Show Us the Accountability

". . . hold us accountable." – Governor Gary Locke

The legislature is preparing to unveil a hefty new "revenue package" for transportation projects. Lawmakers have apparently decided they found all possible efficiencies in the transportation system and that it’s time for the voters to pony up more money if they want to get out of gridlock. But no amount of money will solve our traffic congestion until we have real accountability for how tax dollars are spent.

The Sound Transit light rail project is an example of what happens when an agency is not held accountable. A preliminary report from the U.S. Inspector General’s Office recommends that the federal government withhold federal dollars from the light rail project until specific concerns are addressed. The report identified the following problems:

1) Sound Transit applied for federal money despite the fact there were cost overruns.

• The original estimate on the cost of the light rail project was $2.5 billion with a scheduled completion date of 2007. Three months later, Sound Transit announced that the project would cost $1.1 billion more and take two years longer to complete. Yet these cost overruns were not included in the initial grant application to the federal government and Congress was not made aware of these increased costs until after they reviewed the application.

2) The later project completion date could result in additional cost overruns.

• An additional $60 million may be added to the cost of the project because an agreement with King County government for use of the downtown Seattle bus tunnel will have to be revised.

• Designs and refinements of rail stations, tunnels, etc. have not been finalized and could result in increased projects costs.

• Sound Transit is considering changing its tunnel contract from design-build to design-bid-build. Design-build is a new model increasingly used by transportation planners because it reduces the amount of time and costs to build a project. This change is crucial because Sound Transit is considering switching to a less efficient building process that would increase costs in the long run.

3) Project changes have resulted in increased local opposition.

• The cost overruns for the project will require Sound Transit to ask the federal government for more money than it initially needed. If the federal government denies more funding, local voters could be asked to increase taxes again to fund the project.

• Sound Transit originally wanted to use the downtown Seattle bus tunnel for light rail and bus traffic. Now project officials say that the tunnel will be used for light rail only. This will result in increased traffic congestion in downtown Seattle because there will be more buses on surface streets.

In addition to increased costs in the light rail project, a recent Federal Transit Administration report showed that the cost of the commuter-rail component of Sound Transit has increased by $198 million (about 22%). Sound Transit officials are not worried because they say the project "has money to spare to finish Tacoma-Seattle." Moreover, if the legislature does not authorize more money for Sound Transit, another $30-34 million will be added to the project cost because of the need to relocate utilities along the rail line.

Sound Transit also has a project labor agreement (PLA) for part of the project construction. As EFF has pointed out before, PLAs exclude about 75% of contractors and needlessly drive up the cost of projects by placing unnecessary requirements on non-union contractors.

EFF still does not believe Sound Transit’s budget is realistic. We believe Sound Transit will be a financial disaster worse than the Washington Public Power Supply System. It is time to allow voters the opportunity to determine if the Sound Transit project should continue.

All these increased costs. . . no one in state government is trying to find out why and no one is held accountable. Instead, they just throw more money at the problem.

Lack of accountability, as illustrated by Sound Transit, is why more money for transportation will not relieve traffic congestion. Money never gets to the field for workers to build the infrastructure improvements we need. Taxpayers demand and deserve accountability for the money they provide to transportation agencies. Until that happens, we should not be asked to throw more of our hard-earned dollars down a black hole.

Prepared by Bob Williams, Senior Research Analyst, (360) 956-3482 or effwa@effwa.org

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org