By Erica C. Barnett
On this week’s episode of Seattle Nice, we spend some time talking about outgoing King County Executive Dow Constantine’s legacy as the man who has held that position longer than anyone in modern history.
Although the county doesn’t get nearly as much coverage (and thus attention) as the city of Seattle, it has equal or more power and authority over a lot of policies and issues people care about, including the fentanyl overdose crisis, solutions to homelessness, mental health care, incarceration, and transit. Seattle controls the streets, but the county controls the buses; Seattle passes local laws and arrests people, but King County oversees the jails.
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In his 15 years as executive, Constantine has watched five elected Seattle mayors come and go (six if you count Greg Nickels, who served during Constantine’s time on the King County Council). He oversaw the expansion of the county’s Veterans Levy to include human services and programs for seniors; was instrumental in passing a sales tax for, and implementing, the Health Through Housing shelter program; and he oversaw the Public Health Department’s response to the COVID pandemic. He served as chair of the Sound Transit board during the campaign and successful passage of the $54 billion Sound Transit 3 ballot measure, proposed the Best Starts for Kids levy, and championed the recently passed Crisis Care Centers levy, which will fund five walk-in clinics for people experiencing mental health crises.
We talked about Constantine’s legacy—including his seeming flip-flops on jail closure and his big plans for South Downtown and Pioneer Square (oh yeah, he also proposed eliminating the planned Chinatown/International district light rail station, a move that furthers his proposal)—before turning to other subjects, including Cathy Moore’s proposed capital gains tax (more on that in our next episode) and efforts by new city council members to tell King County how to operate its sobering center and buses.
I listened to Seattle Nice on Dow. ST3 is his baby; he earned the credit and blame; it is too big, too soon, and a mess. The split CID station will degrade the network if implemented. He led the county to sell the Convention Place Station to the WSCC and end bus operation in the DSTT prematurely; downtown was a mess in 2019, transit was slow and unreliable and ridership fell significantly. Transit has been slow to restructure; see SR-520, South Sounder, West Seattle. Transit was slow to simplify fares. Dow was great on the low income fares and public health. It would have been better to provide local option revenue to Metro before ST3; south King County has far too little service; in 2015, the statewide transportation package funded limited access highways, allowed ST3, and allowed CT its local option. The county campus can be marketed just fine around the Pioneer Square station of the DSTT; it does not need a second tunnel or second station.
I agree with all of your points. Dow did some very good things but his record on transit is mixed at best. ST3 is poorly designed and the buses are woefully underfunded. Vancouver BC is doing a much better job than us, yet we ignore their success.