Citizens' Year-End 1998 Performance Report on Sound Transit - Executive Summary
April 13, 1999
Sound Transit Finance Committee
Honorable Greg Nickels, Chair
1100 Second Avenue, Suite 500
Seattle, WA 98101
Dear Chair Nickels and Committee Members:
We are pleased to submit to you this performance report on the second half of 1998. The Citizen Oversight Panel found in its year-end evaluation that Sound Transit made excellent progress on the implementation of Sound Move. As full-scale environmental analysis and preliminary design of facilities began on numerous fronts, there were a few set-backs, as might have been expected. Nevertheless, we felt that overall Sound Transit is moving forward on mission and on schedule.
In preparing this mid-year report on Sound Transit's performance, we have sought the views of the public, of stakeholder groups and of local agencies. We have brought the various perspectives of our members, representing the five subareas, to our deliberations and have concluded that Sound Transit is meeting its commitments to the public and to the region in most respects.
There are a few areas that we and other observers in the region would point to as needing improvement. Foremost among these is how Sound Transit, while meeting its regional objectives, interacts with and responds to local communities and stakeholders. COP members felt that, while Sound Transit is committed to its regional mission, the individualism of local communities is posing challenges to the successful implementation of Sound Move. In our report we find that, overall, Sound Transit has done a commendable job of staying on mission, on budget and on schedule. However, we also find that several communities and citizen groups feel that they were not heard. In the Panel's opinion, this is the result of an outreach effort not keeping pace with the aggressive schedule of Sound Move. We urge the Board and staff to seek new ways to build and articulate the vision of a regional system. We are encouraged by recent efforts by management to organize itself to meet this challenge.
Details of Sound Transit's accomplishments at year-end 1998, as well as suggested areas for improvement, are outlined in the attached report. It is our intent to report to you again mid-year in 1999. In the meantime we will continue to monitor Sound Transit's activities and relationships and note concerns brought to our attention. We welcome all citizen and agency comments that are addressed to us.
Sincerely,
|
Steve Goldblatt, |
Reid Shockey, |
cc: Paul Miller, Sound Transit Board Chairman
Citizens' Year-End 1998 Performance Report on Sound Transit: Executive Summary
Introduction
In November 1996 Sound Transit (legally known as the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority) went before the voters of the region seeking approval of a ten-year plan for investments in public transportation called Sound Move. In that plan, the Board and agency promised to appoint a Citizen Oversight Panel (Panel or COP) to monitor performance and report regularly on potential areas for improvement. COP, a group of fifteen independent citizen volunteers from throughout the Sound Transit district, has now been meeting for two years. This is our fourth report to the Sound Transit Board and covers the second half of 1998.
The Citizen Oversight Panel uses an evaluation framework based on commitments made in Sound Move. The framework focuses on such questions as: Is the agency on mission? Is it on schedule? Is it on budget? The framework is organized into four main topic areas: 1) overall agency performance; 2) performance by the three modal divisions, regional express, commuter rail and light rail; 3 ) citizen involvement and public process; and 4) finance and budgets.
The complete evaluation process, conducted twice each year, involves staff briefings, review of agency materials, and personal contacts with a variety of constituencies. Also included is a group evaluation in which Panel members evaluate Sound Transit on each key question in the evaluation framework. The body of this report discusses the findings, conclusions and recommendations in each topic area evaluated for this period.
Summary of Sound Transit Performance
The Citizen Oversight Panel found that in 1998 the agency continued to move forward in developing regional bus service, community connection facilities, commuter rail and light rail. It experienced a major success in negotiating a region-wide fare integration system. The agency has stayed on mission and has focused rigorously on meeting the schedules and staying within the budgets to which it committed.
Budget constraints have become evident in almost every area of the agency's work. The original 1995 cost estimates have begun to be tested against 1999 reality and found in some cases to require adjustment to designs and service plans. Despite these adjustments, the Panel finds that the fundamental mission of the agency has not been substantially compromised. Nevertheless, citizens and communities in some instances have not been pleased to discover that their expectations may not be able to be met.
COP members felt that, while Sound Transit is committed to its regional mission, the Puget Sound may not yet have created a culture hospitable to regional thinking. Instead we tend to employ a very localized "grass-roots" approach to decision-making. The individualism and desire for local control among our communities are posing challenges to the successful implementation of Sound Move. In the areas of mission, schedule and budget which we examined, COP found that the tendency in our region is to satisfy local wishes, draw out processes and add scope changes without reference to a fixed schedule and budget, approved by voters in 1996.
In the face of this reality, Sound Transit staff have continued to communicate with and respond to the input of interested parties and affected groups regarding these issues. Yet we urge them to commit themselves to increasing their efforts to minimize controversies as the system evolves. We urge the Board and staff to seek new ways to articulate and build the vision of a regional system.
The following examples illustrate some of the highlights of the last half of 1998:
- Overall Performance. Sound Transit is functioning at close to full staffing and in excellent partnership with its co-located consultants. With a few exceptions, the agency has established good working relationships with cities, transit agencies and other partners. Even where disagreements have arisen, the agency has made ongoing good faith efforts to respond, negotiate and resolve issues.
