It’s the end of a long day in front of my computer screen. And if I’m honest with myself, even before I sat down to work, I was up reading on my phone for a couple hours before that. My head aches and all I want to do is close my eyes. But it’s bedtime and my kid wants a story. So I pull out my phone again, willing myself through another chapter.
Many of us feel like we spend too much time on screens. But, for me, reading print books isn’t really an option. I was born with nystagmus, a neurological condition that makes my eyes shake and makes it really hard for me to read regular-sized font. By using my phone or a laptop, I can enlarge the font, and that reduces the eye strain. Even with large fonts, by the end of a long day, I feel the tension around my eyes spreading into a headache.
I love reading. Since childhood, books have been a way to picture a world that I couldn’t always see with my own eyes. Which is why, as reading text became painful, I started to dream of reading with my fingertips: I really wanted to learn braille.
Like any language skill, braille is much easier to learn when you’re young. This has become very apparent as I try to learn braille alongside my kid, who has been getting instruction since kindergarten. He particularly enjoys grading the homework he’s assigned me; more often than not, I end up with a negative number of stars.
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Being the only kid at school who’s learning braille is a lonely path, which is why I was so thrilled when I learned about the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library and the services they offer for young readers. Through their youth program, my kid has participated in summer reading challenges, and most recently joined their braille pen pal program.
Last week, we sat together as he used his Perkins brailler (an awesome manual braille typewriter with six large keys, one for each of the dot cells used in braille letters). His excitement around connecting with another young person who is also learning braille was apparent as he peppered me with questions. Where did she live? What grade was she in? Would she know the special braille contractions he was using? Then for my homework assignment, he insisted I type a letter to my friend who is learning braille and proceeded to correct all my typing errors.
But like so many critical services, the Talking Book and Braille Library is facing funding cuts. Declining Washington State revenue from document-recording fees meant that last year, the library had to lay off staff and make cuts to programming—including story times, low-vision workshops, and braille instruction.
The library is seeking $3 million from our state’s general fund this year to prevent further cuts. At risk of elimination is their audio and braille production capabilities. As a local author published by a small press without the ability to produce an audio version of my book, I was frustrated that my work wasn’t going to be available to blind readers. But thanks to the Talking Book and Braille Library, my book is being recorded and will be released soon. This production capacity ensures that books by Northwest authors are accessible to people who can’t read standard print, not just here in Washington state but to people living throughout the US through the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled.
Now is not the time to walk away from funding public services and institutions that bring our communities together. The $3 million funding the Talking Book and Braille Library is seeking from our state’s general fund is a small ask. I urge our legislators to find the money to support this critical resource.
In response to an openly antagonistic federal government more interested in interior decorating than keeping food on the kitchen tables of over 40 million Americans, and an austerity-minded state government, local governments are being asked up to step up more than ever to keep our communities fed, healthy, and thriving.
In the past 11 months, we have seen the Trump Regime 2.0 fundamentally rock the foundations of our country by taking a wrecking ball to nearly every federal agency. This has sabotaged federal funding streams for research and critical programs, and decimated the federal workforce. At the same time, the administration has issued a flood of hostile executive orders and administrative changes to grant applications designed to disqualify organizations and jurisdictions, like Seattle, that serve immigrants and the queer community.
This year’s state legislative session did not come to the rescue as we hoped. While House and Senate Democrats put forward legislation to enact progressive revenue with powerful coalitions rallying in support, the legislature ultimately failed to pass many of these options. This translated to austerity for many programs Seattle residents depend on, including the Encampment Resolution Program—a highly successful program focused on removing encampments on state right-of-way and getting people into housing .
These cuts are destabilizing to organizations that serve actual people. The public may not know or care if a clinic or a food bank is funded from federal, state, or local dollars—but they will feel the pain when it disappears.
Local government cannot backfill all the losses in state and federal funding. Our charge must be to prioritize the safety and wellbeing of the people living under our care. Within the 2026 city budget, I have proposed a number of amendments to do just that.
The first would provide $1.4 million to stabilize and backfill federal and state cuts to homeless youth service providers. Earlier this year, organizations providing services to LGBTQ+ and immigrant youth were unable to receive federal Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) funds, and more changes and cuts at both the state and federal level are anticipated in 2026.
The number one predictor of adult homelessness is experiencing homelessness as a young person. Without intervention we could leave hundreds of young people in an even more precarious position.
