before U Link opened) Link had about 40K riders and Express and Sounder had about another 50K. Looking to the future was the right priority then. Most riders were not on Link.
Lots has changed since then. Hiring a CEO because of what a 9 year old pamphlet says is pretty irrelevant.
Again, I’m not disputing the spine. I’m disputing about what is more important to have in a CEO today.
Al S.
I’ve known Ryan Mello for a long time….. he’s a gentleman who avoids confrontation with voters. There’s just no way for Mello (or other board members at the ends of the rail spine) to walk back the need for light rail all the way to ends of the line promised by the ST3 vote. For better or worse, we’re stuck with it.
Doesn’t matter that the ST3 voter pamphlet is damn near a decade old. Doesn’t matter what the transit rider numbers are. Believe me, many smart people who understand the Puget Sound political landscape voiced a great deal of doubt about the rail spine vote at the time. Count me as one of them.
But the promises of a rail spine was put before the voters and it passed. Even though I voted no, I’m inclined to support the original plan, because that’s what the voters passed.
If Mike Orr wants to write an op-ed about it being time for a second public vote to change (or kill off?) Sound Transit, I’m all in. A new plan and other vote would make sense.
But I’m not about to let the crew at “The Urbanist” off for first pumping up a “yes” vote and now thinking they have the right to change what was voted on. ST3 = rail spine.
Voters do care that the light rail they voted for gets built.
Says who? First of all, Pierce County voted against ST3. Second, people change their mind. Third, this was before Federal Way Link (which could very well improve regional transit for Pierce County more than Tacoma Dome Link). Fourth, they weren’t given a choice of options to choose from. It was this transit package (warts and all) or nothing. Anyone who wanted to spend more money on transit had a terrible choice to make. Vote against the proposal and hope they come up with something better or vote for it and just accept the fact that so much of it (including the spine) was really stupid.
Thus it is quite possible that a lot of the people — especially people in Pierce County — would prefer they spend the money on other projects (like express buses, improved Sounder and better local buses). The idea that everyone in Pierce County is just waiting for the day that they can take a light rail train — that is always slower (and less comfortable) than Sounder and often slower than a bus — is just absurd. Of course some people really want it — and a relative handful would actually benefit from it — but many of the supporters just don’t understand what it will offer (and what it won’t).
I mean either way if pierce and snohomish want to build the spine it doesn’t really matter to the seattle core as it is their sub areas money.
It’s more the opposite problem of Seattle is overspending on west Seattle and Ballard and might impact the other extensions. Even if cancelled Tacoma/everett link it’s not as if the money would then fund Ballard link. It’d have to be some other idk at grade rail or center brt or something else around Everett or Tacoma city
@ Tacomee:
I don’t disagree with your points. I’m get that you know leaders!
I’m only saying that it is not the primary job description of the CEO to plan the spine. That’s now a task for an advanced planning section head. And Terri Mestas has even been hired to oversee project delivery — and if ST gets its way for Tacoma Done, Everett and West Seattle it will also move under her control once these other things get done
The role of the CEO has changed since 2016. Heck Metro still ran the DSTT in 2016! The bulk of the next ST CEO’s time will be mostly taken up in system oversight of what’s there today or open in the next year — from vertical device reliability to accidents on MLK to disappointing ridership numbers to train overcrowding to verifying the right number of rail cars to problems with electrical power to handling non-paying riders to cleanliness. And then there are big or little crises every day that need attention that easily could involve the CEO.
If Dow was proposed to be an advanced planning head it would be better! He just doesn’t seem like the right fit for a CEO that is responsible for maintaining a system of track, buildings and vehicles in public use everyday.
There is an upcoming long gap in new station openings once Pinehurst and Federal Way Extension stations open. TDLE is already postponed to 2035 and it seems impractical to finish West Seattle before then (2032 is laughable given a station deeper than Capitol Hill as well as a cable stayed bridge).
Meanwhile, there seems to be an unplanned service disruption every week.
“First of all, Pierce County voted against ST3”
People vote, not counties. The entirety of the ST taxing district voted in favor of ST3. So your point is a pretty moot one.
The idea that a light rail spine will be better for riders than the combination of express buses and commuter rail assumes a level of urban development that all 5 subareas aspire to achieve. ST3, within the regional growth framework establish by the PSRC, has always assumed significant growth along the Spine, and Pierce & Snohomish board members have consistently state the want the Spine for connectivity within their county.
Seattle & Bellevue job centers provide the ridership anchors that allow Pierce & Snohomish to build out transit networks they would never be able to sustain on their own. This fact is true for the CT, PT, and ST bus networks as much as it will be true for Link.
As an aside, Los Angles’ long light rail lines is the Spine *without* future growth. LA is way more weakly centered than Seattle, which is why LA’s light rail network does poorly despite a freight rail grid that could be cheaply repurposed in the 1990s. Under current political constraints, Seattle is much more likely to growth into a truly polycentric metro area than LA.
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/10/22/job-sprawl-as-deurbanization/
AJ,
You posted…
The idea that a light rail spine will be better for riders than the combination of express buses and commuter rail assumes a level of urban development that all 5 subareas aspire to achieve. ST3, within the regional growth framework establish by the PSRC, has always assumed significant growth along the Spine, and Pierce & Snohomish board members have consistently state the want the Spine for connectivity within their county.
Seattle & Bellevue job centers provide the ridership anchors that allow Pierce & Snohomish to build out transit networks they would never be able to sustain on their own. This fact is true for the CT, PT, and ST bus networks as much as it will be true for Link.
==========================================
So there really never was a need for Sound Transit in the first place? I mean building a subway under Capitol Hill to University District was pretty much a no brainer, but every other rail protect seems at least a little suspect and further away from the Seattle urban core the worse it gets? I’m I reading this right?
“First of all, Pierce County voted against ST3”
People vote, not counties.
Fine. The people of Pierce County voted against ST3. Happy now?
The point is the people of Pierce County voted against ST3. So here you have someone arguing that ST3 was all about the spine. That was certainly not the case in King County, but it is a reasonable argument for Pierce County. Yet the voters of Pierce County rejected ST3. Therefore, the voters of Pierce County voted *against* the spine. Why then, should we declare some sort of mandate for the spine in Pierce County when the only line of reasoning for it (which is flawed for other reasons) leads to the opposite conclusion?
“So there really never was a need for Sound Transit in the first place? I mean building a subway under Capitol Hill to University District was pretty much a no brainer”
Of course a different organization could have built it, and that organzation could have not had the Spine as its highest priority. But that would have required the state to authorize a different kind of agency structure and taxation power. For instance, it could have authorized King County/Metro to raise enough money for that U-District rail tunnel. It didn’t. The only thing it would authorize was a new regional authority for regional transit.
If you step back, you can see why. The suburbs wanted all-day express-level bidirectional transit between their cities, because they primarily saw transit as an alternative to driving in freeway congestion. The county-based transit agencies had repeatedly failed to provide all-day expresses across the county borders, because that was always lowest priority behind local service and more coverage. They wanted an entity whose primary/sole focus was regional transit across the three-county metro.
