Category: Transportation

Guest Contributor, Opinion, Transportation

Sound Transit’s CEO Search Should Be About Leadership, Not Political Deals
Image via Soundtransit.org

By Francois Kaeppelin and Trevor Reed

Imagine applying for a high-powered job where you get to pick half of the hiring committee. That’s exactly what’s happening at Sound Transit, where King County Executive Dow Constantine is asking his own appointees to give him the top job.

As King County Executive, Constantine holds a built-in advantage on Sound Transit’s board: He personally nominated half of its 18 members and sits on it himself. With the rest of the board filled by top leaders from Pierce and Snohomish counties, their appointees, and the state Secretary of Transportation, Constantine still wields disproportionate influence over who gets the job. No credible hiring process would ever allow an applicant this level of influence over their own selection.

Think about that for a minute: the person who appointed half of the board members is now asking them for the agency’s top job. While Constantine has stepped aside from voting on his own candidacy, the people he chose are still there, making the decision.

This isn’t just a technical oversight—it’s a blatant conflict of interest. When those in power have a direct hand in choosing their own decision-makers, it becomes nearly impossible to say that the selection process is truly fair.

A second issue with this appointment is that Sound Transit has chosen to keep much of this process behind closed doors. The agency has publicly stated that state law allows them to hold secret hiring meetings. But the law they cite doesn’t require this secrecy—in fact, it explicitly encourages transparency, urging public agencies to seek community input even when not legally required to do so.

While other agencies openly disclose CEO candidates, Sound Transit has chosen, once again, to shield the process from public scrutiny.

The lack of transparency is compounded by hiring criteria that favor insiders over expertise. The job posting includes a requirement for an “understanding of the local cultural and political landscape.” At first glance, this requirement sounds reasonable—but in practice, it creates an artificial barrier to outside talent and reinforces the same system that has failed to deliver on-time and on-budget transit projects. Instead of recruiting the best leader for the job, Sound Transit is making it easier for a political insider to take control.

The new CEO will be responsible for making decisions that impact your daily commute, whether you’re heading to work or getting around the city. If political favors influence the selection process, there’s a real risk that the agency will prioritize insider interests over public benefit. This could lead to delays, rising costs, and a transit system that fails the millions of people who rely on it.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

For Sound Transit to deliver on its promises, the public must have confidence in its leadership selection process. While Dow Constantine brings decades of experience in public service, the next CEO should be chosen based on their qualifications and vision—not because they have been around the longest or have the right political connections. A truly accountable process requires public disclosure of finalists, clear evaluation criteria, and meaningful public input.

Other cities have recognized that effective transit leadership requires fresh perspectives, not just political familiarity. Canada’s VIA Rail, for example, brought in international talent to modernize its intercity network. Seattle needs a CEO who can bring innovative solutions to the agency’s long-standing challenges.

Sound Transit is responsible for billions of taxpayer dollars and the future of mobility in our region. This decision must be made with full public trust. To make this possible, the Board must:

• Fully disclose the criteria they’re using to judge candidates;

• Publicly disclose the list of finalists before making a hiring decision;

• Host a public hearing on the finalists; and

• Establish a structured public feedback process to inform the CEO selection.

If Sound Transit is confident they have the best leader, why keep it a secret? Riders deserve transparency—before it’s too late.

Francois Kaeppelin is a transportation policy researcher focused on transit governance, infrastructure development, and equity. He currently serves as Legislative Advocacy Director for Seattle Subway, working to advance transit governance reform in the Seattle metro area. Previously, he conducted research at the National Center for Sustainable Transportation and the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, focusing on the impacts of freeway construction on communities of color, barriers to transit-oriented development, and regional transit coordination in California.

Trevor Reed represents the East-King sub area on Sound Transit’s Community Oversight Panel and is founder of Transportation Reform. He completed his Master’s degree at University College London where he worked as a researcher at the Omega Center for Mega Infrastructure and Development focusing on how governance structures impact the efficient delivery of transit projects internationally. His work concerning traffic’s economic impacts has appeared nationally in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and PBS’s Nightly Business Report.