Our next amendment would add $1 million to gender-based violence survivor services. Due to Trump Regime executive orders and calculated administrative changes, local domestic and sexual violence programs from organizations such as Refugee Women’s Alliance, NW Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP), and API Chaya, are facing an impossible choice: Either deny lifesaving services to queer and immigrant survivors, or risk losing federal funding In addition to the threatened federal funding, state Victims of Crime funding has been cut annually since 2018, even as providers face rising costs.
During the 2025 city budget cycle, funding for tenant services were cut by $1 million, or about 40 percent. I have introduced an amendment that would restore this funding.
Tenant services is a broad category that includes legal counsel for low-income renters facing eviction, legal clinics for individualized support to prevent eviction in the first place, as well as guidance and counseling on how to deal with common issues facing renters, including conflict mediation and payment negotiations. In 2024, King County landlords filed more than 7,000 unlawful detainer cases (evictions)—the highest number in state history.
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In a majority renter city that is grappling with an affordability crisis, we need to invest in measures that keep people housed and provide tools to protect their rights. Restoring $1 million to our tenant services programs will enable organizations such as the Tenant Law Center, Housing Justice Project, Solid Ground, and Be:Seattle to continue their work.
None of this critical human services work would be possible without the frontline workforce. The devaluation of care work has created a doom loop for the people who work in the human services field. Seattle remains one of the most expensive cities in the country, and too many human services workers are paid at wages that, in some case, qualify them for the programs they work in.
In 2023, a city-funded study found that nonprofit human-services workers make 37 percent less than private-sector workers with comparable jobs, a disparity that makes it hard to hire and keep qualified staff. Those who left nonprofit human services jobs saw an average pay boost of 14 percent, the study .
The mayor’s budget proposes a three percent wage equity increase for nonprofit service providers, but we need to move the needle further. A livable wage is fundamental to a thriving workforce, and the City Council has long recognized that basic fact when securing pay City employees. The most recent contracts included a cumulative 10 percent pay increase over two years, while members of the Seattle Police Officers Guild received a retroactive pay increase last year of roughly 24 percent over three years.
Human services workers at the nonprofits that provide Seattle’s safety net also deserve fair pay. That’s why I’m sponsoring an amendment to provide a 5 percent wage equity increase for human service providers. The full five percent increase fulfills promises the city , and is critical to sustaining and uplifting the human services system our community depends on.
Over the next three weeks, the council will be considering these amendments along with many others that represent priorities in our city. We need a balanced budget that puts people first. Contact your councilmembers and make your voice heard.
Alexis Mercedes Rinck is a Seattle City Councilmember representing all Seattle residents in citywide Position 8.
Photo by Sound Transit Special Selection via Wikimedia Commons; CC-by-2.0 license.
By Claudia Balducci
It’s no secret that our region needed high-capacity transit yesterday — or better yet, four decades ago. As a lifelong transit rider and a regional transportation leader, I’ve spent much of my career fighting for East Link, passing ST3, improving transit service, and delivering the kind of system our communities deserve. This work is essential: transit connects people to opportunity, makes our region greener, and—more personally—helps my teenager find their independence.
The West Seattle and Ballard light rail extensions alone are historic in scale—the largest public works undertakings in Seattle’s history. These extensions will connect two culturally and economically prominent Seattle neighborhoods that can be hard to access. That’s why traffic-free rail to these destinations has been part of our civic vision for decades.
But Sound Transit’s recently reported rising costs threaten our ability to deliver on ST3—the bold plan voters approved in 2016 to expand rail and bus rapid transit throughout King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties. The reasons for these rising costs include increasing construction costs, high interest rates, and an uncertain federal transit funding picture. So, here’s the fundamental question: How do we meet the promise of light rail without breaking the bank?
I’m asking Sound Transit to consider three key questions this fall:
Can we reimagine the second downtown tunnel?
ST3 originally proposed a second tunnel between the Chinatown–International District and Westlake Center to support a growing regional transit network. But before building new infrastructure, let’s explore whether technology and reliability upgrades could allow us to interline—running all three lines through the existing Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.
Consider this: London plans to run more than 30 trains per hour in a tunnel that first opened during Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, simply by upgrading to modern signaling systems. Surely, with similar technology, we can optimize Seattle’s existing tunnel—built during Ronald Reagan’s presidency—to meet our service needs. If feasible (and this will require detailed analysis from outside experts), using a single downtown tunnel could save billions—funds we could reinvest to bring light rail to Ballard and West Seattle. A central question is whether this can be achieved while maintaining reliable service. It’s a critical issue that deserves resolution.
What strategies can we find to deliver projects faster and cheaper?
