Tuesday, October 17, 2000

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

It is a remarkable turnaround from just the week before when Sound Transit officials declined to participate in a forum organized by several elected officials that questioned both the engineering and economic sense of building the tunnel.

To his credit, King County Councilman and Sound Transit board member (and Seattle mayoral candidate) Greg Nickels put in an appearance at the forum. The criticism is not limited to those with perennial resistance to transit or light rail. Some solid transit supporters are raising questions, too.

With billions of public dollars at stake, inviting scrutiny is a sound move for Sound Transit.

by Josh Feit, Editor

The Stranger

October 26, 2000

JUST ABOUT EVERYONE realizes by now that Sound Transit has been duping the public about its light-rail project. Heck, even The Seattle Times got wise last week and trashed the agency for blind-siding voters with construction surprises and unwieldy cost overruns.

What most people don't know, however, is that Sound Transit has also been snowing the federal government. Close readings of Sound Transit's grant application to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Feds' recent Sound Transit audit reveal that the local agency--in order to secure a $500 million federal grant--is playing fast and loose with the facts.

At issue is a concept known as "subarea equity." This is a fancy term used to describe a simple concept: Taxpayers from one region of Sound Transit's five-region project area shall not foot the bill for work that benefits another region. (The regions are Snohomish County, north King County, south King County, east King County, and Pierce County.)

In short, Eastside tax revenues aren't supposed to pay for the Capitol Hill tunnel, where costs are likely to run more than $300 million over budget. Subarea equity was mandated by the voters when they created Sound Transit in 1996.

Unfortunately, according to several critics, Sound Transit isn't being straight with the Feds about the restriction. This is clear when one  reads Sound Transit's grant application to the FTA. For example, page 48 states cavalierly, "If it becomes apparent that subarea revenue and  expenditure trends will diverge, the financial policies provide adjustments to the plan." The Feds, apparently, have been misled by this characterization. The federal audit gullibly explains subarea equity this way: "The Board has substantial flexibility to amend...subarea equity principles in order to best implement [Sound Transit]...." It continues, "Subarea equity principles do not apply to Sound Transit's legal obligation to repay bond debt. All subarea funds are collectively and legally pledged to repay bond debt without regard to which subarea benefited from the debt."

This is news to Emory Bundy, transit geek and former director of the philanthropic Bullitt Foundation. "Sound Transit is finessing this imbroglio by soft-pedaling its subarea equity policy... in its representations to the federal government," Bundy says.

Sound Transit spokes-person Denny Fleenor will only say that the Sound Transit Board is committed to making subarea equity work. He also says that the "adjustments" referenced in the grant application don't represent any change in policy. While he won't elaborate, it's clear from conversations with Mayor Schell's office (Schell is a Sound Transit board member and light-rail diehard) that for some board members, subarea equity is a "gray area" up for interpretation. For example, a Seattle-area board member could argue that the Capitol Hill tunnel would be a benefit to a commuter in Snohomish County.

But one of the agency's own, Sound Transit Board Member and Eastside King County Council Member Rob McKenna, says subarea equity can't be adjusted. "What the Feds don't understand," he says, "is that subarea equity is a binding obligation that cannot be changed without voter approval."

Citing attorney/client privilege, Sound Transit general counsel Desmond Brown wouldn't address whether it's legal to overturn subarea equity without a public vote. But McKenna is persuasive--backing up his argument by referencing the original Sound Transit plan from 1996.

The plan says that when the cost of a subarea's segment of the Sound Transit project exceeds the ability to fund it, "the Board shall take one or more of the following options"--tap the subarea's uncommitted funds, scale back subarea projects, or send a new plan to the voters.

Those are the only choices.

"The likelihood of any voter outside Seattle approving the abandonment of subarea equity is nil," says brainiac McKenna, who looks something like an elegant, younger Bill Gates.

