(For Prepared Testimony, February 9, 2001, click here)

Sound Transit would like to refocus public attention on the "regional" transit needs of its three-county service area and how the Phase 1 Link Light Rail project does or does not meet these regional transit needs. The "regional" utility of the planned rail system – both short and long range – is precisely a major concern of Sane Transit. As background for the issues/questions below, please understand that by 2020 only about 33% of all daily motorized person trips made in the 3-county ST service region will begin and/or end within the City of Seattle. Over 60% of all trips will begin and end outside of Seattle with less than 1% served by public transit.

1. A detailed review of the Link rider forecasts finds that by 2020 with Link completion from SeaTac to Northgate, about 80% of all rail rider trips will begin and end within the City of Seattle. The average trip length on rail would be less than 5 miles. This does not respond to the ST mission to reach out to the "regional" transit service needs.
2. If the ST 2020 ridership estimate is achieved, the maximum 4-car train operating at the minimum possible headways of 4 minutes would be operating at 130% of seated capacity east of the Westlake Station. This leaves little capacity to serve longer-range growth in transit travel, and particularly for increasing the 20% proportion of "regional" riders.
3. The existing Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) currently serves 27 "regional" express transit routes – 24 of which originate from areas of the region outside of Seattle with average rider trip lengths of about 15 miles. These routes will be forced out of the tunnel onto surface streets, tripling their travel times through downtown Seattle. Link will therefore replace 89% "regional" use of this tunnel with 80% local transit riders. This is clearly inconsistent with the Sound Transit mission to serve regional transit needs.
4. To maximize its rail rider estimates, Sound Transit is placing the rail guideway along the axis of the already most highly transit-served corridors of the region. In doing so, it is bypassing some of the largest employment nodes of regional destination interest. Significant examples are the Duwamish Industrial corridor providing up to 100,000 jobs, and the CBD fringe areas north of downtown Seattle where some of the region’s highest growth rates are occurring in high-rise office and residential complexes. Again, the rail system does not appear to be planned to enhance "regional" access to "regional" employment areas, but merely as a redundant overlay of existing high-use transit corridors to capture existing transit users. Our largest regional employer – the Boeing Company – will be totally bypassed by the rail system.
5. A major feature of the rail system sold to the voters in 1996 was to increase transit capacity and reduce transit bus congestion through downtown Seattle. We now know that the rail system at maximum capacity will at best only replace the existing DSTT people-moving bus capacity with rail – no new capacity. Most tunnel buses will need to go to surface streets increasing, not reducing, traffic congestion.
6. In 1996 the voters were told that the "regional transit plan" would have a major effect on reducing traffic volumes and traffic congestion. ST Board and staff continue to make such statements, which are also likely embedded in the FFGA. We encourage you to review the findings on page 3-5 of the November 1999 FEIS and its supporting tables and figures:
   "In most cases, the traffic volumes across screenlines with light rail alternatives are within 1 percent of the No-build volumes." "Therefore, based upon traffic forecasts the light rail system will not result in a significant difference in regional traffic volumes …"
7. Sound Transit continues to issue statements to the effect that at least the rail system offers an alternative for people stuck in traffic – implying private vehicle drivers and passengers. We ask you to take a close look at the rail alignment and its access stations and request ST to provide specific examples of where the rail plan offers transit service to anyone not already served by public transit. It does offer an alternative public transit service for those already served by transit, but except for those living within walking distance of its stations, it is difficult to see rail with all its required transfers as an improved local public transit service.
8. The 2020 rail ridership estimates appear to assume that all existing express bus routes from South King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties will be truncated at the Phase 1 outlying rail stations. The transfer times plus low-speed multi-stop rail service will increase travel time compared to the existing one-seat non-stop express bus services on the Transit/HOV freeway lane system that we and the federal government have spent $100s of millions to develop. The "local" service nature of light rail will worsen travel speeds for regional transit riders.
