Governing structure needs an overhaul

Thank you for your Sunday editorial, “Sound Transit shouldn’t rush a plan onto ballot.” And thank you Councilman Paul Roberts for showing the strength of your convictions by your vote last Thursday to give this thing more time. He is among a number of regional leaders who strongly support Sound Transit, strongly support a rescue plan for Puget Sound, embrace the principles of growth management and want to see the region’s Vision 2040 plan succeed.

This same group, however, is increasingly convinced that our system of governance is completely inadequate to deal with and integrate these vital imperatives. The public, which demands solutions to traffic congestion and pays lip service to saving our Sound, should demand reform of our regional decision making as a condition of support for the next regional ballot, whatever its purpose.

I recently served on the Regional Transportation Commission chaired by John Stanton and Norm Rice. In prior years, I’ve served as chair of the Citizen Oversight Committee for Sound Transit and the Snohomish County Committee for Improved Transportation. Most of my 40-year career in urban planning has dealt with transportation.

Trust me on this one: From local governments with their local plans, to single-purpose regional agencies dealing with single parts of the equation, to special interests guided more by partisanship than the public interest — our transportation governance structure is not at all suited to dealing with the priority concerns of the public. It must be reformed and “re-formed.”

Do not read my comments as an indictment of our elected leadership. The public officials I know are good people doing a thankless job with the tools they have. My point is the tools are outdated and sorely inadequate to deal with the challenges of 21st century Puget Sound. Nothing less than a sea change in our approach to transportation governance will allow our wonderful region to remain the envy of the nation.

Reid H. Shockey

Everett