The reason Sound Transit is interested in downplaying the concept of subarea equity to the FTA is obvious. Seattle doesn't have enough money to pay for its portion of light rail on its own. In its grant application, Sound Transit used the University of Washington to South Lander Street line as an example of its solid financial planning. In truth, however, the 7.2-mile line is plagued with cost overruns, and Seattle's north King County subarea is struggling to fund it. Bundy warns that "the entire shebang [UW-South Lander] must be financed by north King County revenues." While the line is going to cost north King County at least $1.6 billion, it's curious that Sound Transit couldn't provide a dollar figure on the subarea's bonding capacity (tax revenues on which the ability to issue bonds is based). With cost overruns already in the hundreds of millions, north King County will clearly have to push the limit of its bonding capacity. To hide this fact, Sound Transit is being deceptive.

For example, while touting the UW to South Lander Street line to the Feds, Sound Transit plays up its hefty bonding capacity, but downplays important details. "Sound Transit's ultimate contingency is its untapped debt capacity... of $2.6 billion," the application reads.

"Sound Transit could issue additional bonds without violating the policy and legislated constraints on its debt capacity."

Unfortunately, the $2.6 billion represents the bonding capacity of all the subareas combined, not that of north King County.

It's clear then, that in order to meet Sound Transit's legal obligation to the Feds--completing a light-rail system--the agency will eventually have to jeopardize the principle of subarea equity by borrowing against the tax revenues of places like the Eastside, where current bonding capacity is robust (estimated at $800 million).

Goodbye to tunnel vision

Pursue light rail alternatives

Donald R. Nelson

Puget Sound Business Journal

November 27, 2000

It's beginning to look like there will be no light rail at the end of the tunnel.

Last week's decision by Sound Transit to put the Capitol Hill tunnel project on hold is characterized as a reconsideration, but likely will quickly degenerate into a wholesale retreat.

Don't expect the Portage Bay tunnel to ever surface again. Even its scaled-back cost estimates were well beyond what Sound Transit calculated, and at-grade alternatives become more expensive with every passing day.

Critics who clamored for an accounting of tunnel costs from Sound Transit now seem vindicated. The secretive contract negotiations with the tunnel contractor hid the project's problems from the public for too long. When the figures were finally revealed, the only strategy left was inaction.

The tunnel problems raise questions about the entire light rail project, and may put in jeopardy some $500 million in federal transportation funding that Sound Transit has been counting on.

Huge miscalculations are not unusual in huge public works projects, nor are staggering cost overruns once the project is under way. The "Big Dig" tunnel under the downtown Boston practically defies calculation of what it's bloated costs will finally total.

Sound Transit's tunnel estimate wasn't a near-miss. The cost projection was off by $171 million. That's troubling, but more worrisome is that the gaffe suggests worse is yet to come. Suspicion about the tunnel project is likely to taint the commuter train and bus portions of Sound Transit's $3.9 billion project. How can the public now take at face value any Sound Transit estimate? The blown outcome of a cloak-and-dagger negotiating approach with the contractor undermines the agency's trustworthiness on other portions of the project, notably the disputed Rainier Valley at-grade route. There's no way to estimate the cost of squandered credibility.

Former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice had been asked by Sound Transit to head an independent panel to review the tunnel's costs. Now the agency says it doesn't need him. Maybe Sound Transit should reconsider that conclusion, too -- perhaps now an independent review process is more needed than ever.

For all the negative publicity, pulling back from the tunnel project may be the most credible thing Sound Transit has done yet. During this pause in planning, the agency should not only review its building program but also think about ways to begin rebuilding public confidence.

December 14, 2000
Seattle Times
Editorial

One billion dollars. That's how much Sound Transit's light rail project has gone up in price. Taxpayers from Everett to Tacoma are expected to pay.

When Sound Transit board members meet today they should pull the plug on current plans and begin a serious examination of alternatives, including an all-bus system.

The costs reported yesterday didn't just go up all at once. The agency brought in two new executives who wanted to know what they start with. It was time to own up to obligations accepted but never listed on financial statements.

By Sound Transit's new estimate, digging a tunnel from downtown Seattle under Capitol Hill to the University District will cost an extra $171 million. That is not all. Add $385 million more for other tunnels, tracks and stations; $82 million more to move people who are in the way; and $96 million more to pay off big institutions like the University of Washington and King County (for the bus tunnel). Much of these costs are to make light rail more palatable in a built-up city. There was also $117 million more in overhead, mainly to pay staff for three more years, because it will take that much longer to build it.