City Council, Parks, Transportation, Trump

SoDo Housing Plan Advances, Republican City Attorney Says Trump Immigration Order Violates “Local Control,” Saka Says No to Restrooms, Yes to Cars
The city’s most deadly areas for people walking, biking, and rolling are in South Seattle, including Rob Saka’s West Seattle district.

1. A proposal from Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson to allow up to 990 units of housing near the city’s two stadiums as part of a new “makers’ district” passed out of Nelson’s committee last week, but it faces an uncertain future at the full council, where two staunch opponents—Bob Kettle and Dan Strauss—will make their case that allowing apartments in a historically industrial area will decimate the city’s maritime industry.

The Port of Seattle and maritime industry unions have argued that allowing people to live near the stadiums—primarily on First Avenue South—would add so many cars to the area that trucks moving to and from the industrial waterfront would get stuck in traffic, making Seattle less competitive with other port cities. They also argue that the proposal reneges on the city’s promise to preserve existing industrial zoning in perpetuity, and that it’s a dangerous and environmentally unhealthy place for people to live.

In a 13-minute speech, Kettle hit all the highlights of this argument, saying the area is vulnerable to a Love Canal-style environmental disaster, that the Port itself is vulnerable “in a cutthroat shipping industry,” and that the geology of the area, which was built on unstable “fill,” would leave residents vulnerable to liquefaction in an earthquake, even if the new buildings were built according to modern earthquake standards.

“How about if you’re walking your dog in this little area, in this little neighborhood, you know, what happens?” Kettle said. “You’re trying to play catch with your kid, or you’re trying to bring in your groceries—a code-enforced building is not going to help you when you’re out there walking the dogs.”

Proponents argue that the area hasn’t been industrial for years (besides entertainment businesses like the Showbox SoDo and a strip club, it’s mostly abandoned and underutilized warehouses), and note that hotels and offices are already allowed in the area under the industrial lands update the council passed in 2023. (And, of course, the maritime workers who oppose housing also work every day in the same liquefaction zone).

“If thought this would this was going to damage irreparably the port, or put it into a position within 100 years where it would not be a strong, viable entity, I would not be doing this,” Nelson said.

The proposal, which passed 3 to 2 (with Mark Solomon and Maritza Rivera supporting Nelson and Joy Hollingsworth joining Kettle in opposition), will go to the full council on March 18.

 

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

2. City Attorney Ann Davison put out a statement last week denouncing efforts by the Trump administration “to coerce local authorities and to commandeer local jurisdictions into carrying out the duties of the federal executive branch, while punishing those who dissent.”

Davison is a Republican who was active in the “Walk Away” movement headed up by “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theorist Bradon Straka, one of the January 6 rioters who was later pardoned by Trump. She ran for City Council against Debora Juarez, lost, ran for lieutenant governor as a Republican, lost againagain, and became city attorney after defeating a police abolitionist in the backlash election of 2021.

Davison issued the statement after joining a lawsuit that accuses Trump of violating the Constitutional separation of powers by unilaterally directing the government to withhold federal funds and take legal action against “sanctuary” jurisdictions, like Seattle, that bar police and other officials from assisting with federal immigration enforcement.

Davison’s statement stuck mostly to the strict legal questions raised by the federal order (although it did take a moment to praise “our diverse, vibrant, and invaluable immigrant communities.”) “This is an issue of federal overreach into areas of local control,” the statement said.

The statement marked a departure for Davison, who has not previously weighed in on partisan politics. Whether Davison voted for Trump, Harris, or another candidate in 2024 is unclear; her office did not respond to a question about whether she supported Trump. Her past campaign donations include small contributions to former Republican secretary of state Kim Wyman and Joshua Freed, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor who went on to head the King County Republican Party and condemned Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment after the January 6 riots.

3. City Councilmember Rob Saka took a couple of strong stands in the past week.

First, during a presentation about an audit that found deficiencies in the Seattle Parks Department’s cleaning and maintenance of park restrooms, Saka argued against expanding public restrooms.

