Washington
Related: About this forumRepublican Lawmakers want to know if Sound Transit conned them on costs
But they didnt ask for testimony from the transportation committee members who negotiated the bill.
by Jerry Cornfield
OLYMPIA Republican senators who are convinced Sound Transit leaders played fast and loose with facts about the agencys light rail expansion plans got a chance Tuesday to prosecute their argument in a court of public opinion.
Next week, in Everett, the senators will make their case that some of the same operatives played fast and loose with the law while abetting the campaign to get Sound Transit 3 passed by voters.
This two-day, two-city legislative inquest is being conducted by the state Senate Law and Justice Committee.
It comes at the behest of GOP Sens. Steve OBan, of University Place, and Dino Rossi, of Sammamish, who insist lawmakers, then voters, got duped on the magnitude of this latest Sound Transit undertaking to fulfill its manifest destiny.
http://www.heraldnet.com/news/lawmakers-want-to-know-if-sound-transit-conned-them-on-costs/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=9b81f084cf-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-9b81f084cf-228635337
Ah yes. Good old Dino Rossi who claimed when he ran for governor that we could build a new Evergreen Point bridge with more lanes for less money. Hoping he's unsuccessful in replacing Dave Reichert in Congress.
LisaM
(27,830 posts)Sound Transit seems to have a blank check, and in the meantime, I lost 5 bus routes in the past year, where I live (Northgate) is riddled with never-ending construction, I hear they are going to take buses out of the tunnel, and when the Northgate Transit stop ultimately opens, my bus will be taken away entirely and instead of going straight downtown, I'll need to first detour through Roosevelt, the U District, to Husky Stadium, to Queen Anne, and then downtown.
Someone is asleep at the switch. ST3 should never have passed. They should have come back with a different and better bill.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,192 posts)Am I right? What does that have to do with Sound Transit?
LisaM
(27,830 posts)When they opened the new stations in Queen Anne and Husky Stadium, 5 of the routes from the north end to downtown were cut (one of them became part of the arcane transfer system at Husky Stadium). There was clearly a cause and effect between opening those new ST routes and cutting the Metro routes and no one will take responsibility. My bus being removed from the tunnel next year (I work in a building with a tunnel stop) is also because they are giving priority to Sound Transit.
Sound Transit tells me it's Metro, Metro won't take responsibility, I can't get from the Seattle Center to my neighborhood on a direct bus anymore, and more bus cuts are looming. It's absolutely maddening. But the five routes they cut were all directly linked to the opening of the Queen Anne and Husky Stadium stops.
In a year and a half, I've used that new ST route to get to where I'm going exactly once. In the meantime, I can't take a bus to the grocery store from downtown, I can't get home from the Rep, I can't take my Thursday night bus (I can transfer but it doubled the time of the trip), I can't get from my eye doctor to downtown (they changed the 66 to two buses that go one way in the morning and another in the afternoon) and nobody will proffer an explanation.
All they care about are tech company workers and Sounders fans. Do you know how many elderly and/or disabled people I've talked to that are completely screwed by this?