Throughout the region, more and more people were becoming skeptical of building light rail at the old price. It did not move enough people for the money. It did too little--almost nothing, in fact--to alleviate road congestion. It would be very expensive.

Light rail was supposed to be the backbone of a system that also includes regional buses. That concept is now very much in doubt. Sound Transit's directors need to compare the repriced light rail with an all-bus alternative on a backbone of dedicated road lanes. They cannot solve the whole problem of mobility; if it is solvable at all, it is by investments in roads, traffic management, congestion pricing, penalties and incentives that go far beyond the purview of a transit agency. But they can help immensely by not committing the region to a plan that will suck up $2.6 billion, the great majority of that provided by local taxpayers.

Sound Transit's board is still talking about signing a contract with the federal government, accepting $500 million in federal money, and going ahead with the big dig. The board should think again. The $500 million is a juicy turkey, but they have just figured on eating it twice over. Still time to back down. It will never be easier.

Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company

December 15, 2000
Publisher's Notebook
Puget Sound Business Journal

Mike Flynn

The battle lines have been drawn over the issue of the Puget Sound area's transportation future, and the public deserves input over the next few weeks on which side will prevail.

It's becoming increasingly clear that the struggle over Sound Transit has boiled down to this: Should the Sound Transit board look to a plan that relieves congestion as soon, and as cost-effectively, as possible? Or should Seattle finally commit to fulfill the decades long vision of a light-rail system for the area?

This week's huge spike in the estimated cost of a proposed rail-based transportation system means it's time for an honest and open examination, with public input, on what truly is the goal of this massive investment.

The Sound Transit board got the word this week that the cost of the system approved by the voters in 1996 has grown by almost a billion dollars, to $3 billion.

The board plans to hold two public "open houses" next month to gather citizen input.

But hanging like a Sword of Damocles over the deliberations is the Jan. 11 date by which the Sound Transit board must commit to the light-rail project by signing an agreement to accept $500 million in federal funds for the project. If the board takes the money, it must complete the rail portion of the project as proposed, no matter what it finally might cost.

The issue of whether the go-ahead decision should be forced to conclusion by the federal-funds deadline has become a contentious one in the business community.

On the one hand are those who argue that examination of the whole cost issue, particularly in the wake of emerging possible alternatives to rail, is too vital to the community's future to rush to judgment just to get the federal money.

Others, admittedly driven by that world-class-city vision of a light-rail focal point, argue that a short-term, cost-effective fix isn't the goal.

Rather, they see the goal as a much longer-term vision for what a state-of-the-art system based on light rail can mean for the area.

They're haunted, frankly, by the fact that a light-rail system would be in place today, with federal dollars having paid for much of it, if voters had not rejected the plan more than three decades ago. They argue that we don't want to miss the opportunity again.

Former Metro chief Chuck Collins, a one-time light rail advocate, has framed the issue with a compelling argument for replacing the light-rail concept with a network of fare-free buses and van pools.

The more Collins has had the opportunity to outline his proposal, the more support he has gathered for his option plan.

Most rail proponents will argue that the voters spoke four years ago and there's no reason not to press ahead with acceptance of the $500 million federal funding.

We think it's fair to suggest that a 1996 vote, on a concept that has skyrocketed in cost and for which rail alternatives are now gathering support, should not necessarily be considered an ironclad mandate for 2001 decision-making.

The Sound Transit board, and the elected officials who make up most of the membership, should want an honest evaluation of how the public feels today about the wisdom of the plan they voted on in 1996.

Neither those with a light-rail vision for the future, nor the advocates of a cost-effective and clearly less elegant congestion-easing alternative, should seek to avoid broad public input on which view now represents the community's goal.

Monday, December 18, 2000

POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

Sound Transit management's attitude toward its governing board and the citizens paying for the 10- year, multibillion-dollar transit project has undergone a remarkable transformation -- from "Trust us, dammit!" to "Trust us, please?"