When I say “expresses” you think of buses, but what they really want is short travel time. They think rail can deliver it better, and is an appropriate investment for a metro this populous, and rail will attract employers, shoppers, and wealthy residents to their cities. They want frequent rail like BART or the New York subway to all their regional centers. Sounder is just an early deliverable that’s limited to the stations the legacy tracks serve and infrequent because of freight traffic; it’s not the ultimate goal.
The suburbs have 4/5 of the population, voters, representatives, and and all except one of the city entities. The legislature identifies with them because legislators on average also come from car/highway/parking lot oriented areas and are skeptical about more liberal inner cities. So the suburbs and statewide legislators outvoted anything Seattle would have wanted. They included U-District, Capitol Hill, and Rainier Valley stations as a concession to urban common sense: it would have been ridiculous to bypass them, and suburbanites wouldn’t have been able to take Link to UW. BART doesn’t bypass Berkeley or the Mission District either.
So Seattle wanted a U-District rail tunnel, and the suburbs wanted rail alternatives to their freeway corridors. King County or Seattle were wealthy enough to pay for U-District rail and would likely vote for it, but they lacked state authorization to raise that level of taxes. Pierce and Snohomish Counties wanted their (light/heavy) metro Spine to Tacoma and Everett, but they knew their tax-skeptic, transit-skeptic voters would vote no if they went it alone. They needed Seattle’s/King County’s Yes vote to overcome their No vote. So the suburbs collectively convinced the legislature to create a three-county agency and a single tax district. Seattle went along with it because it couldn’t convince the legislature to give it sufficient tax authority separately to build that U-District tunnel.
So the Spine priority was built into ST’s creation and structure and the ST1/2/3 ballot measures. The ST3 projects have a criterion in their evaluation table for “spine-related: yes/no”. Projects that check Yes have highest priority and meet ST’s core-most mission (Everett, Tacoma Dome). Projects that check No are optional extras (Ballard, West Seattle, Issaquah).
ST has a secondary mission to connect all PSRC regional growth centers. That’s where Bothell, Renton, Totem Lake, etc, come in. And Ballard and West Seattle could come in if they’re PSRC growth centers. Ballard was finally designated an “industrial growth center”, so it’s primary Link justification is the industrial businesses in south Ballard, not the large urban village in north Ballard. West Seattle doesn’t have a regional growth center like the U-District or Northgate, so it’s coming in as more of an extra. But all these Link/Stride projects to secondary centers are lower priority than the Spine to Everett, Tacoma, and Bellevue/Redmond.
Mike Orr,
So you’re very knowledgeable about the political gyrations that had to happen for Sound Transit to even exist. Thanks for a really nice political rundown.
Now that Sound Transit is in deep peril, what’s the plan? There’s huge cost overruns on every project outlined in the ST3 voter’s guide and Sound Transit can’t even seem to keep the trains running on lines it completed? Where is the solution here?
And please try to keep to confines mandated in the ST3 voter’s guide.
>Now that Sound Transit is in deep peril, what’s the plan? There’s huge cost overruns on every project outlined in the ST3 voter’s guide and Sound Transit can’t even seem to keep the trains running on lines it completed?
Can you define “deep peril”? It’s hard to tell if you’re referring to ST’s ability to continue operating, or referring to the larger ST3 projects. Either way, you clearly have some capacity to understand budgets, so if you’re asking these questions earnestly (although the second sentence wasn’t a question), I suggest you review ST’s latest financial planning document, updated annually: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2025-proposed-budget-financial-plan.pdf (see PDF page 91 for capital project cost estimates).
>Where is the solution here?
One “solution” to the problem of runaway cost estimates has been implemented at least twice already: “Realignment”. The first Realignment was in 2009-2010 due to a global economic crisis second only to the Great Depression; the second Realignment was in 2020-2021 due a pandemic (possibly caused by the WHO-averse President Trump) and massive inflation associated with unbalanced pandemic relief kick-started by Trump in 2020 and continued by President Biden in 2021.
During the second Realignment, the ST Board assembled a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) which delivered recommendations for improving cost control and efficiencies in the agency. ST has been implementing these recommendations, with slow but perceptible impact. Relatedly, ST began assessing programmatic cost savings for WSLE and all other ST3 projects last Fall under the leadership of the new Deputy CEO of Megaproject Delivery, Terri Mestas (whose role was created to fulfill a TAG recommendation).
Perhaps these don’t represent whatever radical “solution” you were hoping for, but those are the solutions we have.
>please try to keep to confines mandated in the ST3 voter’s guide.
Can you summarize the “confines mandated in the ST3 voter’s guide”?
“the second Realignment was in 2020-2021 due a pandemic (possibly caused by the WHO-averse President Trump) and massive inflation associated with unbalanced pandemic relief kick-started by Trump in 2020 and continued by President Biden in 2021.”
Let’s not ignore that the cost estimates in ST3 were unreasonably low for West Seattle and Ballard more so than the other extensions. And the assumed contingencies were unreasonably low too. This appears to be a bigger factor than inflation is.
And let’s not forget that dropping end stations was put on the table in the second realignment, and the result was a decision to tax us several more years rather than drop stations or revisit technology assumptions.
Regardless, the Board will either have to soon drop stations or they will have to rethink the technology and operations design. There is no rich Uncle Sam to donate the shortfall — at least not in the next four years. Uncle Sam is instead going to provide less. The shortfalls are already so significant that extending ST3 taxes and delaying opening dates a few more years won’t work either (the second realignment strategy). Getting ST to rethink anything takes Herculean political will to change the “full steam ahead” culture at ST — but that’s the unavoidable reality of limited funding.
And to be clear, I think that the ST3 corridors can still be substantially served by changing the technology — and building better transfer setups (cross platform transfers). The biggest savings can come by building Ballard as an automated stub line and dropping DSTT2. The second big one is the out-of-control design plans for West Seattle (just end it at Avalon or put the end on the surface and save at least $1B). But most other corridors don’t have the expected daily ridership to make a grade separated streetcar on a full double-track with manual drivers cost effective either.
The posts and comments here have repeatedly offered many ideas how to address the shortfall problem. ST has yet to run with any of them. Instead, ST has chosen to stay addicted to the drug of drawing lines and dots on a map — and the only cost cutting they seem capable of doing is eliminating escalators (to very minor savings with huge impact to riders).
Just like a drug addict sometimes needs an intervention, ST probably needs something similar. The Board and the senior staff still seem to be in mass denial about their huge funding shortfall. Until they admit that they can’t continue assuming what they do, they will merely postpone projects — for several more decades. And they’ll continue to blame other political forces rather than realize they have had the power to bring the costs down all along.
tacomee – no. I’d frame it this way – if Snohomish & Pierce have only modest growth in the future, ST3 was the wrong investment. The money should be spent elsewhere, perhaps on better bus service or perhaps on other public works. But if S & P grow robustly, the existing transportation paradigm (low transit mode share with transit mostly provided by buses in mixed traffic) will fail (i.e. traveling in Seattle will be like traveling in Atlanta or LA or Houston), but with ST3 there is a real opportunity for existing secondary urban centers (Tacoma, Everett) and aspiring urban centers (KDM, Lynnwood, Federal Way) to become transit oriented, with high transit mode share and high connectivity to jobs & amenities.
