Testifying against two Sound Transit reform bills that the state senate passed and sent to the House transportation committee last week--including bills that would have mandated an elected rather than an appointed board and codified Sound Transit's governing fiscal policy--Dave Earling, Sound Transit board vice chair, said the reforms were unnecessary. "The agency has fixed the well-publicized problems from two years ago," Earling said. Huh?
Besides the fact that everyone seems to think Sound Transit's executive director, Joni Earl, is absolutely groovy (especially when compared to her predecessor, Bob White), I'm not sure what the heck is so different between two years ago and today.
The "well-publicized problem" in December 2000 was this: The $2.5 billion system promised to voters had ballooned to a $3.6 billion system--i.e. (as the headlines screamed), Sound Transit was $1.1 billion over budget, with a capital B!
Facing an outraged public, Sound Transit went back to the drawing board, and in November 2001, the board unveiled a new and improved plan--with a price tag mirroring what voters had originally agreed to spend: $2.5 billion.
Of course, the reined-in budget would only buy a 14-mile line (seven miles shorter than the one voters approved in 1996). Meanwhile, ridership would fall by two-thirds, and the line would open about five years behind schedule. Scaled back as it was, the plan seemed to calm the electorate. It was no longer $1.1 BILLION over budget--so voters weren't being asked to pay extra.
But wait a minute. Last month, Sound Transit offered up some preliminary numbers for completing Phase One (the phase voters approved in 1996 that would get from the U-District to Sea-Tac): It would cost $2 billion more. And we're still not getting to the airport. So two years ago, the public was outraged at a $1.1 billion overrun--and now we supposedly have renewed confidence in a $2 billion cost overrun?
Pardon me, but what the fuck?
The other problem from two years ago was the MIA $500 million federal grant, 20 percent of the project's funds. Well, despite some promising developments (President Bush's 2004 budget pledged about $75 million to Sound Transit in early February), the federal grant still hasn't been approved. And by the way, that federal money represents only 11 percent of total estimated costs now.
Given Sound Transit's lobbying freakout against the accountability bills in the House transportation committee last week, the federal grant must still be on shaky ground. After all, when I asked Sound Transit spokesperson Ric Ilgenfritz why Sound Transit was opposed to the bills, his basic answer was that the reforms would jeopardize the grant. Sheesh--if Sound Transit's confidence in the federal grant is undone by bills that simply call for an elected board and shore up an existing board policy, I find it hard to believe that the agency's problems are a thing of the past.
