Orphan Road

Goldy does the heavy lifting in taking down this pernicious Seattle Times op-ed. Sayeth Goldy:

Of course the real question here is why the Times is so adamant about demanding “reform” of Sound Transit, an agency that just came through its audits with flying colors, while they remain silent on the issue of reforming the Port of Seattle, an agency so arrogantly mismanaged that it has now become the target of a Justice Department investigation into allegations of criminal fraud? Now that’s what I call “a muddle.”

Read the whole thing.

Richard Morrill's piece in Crosscut is pretty good, and he's on the right track. But I think he fails -- as many other anti-transit folks do -- to address the need for rapid transit within the city of Seattle.

But while Morrill and others argue that not everyone wants to live in dense urban centers, the fact is that the residential population of the urban core is skyrocketing. We're building thousands of new apartments and condos between Lake Union and SODO, and the existing street grid and bus networks simply won't be able to move these people around.

This comes via Mike at CIS, and I basically agree with his analysis.

While I'm sympathetic to SC's idea that a regional trasnportation authority would aid in planning, I think it's still an open question as to whether it would make it any easier to raise money for Puget Sound transportation projects, which is really its main purpose, according to the Rice-Stanton commission report.

After all, voters in the RTID district, who would make up the bulk of the RTC's population, just recently voted down the $17B Prop. 1. Simply redrawing the map around these people doesn't get you the $62B you need to complete our backlog of infrastructure projects.

But more importantly, I'm not convinced that the people within this mythical "region" we call Puget Sound actually view themselves as such. Shawn Bunney, for example, is mighty pissed that Pierce County tax dollars are flowing to Seattle. Why the hostility, if we're truly one region? It's not just the "Cascade Curtain" that divides us. There seems to be a Lake Washington Curtain, a Duwamish Curtain, a Sea-Tac Curtain, etc.

Update: Josh Feit has more good questions.

Says Josh Feit. If it comes, he notes, there goes the federal grant for University Link:

Here’s one major problem with this approach right off the bat: $750 million.

The feds, at the behest of U.S. Senator Patty Murray’s appropriations sub-committee on transportation, are prepared to sign off on $750 million this summer to get Sound Transit from downtown to the U District. That’s 43% of the $1.7 billion segment. If Sound Transit goes away that money is gone. That means light rail is dead.

I imagine the new entity could re-apply for the money, but it wouldn't have ST's strack record with the feds. You can mock ST for being late to deliver the Central Link, or for its early missteps, but the fact is it has a very high municipal rating and has won the trust of the feds. Building that expertise takes years, and it could all go away when the agency is gutted and folded into a larger Regional Transportation Commission.

Don't believe me? Ask FEMA how life has been under the Department of Homeland Security. Or better yet, ask the residents of New Orleans.

The really farcical part is that the RTC's whole purpose is to raise more money for regional transit projects. Wouldn't it be ironic if its first order of business -- or rather, its very creation -- threw $750M out the window?

And by "ironic," I mean "an utterly sad indictment of our state and local leadership."

Update: Martin at STB has more, including what we can and should do about it.

John Stanton, who co-chaired the RTC and who supports "governance reform," paid a visit to RAMP, which is sort of a South-Sound-centric version of RTID to pitch them on the idea.

They were nonplussed. RTC would end sub-area equity, a phrase that, in Tacoma, translates roughly as "give all your money to Seattle." So it's not exactly surprising that a group co-chaired by John Ladenburg would be against the idea.

I'm beginning to wonder if ending sub-area equity is the carrot designed to induce Seattlites into swallowing the RTC proposal. But either way, it's a dodge. The problem is not governance, it's cash. Re-drawing lines on the map won't change the simple fact that no one wants to pay taxes.

Ted Van Dyk "reports" that regional leaders are coalescing around a post-Prop-1 transit plan that looks -- surprise! -- mirrors Van Dyk's personal wishes and desires almost to a tee. It's hard to know where the reporting ends and the navel-gazing begins:

In all of this, a new consensus is emerging about a post-Prop 1 agenda. It centers on moving aside turf-oriented, self-serving agencies such as Sound Transit and transferring power to a more objective, more responsive regional body. It would stress immediate priorities such as addressing the urgent Alaskan Way Viaduct and Evergreen Point Bridge, which are aging and structurally vulnerable. It would not stop light rail construction in place, but it would limit construction to a line running from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to either Convention Place, Husky Stadium, or Northgate. Future funding would be focused more greatly on express bus, bus rapid transit, and normal bus service; dedicated transit lanes; HOV lanes; tolling; and selective repair and expansion of long neglected local roads and lifeline highways. Citywide trolleys definitely would not be part of the scheme.

