Greetings Mayor and Council Members,

Downtown job growth, not population density, drives transit growth. The jobs-transit ridership correlation coefficient for the top 50 urban areas is 0.7; for urban population density — 0.4.  Density increases in most urban areas had little or no effect transit ridership.  Seattle, the one urban area that increased downtown jobs, mostly thanks to Amazon, increased its transit ridership.  And buses, not light rail, carried most of those passengers. 

As centers of employment diversify from downtown, Amazon reduces its presence, and hybrid and work from home structures increase, ridership on buses and light rail is decreasing.  In fact, Sound Transit has reduced its Ballard-West Seattle ridership predictions for 2042 to the same as what buses carry now — about 27,000 riders per day.

Meanwhile, Seattle’s heat island has become one of the worst in the nation, Seattle has lost more than 255 acres of forest canopy since 2017,  Sound Transit has cut 15,000 trees so far, and plans to cut more acres for its Ballard-West Seattle proposal, and its 2022 WSBLE DEIS states it will do “irreparable” environmental damage.

And you are supporting this.  What is your rationale for supporting a $1 billion per mile light rail plan that is so destructive to our environment, and won’t carry any more riders in 20 years than buses carry today?

Your constituents deserve to know.  They'll be paying for this project into the 2080s.  Unless you act now to stop this “runaway train.” 

All the best from your constituent,

Martin Westerman / 206-427-9039