Why Sound Transit OMFS Funding?

The Thursday 14^th Sound Transit System Expansion Committee approved the following “Recommendation to the Board”.

B. Motion No. M2025-40: Authorizing the chief executive officer to execute a contract modification with Mott MacDonald, LLC to exercise a contract option for Phase 2 Design-Build Project Management services for the Operations and Maintenance Facility South project in an amount not to exceed $109,840,000, with an approximate 10 percent contingency of $11,160,000, totaling $121,000,000, for a new total authorized contract amount not to exceed $140,843,544, contingent upon adoption of Resolution No. R2025-19.

 

C. Resolution No. R2025-19: Amending the Adopted 2025 Budget to advance the Operations and Maintenance Facility South project by a) increasing the authorized project allocation by $121,000,000 from $403,729,393 to $524,729,393 and b) increasing the adopted 2025 annual project budget by $2,000,000 from $156,672,390 to $158,672,390.

 

D. Resolution No. R2025-20: Authorizing the chief executive officer to acquire certain real property interests, including acquisition by condemnation to the extent authorized by law, and to reimburse eligible relocation and reestablishment expenses incurred by affected owners and tenants as necessary for construction, operation and maintenance of the Operations and Maintenance Facility South project.

 

The presentation and discussion of the funding and property acquisitions  took nearly 40 minutes.  It began with charts showing the 2031 Forecast Opening in a OMFS Project Timeline Meets or Exceeds Target.  The rest of the time was spent detailing concern over funding  the various phases from preliminary design through final construction.  In the end all three were unanamously recommended for approval to the board.  

 

It exemplified a  long history of the System Expansion Committee failure to ask the “right” questions. Spending millions on outside advice as to how to better implement ST3 extensions rather than how to reduce the area's congestion.  

 

The OMFS, like many of the projects they've funded wasn’t included in the 2016 Prop 1 approved by voters.  They recently announced plans to debut the 8-mile Federal Way Link this fall. They presumably have plans to operate and maintain the trains on the route. Thus, why was the committee even funding an OMFS project?  Especially one with a 2031 in-service target date and costing more than $500 million.

 

A previous post concluded the extension to Federal Way was a blunder. Area commuters already had better access to transit into and out of Seattle on KCM  bus routes.  The “likely” result, the number of 1 Line trains  routed beyond SeaTac or Angle Lake to Federal Way will be limited to reduce clogging current riders during peak commute, better match ridership off peak, and minimize the 8-mile extensions added operating costs.

 

Spending more than $500 million on an OMFS to maintain those trains in 2031 just adds to that blunder.