We must build on the work of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG), which I proposed during the last Sound Transit realignment process during COVID to identify cost-saving strategies. Can we break up transit megaprojects—an approach used by other mass transit systems across the globe—into smaller contracts to attract more bidders to a heated construction market, lowering costs and improving accountability? Can we streamline permitting at the local and state levels? And can we proactively acquire key parcels of land early to lock in real estate prices before they rise?
Can we adopt service-led planning that puts riders first?
Service-led planning is the standard globally for delivering the best rider experience. Investments are prioritized based on how they support speed, reliability, and service integration. Voters endorsed ST3 for the freedom its services entailed, not the scale of what would be built. Therefore, the service enabled by any piece of infrastructure must be the highest priority.
Using these principles, if the existing Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel can support the operations of three light rail lines by using modern signaling technology and design standards, the second tunnel becomes a nice-to-have, not a must-have. Even better, interlining will improve the rider experience by supporting easier transfers across platforms, rather than forcing long walks to adjacent stations, or cumbersome transfers across whole neighborhoods. It could also solve the longstanding challenge of how to serve the Chinatown-International District without digging up that neighborhood yet again.
It’s easy to list reasons why something won’t work. The real test is imagining how it can. For every “that’s impossible,” we must ask “how can we?” In this moment of scarcity, our creativity is our greatest resource. At Sound Transit, we’ve shown we can innovate before. Now it’s time to do it again.
We owe it to our region to solve the real problem—connecting people region-wide—and leave no good idea unexplored.
Claudia Balducci is a King County Councilmember and Sound Transit Board Vice Chair
A crowd gathers outside Ross Dress for Less at Third and Pike in downtown Seattle. In addition to policing “hot spots” like this one, some officials and advocates have argued for forcing people who consume drugs in public into locked treatment facilities.
By Susan Collins
When big cities struggle with visible addiction, one solution that inevitably resurfaces is forcing people into treatment. In 2019’s “Seattle Is Dying,” locking people up for public drug use on an abandoned prison island was pitched as “an answer waiting for the right question.” And lawmakers across the nation are echoing this call. Forcing people into facilities where they can “get the help they won’t get themselves” seems to offer a mix of toughness, benevolence, and moral imperative that garners mass appeal.
I am not a politician or a pundit. I am seven years sober and have spent 30 years working in addiction treatment and research. Within my family and during my workday, I see that communities need safety, and people need more support. The status quo is unacceptable.
That’s why Dr. Keith Humphrey’s New York Times op-ed, in which he asserts, “Forced treatment isn’t horrific. It’s a relief,” shocked me and many of my colleagues. Words matter. When echoed by lawmakers, they shape policy and public perception. And the public relies on experts to present the science carefully, especially when people are at their most vulnerable.
In his piece, Humphreys conflates various forms of “pressure” to get people into treatment, suggesting that there is little difference between involuntary treatment, “pressure” from friends and family, and mandated treatment imposed by a court. We need to be clear: Involuntary treatment, which some politicians and advocacy groups in Seattle have expressed interest in expanding, is not the same as these other, less coercive methods. Unfortunately, confusion around these concepts is being repeated by other scientists and journalists as well.
In the US, involuntary treatment is civil commitment, without consent, to treatment in a locked facility. Mandated treatment is different. It entails choices, albeit difficult ones, to engage in treatment and other milestones to avoid penalties, like incarceration or loss of child custody. Both involuntary treatment and mandated treatment are formal means of coercion. Neither is the same as “pressure” from family members. Blurring these types of coercion—as Humphreys’ op/ed did—confuses the science, makes it harder to make rational decisions about public policy, and takes the larger conversation off track.
Another unhelpful trope is that internal motivation to stop harmful alcohol and drug use is “rare” among people actively using substances. At least half of Americans with significant drug and alcohol problems have internal motivation so high they recover without formal treatment, much less “forced treatment.” Motivation is also dynamic; one-fifth of those who appear to have low motivation achieve recovery within months. Even brief voluntary interventions can strengthen motivation and spark change. In our own work with people with severe alcohol use disorder, internal motivation was surprisingly high and more strongly predicted positive outcomes than treatment attendance.
Humphreys also makes sizeable mistakes in quoting and interpreting the research on the efficacy of involuntary treatment and introduces red herrings around ideal comparison groups that obfuscate the scientific realities. For example, Humphreys’ desired “no treatment” control conditions are often not ethically viable and even cruel in the context of a randomized controlled trial in which people are experiencing severe symptoms. Arguably, voluntary treatment control conditions are more accurate “real world” comparison groups in randomized controlled trials because they represent the “system as usual” offerings – even with their gaps and problems.
