With light rail estimates well beyond the voter-approved total, a fledgling Sound Transit faced angry opposition and teetered near collapse--until a new executive director rallied team members, secured a crucial federal grant, publicly confronted critics, and revised the budget. Her team navigated lawsuits and complex demands to deliver the promised system, and today the public transportation agency’s trains and buses serve nearly 50 million passengers each year.Back on Track reveals the astonishing survival story.

Observing its busy stations today, it is difficult to picture Seattle and Puget Sound without Sound Transit. Or to imagine how close the transportation agency came to folding. Back on Track reveals its astonishing survival story. After the city took the last streetcar out of service in 1941, Seattle subsisted for decades without a rail system, and it was choking on congestion. So for many, it was a joyous day in November 1996 when voters in urban areas of King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties approved a ten-year, $3.9 billion plan to bring mass transit to Puget Sound. But for the 23 employees of the fledgling Sound Transit, the celebration was short-lived. When light rail plan estimates came in a billion dollars over budget and extended the project three years, the agency faced a torrent of angry taxpayers and public ridicule. News headlines bristled about “Unsound Transit,” and whether the organization was “on the midnight train to nowhere.” Prominent politicians and citizens joined the battle. One by one, Sound Transit’s administrators resigned.

Then Joni Earl stepped in. The new executive director rallied the remaining team members, secured a crucial $500 million federal grant, publicly confronted critics, and presented a realistic revised budget. As construction began, she and her team navigated lawsuits, the complex and at times excessive demands of impacted locations, and the expanding expectations of outlying communities. Earl’s vision, tenacity, and diplomacy transformed Sound Transit. Under her leadership, with strong support from Link Executive Director Ahmad Fazel and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, the agency delivered its promised light rail system in July 2009. A resounding success, Sound Transit exceeded usage forecasts, and now its trains and buses serve nearly 50 million passengers a year traveling a combined 73,000 miles every day, and few ever question whether the region’s light rail system should exist.

Content

Preface

The Major Players

Introduction

Part I: Getting Started
1. The Holy Grail of Transit
2. Don’t Screw Up
3. Time to Call Joni
4. Train to Nowhere

Part II: 2001, A Year Like No Other
5. Hope Was Not Our Friend
6. Dark Winter Malaise
7. So Close to Dying
8. Change at the Top
9. Are You In, or Out?
10. Sharks Circling
11. Persona Non Grata
12. Time to Pull the Plug
13. On the Firing Line
14. A Strong Counterpunch
15. A Near Miss
16. Hard Pivot South
17. The Daily Slog
18. Wait Until Next Year

Part III. Redemption: Life after 2001
19. Live Another Day
20. Comeback Kids
21. In Retrospect
22. Remarkable Ability
23. Under Her Watch

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index