In other words, without ST3 Snohomish & Pierce will grow to look like East King today – pockets dense but overwhelmingly car orient, but with ST3 S&P can strive to look like East King in 2030, with multiple urban centers (Bellevue, Overlake, and DT Redmond) with excellent transit access and high connectivity to amenities & jobs.
Yes, the cost estimates were apparently based on overly simplified unit cost tables, which were reportedly updated based on ST’s more recent construction experience and contractor feedback during the 2020-2021 realignment process. But I think it’s important to recognize the impact of inflation, too, because most people will point at rising project cost estimates as representing waste and ignore the realities of construction costs. Sure, ST’s main revenue source (sales taxes) generally scales with inflation, so it’s only really going to be scope and design that decides whether a project is affordable or not, but it’s disingenuous to call out increasing costs and not recognize the impact of inflation when the number keeps getting bigger.
Al S.
I think we can all agree that the growth Sound Transit was hoping for is not going to happen in 50 years. Even Seattle is slowing down currently. There’s only one little section of Seattle that even needs a subway and it’s been built.
I’ll always think of Sound Transit as “light rail fail”. Even in the Seattle core, a place that really needs light rail, Sound Transit can’t keep the trains running. I’m not sure even what Sound Transit is? A development company? It’s certainly not a transit company. It’s sort of bad joke at this point.
Here’s why light rail is 100% bullshit. There’s a perfectly good heavy rail line between Seattle and Tacoma. There’s even train stations built along the way! Why not just run more commuter trains on that line? The stupid answer answer I’ve heard over and over again is… Burlington Northern owns the line. Fine! That actually is helpful because BN knows how to run trains, something Sound Transit is a complete failure at. All that needs to happen is the Sound Transit CEO needs to write a billion dollar check to BN and tell them when the commuter trains need to run. Done deal!
Because paying a billon dollars for an actual train company is money well spent. Letting Sound Transit piss away billions and billons on light rail they’ll be unable to run? Foolish.
“I think we can all agree that the growth Sound Transit was hoping for is not going to happen in 50 years.”
Wrong. I don’t agree. I think Seattle will continue to grow substantially over the next 50 years
“Wrong. I don’t agree. I think Seattle will continue to grow substantially over the next 50 years”
Pretty much, the people who believe Seattle is too full are fooling themselves. Honestly reminds me of that Yogi Berra quote “Nobody comes here anymore, its too crowded”. Still know plenty of people who keep moving wanting to move here for work and the amenities it has.
https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2025/03/12/population-growth-metro-area.html
Hey Tacomee, Sound Transit has already spent $1B on Sounder, and in ST3 there is $1B allocated to exactly what you want: more round trips on Sounder. Glad to see you are fully supporting of the existing plans. One clarification: Amtrak operates the trains & maintains the fleet. BNSF gets paid for the easement (trip slots) and to maintain the ROW.
Nathan, no not quite. When ST talks about project costs in “2016 dollars” or “2026 dollars,” they are adjusting for inflation. All of the major projects are coming in above budget after adjusting for inflation.
Also, the local construction inflation index has consistently outpaced the general inflation indices, so even if there was nothing more than just basic inflation, Sales Tax revenue would not be keeping up with project costs. IMO this is due to two reason. 1. Baumol cost disease, where the lack of productivity in the construction sector causes cost to rise above inflation, in particular in a region where there is very rapid productivity in other sectors (AKA Tech). This is pretty intuitive: as tech bros get big raises, costs rise (higher rents, etc.) and everyone else demands higher wages. 2. Surplus Extraction: as ST projects get bigger & more complex, with clear political momentum, the project specs get more demanding. This is super obvious in ST3 in one singular aspect: the requirement for 100% grade separation. Surplus extraction is not limited to transit: compare the new SR520 bridge to the older SR520 (wider lanes, wider shoulder, HOV lanes, 10′ bike/ped path, and multiple lids) and it’s clear the new bridge will be much more expensive than the old bridge even after adjusting for inflation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/11/13/surplus-extraction/
Baumol_effect
@Confused:
The Census reports that the US population increased by 92 million people since 1990 from 249 million to 341 million in 2024. The CBO says that we will only add another 31 million to 372 million by 2055. So nationally the future population grown is a mere third of what it has been.
And that’s before the latest anti-immigrant and anti-foreign-worker efforts by our recently installed madman and his menions. Immigration has been the biggest component of population growth in the US.
While metro area population growth numbers do vary from national trends, it seems very unlikely that our region will grow as fast as it has since 1990. The pool of possible new residents just isn’t there.
AJ,
I’m not the expert here, but my understanding is that ST3 pays BN and Amtrak money for service and that’s absolutely the way it should be. I’m not surprised we’ve already paid out Amtrak and BN a billion. Nice things cost money.
I think Sound Transit needs to work with BN on a plan to upgrade the tracks to handle more service…. If BN would take a billion in cash for upgrades on top of the agreed service rate, ST needs to just write the check and be done with it.
Some of the upgrade work is done by ST directly, not BNSF, but otherwise tacomee describing the existing situation: South Sounder program as it has existed for several decades and how ST has doubled down on that approach in ST3.
FWIW, the cost to create “all day” Sounder and the cost to extend Link from FW to Tacoma Dome are roughly the same ($2~$4B from my time at ST, pre-COVID). Pierce decided they’d rather invest in the I5 corridor with a direct connection to SeaTac, which is fine – the inferior connection to Seattle is mitigated by Sounder and STX service. “All Day” Sounder doesn’t really help the intra-Pierce county bus network any more than Link will.
Long term, Pierce and King will continue to invest in more Sounder – longer trains, higher frequency, and longer span of service.
“Long term, Pierce and King will continue to invest in more Sounder – longer trains, higher frequency, and longer span of service.”
I would strongly agree that a longer span of service should be a goal. The line needs all-day, two-way service.
Less so on frequency, as peak frequencies are at 20 minutes in one direction.
And the peak demand surge is way down from 2019 — and it isn’t fully rebounding. So running longer trains seems to be a relatively useless strategy in the near future. Work at home is certainly more common these days.
Finally, I don’t see a race to densifying the areas around South Sounder stations. That’s strikingly different than what I see around new or planned Link stations. There are some dense things happening near Sounder stations in places like Kent and Auburn, but not at the scale that’s profoundly transformational.
There is a bit of a chicken or egg problem. It takes actual frequent all-day transit service to make places further away desirable for commuters into Seattle, resulting in higher allowed densities as well as market forces to take advantage of that.
If for some highly unlikely event that ST walks from TDLE, upgrading Sounder is a good alternative strategy. But it’s not like TDLE can result in much added density at two of its four stations because of the soils (Fife and East Tacoma). The more optimal strategy seems to be to encourage densification in a 20 mile radius from Downtown Seattle. It’s just so much more cost effective to build cities in a way to prioritize shorter distance transit trips over longer ones.
And switching from TDLE to Sounder has a major subarea allocation problem. The proportion from South King and Pierce would change. Pierce would be required to contribute less but South King would be required to fund much more. Building FWLE pretty much committed funds would go to Link. That subarea structural aspect mostly locked in where South King money will go.
