Sound Transit's light rail extension to Federal Way ain't gonna happen anytime soon, if ever. If it ultimately gets scrapped, South King County commuters have former Sound Transit board member Rob McKenna—the current Republican attorney general—to thank for helping to spare them the indignity of comfortable, reliable, traffic-separated light rail.

Originally scheduled to reach South 272nd Street by 2023, construction will now be delayed at least a decade, or canceled entirely, thanks to a weak economy that has already bled $3.9 billion from Sound Transit, no more so than in South King County, where sales tax receipts are down 30 percent. And thanks to the "subarea equity" provision McKenna championed—requiring revenue be spent in the regional subarea in which it is raised—Sound Transit has zero flexibility to move funds around.

While McKenna once derided efforts to repeal the provision as "crazy," King County Council member Julia Patterson has a different take on subarea equity. "[It] is a terrible way to build a regional system," Patterson told Seattlepi.com. "The poorer areas... end up not connected to regional transit."

But that may be what McKenna, who represented the wealthy Eastside subarea, always intended.