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The Sound Transit Board of Directors has been criticized for a lack of transportation expertise among its members, as the agency continues to see delays to light rail expansion projects and cost overruns to major expansion projects despite massive funding.
The Center Square previously reported that more than $21.8 billion in tax revenue was generated by Sound Transit between 1996 and 2023, with $10.3 billion raised between 2019 and 2023 alone. Despite this, the delays to the agency’s taxpayer-backed projects have continued, including the last two stations on the 2 line connecting across Lake Washington, which had their target opening of December 2025 moved to early 2026.
Delays have led to calls for the agency to allow the public to have a say in who makes up the Board of Directors making these decisions with billions of tax dollars at play. However, the agency’s governing structure is directly tied to state law, which Sound Transit Media Relations Manager John Gallagher pointed The Center Square to.
The law – established when the agency was formed in 1993 – states that Sound Transit shall be governed by a board consisting of representatives appointed by the county executive and confirmed by the council or other legislative authority of each member county.
Current Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine’s appointment raised eyebrows due to his direct connection with more than half of the board members. He resigned from the position, which he held for 15 years, to become Sound Transit's CEO.
Prior to becoming the CEO of Sound Transit in March, Constantine served as chair of the Sound Transit Board of Directors from 2014 to 2016 and 2022 to 2023. As the county executive, he had the authority to appoint 10 elected officials from King County and its local jurisdictions to the Sound Transit Board, which consists of 18 members.
During the time in which Constantine was board chair, he appointed King County Councilmembers Claudia Balducci, Pete Von Reichbauer and Girmay Zahilay, who all currently serve on the board.
Charles Prestrud, director of the Coles Transportation Center at the Washington Policy Center think tank, is critical of Sound Transit’s board structure, saying that it “suffers from its in-bred nature.”
He noted that the original architects of the agency’s system plan wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be derailed in the future by the election of board members who didn’t support the plan. Hence the board’s makeup of local elected officials appointed by the three county executives helps the agency stay the course.
Prestrud added that this governmental structure remained even “after it is apparent that it doesn’t make sense from either a cost or ridership perspective.”
“Multi-billion dollar cost overruns, many years of delay, a pattern of concealment and misrepresentation to the public – truly a disgraceful track record over more than twenty years,” Prestrud told The Center Square in an email. “Why don’t things change? The CEOs and board members don’t want to give up any autonomy, and they certainly don’t want any accountability either to voters or to the Legislature.”
Prestrud’s solution: allow board members to be elected by district voters. Prestrud is not alone, as King County Assessor John Wilson, a candidate for King County executive, says on his campaign website that if he is elected as the next executive, he will fight for reforms like requiring actual transportation expertise on the Sound Transit Board and giving voters the power to elect some of its members directly.
However, Wilson has recently received calls from King County and Seattle leaders to suspend his campaign amid a temporary restraining order issued against him earlier this month.
In contrast to Sound Transit’s governing structure, the New York MTA includes some appointees with technical backgrounds. For instance, MTA CEO Janno Lieber previously served in the U.S. Department of Transportation under President Bill Clinton, before leading World Trade Center redevelopment projects. From 2017 to 2021, Lieber was the president of MTA Construction & Development, where he oversaw capital projects, including the completion of the long-delayed Second Avenue Subway extension.
Sound Transit is not the only transit agency facing criticism for a lack of transportation experts. According to an article from Block Club Chicago, the Chicago Transit Authority appointed only three transportation experts to the board out of more than 50 appointments over the past 40 years. The CTA board consists of three directors appointed by the Illinois governor and four appointed by the Chicago mayor, as established by law. Last year, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed Pastor Michael Eaddy of People’s Church of the Harvest Church of God in Christ to the CTA board
The CTA – which is the third largest transit system in the U.S. – is currently facing a $771 million budget shortfall by 2026.
The CTA does have at least one board member with transit expertise: Elevated Chicago Executive Director Roberto Requejo, who has a master’s degree in urban planning and policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. According to his biography on the CTA’s website, Requejo oversaw the deployment of over $15 million to advance transit-oriented development through the Elevated Chicago coalition between 2017 and 2024.
Sound Transit's board structure may be legal, but a growing number of critics are saying it's out of step with the scale of the agency’s responsibilities, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for delayed projects they voted for.