- Regional Express. Sound Transit successfully negotiated a fare integration agreement and regional fare policy with four other transit agencies. Sound Transit completed its Service Implementation Plan for regional bus service on schedule and adopted initial policies on contracting with local transit agencies to deliver the service.
- Sounder Commuter Rail. Community-based Technical Advisory Committees were formed and station design began in Tukwila, Kent, Auburn, Sumner and Puyallup. Despite the emergence of difficult technical issues, good progress continued to be made on the environmental analyses for the Tacoma-Lakewood and Seattle-Everett corridors.
- Link Light Rail. The light rail division successfully met a tight timeline and delivered its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the central Link corridor on time. Additionally, it provided a well-presented staff-recommended set of route alternatives that facilitated community discussion and input.
- Communication and Community Outreach. In 1998, Sound Transit stepped up its level of communication and outreach considerably. It began publishing a quarterly newsletter and it issued an informative annual report. It worked actively with the many communities affected by Regional Express, Sounder and Link project development. While the agency generally receives credit from stakeholders and the public for being accessible and open, there are pockets of dissatisfaction that are described below under Areas for Improvement.
- Financial Policies. Sound Transit has adhered to the adopted financial policies with respect to budgets, debt management, subarea equity and the regional fund. After a rigorous review by the rating agencies Standard & Poor's and Moody's, Sound Transit was awarded among the highest bond ratings of any transit agency in the nation. The agency received its second annual unqualified financial audit for 1998 from the independent auditors. Sound Transit conducted external performance audits in the areas of financial reporting, cost allocation and contract change order management and as a result initiated process improvements in a number of areas.
Areas for Improvement
In the second half of 1998, all three of Sound Transit's modes continued to work in earnest with communities to make decisions and to implement programs for Regional Express, Sounder and Link. As the time for making decisions on bus service, route alignments and various station and facility designs has approached and become final, community expectations vs. what is ultimately "doable" have begun to emerge as issues. In some instances the mandate of a regional agency and the interests of local communities have begun to conflict. COP found that Sound Transit's relationships with a number of communities have become fragile and that existing processes have not been as effective as they could be in articulating the regional mandate of the Sound Move program. We urge the Board to be involved in a new proactive role in championing Sound Transit's benefits to the region.
In its mid-year 1998 report COP highlighted areas for improvement in how these issues are handled. Now at year-end, these issues need to be raised again as continuing concerns. Additionally, new issues have been identified that relate to adequate Board representation of all communities and to the level of risk in Sound Transit's financial plans.
1. Involving and Responding to Communities
Keeping stakeholders fully informed and fully involved. Sound Transit leadership knows that if the agency is to succeed in its mission, it must not only bring Sound Move in on time and on budget, but do so in a manner that leaves citizens and stakeholders feeling that processes have been fair, open and complete, even if they disagree with the ultimate outcome. In its meetings with stakeholders, COP learned of a number of examples in which communities do not feel this has occurred. The Board and agency management are urged to seek stakeholder feedback in ongoing ways to address such concerns before they become real problems.
Being highly skilled listeners, problem solvers and communicators
Even with partners who have effective working relationships with Sound Transit, concerns were raised that some Sound Transit staff are not good listeners, do not appear to know how to respond to stakeholder concerns in a proactive and empathetic manner, and are sometimes defensive when issues are raised. It is essential that Sound Transit be sensitive and skillful in its processes of involving and communicating with the communities it serves.
Note: The Panel wishes to emphasize that these observations pertain to community involvement efforts and not to the substantive decisions made in early 1999 regarding actual alignments. Because the period of review for the Panel in this report is July to December 1998, there will be no comment on these decisions until our mid-year 1999 report, to be issue late this summer.
2. Ensuring Adequate Representation of All Parts of the Sound Transit District
Stakeholders and elected officials in a number of communities in King County have raised the concern that current Board composition is not adequately representative of all parts of the county. Communities in suburban north and south King County feel underrepresented in comparison to the major urban areas of the region. Given the potential for loss of community support in these areas, we would encourage the three county executives and county councils to look into these concerns as they make future Sound Transit Board appointments.
3. Financial Plan Risks
In each of the three modes, serious fiscal constraints are emerging. Community expectations are high, scope changes are being introduced, agency overhead costs are going up and environmental and real estate costs in some cases are coming in higher than originally estimated. Cumulatively the future effects of these factors are unknown. To date, Sound Transit has, in its budgets and finance plans and in its communications to the public, continued to make the assumption that these financial risks are within a manageable range.
The Citizen Oversight Panel has no reason at this point in time to question this. But it has begun to be aware of the long-term financial risks inherent in these factors and to be concerned about the great fiscal restraint that will be necessary to keep budgets from getting out of control. COP urges the agency's management to provide early warning about emerging risks and the Board to exercise great caution before entering into new financial commitments.
Year End 1998 Performance Report on Sound Transit
View an Adobe Acrobat file of the entire COP Year End 1998 Performance report on Sound Transit. In order to view this report, you will need Adobe Acrobat reader installed on your computer.