“[M]embers of the public always want to expand the number of restrooms, not just in Seattle, but in LA and across the country … and I don’t—I’m not sure that’s the best approach here in Seattle at this point, at this juncture, unless and until we’re in a better position to make better progress on addressing the cleanliness and accessibility [and] properly maintaining our existing restrooms,” he said.

Had Saka been around five years ago, he might have been aware of a different audit from the same office—this one recommending that the city open more 24/7 restrooms, specifically to help people living unsheltered who have “extremely limited options to avoid open urination and defecation, especially during the night.” Had he been on the council the following year, he might have taken part in a debate over  whether homeless people deserved access to restrooms and running water during the pandemic (the city decided they didn’t, and homeless Seattle residents experienced repeated outbreaks of hepatitis A and shigella.)

Then, during a presentation on traffic violence earlier this week, Saka apparently felt compelled to respond to a comment made by Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck about her decision to live car-free. “I appreciate Councilmember Rinck’s point of view,” Saka said, but noted that even in dense San Francisco, where he vacationed recently with his family, people still have cars.

“As vibrant as their transit system is, I was struck by the fact that nearly every street, arterials and non-arterials alike, on both sides of the road, there was there was parking!,” Saka said. “Parking! Available on both sides of the street! [Which] again, highlights the importance of choice! These modes are a choice. And even in San Francisco, the second most dense city in our in our country, people still choose to drive.”

One thing Saka may not have noticed, especially if he wasn’t driving, is that it’s incredibly hard to find a parking space in most of San Francisco. There are simply too many cars for the limited number of spaces, and most neighborhoods have residential parking zones, restricting visitors to no more than a couple of hours. Except in areas with heavy car traffic (like downtown, where some parking lanes convert to driving lanes at rush hour), Seattle also generally has parking on both sides of the street.

Courts, Mayor Harrell, podcasts, Police, public safety, Transportation

Seattle Nice: Harrell Fires Ex-Police Chief, Metro Killing Raises Transit Safety Questions, and What IS Art, Anyway?
I had AI generate “a beautiful sunrise” on a freeway wall as an example of what would qualify as “art,” according to Mayor Harrell. It’s fine I guess?

By Erica C. Barnett

Continuing with the era of good feelings on Seattle Nice, we had some mostly cordial disagreements this week on the issues of public safety, graffiti, and the firing of former police chief Adrian Diaz, although it’s hard to say we fully agreed on any of it (would it be Seattle Nice if we did?)

We started with this week’s biggest news—Mayor Bruce Harrell’s decision to finally fire former police chief Adrian Diaz, nearly seven months after formally removing him from his position and replacing him with interim chief Sue Rahr. (Harrell’s selection of Madison, Wisconsin chief Shon Barnes as permanent police chief, announced this morning, hadn’t happened yet when we recorded on Thursday).

Diaz was accused of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and several SPD policy violations stemming from a long-rumored affair with his chief of staff, Jamie Tompkins. After his removal as chief, Diaz went on a right-wing talk show to announce he was gay, calling the allegations against him “absurd.” He’s been receiving a salary of more than $350,000 since May.

Sandeep gave Harrell his flowers for firing Diaz after months of diligent investigation; I said the situation was more complicated than that, noting that former Office of Police Accountability director Gino Betts was shown the door after some on his staff complained that Betts had slow-walked the OPA’s own investigation into Diaz, slowing down the process and potentially keeping Diaz on the payroll longer than necessary.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

We also discussed the murder of a Metro bus driver in the University District earlier this week. Like many local elected officials, Sandeep said the tragedy demonstrated the need for more police, security guards, and fare enforcement officers on buses and at transit stops to prevent future violent crime.

I argued that the murder—the first such killing in more than 26 years—would not have been prevented by flooding the transit system with officers, nor does it demonstrate that “transit is dangerous.” (Murders and assaults, obviously, do contribute to a perception of danger, as the killing of a bus driver on the Aurora Bridge did in 1998. After that tragedy, elected officials and the drivers’ union also said buses were unsafe and called for more police.)

