The numbers are out: Even with hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, Sound Transit is no match for the explosive growth of Transportation Network Companies (TNC) like Uber and Lyft. Traditional, old-school mass transit of railroads and big buses on fixed routes is clearly the transportation’s version of a brain-dead victim being kept alive on very expensive life support. Read the full report here at The Seattle Times.
People are going to gravitate to the solution that works best for them. And the numbers prove that what Sound Transit is providing does not meet that need. It’s time to find an answer that will handle a high density of trips quickly, efficiently, and environmentally friendly, while allowing people the freedom, spontaneity, and independence not provided by Sound Transit’s “same old same old” railroad and fixed-route large buses.
Sound Transit will likely soon meet the same destiny as the ice shipping trade of the 19th century met with the invention of refrigeration. I look forward to the moment when we stop wasting so much money on the past and start reaching for the future.

Ever feel like one of these blocks of ice while riding mass transit?
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