When civil liberties are at stake, scientists cannot be careless. Fortunately, some colleagues have been meaningfully pushing back because the public deserves accurate information about involuntary treatment and its effects.
Decades of research on involuntary treatment are strikingly consistent and negative:
After careful review of involuntary treatment studies, none show definitively positive findings— they’re only null or negative.
A concerning number of studies show patients experience severe harms after involuntary treatment—including high rates of relapse, re-arrest, and overdose death after release.
The larger research landscape reveals a gradient in which less coercive treatments are less harmful and more effective in creating safe, sustainable change than more coercive treatments.
Confident about this clear evidence, I was recently asked to share it with an audience that included state lawmakers. I assumed we would be on the same page. We weren’t. Upon reflection, I wondered if high-level research data fails to respond to the felt need for on-the-ground solutions in one’s own community. There is an understandable urgency to do something.
Our sense of urgency should open doors to more voluntary, evidence-based solutions, not more coercion. But many find those doors are locked or hard to locate. My well-resourced colleague had to send her child out of state for timely treatment. In my own clinic, administrative rules and bottlenecks block people from directly seeking care with me. And colleagues across the US have shared that treatment for substance use disorders is never made a priority, “because it doesn’t make money.”
So, from the research and my own clinical experience, I know the system isn’t working. Fortunately, decades of research and listening to people who use substances have generated evidence-based, voluntary solutions that are consistent with SAMHSA’s recovery framework. These must be funded and supported:
Lower-barrier and community-based efforts—hotlines, self-help books, mHealth, mutual-help groups (12-step and SMART Recovery, among others), harm-reduction outreach and support—can help people curb harm and build recovery while staying in their communities.
Justice-system diversion and sustained case management helps people experiencing homelessness move toward permanent supportive housing, recovery support, treatment, and jobs.
Voluntary, evidence-based treatments for alcohol and substanceuse should be supported in both in-person and telehealth modalities. Access should be easy, timely, affordable, and aligned with patients’ values, culture, and needs.
Patients need systemic solutions to ensure they don’t fall through the cracks. They tell us they need solutions to bigger problems beyond substance use. These include managing co-occurring trauma, psychiatric disorders and medical problems, finding affordable housing or permanent supportive housing, and getting work.
Even if all those options are adequately funded, coercive measures might still be necessary. But even in locked facilities, involuntary treatment should provide patient advocates and offer the least-restrictive evidence-based care possible. On release, patients should have immediate access to the voluntary recovery support listed above. Too often, community health workers fight to secure treatment, only to see patients discharged within days to no support at all.
I agree with Humphreys and many in the field that more US-based evaluation of involuntary treatment is needed. Washington State is one of the few that requires reporting on the outcomes of involuntary treatment. Early results are more promising than elsewhere, but critical data gaps remain, including data on overdose and death upon release.
And in the meantime, more states should publish evaluations of their existing systems, tracking long-term recovery, overdose, and cost, as well as qualitative accounts of patients’ experiences in their own words. At the very moment when some federal data systems are being scaled back or shut down, independent state-level reporting is all the more essential. Without rigorous, transparent data, we cannot judge whether coercive treatments deliver benefit or cause harm.
We cannot afford carelessness in our conversations shaping policy. Once we sort through the definitions of our terms and exhaustively examine the research, it is clear that involuntary treatment should remain a rare, last-resort option for life-threatening crises. It cannot substitute for a fully funded spectrum of voluntary care or become a shortcut for bottlenecks, underfunding, or political point-scoring.
History may not repeat, but it rhymes. From institutionalization to the mass incarceration of the costly and failed War on Drugs, coercive solutions always promised a utopian safety they did not deliver. The siren song of “forced treatment” expansion as a broad-based solution may sound like a “relief,” but it is more likely to bring harm to patients and, ultimately, fail communities.
Susan E. Collins, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and co-director of the HaRRT Center. She is a professor in the University of Washington School of Medicine’s’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, an adjunct professor at the UW Department of Psychology, and an adjoint professor at Washington State University’s Department of Psychology
The views in this article are her personal views and not that of UW Medicine or Washington State University.
Transit board leaders who don’t ride transit can’t fully understand what’s working—and what isn’t. Photo via Wikimedia Commons; CC-by-2.0 license
By Anna Zivarts
“If you could change one thing to make our communities less car-dependent, what would it be?”