But a pattern of arrogance and less-than-truthfulness, capped by a billion-dollar cost jump for the Central Link light rail segment, has eroded public confidence to the point that a public re-evaluation of the entire project is needed.

It's time to authorize a long-sought independent, outside review of Sound Transit.

The agency had once named former Mayor Norm Rice to head a review panel of tunnel construction costs. Sound Transit dismissed the need for that panel after finally admitting a nearly $300 million tunnel cost overrun. Rice would be a fine choice to lead an agency-wide analysis.

Those who dared challenge the agency's numbers, as well as the candor of its leadership, had been tabbed as malcontents merely trying to block light rail.

But many champions of light rail and transit were among Sound Transit's critics.

Now the greatest threat to light rail, perhaps to the whole project, comes not from those conscientious critics but from loss of public confidence fomented by the behavior of agency staff.

A comprehensive regional transportation plan must include options to roadway travel and transport. Heavy rail is a key part of such a plan, as is some form of light rail. But if Sound Transit officials think a tax-touchy public will swallow their argument that the 1996 ballot measure gave the agency carte blanche to build light rail no matter how long it takes or how much it costs, their public perceptions are as far afield as their cost projections.

Sound Transit Executive Director Bob White posed the salient question last week in a memo trying to explain to the Sound Transit board of elected officials why the cost estimates were so far off. "The major question I believe the board should be asking is: 'Why should I believe Sound Transit staff now?'"

White asks the right question: How can we trust them?

Sadly, the answer is that we're not sure we can.

© 1998-2000 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Eastside Journal

2000-12-19

We wouldn't ordinarily tell officials to turn their backs on $500 million. After all, that's real money -- twice what baseball players get nowadays. However, saying ``no'' is what Sound Transit should do to a proposed federal grant to help build the Link light rail system.

A delegation from Sound Transit is attempting to convince federal officials that the light rail system still is on track. It isn't, and insisting that it still can be built as planned bends the truth so far that it's nearly unrecognizable.

The problem with Sound Transit's light rail project is cost. It's climbing -- astronomically -- and not one inch of tunnel has yet to be dug nor one mile of track laid. As recently as November 1999, Sound Transit pegged the project's cost at $2.5 billion. That was a dramatic increase over the $1.67 billion cost sold to voters back in 1996 -- a cost Sound Transit said was ``conservative.'' Now the cost is estimated at $3.6 billion.

Sound Transit says it still can build the line without any new taxes. That's true, but also deceptive.

Sound Transit wants to take three more years to build the rail line -- and to keep on collecting your taxes to pay for the work. Unfortunately, that's perfectly legal; voters essentially gave Sound Transit a blank check in 1996 when they approved the plan.

But legal doesn't make it right.

When voters approved this plan in 1996, they -- reasonably -- expected that their billions of dollars in taxes would make things better. Now we know the opposite is likely to happen.

The Link project will do nothing to relieve congestion along its route in Seattle. Most riders are expected to be people already using buses. In the downtown area, Link actually will make things worse.

At one time it was hoped trains and buses could use the Metro bus tunnel at the same time. The tunnel was constructed to get buses off downtown Seattle streets, thus improving transit times and lessening congestion. Link officials now say that is impossible. As a result, hundreds of buses that connect Seattle with the suburbs will be forced back onto congested streets.

One plan, put forward by former Metro director Chuck Collins, would expand the bus and vanpool system, making them free and, studies show, attracting thousands of people from their single-occupancy cars. The cost, even with free buses all the time for everyone, is dramatically less than spending billions on a now questionable light rail system.

In Seattle, residents voted to study an expanded monorail system.

Just three months ago, Sound Transit officials rejected calls by former Gov. Booth Gardner and King County Council members Rob McKenna and Maggi Fimia, among others, for an independent review of costs. Now, even Sound Transit acknowledges the shockingly higher numbers -- with no real end in sight.

Link is envisioned as a 125-mile rail system. Even if there are no more cost and construction surprises (unlikely), the project already is years behind schedule and hundreds of millions over budget while our transportation problem is getting worse.