The tragedy of it all is of course that a Tacoma Dome is not a robust destination. Most Link riders in Pierce will transfer to or from other transit vehicles. So it’s a matter of WHERE most riders transfer rather than IF most riders transfer. Further, Link moves slower than a free-flowing express bus in a freeway. At its core, that giant expense without any travel time gain and modest frequency gain from ST Express to Link seems to me to be a factor in the tepid reception ST3 got in Pierce.
AJ,
Much of the problem with light rail is local Pierce County pols being enamored with it. Sound Transit didn’t do anybody any favors with those light rail “wish list” maps at the start of the ST3 push. Some of the push for light rail over express buses is because bus coverage is much easier to cut back and cancel. The general fear has always been that ST would build light rail in Seattle and stick with express buses in Pierce County…. only to cut the bus service down the road. It’s a real fear. Here’s what Stephen Fesler wrote in “The Urbanist” 6 months ago about how to “fix” Sound Transit project cost overruns .
“The new cost reality should force some big changes, such as shelving the Issaquah-South Kirkland Link Extension for now, rethinking alignments for the Everett Link Extension, scuttling costly parking projects and the S Boeing Access Road infill station. It also is high time to jettison Sound Transit’s institutional principle of so-called “subarea equity” — a policy of proportional expenditure to revenues raised in five geographic areas. The balkanization of funding can lead to balkanized decision-making, pushing the agency to pursue bad alignments out of deference to the local subarea and to lose sight of the bigger picture: creating the most effective transit network for the entire region.”
The translation to this paragraph is the entire region’s ST taxes (and piles of Federal money as well) should go into Seattle only transit projects, subareas be damned. Mr. Fesler has no shame with cheating everyone who doesn’t live in Seattle.
This sort of thinking is really popular among Seattle pols. Anytime anything in Seattle doesn’t work right, housing, education, transportation… the elected officials blame the County, State or Federal government for a lack of funding. It’s the easy why out for pols and much of the city’s population fall for it, hook line and sinker. This sort of thinking means it’s hard to ever have homegrown solutions to problems like homelessness and terrible schools. The rest of the ST subareas are quite right to never trust Seattle.
And back to good old Dow as Sound Transit CEO. My somewhat educated guess is the pols on the board in the Sound Transit nether regions might vote for him because he’ll promise to never sell their subareas down the river. Mello certainly has a positive relationship with Dow. Is the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t?
“Much of the problem with light rail is local Pierce County pols being enamored with it.”
This is true — but it’s not just this. Pierce subarea really lacked (and still lacks) a comprehensive vision about rail investments in the county that had been scrutinized with performance and cost objectivity and several rounds of refinement. Without a comprehensive vision, the shiny object on the table (like light rail trains/ tracks with station “palaces”) is what pols wanted to support. Otherwise they just would appear to be visionless curmudgeons.
Had Pierce better prepared itself for ST3 with a solid systems plan beforehand, the Pierce project list in ST3 could easily have been different.
Al S.
You can’t mix housing and transit. Transit is public matter. Housing is private matter. There’s really little you (or anybody else) about planning density.
I’d like better heavy rail connections between Seattle and Tacoma and better express bus service from Tacoma to the airport. This is public transportation.
I’m not telling anybody where to live… or adding “planned density” to anywhere. Because that’s in the private sphere and it’s none of the government’s business… worse yet, tax payer’s problems.
Posters on this board have went on and on about zoning and TOD and all this density crap for years…. but none of this is market driven and in housing, the market is everything.
Unless you’re a drug addict or wino…. you don’t want to live anywhere close to the Tacoma Dome. Doesn’t matter how much public transit that shit hole has.. it’s still a shit hole and people don’t want to live there. All the talk about TOD around transit is just talk.
Federal Way wasn’t a city until what? 1995? There’s zero density there and idea of living there without a car is just laughable. The place has had uncontrolled car-centric growth for decades and it’s impossible to unwind that.
Capitol Hill is one of the best places for urban living in West Coast. You can live without a car there very easily, and may need to be car free to afford the high rents.
These are real places with real people living in them because they chose to. You can’t get out the little transit maps and force people into these goofy little urban villages because Greater Seattle needs to “grow” . Sound Transit does not control the housing market.
Current zoning in Tacoma allows for enough apartments to be built to double the population. I support this. The problem is not that many people want to live in Soviet style apartment blocks in Tacoma and pay $1500 + a month in rent.
Current zoning in Capitol Hill has been changed to allow more density, but the high costs of building in the neighborhood mean new units start at at least $2500 a month and often lux units rent (or sell with HOA style “rent”) for over twice as much.
There’s a lot of Cali money that wants to push the locals out. Tacoma? or shall I say Long Beach North? not a lot of lousing pressure there.
Please, stop mixing transit and “planned density” because it’s a bad joke.
> You can’t mix housing and transit. Transit is public matter. Housing is private matter. There’s really little you (or anybody else) about planning density.
The biggest constraint to density is zoning regulation which is voted on by the public. tacommee i don’t know why you keep trying to maintain two sets of reality. justifying not building because of local laws, then simultaneously saying no one wants to build because it due lack of demand private companies.
> Posters on this board have went on and on about zoning and TOD and all this density crap for years…. but none of this is market driven and in housing, the market is everything.
And yes and when literally anywhere in seattle is upzoned apartments are built aren’t they? I don’t know you keep trying to say we shouldn’t upzone because nothing will be built. Even though the facts of shown repeatedly apartments will be built where allowed in seattle.
“You can’t mix housing and transit. Transit is public matter. Housing is private matter. There’s really little you (or anybody else) about planning density.”
For someone who claims to have knowledge about housing, you sure do like being wrong all the time. Housing, density, and transit are intertwined together. If you’re uncomfortable facing that fact then maybe you should actually spend some time actually researching the topic instead of rambling off with confidence in your wrong answers. Because all it does is make you look ill informed than knowledgeable.
Zach B and WL
Let’s keep this simple. Sound Transit and the powers-that-be in Tacoma went all in on TOD (transit oriented development). First there was Tacoma Dome Station, new huge transit hub in the wasteland by the dome. That was supposed to spur development of a new walkable neighborhood. That never happened because transit or no transit…. nobody really wants to live in that part of town or invest money there.
Then there’s the Tacoma Link… the light rail to nowhere. The line starts a Tacoma Dome, goes to UWT (the only useful stop on the line) winds though the Stadium District, (a post office, drug store and grocery store… all there decades before light rail), then doubles back and stops on Hilltop. When this was being sold to Tacoma citizens, why, thousands of units of housing and new retail would spring up in no time! That didn’t happen. In fact, there are so few T-Link riders service got cut back.
There’s no zoning holding back development in Tacoma…. it’s a lack of investment from developers and lack of interest from residents that keep this transit area part of Tacoma a wasteland. Overall, Tacoma has grown and added housing units, but the pattern has absolutely nothing to do with transit
Capitol Hill is another matter. People want to live there, for good reason. Of course that pushes development costs so high you need to pretty well off to live there, zoning be damned. Capitol Hill was popular way before Sound Transit dug the subway tunnel.