You've got to love the use of the passive voice here ("a consensus is emerging"), implying that the whole thing is just coming together as God and nature intended. It's a miracle!!

But I really have to take this opportunity to rant against this idea of a regional "superagency" that's getting so much press these days. The Puget Sound Regional Transportation Commission (PSRTC) -- which would combine RTID, Sound Transit, and the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) -- was the subject of the Rice-Stanton report (.pdf) that forms the basis of Van Dyk's article. It is an idea that is intuitively appealing, but fall apart spectacularly upon deeper examination.

Let's not mince words here: the PSRTC is not just a silly idea, it's a dangerous distraction from the real transportation problems facing our region. Like the Department of Homeland Security at the federal level, the PSRTC's main purpose will be to make us feel like we've accomplished something, while formerly effective independent agencies (e.g. FEMA) are gutted and politicized as part of the new, unwieldy mega-bureaucracy.

For example, the PSRC, Rice and Stanton argue, "is charged with planning regionally, but has limited authority. Although it articulates a regional vision and attempts to plan for the region, the PSRC lacks the power to prioritize needed projects due to its governance structure." But this is a feature, not a bug! The PSRC's insulation from politics and taxing is exactly what makes it so valuable and objective as a planning agency.

Also, the proposed PSRTC would have "life cycle responsibility" for construction and maintenance of "regional projects." I assume this means it would have its own construction crews and maintenance facilities, or at least be responsible for subcontracting them. But why? Ostensibly, the PSRTC is being created for regional priority road projects like the ones specified in the RTID: I-405 widening, the "Mercer mess," the 520 bridge, and others. But design and maintenance for those already rests with specific agencies. Unless you're going to abolish KCDOT, SDOT, and all the other local DOTs, you're adding bureaucracy, not removing it.

Finally, we don't need yet another elected board overseeing something. Our ballots are far too large already. As it is, we must elect a couple of Port Commissioners, a few city councilmembers, a school board, some county councilmembers, federal judges, state reps and legislators, and maybe soon an elections chair. We need fewer of what Knute Berger wisely derided as "designer governments."

What might -- might -- make sense is to combine the various regional transit agencies (Everett Transit, King County Metro, Community Transit and Sound Transit) into one transit agency, like Portland's Tri-Met or New York's MTA. But that would have the effect of giving Sound Transit even more clout, and that must be avoided at all costs, according to Van Dyk and his ilk (despite the fact that the people of the region view ST more favorably than, say, WSDOT).

To be sure, there is a real funding problem in the region. With round after round of anti-tax initiatives crippling the state's budget (which must also fund important things like education and health care), it's getting harder to fund transportation projects. But creating another agency doesn't solve this problem, it just redirects it. If the state, cities, and counties can't come up with the revenue, they need to raise taxes, or elect leaders who will. Redrawing lines on the map doesn't magically make money appear.

In other words, creating the PSRTC does not restore these funds. It simply proposes to acquire them from a smaller bloc of voters, including Tim Eyman (who lives within the PSRTC's proposed boundaries, let's remember). Does anyone think that he's just going to sit on his hands while we try to raise $70B or so in new revenue?

I encourage everyone to download the Rice-Stanton report and skip to Page 114, where Commissioner Dan McDonald writes a highly intelligent and accurate "minority report," that calls into question the logic of the whole thing. A monster bureaucracy like the PSRTC will face stiff political opposition that will be every bit as difficult as simply trying to raise the revenue through existing agencies.

All of which makes you wonder why we'd even do it in the first place.

Mike Lindblom writes today in the Times that Sound Transit does not need to get permission from the legislature to get back on the ballot next year. This was the reason that many hypothesized the rapid re-emergence of a transit-only ballot initiative as early as next Spring.

Permission is one thing, protocol is another. I was going over this with a friend last night, and he reminded me that Sound Transit doesn't need any more enemies in Olympia right now. The knee-jerk reaction is going to be to blame the agency for the failure of Prop. 1.

Plus, there's more talk about creating the regional transit "super agency" that the Stanton-Rice report recommended earlier this year. Sound Transit has fought the creation of such an agency in the past, fearing that it would dilute ST's influence and create a huge new bureaucracy. If Sound Transit wants to keep lobbying against such an agency, it needs to stay in the legislature's (and the Governor's) good graces.

All of this is by way of saying that Sound Transit won't rush back to the ballot unless the legislature gives them the green light, or at least a wink and a nod.