Sound Transit’s focus on two expensive and problematic railroad lines of business is coming at the expense of the region’s bus system and its residents’ mobility.
Note: Below is information for Governor Christine Gregoire, Washington State DOT, and State Legislators presented by John Niles, Technical Chair of Coalition for Effective Transportation Alternatives, to the Sound Transit Board on March 23, 2006 in connection with Sound Transit’s submission of the document "Transit Development Plan 2006-2011 and 2005 Annual Report" [click to download pdf]
The report to WSDOT marks the beginning of the tenth year of Sound Transit’s ten year Sound Move plan approved in 1996. To put Sound Transit’s accomplishments in perspective, the 8.8 million passengers carried in all of 2005 are fewer than the number of trips taken by Puget Sound residents by all modes in a single work day. In the entire life of Sound Transit, the agency has provided fewer trips than regional citizens take in a week. Sound Transit’s own environmental documents report that the impact of Sound Transit’s light rail on freeway traffic when fully operational to Northgate would be less than one percent and not noticeable to drivers and observers beside the road.
This new report from Sound Transit provides further evidence that the forthcoming nine-member Regional Transportation Commission to be appointed by Governor Gregoire should conduct – as a core component of its mission – a comprehensive, critical examination of Sound Transit’s resource consumption and performance results for regional public transportation services. (The RTC website is here.)
Sound Transit could do so much more for mobility than it is doing.
CETA recommends a special focus by the new Commission on the allocation of resources by Sound Transit between railroad and express bus modes, and the implications for assignment of regional responsibilities to various available agencies.
Sound Transit’s focus on its two expensive and problematic railroad lines of business is coming at the expense of the region’s bus system and its residents’ mobility.
As a result of Sane Transit’s lawsuit a few years ago on Sound Transit’s budget overruns and schedule slippage, this agency has obtained from the Supreme Court the authority to spend as much as it wants of its existing tax stream and take as long as required to build and begin to operate light rail from Northgate to South 200th. It can take as long as needed to deploy locally all of the rail cars it has purchased for the Sounder commuter run from Lakewood to Everett, instead of leasing out half of the fleet to Virginia and California. The end is no longer in sight for completion of either of these "starter" railroad programs. Commitments for Phase One light rail have been moved to Phase Two. A substantial Sound Transit tax increase – probably doubling the sales tax – is needed to complete Phase One railroad plans.
On the other hand, the Sound Transit Regional Express bus program has obviously come much further in ten years than the railroad programs. Sound Transit buses will carry more people every year than light rail will through 2011. A look at the maps in the Report shows that the Express bus lines cover much more of the region than the two rail businesses. The bus service even parallels the Sounder railroad lines with scheduled service that covers more hours of the day. Because of using HOV lanes, the buses usually move just as quickly as trains.
Sound Transit could have more express bus lines in the North King County subarea, but it can’t because all available subarea resources (plus more) are earmarked for the Seattle light rail five mile tunnel Big Dig.
An important issue that needs consideration by the new Regional Commission is the degree to which Sound Transit’s past and planned future activity is limiting the development of the regional bus system toward its ultimate potential, thus compromising mobility.
The thrust of technology development worldwide, and of Federal transit policy since 1996, is to bring bus performance increasingly closer to railroad performance. There are examples in cities around the globe where this goal is being implemented. From experience worldwide, it is now obvious that every100 million dollars put into improving express bus service will provide incrementally more value to regional mobility than the same 100 million dollars put into urban railroads. This choice of alternatives needs to constantly considered, but it isn’t in our region. We’re building massive railroad transit in a few spots, not a region-wide mass transit system that could carry more people in more parts of the region.
Within the local environment, Sound Transit and even its three county partners are underplaying the potential of improved bus service because of the resources going into Sounder and Link. There has been some talk and planning, but no substantive move through 2005 by any bus agency in the region to implement an upgrade of one or more existing bus lines with BRT concepts. There are existing bus lines in the REX service and in the services of King County Metro, Community Transit, and Pierce Transit where this could be done.
The one BRT concept that made Seattle famous worldwide, the downtown Bus Tunnel, was closed last September to install train tracks on the busway, a move that has degraded bus service both now and in the future in favor of light rail.
Examination of Sound Transit’s staff work for the I-90 corridor, for North Link, and for the Long Range Plan indicates a systematic bias against bus service in favor of railroad development, with no attempt to optimize bus service using available technology and service concepts.
Research by CETA member Richard Harkness has calculated a nearly one billion dollar per year ongoing cost to the region in emphasizing railroads where buses would work just as well.
Under the flexibility granted by Resolution 75, Sound Transit could redirect resources from low-productivity railroad programs like Sounder North to enhanced bus services in partnership with the county bus agencies. But it hasn’t, and seemingly won’t.
Sound Transit’s modal bias toward railroad development in the first ten years of its life suggests that a rearrangement of regional responsibilities and resources to encourage more rapidly deployed and cost-effective BRT services should be high on the priority list of the new Regional Transportation Commission.
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Last modified: February 07, 2011