There’s no predicting the future of Greater Seattle. There’s no long range planning for growth and there’s absolutely no planning TOD. It just doesn’t work.
Housing is private matter.
Not entirely. Not in the United States anyway. You can’t just build a forty-story apartment building in Magnolia. There are various codes that you must adhere to. It isn’t just safety regulations either. Cities regulate things like the size of housing lots or the number of different units allowed. Some cities (like Spokane) have fairly liberal zoning codes. Other cities (like Seattle) are far more conservative.
In some cases it doesn’t matter. That may be what you are getting it. There are places that have relatively liberal zoning regulations but not much development. But in a lot of places it is clearly the zoning that is restricting development. Sometimes it is obvious when you just walk by the street. At the Phinney Ridge neighborhood, for example, you can easily walk from an area that allows apartments to an area that doesn’t (https://maps.app.goo.gl/tazmrHvdeHLtgotg8).
Economics is complicated. There are a million different pieces all moving at once. Some place over here might allow development but the owners don’t want to sell. Other places (in Seattle especially) would definitely become apartments or at the very least subdivided to allow row houses but they don’t allow it. It the combination of all of these that pushes up the overall cost of housing and leads to fewer homes being built. For example in Lake City there is plenty of land that is zoned for apartments but it is owned by the Pierre family. They are in the car business and are not interested in selling. Meanwhile, just a few blocks away to the east there are plenty of new apartments (because they are allowed there). Where the don’t allow apartments they sometimes allow town houses and (you guessed it) that is what they build. A few blocks away to the west there are new housing subdivisions but they are in land zoned single-family. This means they are limited to building houses on big lots (7,200 square feet). The city does allow an additional ADU and DADU so there is that. You can pretty much guarantee that those properties (to the west of Lake City Way) will have a house/ADU/DADU on each one. But they won’t be town houses because it would be illegal to build them there. Nor will there be apartment buildings because again, the law does not allow it. In that sense it is the public (or are public representatives) that prevented additional housing from being built.
“There’s no predicting the future of Greater Seattle.”
Yet you do that all the time on here, funny that. Maybe go spend some time in a library doing research on housing policy instead of shooting from the hip here like you always do with your fallacious arguments.
For someone twice my age, I would expect better in terms of knowledge and expertise considering you claim to have intimate knowledge none of us have from your experience in the home building profession and being a landlord. Yet everytime you make a claim on housing, it falls apart faster than a cheap lawn chair that was blown over in the wind from any little bit of pushback on your claims. Either because it’s some variant of a fallacy, the information is wrong, or ignores actual data on the matter. You can’t claim to be an expert and then actually know jack all.
It’s fine to admit you have your limits and don’t know everything. But if you’re going to act like an authority on something, you better come prepared with facts and not fallacious arguments. Because otherwise people are going look to at you with the Dunning–Kruger effect to your claims.
I’m reading Pierce reps Mello and Hunter’s quotes and don’t see anything about the spine. I see them acknowledging the complexities and wanting to get a national candidate with experience. Something I agree with. I didn’t watch the meeting, so I’m sure I missed something.
Ryan Mello was first to speak and he mainly focused on the process and what he was looking for in a leader. If he mentioned the Spine, I missed it.
Hunter George said he didn’t want to repeat Mello’s and Backus’ comments but I recall him saying he agreed with their points, and so he spoke about the stakeholders and his impression of the process.
I think Hunter George’s comments may have unintentionally provided a glimpse into the CEO selection process. George was appointed to the Sound Transit Board by the Pierce County Council on February 4, 2025, and he sat in his first Board meeting on February 27, 2025. He said he joined the Board after they had whittled the pool down to 3 candidates. Interestingly, he was present for the March 11 Special Meeting of the Executive Committee, but he is not a member of the Executive Committee.
Review of Sound Transit Board meeting minutes and agendas reveals the timeline regarding ST’s CEO selection process:
January 23 (Board of Directors): Chair Somers welcomes Ryan Mello and Julie Meredith to the Board, and reports 60 applicants have applied to CEO position since the search officially began on January 3. CEO Selection Team proposed to consist of Somers, Balducci, Backus, Walker, and Mello, who will select candidates for consideration.
February 6 (Executive Committee [Chair: Dow Constantine; Vice Chair: Dave Somers]): Vice Chair Somers provides updates on CEO Search, noting 15 candidates selected for review.
February 14 (Executive Committee Special Meeting): Meeting is predominantly 2 hours of closed-door executive session.
February 15: The Seattle Times reports Dave Somers’ confirmation that Dow Constantine is one of the 5 candidates under consideration for CEO of Sound Transit after months of rumors. Public outcry ensues.
February 16: The Urbanist publishes an interview with Dow Constantine in which he defends his candidacy.
February 25 (Executive Committee): Two written public comments (submitted by Stephen Fesler and Kyle Comanor) decry the candidacy of Dow Constantine. A third written comment includes a letter from the Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Seattle Association, Commute Seattle, and Transportation Choices Coalition calling for transparency in the CEO selection process. The Committee meeting includes 4 hours and 30 minutes of closed-door executive session.
February 27 (Board of Directors): Hunter George joins the Board. The Board approves a motion to change Executive Committee and System Expansion Committee memberships. Constantine is removed from the Executive Committee. Somers becomes Exec. Committee Chair; Balducci and Mello become co-Vice Chair. Mello is also added to the System Expansion Committee.
March 3 (Executive Committee [Chair: Somers; Vice Chairs: Balducci & Mello]): 3 hours 23 minutes of executive session.
March 6 (Executive Committee): Among other public comments, David Scott of Seattle Subway asks the Board if they are willing to defend Constantine’s potential conflicts of interest if he’s selected as CEO. The Committee approves an unrelated resolution and then enters about 1 hour and 15 minutes of executive session. Selection of a recommended candidate is delayed to March 11.
March 11 (Executive Committee Special Meeting): The Committee enters executive session lasting about 45 minutes, then recommends Candidate C.
This tells me the candidate pool was reduced from 5 to 3 after Dow Constantine’s candidacy was revealed.
edit: I misread a written comment. Kyle Comanor did not claim to represent Seattle Subway, but referenced their letter in his comment. On February 25, Both Stephen Fesler and Kyle Comanor commented as private citizens.
Helpful, Nathan. Thanks.
Yes, helpful timeline. And a few more links to round out the coverage so far.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-open-sound-transit-ceo-hiring-to-public-review/
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/take-the-secrecy-out-of-hiring-of-sound-transit-ceo/
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sound-transit-board-says-theyve-picked-a-new-ceo/
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article301950344.html
how can they legally divert dollars? prove it?
Does anybody know if there is a candidate whose last name begins with “C”? I’m just wondering if it’s not so much a “code” as a “coded reference”, if you get my drift.
I realize I didn’t explain the candidate labeling. They defined the candidates as Candidates A, B, and C. If Candidate C is Constantine, that’d be a pretty cute shorthand for a terrible decision.
And so it is. We all know who “Candidate C” is.
Would not have been my pick.