Even if flooding the system with police was an effective strategy for preventing crime, it would be financially impossible for King County to put an officer on each of the hundreds of buses that are running at any given time in order to prevent assaults on bus drivers, or retrofit all its buses with inaccessible driver compartments, as some are already suggesting. Such assaults, though terrible, are fairly rare: According to the Seattle Times, there have been 15 reported assaults on bus drivers in the first 11 months of 2024, down from 31 in 2023.

Finally, we talked about the graffiti arrests I reported on earlier today. If you think the tone of my story is too relentlessly neutral, and you’re wondering how I REALLY feel about government officials defining what is “art,” listen to this segment and find out.

Mayor Harrell, Transportation

City Transportation Director Greg Spotts Will Leave After Two Years on the Job
SDOT director Greg Spotts in 2022

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle Department of Transportation director Greg Spotts announced Tuesday morning that he will leave the department, one day after PubliCola contacted him to ask him if Mayor Bruce Harrell had asked him to step down. Spotts’ tenure, at just over two years, was short by SDOT standards; previous permanent directors have generally served for at least one mayoral term, although former mayor Jenny Durkan didn’t hire Spotts’ predecessor, Sam Zimbabwe, until more than a year into her term.

In his letter, sent late Tuesday morning, Spotts said he wanted to spend more time with family and friends in Los Angeles, where he was assistant director and sustainability officer for street services before moving to Seattle in 2022. “Early 2025 seems like a good moment to pass the baton to the next leader of SDOT, an agency which now has the plans and the resources to maintain and modernize Seattle’s streets and bridges,” Spotts wrote.

During just over two years as SDOT director, Spotts managed to rapidly implement projects that stagnated during and after the pandemic under Durkan, including protected bike lanes, bridge maintenance, and spot improvements such as leading pedestrian intervals at crosswalks and “no right on red” signs at intersections where collisions between vehicles and pedestrians are common.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

In the past year, Spotts found himself on the defensive at City Council meetings as transportation committee chair Rob Saka, whose top budget priority this year was removing a traffic safety barrier that prevents illegal left turns into the parking lot of his kids’ former preschool, clashed with him publicly over spending priorities. During deliberations on the transportation levy renewal, which voters passed overwhelmingly in November, Saka (along with Cathy Moore) tried to strip funding from a program that gives community members a direct say in which small projects get funded in their neighborhoods; Saka wanted that money to go to a “district fund” in each council district that would be controlled not by community, but by council members themselves.

The city hasn’t made much progress toward its “Vision Zero” goal of ending traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030, but many of the improvements SDOT implemented under Spotts improved safety for vulnerable road users, and Spotts appeared genuinely committed to making Seattle safer for people who don’t drive.

A spokesman for Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office said Spotts made the decision to leave on his own. In a statement, Harrell praised Spotts’ “collaborative” working style and his “thoughtful leadership toward our shared priorities with a comprehensive focus on safety, completing projects, and investing in the future of Seattle’s transportation system.”

Harrell’s spokesman declined to provide details about how the mayor will choose a new SDOT leader or whether he will appoint an interim from within SDOT (such as senior deputy director Francisca Stefan) after Spotts leaves on February 12.

 

City Council, Police, Transportation

Seattle Budget Update: Rob Saka Has Questions
L’il Sebastian, one of the horses that will soon be unemployed under SPD’s current budget plan.

By Erica C. Barnett

City Councilmember Rob Saka raised a number of concerns during this week’s budget briefings, asking questions no one else thought to ask. Questions like:

• Can we bodega our way out of this?

At least twice this week, Saka asked whether it made sense to encourage “bodegas”—which he defined as “small, locally sourced, organic kind of stores”—when many neighborhoods are losing large grocery stores. “We’re not gonna bodega our way out of this,” Saka said during a presentation by the city’s Department of Construction and Inspections. He repeated the quip at a presentation by the Office of Sustainability and Environment, adding that in his West Seattle district alone, “we can expect to lose at least two grocery stores, big grocery stores. They’re on the chopping block as the result of a proposed merger” between Albertson’s and Kroger.

