Issaquah's mayor is posing for a smiling photo-op over a rail line that doesn't arrive until 2050 — and calling it a victory. This is Seattle Politics and Urbanism Daily. Today: a fare gate pilot, a $2.6 million SPD settlement, and a funeral procession for Ballard rail. Yeah, a literal funeral procession. Save Ballard Rail staged street theater this week, and honestly, that's the most honest read on Sound Transit we've gotten all year. Let's start with the man celebrating the delay. Ryan Packer at The Urbanist has the photo — Mayor Mullet, grinning. Sarah, that photo reads like a hostage shot with smiles. Issaquah to South Bellevue gets a committed corridor — Ballard gets design-only and a 'good luck.' And here's what the grin tells you: maybe 2050 was never the bar slipping. Maybe that's exactly what Eastside reps wanted from Sound Transit all along. Right — so who is this board accountable to? The suburban bloc walked out with a locked corridor, and the Ballard voters who showed up in 2016 got a press release. Packer also reports ST4 hopes are dim across the region. So the agency can keep saying it'll aggressively compete for federal money, but politically, that pitch isn't moving. Which leaves Wilson's 0.3% transit measure as the only expansion path still standing in Seattle. The funeral made the math real. Same week ST4 is basically dead, Sound Transit finds money for fare gates. Fourteen stations, a real price tag on a real proposal. And the question is which fourteen. South King and Rainier Valley riders have been screaming about safety for years. If the gates skew toward the spine and skip them — that's the same pattern as the rail plan, just in hardware. It's the surveillance question we hit on the CCTV piece too: what does the city actually require before enforcement gear goes live, and who's auditing it? The Step Back piece asks the harder one — is there evidence cameras improve safety, or do they just expand watching? Building the watching faster than the trains. Cool priorities. Then there's the $2.6 million settlement. The city settles a harassment and discrimination suit from female officers — in the same week we're tracking SPD staffing losses. So they can't keep cops, and they're writing two-point-six-million-dollar checks for the culture that's part of why people leave. That's the retention strategy in action. Same Shuldiner 'whatever it takes' problem, just in a different building. Leadership language doesn't close a culture gap — eventually somebody writes the check. Today they wrote it. The Urbanist, with Doug Trumm:
The Sound Transit Board of Directors took a fateful vote last Thursday, preserving some projects, delaying others, and putting some indefinite limbo in order to address a $35 billion long-term budget shortfall. Regional voters approved the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) package in 2016, and the plan's dramatic reshaping has roiled transit advocates, who had been hoping for faster timelines rather than further delays.
Advocates from Save Ballard Rail held a funeral procession. An actual funeral — for a rail line voters approved in 2016. That's where we are. And the board went ahead and completed the metaphor — voted May 28 to delay Ballard indefinitely. No opening date, and a funding gap Doug Trumm pegs at seven to nine billion dollars. Seven to nine billion. Meanwhile Issaquah's mayor is grinning for a photo over a corridor that lands in 2050. Champagne on the Eastside, a hearse in Ballard. And the suburban bloc waved off ST4 — said it's too early. So the one expansion lever left is dim, and the agency's calling the contraction an affordable plan. Here's KOMO News:
SEATTLE — The City of Seattle has agreed to pay $2.6 million to settle claims brought by four female Seattle police officers who alleged sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and a hostile work environment within the Seattle Police Department.
The officers — Truscott, Carson, Spencer, and Gulpan — filed in July 2024, alleging harassment, gender discrimination, and a hostile workplace. They named current lieutenant John O'Neil and former chief Adrian Diaz. The city settles for $2.6 million. And it lands the same week we've been clocking SPD's staffing bleed. The department can't keep officers, and now it's writing a $2.6 million check on the culture that's part of why. Grooming and predatory behavior — that's the language in the complaint, against a chief and a lieutenant. And the city's response is a wire transfer and a press line about the previous administration. Remember Tuesday — Shuldiner's whole 'whatever it takes' accountability speech over Adams Elementary? Different building, same move. Leadership talks accountability, and the only thing that actually moves is the settlement amount. And note the lieutenant is current. Diaz is gone, but O'Neil's still on the payroll. Accountability that pays the plaintiffs and keeps the people they named. From Ryan Packer at The Urbanist:
Installing gates at those high-ridership stations would cost between $79.3 million and $88.2 million, an amount that the agency expects to recoup in two to five years thanks to increased fare revenue. After that period, the agency estimates gates would boost fare revenue more than $30 million annually, an increase of more than 30% compared to today's fare revenue across the entire Sound Transit system.