Candidate C is Dow. Count on it. The region is about to step on the proverbial rake. This is a real bummer.
The Urbanist’s report: https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/03/11/sound-transit-approves-ceo-candidate-c/
The ST Board spine worship is largely an outcome of the governance structure. The RTA enabling legislation was written by Rep. Ruth Fisher, north Tacoma; the ST board room is named for her. She wanted better transit in Tacoma; she suspected she needed Seattle affirmative votes to get it. At the time, the other elected officials distrusted King County. There were many smart planners and managers who helped this stupid approach to grow.
The commenters above are smart rational transit nerds; they see transit modes specializing and forming an integrated network. The ST board has a Link spine focus. Even if served by bus and Sounder, they do not think their jurisdiction is served without Link (e.g., Everett, Renton, Tacoma).
May rationality prevail. We are in trouble both in DC and in the ST region. Note that the three counties of TriMet are together only half the area of King County; the three counties of ST are immense in scale. See the stupidity parallels. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/opinion/trump-executive-orders.html
Hi eddiew,
You know almost all of the people reading this voted yes on ST3 and believe Ruth Fisher was a visionary, right? I knew Ruth Fisher in person… she was smart and meaner than Hell, a product of growing up in old school, rough and tumble Tacoma.
I think smart voters never fully trust elected officials. When people are elected to public office, they want to change things, and I get that. The problem is pols want to change things (and rack up debt) for decades after they’re out of office. This is why Sound Transit is such a turd. The region changed and yet, transit is still stuck in 1992.
Just a little reminder on exactly what we voted for in 2016 https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/sound-transit-3-mass-transit-guide-voter-information
Doesn’t matter what “we voted for in 2016”, “we” can’t afford it. The only sub-area which has the projected tax revenunes to meet their commitments is East King. North King will be generating only 60% of the needed taxes given the enormous inflation in costs the WSBLE has seen, even if the taxes go on until after 2060. Daniel may have been a PITA, but he was right that construction costs — especially in the US — seem to expand to encompass the available budgetary balloon. So xtending the construction window in order to raise more funds just leaves the sponsoring governments staring at the same future payment stream year after year.
Pierce can probably handle their costs given the relatively inexpensive constructions costs in NE Pierce and the all-elevated plan. Plus, they’ve been banking savings since the Git-Go. Still, they end up with a Pig in a Poke dangling a mile from their downtown center.
South King will have already gotten everything planned for it except Sounder garages; lucky them! It’s easy to “defer” garages, isn’t it?
SnoHoCo is royally screwed; they were barely within potential viability even with a ridiculous 10% contingency. In the “real world”, they can probably build to Paine Field from Lynnwood before the money runs out, but it will be extremely Paineful. And, really, how many people will actually ride Link to work at Boeing from Lynnwood and points south?
[If Boeing has not been bought by Comac and all the jigs and lathes shipped to China, that is.]
https://app.leg.wa.gov/oralhistory/fisher/
yes, I know of Fisher. I also knew most of the legislators pictured with her in this piece.
ST3 attracted less than a majority vote in the Pierce County subarea.
eddiew,
Tacoma politics are maybe the most corrupt in the State… And Fisher was dead center in all of it. Ruth Fisher wasn’t a visionary at all, she fucked over Tacoma in the worst way. Ruth’s vision of “progress” was to build a freeway (I-705) on the most valuable waterfront land in the city. And this shitty, stinky, noisy car sewer defiles T-Town to this day. Thanks for nothing Ruth!
And honestly, I see most Sound Transit projects in the same light as I-705. 20 years from now Greater Seattle will have this crappy half baked light rail system to nowhere and there will be zero political will to finish it… or tear it out and start over.
Dow Constantine is not the CEO that Sound Transit needs. His selection would mean that the transit revenue stream has been captured by politicians with goals other than providing good transit. Dow is first and foremost a politician and has already proven that he will sacrifice quality transit for other considerations including NIMBYs and building a government campus. He doesn’t have either the transit planning or operations experience to be a good choice.
What a sad decision for Seattle and King County. Just as sad as having the new tunnel bypass a station near King Street Station and the existing CID station
This.
So tired of STB threads turning into nerd circlejerks about the The Spine. Dow’s likely shoe-in is bad for ST and the region because he sucks on transit, both planning and ops, and has facilitated local governments and agencies treating ST as a cash machine.
I agree. Dow as CEO doesn’t change much at ST. That’s perfect if you think the agency is heading in the right direction.
I’d guess the major problem Sound Transit has now is Federal money. Instead of using local taxes to build transit or low income housing one small project at a time, (with cost controls and good management) Big America cities bundled projects together and went in heavy for Federal grants to pay for some of it. This led to just obscene levels of cost overruns and delays. This also played a big role in how Trump got in the White House.
The next step is to gut all local transit funding at the Federal level, and yes, Trump and congress can claw back every dollar promised, and let big city housing and transit projects crater. Maybe we rebuild something better in 10 years? But it certainly looks like the present pathway for urban development has come to an end.
I’d guess that Sound Transit leadership might be grateful for losing Federal funds because it lets them off the hook for a whole lot of bullshit planning and maintenance. Dow can just blame the Feds! Because Dow has the prime directive of protecting his political future above everything else. The Heck with transit!
Well stated and 100% agree. This will go poorly for transit in the region. It amazes me that this guy escapes scrutiny of his record, and his responsibility for the state ST is in. It’s positively Trumpian.
He drove up the scope and cost of the dubious WS segment by insisting on a tunnel, he drove up the cost of Ballard by insisting on a tunnel, he is driving up the the cost of ID plan the and making the transit integration far worse by forcing ST to pay to make county building development feasible…. the list goes on. None of it was paid for in the original plan tacomee keeps posting.
And that’s before we get to his role in hiring Rogoff and Timm. I mean, do the board people outside Seattle even care? Because it all puts great regional transit connections as a second tier priority and the non-Seattle projects under threat. Just tragic
Board members outside Seattle do care about their subareas a great deal. You think any elected Pierce County official could possibly agree to changes in Sound that cuts Tacoma out? The same for all the other subareas…. ST made very specific promises to the voters and it would be very difficult to backtrack on them. And the ST3 NO! voters are the biggest problem here. Just because people didn’t trust Sound Transit and voted no, doesn’t mean they’re OK paying 10 years of taxes and getting jack shit back. Mello has to face those people.
You’re completely right about Dow being a big part of the problem and not the solution. The problem is, and always will be, Seattle thinking it’s all high and mighty like New York City and not some regional backwater like our sister city Portland. Portland has light rail without drilling expensive tunnels from Hell to breakfast. Max works pretty well…. it could be better with tunnels, but there’s just no money for tunnels, so it is what it is.
The density of Seattle and Portland is pretty much the same except for Greater Capitol Hill/U District (and there’s a subway there). Honestly, Seattle could have already built above ground light rail all over the city by now if Sound Transit wasn’t controlled by ass kiss politicians starting with Dow.
And as bad as Dow has been…. did anyone over at the Urbanist or Seattle Subway ever demand about above ground lines built quickly and on budget? Should have just hammered out a bunch of lines right after the ST3 vote before the political bullshit of appeasement started.