The Puget Sound Regional Council estimates that the region will add 2.9 million daily trips by 2010. The Link system is designed to serve only 30,800 of them.

It's time to take another look at the Link light rail project -- with a new election if necessary -- and see if this, and/or other alternatives, will best serve this region's needs.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eastside Journal
1705 132nd Avenue N.E.
Bellevue, WA 98005-2251
All materials Copyright © 2000 Horvitz Newspapers, Inc.

Eastside Journal

2000-12-21

We've recently complained that the Link light rail proposal is too expensive and would do more harm than good. Now, once strong backers are adding their voices to the chorus.

Business and community groups in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood have pulled their support of light rail because they say the project can't be built without a massive impact on their community.

The Sound Transit board should listen to the message and pull the plug on this scheme.

The 21-mile light rail line already is expected to cost $1.2 billion more than projected and now is three years behind schedule -- even before a shovel of dirt has been turned.

Worse, the Capitol Hill group says, Sound Transit's plans will devastate that community -- which at the start was one of light rail's biggest backers.

If Capitol Hill thought the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle was a problem, wail until they get a look at what Sound Transit has in store for them.

Sound Transit needs to construct stations for the light-rail tunnel that will run under Capitol Hill. To cut construction costs, it wants to dig huge holes. The plan will divert traffic from Broadway Avenue, Capitol Hill's main thoroughfare. A collection of business and community groups says the change could devastate businesses there.

Sound Transit officials say they are looking at ways to reduce the impacts of construction and want some time to work things out. They say they remain hopeful. They shouldn't be.

Capitol Hill was probably the most pro-transit neighborhood in Seattle in 1996 when the transit issue passed. Now neighbors accuse Sound Transit of ``a kind of monstrous bait-and-switch.''

Ann Donovan, president of the Capitol Hill Community Council, says they have been negotiating in good faith for the past year and a half to bring new transit solutions to that neighborhood, ``but we have haven't gotten anywhere. We are worse off now as a community than we were a year ago.'' That's damning testimony.

Like others, Capitol Hill residents say that because of the rising costs, now is the time to re-evaluate the system and consider if there are better alternatives. A lot of other people are saying that, too.

It's time for Sound Transit to listen up.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eastside Journal
1705 132nd Avenue N.E.
Bellevue, WA 98005-2251
All materials Copyright © 2000 Horvitz Newspapers, Inc.

December 23, 2000
Seattle Times
Editorial

THERE is no Santa Claus for Sound Transit. Like coals in its Christmas stocking, pressure continues to mount for scrapping its current plan, which includes a costly tunnel under Capitol Hill and the ship canal to the University District.

This week's barrage of criticism came from within as well as without. In a stern letter to Sound Transit chairman David Earling, the agency's own advisory panel singled out managers of the light rail project, saying they have "not served the board or the public well."

The Citizen Oversight Panel stopped short of recommending the project be stopped or postponed, but said "it is understandable that COP and public confidence in the agency is seriously shaken."

Critics outside the agency, including this page, go further. With cost estimates for light rail now running $1 billion above earlier projections and a three-year delay in project completion, it is time to call a halt and examine other options.

The issue is not just the price tag. It is, as urban planning consultant Richard Harkness wrote on yesterday's op-ed page, the prospect of huge cost for no gain. "Sound Transit's $2.6 billion light-rail system won't even make a dent in Puget Sound's traffic congestion problem," he wrote.

Also this week, a citizens group promoting an all-bus light-rail alternative sent a letter to area leaders. Former Metro transit director Chuck Collins described the mailing as "a call to action on behalf of 'Ride Free' supporters." Ride Free advocates claim its proposal is "better, faster and cheaper."

It's too early to know if that claim will hold up. But given the escalating costs and delayed completion - 2009 rather than 2006 - alternatives, including Ride Free, should be put on a fast-track assessment.

Despite the pressure, Sound Transit is not budging. In a full-page newspaper ad yesterday, the agency made its case to the public and confessed the error of its ways. "Sound Transit has come to a better understanding of its mistakes," according to the unsigned statement.