Fourteen stations. And look where they put them — every stop from Northgate to Chinatown, plus the airport, plus Bellevue, plus Redmond. The spine and the Eastside. Again. Riders in South King and Rainier Valley have been screaming about safety for years, and I want to see the actual list before anybody calls this a fix. If the corridors with the loudest complaints didn't make the cut, this pilot was designed around optics. Credit Ryan Packer at The Urbanist for the specifics — up to 14 stations, and the board doesn't even vote until later this year. So it's a recommendation, not a done deal yet. What gets me is the timing. We've spent the week hearing ST4 is fading and Ballard's getting a funeral procession. But apparently there's money to study turnstiles. Enforcement hardware moves; expansion doesn't. Seattle has cameras installed near stadiums right now — so what's actually stopping the city from just turning them on for the World Cup, and do we even know whether these things make anyone safer? Two things are getting jammed together here: process, and evidence. On process, Seattle's surveillance ordinance requires a privacy and data audit before new camera deployments go live. Mayor Wilson pointed to that rule in March when she said she'd pause the expansion and audit the newly installed cameras in the Stadium District, Capitol Hill, and around Garfield High School before turning them on, per her office. Council had already voted in September to expand to those areas, so yes — the cameras are physically there. They're just off. Wilson says she won't activate them without a 'credible threat.' Councilmember Kettle, who chairs Public Safety, calls that 'not a professional standard,' and Councilmember Saka is pushing hard to turn them on before the FIFA matches in June. The audit matters because, as the Seattle Times editorial board lays it out, civil liberties groups are worried about data retention, immigration-enforcement access, and the missing proof that cameras reduce crime. That evidence question is still unresolved in the record we have. How does Seattle compare to the other World Cup host cities on this — is the city actually an outlier by keeping the cameras off? Councilmember Kettle says yes. In a letter to Mayor Wilson, he wrote that Seattle would be the only FIFA World Cup host city without its own CCTV cameras active around match venues — that's his framing, from the correspondence KIRO 7 cited. The thing to watch now is the audit. Kettle set a June deadline, and the mayor's office hasn't said it'll change the activation standard before then. Here's Ryan Packer at The Urbanist:
The 4 Line's delay to 2050 – after initially being scheduled for 2041 when voters approved the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) package – came as part of a larger rebalancing of Sound Transit's system expansion plans. A project dubbed the Enterprise Initiative, spun up in response to a budget shortfall that threatened project timelines by the early 2030s, forced the Sound Transit board to reckon with some tough choices.
Ryan Packer at The Urbanist has the photo — Mayor Mark Mullet and former mayor Fred Butler beaming at the Issaquah train depot, days after the board pushed their 4 Line from 2041 to 2050. Nine years later than what voters approved in ST3, and the mayor's calling it a win. Either the bar just hit the floor, or this tells us what the Eastside actually wanted out of Sound Transit. A celebration photo for a delay to 2050? That's a hostage photo with better lighting. Mullet's grinning because Issaquah got a committed corridor — design and all — while Ballard advocates are literally staging a funeral procession. And remember Tuesday — Constantine handing us 'realism and optimism'? The 4 Line got locked in over Ballard. That answers exactly whose priorities this board serves. That settles the question we asked Tuesday about whether the 'affordable plan' language would hold. It held, and the hierarchy's concrete now: Issaquah committed, Ballard design-only. 2050. Kids who can't walk yet will be paying off bonds before they ride that line. And the suburban bloc pops champagne while the spine's promises evaporate. If Seattle Politics and Urbanism Daily is part of your routine, take a moment to subscribe or leave a review wherever you’re listening. It really helps other people find the show.
We’ve linked the source material for every story in today’s show notes, so if one of them deserves a closer read, that’s the place to start.
That’s Seattle Politics and Urbanism Daily for this Friday, June 5th. This is a Lantern Podcast.