ST made very specific promises to the voters and it would be very difficult to backtrack on them.
Yet they do that all the time. Look, if I lived in Tacoma I could care jack sh** about the spine. What I would want is those Sounder improvements and that BRT on Pacific. The latter appears to be dead. This was a very specific promise and yet ST seems quite comfortable walking away from it just like they walked away from a First Hill Station.
I really don’t think it would be difficult to walk away from Tacoma Dome Link given the fact that Pierce County voted against ST3. It is quite likely they would rather spend the money on better bus service (which is sorely needed) and maybe a few additional Sounder trips.
When Federal Way Link gets here there will be a reckoning of sorts. Either ST continues to run express buses from Tacoma to Seattle (with a stop at the station) or they truncate all of them in Federal Way. If it is the latter then a lot of people will find out that Link is considerably slower than the bus. Either people will rarely transfer to the train or they will miss the days when the bus got them to Seattle. When that happens what little enthusiasm for the extension will disappear.
The problem is, and always will be, Seattle thinking it’s all high and mighty like New York City and not some regional backwater like our sister city Portland.
That is not the problem. The problem is the idea of building a brand new rail line from Tacoma to Everett. Seattle is big enough to justify a subway. Tacoma is not. Everett is not. Nor are Everett and Tacoma close enough to be part of the Seattle subway. Running on the surface wouldn’t help (it would make the travel time even worse).
The Spine was a stupid idea from the beginning. It is really unheard of outside the US and it does not have a good record in this country either. Cities like Tacoma and Everett are connected to each other (and Seattle) via express buses and commuter rail. That’s it. It’s not exciting but it gets the job done.
Another way to think of it: The Spine will be done as soon as Link makes it to Federal Way. At that point it will extend 20 miles to the south and 15 miles to the north (as the crow flies). This is plenty long for a metro/subway. That is typical for even massive subway systems. New York, Paris, London — none of them go out farther than that. The only exception is when they leverage old rail lines (like Sounder). This spine (from Lynnwood to Federal Way) will also have excellent connections to the freeway (for feeder buses) as well as massive parking garages. Ending there would be the normal thing to do.
Extending The Spine farther is very unusual because it just doesn’t work. The distances work against you. The development patterns work against you. ST is trying to thread the needle by only having a tiny number of stations. That way it won’t take too long to get to Seattle. But ultimately that reduces any chance of it actually operating like a real subway (not a commuter train). Building next to the freeway just makes it worse.
Um, tacomee, Portland has “a tunnel”, and it’s almost three miles long. Just wanted to catch you up on that.
Or were you meaning the proposed downtown Portland tunnel? That may come about, but given the lack of traffic there these days, why? The trains run pretty freely through the Portland CBD. Grant that the Steel Bridge is slow.
There’s so little traffic on the parallel streets that “Transit Mall” violators are an almost extinct species.
“This is plenty long for a metro/subway.” This is an important turn of phrase, particularly because “Metro” is not a defined mode in the same way that “heavy rail,” “light rail,” and “commuter rail” (check out the NTD glossary)
The Spine does make good sense it if is perceived as regional rail. A metropolitan area the size of greater Seattle clearly should have all-day regional rail between Everett and Tacoma; the region’s biggest issue is the complete lack of good rail ROW aside from South Sounder. It makes good sense for the region to invest in a regional rail network; plenty of comparable cities around the world continue to build new regional rail lines.
Link under ST2 is a pretty reasonable S-Bahn system, with at-grade rail on the branches (Rainer Valley, Bel-Red) interlined into a subway for the urban core (Seattle downtown through Northgate). The original “spine,” insofar as there ever was a vision, was something much more like the ST1 and ST2 investments.
The problem with ST3’s “spine” is the specifics, either the mode or the alignment.
If the region wants to continue to leverage Link, ST3 need to be different from the current plans in 2 ways: 1) it must run at grade wherever possible, in particular in urban Tacoma and urban Everett as those are the ends of the line (a Tram-train like in Karlsruhe, or the LA Metro A Line in Long Beach), and 2) there needs to be branching on the north side, to match the branching on the south side. Paine Field can still be a solid branch line, but it must run at grade along Airport Road.
If the region wants to pivot from Link, the ST3 spine could be completed in several different ways. Stride BRT along I5, matching the investments in Stride along 405, could be a good option*. An eBART type investment is another good option**. And finally, the new subway line in Seattle itself (WSBLE) should clearly be a different mode, with Vancouver’s automated shorter trains a possible template.
*Personally, I find Everett-Bellevue Stride a compelling project, with Link still extended to at least Ash Way for a Stride/Link transfer for Everett/Seattle trips, but the framework can work anywhere Link is running parallel to I5.
**An eBART style forced mode transfer at FW or SFW stations should be considers, as Link’s 4-car train capacity is not needed for any of the Pierce segment.
In summary, we as a region can still support “completing the Spine” with High Capacity Transit serving the I5 corridor is full, but not as currently proposed in ST3.
https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd/national-transit-database-ntd-glossary
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/10/28/stadtbahn-systems/
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/11/03/tram-trains/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBART
“An eBART style forced mode transfer at FW or SFW stations should be considers, as Link’s 4-car train capacity is not needed for any of the Pierce segment.”
I’ve long pointed out that EBART travels at a high top speed than Link does, and TDLE travels 7 miles with just one stop. So for the travel time penalty to change trains at a station in South Federal Way (cross platform transfer like EBART) , a rider could not only get to Tacoma Dome in about the same travel time but the service could extend further for the same amount if funds going into TDLE. I’d suggest a full-on Pierce County train from Dupont to South Federal Way (using ST built tracks south of Tacoma Dome) or from Dupont to Puyallup (adjacent to 167) with a transfer station in Fife.
Sadly, when political leaders and the public that support them have never had a lifestyle that involves riding trains every day (or even every week), they see only the maps, stations and track statically — and that leads to less effective rail system and station design. They often have weak understanding of the actual travel trips being made daily.
I don’t think it will happen though. The stakeholders in this situation are Tacoma politicians obsessed only with getting to SeaTac as an indirect economic development strategy, combined with the Tribe looking for public money to pay for their direct “casino shuttle” rail service from Downtown Seattle. On that latter point, I wouldn’t be surprised to ultimately see a Triple Fortune Dragon slot at a Link station if this extension ever opens.
Correction from Nathan Dickey’s excellent notes above. I do not represent Seattle Subway, but I did reference their letter in my comment as a private citizen.
Ah, sorry for that misread and thank you for the correction. I’ll correct my comment.
All good, thanks for your comments!!
Any vote on selecting Dow Constantine as CEO should obviously require the recusal of every board member that he appointed. Which is a majority of the board, so the very idea is ridiculous.
Count me down as hating “the spine” too. It’s so car-brained. Don’t put stations anywhere useful, just put a big parking lot and some bus bays at every station. Because every transit trip should require at least one transfer.
Just remember that….
Sound Transit = rail spine
That’s what the public voted on.
