SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Sound Transit’s Kirkland bus station more proof of agency’s criminal corruption

Sep 6, 2018, 1:45 PM

light rail, Sound Transit Board, car tabs, Sound transit, ST3, Steve O'Ban, light rail...

(Sound Transit)

(Sound Transit)

Sound Transit’s abuse of the taxpayers in this region knows no bounds, as evidenced by the plans for their Kirkland bus station.

As Mike Lindblom in The Seattle Times stated on Wednesday, “Sound Transit is betting $300 million that people will flock to freeway buses at a Kirkland site where nobody catches transit now.”

RELATED: Sound Transit $4B over budget is a criminal rip-off

How does that make you feel when you pay $300, $400 for your car tabs? Maybe you and your spouse and one of your kids has a car. If you have three cars in your family, you may be coughing up $1,500 a year to the rogue criminal, the most corrupt, wasteful public agency in our nation’s history.

This bus station at Northeast 85th Street just off I-405 is going to be up a steep hill from downtown Kirkland, so the City of Kirkland is talking about putting in a cable car from downtown to this bus station in the hopes that people will start using it.

Sound Transit’s own projection if they build this bus station is that it would start off in 2024 with only 300 riders a day and by 2040 would carry fewer than 1,000 people per day. For $300 million. And that’s because Sound Transit is criminally corrupt. Being stewards of our tax dollars has never been any of their concern. They go 10 years behind schedule and billions over budget and simply declare a “reset.” They open the U-District light rail station late. “Oh, it’s a reset. Look how on-time and on-budget we are.”

I don’t know how people can stand sending their car tab dollars to this agency — especially the people in Pierce County who are getting no benefit. And for the Snohomish County residents, the promises that you’ll get light rail to Everett and Marysville will never happen. Sound Transit just lies and lies and lies.

They’re already a half-billion over budget getting to the Eastside. Now they’re talking about going billions over budget doing some of the other things that they’ve promised. Every family in the Sound Transit taxing district is going to pay six figures of their hard-earned money to this rogue, criminal agency. What an absolute crime Sound Transit continues to be.

I’m sorry, but if you voted for this, what a chump you are. I’m sorry because I don’t like insulting my listeners, but anyone who voted for Sound Transit is an absolute chump. And you people in Seattle who do use Sound Transit, you’re making everyone else pay and subsidize your light rail to the tune of $100,000 per family in this region.

Associated Press

Americans rewire their grocery shopping routines while digesting the biggest price jump in 50 years

What’s for dinner? Lately, at Apral Jack’s house, it’s whatever is on sale. Jack, 50, scouts an app for deals at her local supermarket before she buys groceries. When she reaches the store, she looks in the weekly circular for coupons she might have missed. If shelf prices look too high, she tries to find […]

52 minutes ago

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, welcomes United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres...

Associated Press

U.N. chief urges international community to back Syrians during visit to Damascus

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres appealed to the international community Saturday to support the people in Syria at the start of his first visit to the Arab country as U.N. chief, nearly two years after the fall of Bashar Assad. Guterres ‘ visit is the first by a UN secretary-general to the […]

1 hour ago

Associated Press

Iran reports no new U.S. strikes as tensions remain high

CAIRO (AP) — Iran reported no strikes overnight into Saturday, an apparent break from nearly two weeks of consecutive nights of U.S. attacks, but tensions remain high following a recent escalation over control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour posted on X, saying that “Iran had a peaceful night,” […]

2 hours ago

Elizabeth Martínez pushes a shopping cart through a grocery store aisle on Thursday, July 2, 2026,...

Associated Press

The ‘rockets and feathers’ effect: Inflation eases but grocery bills do not

Economics has a term for what U.S. grocery prices have done in recent years: rockets and feathers. Rockets, because the cost of food eaten at home zoomed up in the aftermath of the pandemic. Feathers, because once prices rise, they’re slow to come down. That’s been frustrating for Americans hit with the sharpest increase in […]

2 hours ago

Associated Press

Americans rewire their grocery shopping routines while digesting the biggest price jump in 50 years

What’s for dinner? Lately, at Apral Jack’s house, it’s whatever is on sale. Jack scouts an app for deals at her local supermarket before she buys groceries. When she reaches the store, she grabs the weekly circular to look for coupons she might have missed. If the shelf prices look too high, she scratches items […]

2 hours ago

Associated Press

Wildfire leads to evacuations in some suburbs of the French city of Bordeaux

ARCACHON, France (AP) — Authorities in France are evacuating some suburbs of Bordeaux because of a massive and shifting wildfire to the west of the city famous for its wines. The prefect of the Gironde region that includes Bordeaux ordered the evacuation in the early hours of Saturday, covering parts of three of the city’s […]

4 hours ago

Dori: Sound Transit’s Kirkland bus station more proof of agency’s criminal corruption