According to this Seattle Times article by Mike Lindblom, the Sound Transit board appears to have enough votes to place another ST2 measure on the ballot this November.
By adding express buses to sweeten the plan in Snohomish County,transit officials Thursday won the support of two swing voters —Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon and Edmonds City CouncilwomanDeanna Dawson.
So here is yet another example of how transportation spending is based on a political system rather than effectiveness.
During our annual transportation event, Dr. Ronald Utt, a transportation and economics expert from the Heritage Foundation suggested that moving toward performance-based transportation decision making (and away from the current political system) means resources are distributed on getting the biggest bang for your buck. Instead, Sound Transit's resource allocation appears to have very little to do with performance and everything to do with buying votes.
This is the precise problem cited in the SAO congestion audit of WSDOT and John Stanton's crusade for governance reform. While the legislative process should have the final say, basingdecisions on anything other than performance inevitably leads to afragmented collage of spending that has no relationship with thepresumable goal of relieving traffic congestion.