9. By 2030 the 2001 Update of the PSRC Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) estimates that public transit will serve 4.7% of total motorized person travel in this region under the "Current Law" scenario (no new funding actions). All "Action" scenarios propose additional investment of about $15 billion to extend light rail transit to a 125-mile system of fixed guideway transit. This expanded rail system is predicted by PSRC to increase the regional transit market share from 4.7% to 5.0% -- only a 0.3% increase in travel market share. Can the FTA justify $billions of federal subsidies for such minimal results?
10. The PSRC travel forecasts developed for its 1998 MTP Update show that by 2020 less than 1% of the 60% of non-Seattle trips will be served by public transit after completion of the so-called "regional" transit system. That is little better than transit services achieve today for the vast majority of the ST service area population and jobs outside Seattle.
11. During the recent review of the PSRC 2001 MTP Update, the PSRC received numerous comments as to why no more rider-productive and cost-effective alternatives to the Sound Transit "regional transit plan" had been developed and evaluated. PSRC staff admitted that it only assembles plans from member agencies into its MTP. The "regional transit plan" came from Sound Transit, and Sound Transit was created primarily to develop and implement a rail transit system. So please be well advised that no unbiased study of regional transit system plan alternatives has been carried out to determine the most cost-effective plan of action.
12. The current MOS-1 segment of the Phase 1 light rail plan offers little attraction for any riders; to cause its use all existing transit services accessing downtown Seattle will likely be truncated with a forced transfer to rail. It will destroy completion of one-seat rides to downtown Seattle for existing transit users – particularly devastating for the "regional" transit riders currently advantaged by the DSTT. Once MOS-1 of rail is implemented, it puts this region on an unalterable course to fund and build extensions. That is one of the most significant concerns of Sane Transit – it cannot be stopped once started without leaving "regional" transit in this region worse than if we had done nothing at all.
13. Neither Sound Transit nor the PSRC have provided the public with any rider forecasts for the planned "Phase 2" extensions of the 125-mile light rail transit plan. Because of the major negative consequences on "regional" transit service that will result by implementation of MOS-1, and even "Phase 1", it is essential that Sound Transit and PSRC disclose rider forecasts and benefit-cost analyses that show justification of the entire rail plan development.
14. About 30 miles of the 125-mile ST/PSRC light rail plan is placement of a 26-mile segment along the I-405 corridor east of Lake Washington from I-5 to I-5. We are several phases into that federally supported corridor study. It finds that rail transit in that corridor would average between 4500 and 8000 rail riders per day on any segment in both directions combined by 2020. It is difficult for us to believe that any rail ridership at that level would justify a multi-$billion light rail line. Similar findings are likely on other planned extensions. We entreat you to demand from the PSRC and Sound Transit technical study data that provide justification of the full Sound Transit light rail plan before proceeding with any phase.

The concerns of Sane Transit and a rapidly growing number of this region’s taxpayers and news media are far more extensive than just a concern for the upward spiraling of time and cost. We recognize that the cost of huge public projects can and do increase. But the rail project must have major productive merit to justify its implementation at any timing and cost, much less at the now disclosed 50% increase in both with more increases looking very likely.

After four years of additional study since the public vote, even the project EIS points out that the project would have insignificant effect on our primary need to reduce traffic volumes compared to "Do Nothing" with public transit. We urge that your review of the FFGA for federal tax subsidy of the Seattle area light rail program will include a serious analysis of its cost-effectiveness in addressing this region’s transportation crisis. We urge you to seek acceptable responses from both the PSRC as well as Sound Transit to the above issues and questions.

For more information on the above issues, please visit: www.gt-wa.com,RTA/sanetech.htm and select Paper #7 – Light Rail is a Negative for Regional Transit, as well as reviewing the other issue papers included on that site.

Contact: James W. MacIsaac, P.E.
381 - 129th Place NE
Bellevue, WA 98005
Phone/Fax (425) 454-6307
E-mail: jmacisaac@qwest.net