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Renton Council President Randy Corman makes a case to Sound Transit Board to increase Renton’s share of service in ST3. Photo Q13 Fox
As Sound Transit 3 was being formed, it became ever more apparent that the structure of Sound Transit was repeatedly leaving Renton out of a fair share of service.
Sound Transit is its own taxing district with its own governance board. It was structured by the legislature to have four “sub-areas” that are each supposed to receive as much benefit as they pay in. The legislature placed Renton in the Eastside sub-area, along with Bellevue, Redmond, Issaquah and other eastside cities. Under the legislative structure, certain current city elected officials were appointed by the County Executive to represent these subareas. This structure unfortunately has a built-in conflict for those appointed; do they represent the sub-area overall, or give preference to the city that elected them? The County Executive picked elected officials from Redmond, Issaquah, and Bellevue to represent our eastside subarea. These three cities will receive Sound Transit light rail service in the coming years. Renton has been left out of rail service, and will only receive two Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) stations.
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