But beware Sound Transit's public relations machine. The ad claims "Puget Sound residents overwhelmingly want light rail" and cites a recent poll showing 72 percent support it "even if it will cost more" without raising new taxes.

There's no mention, however, of the latest Elway poll conducted in King County, which found less enthusiasm. Asked what Sound Transit should do now that costly tunnel plans were on hold, 48 percent said "consider transportation solutions other than light rail." Some 43 percent favored finding other ways to keep the project going.

This is a critical time for regional decision makers. Saying no to current plans and conventional wisdom about light rail is no easy thing. But it is the right note on which to ring in the New Year.

Friday, January 5, 2001

POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

The group of citizens that oversees Sound Transit has slammed the agency's management of the Central Link light rail project in a stinging critique. The blistering letter from Reid Shockey, chairman of the Citizens Oversight Panel, left little doubt that the light rail portion of the massive transit project is in trouble.

The Citizens Oversight Panel report said management had broken promises to the voters, failed to exercise proper management and financial controls, disregarded the panel's warnings about escalating costs and, in general, "not served the board or public well.

"Sound Move, the voter-approved 1996 Regional Transit Plan, promised to be 'based on extremely conservative cost ... assumptions' and to have 'adopted strict cost management control principles to make certain it stays on schedule and within budget' ... promises to the voters have been broken."

The panel insists that if Sound Transit's elected board of directors is to regain the public's confidence, it must "make major management and organizational changes."

If that's the case, the board is obliged to examine whether Executive Director Bob White should continue to head the agency. Members of the Sound Transit Board are left little choice now but to review whether White's continuing to lead the agency is compatible with restoring public confidence in Sound Transit.

The oversight panel's critique suggests that White has either perpetrated or permitted a management system and style that have led the light rail project into the red and left the public in the dark.

The panel's lambasting comes in the wake of Sound Transit managers admitting last month that the light rail project was more than $1 billion over budget and would take three years longer to complete.

Perhaps clearer than anything else in the letter is the message that Sound Transit management has in large measure blocked the oversight panel from doing its watchdog job. And when the panel has pointed out problems, its advice has often been ignored.

"Many of the problems have been evident for over a year, have been stated clearly in our reports," Shockey writes, "and yet we have seen no action to correct them."

The members of the panel "ask that in the future the agency provide responses and status reports to the Citizen Oversight Panel findings and recommendations, so we can better execute our responsibility to hold the agency accountable to the public," according to the letter.

Such obvious neglect of public accountability cannot be dismissed as merely inadvertent. There has emerged a consistent and troubling pattern of disdain for outside criticism and disrespect for the public's right to know. If the Seattle area is to build a light rail "spine" for its transportation system -- and we are so far convinced that it should -- the major management and organizational changes the panel recommends must be made.

Sound Transit is still the region's best hope for a solution to a transportation situation that is terrible and getting worse. But the board must restore public confidence and then maintain it.

Copyright © 2001 The Seattle Times Company

Sunday, January 07, 2001

Editorial
Stop now, Sound Transit isn't ready

By any reasonable standard, Sound Transit is not ready to commit itself to begin construction of a $3.6 billion, 21-mile light rail line.

The agency has recently revealed that its estimates for the line were $1 billion too low. It has suspended negotiations with its tunnel contractor and is unlikely to reach another agreement in the next six months. Its longtime director of light rail has resigned and been replaced by a new person. Yet public directors seem eager to accept a $500 million federal grant which would commit the agency to build the segment from south of downtown to the University District.

Directors seem to think they had better get that $500 million while the Clinton administration is around to give it out, and that it would be OK to return it later, if they decide not to build the line. But it is dishonest to sign a contract that way, and it is naïve to assume that when the money is in their hands, they will voluntarily send it back to Washington. They will spend it, they will sign contracts, they will sell bonds, and we will all be contractually obligated.

That $500 million may be the most expensive free money the Puget Sound area ever gets. The current estimate on light rail is $171 million per mile, or $1,500 per foot between Sea-Tac and the University District. The initial federal grant pays for one-seventh of that, according to current estimates. Experience teaches that current estimates are too low.