That’s a question I get asked a lot in rooms full of climate and family-bike advocates, transit agency staff, and elected leaders working to build more affordable, dense housing. They are eager for checklists of steps they can take to make our communities more accessible for people who can’t, can’t afford to, or choose not to drive. They want to know what the solution is.
They don’t always like it when I respond that the most durable and profound change comes from changing who gets to have a seat at the tables where the decisions that shape our communities are being made. If I could change anything, what I would change first is making sure that people who don’t have the option of driving get to redesign our land use and transportation systems.
This is a radical proposition. It’s hard for most people to disagree that we need to “include” nondrivers in these decisions. But by insisting that nondrivers are treated as equal partners, we are asking for a revision to existing decision-making structures, and this kind of restructuring always meets resistance.
The organization I work for, Disability Rights Washington, has been advocating for the past three years to allow transit riders to hold voting seats on public transit boards (This year, the bill is HB 1418). We’ve witnessed how the elected leaders and representatives who hold those seats are rarely, if ever, transit riders themselves, and so have little understanding of what makes these systems work, or not work, for riders. In fact, we keep seeing examples of transit boards voting to cut taxes and gut service. In the Tri Cities, Ben Franklin Transit’s board attempted cuts in 2022 and 2024. This year, Island Transit’s board is floating tax cuts.
While making sure transit riders are represented on transit boards seems like a commonsense proposition, we struggle against a slew of objections grounded in paternalism, and sometimes unacknowledged ableism or racism, toward those of us who rely on transit.
“But X doesn’t have the background, the education, the expertise to make that decision.”
“Transit riders won’t think about the larger system and will only advocate for their own specific preferences.”
“People who rely on transit won’t understand fiscal responsibility.”
“If they want to make decisions about transit, they should run for office and win elections like the other leaders on these boards.”
Of course, we would love to see more nondrivers—in particular disabled, immigrant and non-white nondrivers—win elected office and serve on transit boards in that capacity. But in most parts of our country, outside the cores of large, dense cities, a candidate needs a car (or the financial resources to hire a personal driver) to be taken seriously. That’s because candidates are expected to be in a lot of different places in a very short amount of time, in a way that is only possible with driving.
It’s unacceptable that the people governing transit have zero experience with the system because they “don’t have the time” to utilize it. If car-dependent communities make it infeasible for nondrivers to win elected office, we need to make sure that these voices are still present on transit boards.
And this discussion of who gets to govern extends beyond transit boards, to any space where decisions are getting made or information is being shared about our transportation system or built environment.
We also need people who rely on transit working at, and running, transit agencies. We wouldn’t accept the head of an agency or company who doesn’t believe enough in the service or product to use it—so why do we accept it from transit agency leaders? Our paternalism toward people who rely on transit shapes who we envision as capable or qualified. (This is why Disability Rights Washington is championing another bill this session to prevent employers from requiring driver’s licenses when driving isn’t an essential function of the job.
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Almost no one would say they aspire to spend hours driving to and from a job, getting in fights over parking spaces at Costco, or waiting half an hour in the car queue to pick our kids up from school. Yet when we design our communities to prioritize car access over all other ways of connecting, these outcomes are inevitable. Additionally, the financial burden of car ownership is significant. If we build our communities to require car access for independent travel, we are locking households into a system of car dependence that can be a tremendous financial stressor.
But it’s difficult to untangle this dependence, because once you’ve purchased a car, you’re bought in. If it’s going to be faster and safer to get somewhere by driving, why wouldn’t you drive, when the cost per mile once the car is purchased is minimal? Even though many people would prefer a life where they didn’t have to drive so much, driving–for those who can drive and who can afford to drive–is the rational choice in pretty much every community in the US. That’s why we need the voices of nondrivers to disrupt this paradox. Because driving isn’t an option for us, we are willing to push for changes that would make it possible for everyone to live without car dependence, even if (and when) those changes require tradeoffs.
If those of us who can’t or don’t drive are in the room, sharing our passion and deep knowledge of getting around relying on transit, we’ll get better policies and more successful transportation systems for our communities.
Anna Zivarts is a visually impaired parent and author of When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency (Island Press, 2024). Joining the team at Disability Rights Washington in 2018, Zivarts led the Rooted in Rights storytelling project and launched the Week Without Driving challenge to address the needs of nondrivers in planning accessible communities. Previously, Zivarts spent fifteen years as a communications strategist for labor and political campaigns, working as a storyfinder for the LGBT & HIV/AIDS Project at the ACLU and co-founding the NYC-based communications and storytelling firm, Time of Day Media.
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.
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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.
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