The city (unlike federal regulators) can’t do much to impact the decisions of national corporations, but they do have the power to support or oppose land-use policies that make it easier to build small grocery stores as part of the upcoming comprehensive plan update; currently, as we’ve reported, the mayor’s proposal would once again make corner stores legal, but only on literal corner lots—a proposal unlikely to make much dent in the existing food deserts in Saka’s West Seattle district and other parts of the city.

• Speeding cameras that “just send you a ticket in the mail”: Y/N?

Saka, who chairs the council’s transportation committee, raised objections this week to speed enforcement cameras in school zones, saying he was “default skeptical of of enforcement cameras that have the capability to just send you a ticket in the mail. I don’t support wide-scale mass deployment of those.” The city has slowly rolled out speed  cameras at 19 schools over the last decade, and funded new cameras in 18 additional school zones last year.

School zone cameras have proven to be an effective deterrent to speeding in school zones, which in turns reduces collisions between cars and pedestrians, including school children, around schools.

“Rather than having these cameras as a revenue-generating tool only … I think our approach needs to be guided by data,” Saka said, adding that he worried the city was targeting  “historically marginalized and underrepresented” communities with the cameras.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

“We are being asked to to review and approve a substantial decision, a significant decision, a policy choice, regarding automated enforcement in our city. And is this the appropriate balance and deployment of these cameras relative to the other potential uses that we talked about? I don’t know. I don’t know.”

As The Urbanist reported in 2023, the new cameras will primarily be deployed in more affluent parts of the city.

Saka has been a vocal supporter of a different use of camera technology—live police surveillance cameras, which will be used to keep constant tabs on crime “hot spots” like Aurora Ave. N, downtown, and the Chinatown/International District. In fact, he added an amendment to the CCTV surveillance bill last month to put Alki and Harbor Aves. SW next in line for cameras to deter street races.

• Should horses be cops?

The Seattle Police Department has proposed cutting the police department’s mounted patrol, which includes a half-dozen horses, and moving mounted officers to other duties; in a presentation to the council, SPD Chief Sue Rahr explained that the decision to eliminate SPD’s small mounted patrol was “a decision that has been in the making for more than a decade.”

Saka argued that the mounted patrol plays a vital “community engagement role,” then suggested SPD’s decision might not be final—”maybe it is, maybe it isn’t”—before returning to the horses at the end of the meeting, when he took the time to recite each of their names out loud, like an In Memoriam segment at the Oscars.

“Callum, Blue, Change, Sebastian, Doobie, and how can I not forget the two lovable barn cats, Sully and Katy Perry,” Saka said. “So there’s real-life animals behind the impact of the decision.” He then added the names of the “impacted officers,” calling them “real-life people… that are directly impacted.” The horses will go to other owners, the police officers, unlike 76 other real-life people who will lose their jobs under Harrell’s budget proposal, will be reassigned to other duties.

City Council, Elections, Police, Transportation

Council Wants To Expand Drug User Banishment Zones, Complaint Against SPD Attorney Dismissed, and Ex-Councilmember Pedersen Denounces Transportation Levy

1. City council members Rob Saka, Joy Hollingsworth, Maritza Rivera, and Bob Kettle have all proposed amendments to legislation proposed by City Attorney Ann Davison and sponsored by Kettle that would create zones from which people accused of drug-related crimes, including public drug use or possession, can be prohibited.

The legislation, which Davison proposed in June, expands on the old “Stay Out of Drug Area” zones established and expanded under former city attorney Mark Sidran, who is primarily remembered for instituting a number of punitive laws and policies, among them the “teen dance ordinance,” the poster ban, and many laws targeting homeless people, including a notorious prohibition on sitting down on public sidewalks.

As we’ve noted, banishment areas (whether for drug users or sex workers, who would be banned from Aurora under a different law proposed by Councilmember Cathy Moore) have an expansionary logic: When people are banned from existing in one area, they move just outside the banishment zone, until enough people complain that they are banned from that area as well. The result the last time these zones were widespread in Seattle  was that people eventually give up even trying to stay out of the expanded no-go zone, as Katherine Beckett and Steve Herbert discussed in their 2010 book Banished.