That is ridiculous. The public voted on a huge package and the spine was only part of it. It would not have passed without support in Seattle and the East Side and that part of the spine was done before the election. There were a bunch of projects on their and plenty of reasons to support it. For example someone in Tacoma might really want BRT on Pacific Avenue (which has now been indefinitely suspended) more than want a light rail train to Tukwila.
Again, there was no set of options to choose from. It is quite likely that a different set of transit improvements would have passed with higher numbers. For example it passed at less that 70% in Seattle. In contrast the vote to just give money to Metro to spend on the buses passed by 80%. If this was purely a vote on the spine it would have failed by a big margin.
Ross Bleakney,
What part of “rail spine” do I need to explain to you? Here’s the voter’s guide on what the people voted in. Count me as part of the group who thought the rail spine was a terrible idea, but ST3 passed with a voter’s guide that clearly shows light rail lines to all 3 Counties. We are stuck with the mandate unless it goes back to the voters.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/project-documents/ST3-Mass-Transit-Guide_Mailer-2016_090216.pdf
What part of “rail spine” do I need to explain to you?
The Spine is light rail from Everett to Tacoma. Nothing else.
Here’s the voter’s guide on what the people voted in.
Yes, and only a tiny part of it the spine! There are four major areas they promote: Link Light Rail; BRT; ST Express and Other Bus Improvements; Sounder Commuter Rail. Only one of the four contain light rail.
Now look at Link Light Rail. There are eight categories (the first one is “Overlake to downtown Redmond”). Only two are part of the “The Spine”.
According to the very resource you are touting, The Spine was a tiny part of what people were voting on. It was a subset of a subset. One eighth of one quarter.
Now back up and consider who was more likely to want The Spine. People in Seattle? Of course not. Most of the Seattle spine was built and much of the rest had started construction. There are a relatively small number of people who reverse commute to any of the future Spine locations from Seattle. Those that do often find that it really isn’t that bad of a drive (once you get out of the city). What about folks on the East Side? Would they benefit from the Spine? Again, of course not.
In most of King County — which was responsible for the measure passing — the spine was a minor project. They voted yes for everything else or they voted yes simply because they supported transit spending in general (regardless of the projects).
More to the point the main group of people that are likely to support the spine (at the time of the ST3 vote) lived to the north and south. They were people who lived with bad commutes due to the inability of WSDOT to change the HOV-2 signs to HOV-3. They figured a train might be faster (it won’t be) or better yet, everyone else will ride it and their particular driving commute would be better.
Yet it those very people who opposed ST-3! The area most likely to focus on the spine to Tacoma actually voted against it. It is absurd to claim that the people in Pierce County really wanted The Spine given the fact that they actually voted against the very measure that featured it!
I think the Spine-y-ness of ST3 is overrated. Let’s break it down.
Seattle – WSBLE is not on the spine
East King – Kirkland/Issaquah Link is not on the spine.
South King – modest investment in the Spine (FW to SFW). Most of the investment is in Sounder.
Snohomish – a good investment in the Spine up to Mariner, and then a sharp turn to Paine Field. Paine Field is anti-Spine – abandon the I5 ROW to focus on connecting directly to job centers, and prioritize on local connections over commuting travel patterns (in this case, the 510 Everett/Seattle rider is not prioritized)
Pierce – the main line is extended, but TDLE is not about “The Spine.” Pierce is really only interested in connecting to SeaTac and the OMF-South. So there is good operational synergy in interlining with the Seattle-Rainier Valley-SeaTac line, but end-to-end Seattle/Tacoma riders will be better served by Sounder.
So South King is getting their Spine complete. Pierce and Snohomish are building light rail that connects their primary nodes (Pierce to FW TC and SeaTac, Snohomish to Lynnwood TC) but with routing that decidedly does not optimize riding the length of the Spine: Pierce is slow because of the ‘detour’ to serve the Rainer Valley instead of following I5, Snohomish is slow because of the “detour” to serve Paine Field instead of following I5
I think the Spine-y-ness of ST3 is overrated.
Agreed. And yet many people on the board believe it should be prioritized over everything else.
Pierce is slow because of the ‘detour’ to serve the Rainer Valley instead of following I5, Snohomish is slow because of the “detour” to serve Paine Field instead of following I-5
It isn’t a detour. It is slower in some places because it actually resembles a normal subway line (not a commuter rail line). Just imagine if Link was built the way most subway lines are built. It is roughly 11 miles (as the crow flies) from SeaTac to CID. With stations every half mile (which is actually pretty wide stop spacing in much of the world) that would mean 22 stations. Even if the train took a bee-line that would take a while. The so called “detour” is actually an express. There is a huge gap between TIBS and Rainier Beach. Even in Rainier Beach the stations are far apart.
The obvious way to solve the problem would be to double track it. But that makes it even more expensive. ST had an impossible mission. They wanted to build a spine that operated like commuter rail in some respects and a subway line in others while keeping prices low (even though it would be completely built from scratch). It was simply a bad idea.
Tacomee: You shouldn’t probably stop with your spine/voter guide rhetoric after seeing both Ross and AJ completely dismantle your argument.
Sound Transit will continue to be an average transit at best. First, they spend an enormous amount of public money on PR per rider relative to other transits in a study not too long ago, trailed closely by Community Transit, then a big dropoff to the rest of the field: Metro/LA, Pierce Transit, BART, King County Metro, and Tri-Met. It paid off, for without the variety of tactics employed to hoodwink the public and obscure its true cost, ST-3 never would have made the ballot nor would it have been passed. Of those in this region on the aforementioned list, I only see regular advertising by the first two, which is money that would be better spent on ridership. Second, the agency’s board is mostly people who are cherry-picked by the County Executives. This leads to “yes” people and parochial decisions, such as Link going from Issaquah to Kirkland while avoiding the decades of congestion between South Bellevue and Renton, pressing forward with huge cost overruns to West Seattle, and taking the dogleg to Everett while bypassing the region’s secondary airport. Third, the agency doesn’t look out for the public dollars, the most glaring example being Sounder North, an enormous cost/rider that duplicates terminals that express buses have served for over two decades and where LInk connections are close enough that express buses were truncated there. Fourth, by clearing out competition, when Link goes down, people are hurting for alternatives when that happens, which is too frequently, rather than having a viable “plan B.” Fifth, going “on the cheap” with the initial line resulted in a permanent situation of vehicle/train accidents, delays, and slower service. The number of slowdowns and unplanned coffee break length stops in the midst of a trip are a way of unreliable. The folks on this blog would make far better boardmembers because they do their homework they ride the services and are passionate about what the services are missing and where they should be.
transitrider,
I’d agree to all of this.
Back in 2016 the ST3 vote was framed as “pro-transit vs. anti-transit”. There was absolutely zero room for opposing ST3 on the grounds that political structure supporting it (a regional tax district and an unelected appointed board) wasn’t a good fit for transit long term.
So any voters who voted yes on ST3 and any website, publication or organization who whipped up support for ST3…. If (when?) Dow becomes the CEO of Sound Transit, you really have no right to complain. You made your bed, you sleep in it.
Unless you can realistically say that there are lives at risk by being public, whenever government keeps the process a secret like this, nothing good comes from it. We should demand more openness and accountability.