A Sept. 15 audit report reveals King County Metro transit could spend less and save more through better planning and data analysis.
The audit, which was performed by the King County Auditor’s Office, comes at a time when Metro is finding itself short on funding and looking for ways to achieve cost savings. The agency is projecting a $213 million budget gap over the next two years.

There are literally thousands of people who shape the transportation system in our state and region. They are engineers working out of trucks in the field, computer analysts and policy wonks who conduct surveys and open meetings. It is a complex system born of classic top-down government directive, but has become leavened with local control and public involvement.

On Saturday, July 18, 2009, it was a new day for the Puget Sound region. Forty-five thousand people came out to ride Seattle’s new light rail system on opening day. But it took years and years of planning and agonizing in fits and starts to come to that day last summer.

In the Puget Sound region, the parameters for land use decisions and, by extension, transportation networks, are set by the Puget Sound Regional Council and the state of Washington’s Growth Management Act.
The dozens of cities, counties and other jurisdictions within the four-county Puget Sound region are well acquainted with the workings of these laws. Following these policies also determines if public projects which accompany that growth are eligible for grants or subsidies.

To understand where we are now, we need to look back on where we have been. How has our transportation network come about, who are the players, and what role have voters had in shaping how we co-exist in a growing and ever-changing metropolitan environment?