In each amendment, the sponsoring council member justifies the SODA zone in their council district with the phrase, “Due to high levels of significant drug activity.” The zones will not stop this significant drug activity, but they will push it outside the zones, which will then require expanding, until most of the city is once again off-limits to people who have no choice but to display the symptoms of their addiction in public. The bill, which expresses concerns about “reducing overdose deaths,” does not address drug use and overdoses inside people’s homes.

Also Friday, Moore proposed a promised amendment to her legislation that would bring back the old prostitution loitering law and Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution (SOAP) banishment zones, clarifying that only people accused of being sex buyers to pimps would be subject to SOAP bans and prohibited from going anywhere near North Aurora Ave. As we reported last month, Seattle has attempted to focus on sex buyers in the very recent past, and it did not result in a decrease in the sex trade on Aurora and in other SOAP areas.

Moore’s amendment would also slightly expand the proposed Aurora SOAP zone and add a few more nonbinding recital clauses about diversion and the need for an “emergency receiving center” for women leaving the sex trade, which the legislation does not fund.

2. The Office of Police Accountability declined to interview Seattle Police Department general counsel Becca Boatright when it investigated a complaint about a Facebook post that appeared to dismiss female officers’ concerns about harassment and discrimination in the department as “clickbait.”

“Negative headlines may be the clickbait but for the honest brokers interested in an honest discussion, we’re here to have it. I’m so proud to be a member of the SPD and of the incredible work my teams do. Real change comes from within. Follow the data, lean into the science,” the post said.

Boatright’s post went up shortly after the release of a report in which a dozen women in the department described their experiences, which included sexual harassment, casual misogyny, and story after story of women getting passed over for promotions in favor of less-qualified men.

The person who filed the OPA complaint said the post constituted “harassment, unprofessionalism, and retaliation against female SPD employees who alleged mistreatment by SPD.”

A spokesperson for the OPA said the case was “certified for an expedited investigation. That means OPA and [the city’s Office of the Inspector General] agreed that OPA could issue recommended findings based solely on its intake investigation without interviewing the named employee.” Generally, an expedited investigation means that OPA decided an officer didn’t violate SPD policy—in this case, the policy prohibiting SPD employees from ridiculing or maligning protected classes.

3. Former City Councilmember Alex Pedersen co-authored an opinion piece for the Neighborhoods for Smart Streets lobby group, which formed during the heated debate over a bike lane in Wedgwood, urging a “no” vote on the Seattle Transportation Levy, which would provide $1.55 million for new sidewalks, road maintenance, spot improvements to help buses operate more smoothly, and protected bike lanes, among many other projects. The ballot measure includes the biggest investment in new sidewalks in the levy’s history.

Pedersen, along with former councilmember Margaret Pageler and Latino Civil Alliance board chair Nina Martinez, argues that the proposal is a “$1.5 BILLION boondoggle” (the word “billion” is capitalized like that throughout the piece) that “uses Seattle’s middle class like an ATM machine” to fund projects that only “bicycling clubs”—apparently a reference to the Cascade Bicycle Club, a perennial bugbear for the Seattle Times—will ever use.

“Lobbyists larded the levy with unnecessary projects – including costly bike lanes that are rarely used and impede access to brick-and-mortar small businesses,” Pedersen and his co-authors write. “It’s inequitable because it shoves 100% of the cost onto Seattle residents.”

During his single term on the council, Pedersen was a big fan of “impact fees” that would divert the cost of public street improvements onto housing developers. Based on the premise that new apartments have a negative impact on cities, transportation impact fees drive up the cost of new housing (and thus directly increase rents), but don’t impact incumbent single-family homeowners because they aren’t taxes.

Pedersen and his co-authors go so far as to claim the levy is inequitable to people of color, based on a January 2024 survey that they claim shows “most people of color oppose this levy.” While a majority of people the survey lumped into an undifferentiated “BIPOC” category did say they’d oppose a hypothetical $1.2 billion or $1.7 billion levy back in January, the city didn’t release even preliminary details of the actual levy until almost four months later. The high-level conclusion of that poll Pedersen cited? A strong majority of voters supported a $1.7 billion levy even without knowing the exact details of what it would fund.