Introduction
The Sound Transit Citizen Oversight Panel (COP) is a 15-member volunteer body appointed by the Sound Transit Board to oversee and monitor the implementation of Sound Move, the voter approved regional transit plan. This is the Panel's eleventh semi-annual report and covers Sound Transit's performance during the first half of the year 2002.
Summary of Sound Transit Performance
Sound Transit is ready to deliver. The agency has much improved leadership and much stronger management systems in place. It has shown itself willing to hold itself accountable, to question its business practices, and to strengthen itself as an organization over and over again. Professionalism among the staff is high and focus on mission is real. At mid-year 2002, Sound Transit has regained the momentum it lost in the winter of 2000 and is moving forward on all fronts.
The two main themes of this mid-year report are acknowledging Sound Transit's many accomplishments, and issuing a warning to citizens of the region on sustaining our investments in the future.
Recent Accomplishments
Sound Transit, its leaders and staff, have been engaged in a year-long process of self-examination and rebuilding. Tangible results of that rebuilding are now apparent.
Link
The Central Link program is retracing the steps toward execution of a full funding grant agreement (FFGA) with the federal government. Last winter the Board reconfigured the stalled program by selecting a new Initial Segment between downtown Seattle and South 154th Street in Tukwila. Within the last half year, Link filed its New Starts report, received a "recommended" rating from the Federal Transit Administration, and filed its crucial application for the FFGA. The local FTA office will submit the application to headquarters and then to Congress for approval. Sound Transit staff expect to have a signed agreement for $500 million in federal funds by the end of the year.
The final design process was re-started for many sections of the Initial Segment. The E3 busway and the maintenance base are at 100% design and are ready to go to bid. Sound Transit will award contracts and issue the notice to proceed with construction when the FFGA is signed. Key third party agreements were reached at a cost of $50 million, 10% less than had been estimated. The project control system is in place and monthly reports are being produced with the new integrated system. All signs indicate that the new capital estimate of $2.07 billion (plus $400 million in reserves, financing and other non-capital costs) for the Initial Segment will be met.
The Tacoma Link project continues in construction and is expected to meet its latest budget estimate of $80.4 million. The Tacoma maintenance base is complete and has been occupied. An operations manager has been hired as have three operations supervisors. The light rail vehicles are on their way for August delivery. Testing and operations training will begin shortly. Service is on track to start up in September 2003.
North Link and Airport Link are continuing with conceptual design and estimating toward the selection of preferred alternatives by the Board next year.
Public credibility of Link is still weak and citizens have not been persuaded that the agency can deliver. But agency leadership and staff are working hard to communicate the steps on the path and to mark each milestone as it is achieved. COP members feel that the elements are once again being put in place for Sound Transit to deliver on the promise of improved transit capacity in the region.
Sounder
Sounder commuter rail is providing a comfortable and reliable commute between Tacoma and Seattle for 12,000 riders a week. Parking garages in Auburn and Kent opened for service within the first half of this year. The track and signal improvements that will allow the start of a third daily train from Tacoma to Seattle are now under construction after a series of initial delays. A number of obstacles were successfully cleared, including protracted negotiations with BNSF, UP, the City of Tacoma and the City of Seattle. Solutions are in the works to remove one remaining obstacle, the need for an easement on a property owned by the City of Renton. If this issue can be resolved, the third train could begin service this fall.
COP wishes it could report similar real progress on the Everett to Seattle segment. Despite many months of discussions with BNSF and attention by the highest levels of Sound Transit leadership, the negotiations over railroad capacity improvements are stalled. Final environmental clearances are not yet in hand. And although general funding strategies have been developed, a budget and finance plan for the Sounder north segment are still fraught with great uncertainty.
Regional Express
As of mid-year 2002, 17 of 19 Express bus routes are in operation as are five of the 43 capital facility projects: Tacoma Dome, South Hill Park and Ride (Puyallup), Overlake Transit Center (Redmond), Ash Way Park and Ride (Lynnwood) and Pacific Avenue Overpass (Everett). The Board recently approved the 2003 Service Implementation Plan which will start up the last 2 of the 19 planned Express bus routes in September. This spring the Overlake transit center and park and ride lot opened for service and by year-end the Bellevue transit center will open, providing two major new facilities in East King County. In 2002, eleven projects are or soon will be in construction. Years of planning, public outreach, design, environmental review and permitting processes are beginning to result in tangible additions to transportation capacity for the region's riders.
Many regional capital projects are behind schedule due to extended processes for reaching agreement on project siting, scope and definition, especially given the limited funds allocated to some of them. Nevertheless, the program of transit centers, park and ride facilities and HOV connections provided for in Sound Move is projected to come in within the available tax funds authorized.
Challenges Remain
Despite the enumeration of its many accomplishments, Sound Transit still faces significant challenges. The sins of the past continue to haunt the Sound Transit Board and management. Stakeholders and the public are still mistrustful. Opponents of every stripe continue to use the agency as the poster child for government failures. The agency's communication efforts, though vigorous and proactive, find many audiences unwilling to forget past missteps. The slowing economy means slowing tax revenues. Individual projects and relationships still face steep hurdles.
A lawsuit still hangs over Central Link as does a skeptical House Transportation Committee chair in Congress. The relationship between Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and Sound Transit continues to face a deep divide over substantive issues that impede progress. In Tukwila the City Council chose to vent a local grievance over its own negotiated alignment by refusing to sign a needed agreement. In Renton, officials are holding progress on Sounder construction hostage to their idea of how $80 million in regional funds should be spent. Overlake Transit Center was visited with a series of management slips and poor communication with the City of Redmond.
In Auburn, an engineer's estimating error caused a cost increase of 30% on the pedestrian bridge contract. In Federal Way, a SEPA appeal (recently denied) by a major stakeholder delayed movement on the city's vision of a redeveloped downtown and much-needed transportation improvements. The Bellevue Transit Center was dealt a setback when a major subcontractor declared bankruptcy before delivering on its contract. The Pierce County subarea still has a $32 million funding shortfall. Initiative 776 on this fall's ballot threatens to void 20% of Sound Transit's voter-approved revenues.
A Warning to the Region
Sound Transit's mission is challenged on all sides. While legal appeals, project impacts and big disagreements can occur in capital projects, the intransigence and narrow self-interest of some of the positions taken by Sound Transit's regional partners have surprised this Panel again and again. Citizens demand solutions but are unwilling to pay for them. Communities demand connections to a regional transportation network, but insist that their local needs be met first. Local governments are faced with their own funding crises yet somehow believe they can demand unlimited budgets of Sound Transit.
With positions like these, the regional mission is in grave danger. We remind the citizens and elected officials of the region that, to borrow an old phrase, "If we don't hang together, we shall surely hang separately." We have enormous investment needs if we are to keep pace with our growing population. Public transit, highways, ferries, parks, public safety and schools-all are vital to our quality of life and to our future. These needs require consistent long-term investments. As we go to the polls this fall and as we make public policy decisions, we urge citizens and involved public officials to think of not just their self-interest but of the benefit to all. We urge the Sound Transit Board again to assume a vocal role as a public advocate of regional transportation solutions.