There may be the thought that if we dig ourselves into a hole - a hole beginning near the Paramount Theatre and stopping at a rock wall somewhere short of the Roosevelt District - that Washington, D.C., may save us with another $500 million, or even more than that. But they didn't bail out Los Angeles, and that was a Democratic city in a Democratic state asking for help from a Democratic administration. What are the chances that Bush's appointees will bail out Seattle?

Believers in light rail dismiss money concerns as background noise. All rail lines are expensive, they say. So what? What's important is that the people voted for light rail in 1996. So they did, and with support from this page. But they did not approve a blank check. It was a project of a certain size, timetable and cost. Tacoma, Everett and the suburbs were promised that the taxes they paid would be spent in their own districts, not poured into a hole in Seattle.

The combination of all those promises is impossible to deliver. If light rail can be built at all, it will only be by borrowing against
revenues so far into the future that it is unlikely the line can be extended to Northgate - let alone Bellevue - for another 20 years.
The picture today is much less attractive than the one presented to voters. Luckily, the voters set up a board of directors to look after their interests. The board is empowered to reassess things. It can say, "Stop." It can say, "Let's have another public vote." It has wide powers.

It is time to use those powers.

To call a halt to light rail and to offer a vote among several alternatives does not mean wasting another five years. Many of the
alternatives to rail, including expanded bus service, can be done much more quickly than that. Other things will take time. In any
case, we shall have to spend money. We shall have to make decisions. But we cannot afford to make large, bad decisions.

The decision is in the next two weeks: to take the $500 million or leave it. The smart choice is to leave it. It is not a plum. It is bait.

Mike Flynn

It's becoming increasingly clear that the planned Link light-rail system, focal point of this area's transportation plan, can't proceed without getting the imprimatur of a full-blown community review of the concept.

By voting to accept a $500 million federal grant for Link light rail, then calling for a six-month citizen-panel review, key members of the Sound Transit board have now made a commitment to the community.

The commitment, most visibly from Seattle Mayor Paul Schell, is not to spend any of those federal dollars until a full technical view of the plan, including a serious look at alternatives to light rail, has been completed.

The promise from key board members, and the fact that the current Sound Transit plan is coming under questioning both in Olympia and in D.C., makes the citizen-panel review imperative.

In fact, an honest and open review of the plans by an outside body may help keep the decision about this area's transportation future a local one, and address the congressional call for putting a hold on the federal dollars until questions are answered.

For Sound Transit board members Schell and King County Executive Ron Sims, at least, their political futures could well hinge on the integrity and honesty the Sound Transit board brings to a full-scale citizen review of the project.

It shouldn't be overlooked that the estimated cost of the project has now almost quietly climbed to $4 billion. King County Council Member Rob McKenna extracted a concession of that projected cost at a meeting of the board. Publicly, the board is still using the already bloated figure of $3.8 billion.

There are some who have examined the project as it now stands who contend candidly that the cost may get closer to $5 billion as the project progresses.

The Downtown Seattle Association and Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, in a letter to Sound Transit board chair Dave Earling, said the review committee should be made up of "trusted community leaders ... including both supporters and skeptics."

That urging came in a letter, signed by DSA president Kate Joncas and chamber president and CEO Bob Watt, that opened with expressions of "grave concerns" about the Link light-rail project.

Schell framed the promise of full citizen-panel review unequivocally in one of his e-mail memos the day Sound Transit's board voted to accept the federal grant. Schell wrote: "Above all, we must not proceed to construction until all of our questions are answered and we know we can afford the project."

Because a bill has been introduced in the Legislature to put the whole package back before the voters, that may well be one of the questions a citizen panel will be asked to review.

Eastside Republican Sen. Dino Rossi, who introduced the bill, says voters created Sound Transit, so they have a right to change their mind on whether they want to proceed with the plan now that cost escalation and delays have grown beyond what voters approved.

Any such decision on a revote should be left to voters in the three-county area affected by the transportation plan and its attendant costs.

But that should be one of the issues weighed by the citizen review panel.

MIKE FLYNN is publisher of the Business Journal. Reach him at mflynn@bizjournals.com.