Ballard and West Seattle Deserve Tunnel

The Sept 13^th, Seattle Times, B1 Page article “How light rail plans are shaping up in Seattle” typifies the Traffic Lab’s flawed approach to the area’s transportation problems. The article includes the following:

Tunnels in West Seattle and Ballard, along with other options for the international District/Chinatown and Interbay Stations could add $2 billion to what’s already an $8 billion-plus project without changing the expected daily ridership of 52,000 between Ballard and South Lake Union, and 35,000 between West Seattle and Stadium Station.  The downtown portion will serve more than 100,000 riders.

The Traffic Lab questions whether $2 billion more should be spent for tunnels to West Seattle and Ballard that won’t increase ridership.  Yet they ignored Sound Transit choosing to spend more than $2 billion on a Northgate extension tunnel with no expectation doing so would boost ridership. 

Even more absurd they have no problem with Sound Transit CEO Rogoff’s 2019 budget plan to spend most of $96 billion on a light rail spine along I-5 between Tacoma and Everett, and across I-90 through Bellevue to Redmond.  They do nothing to increase capacity of light rail routed through the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT).  

Apparently the Traffic Lab doesn’t recognize a 2004 PSRC study, funded by Sound Transit, limited the DSTT capacity to 8880 riders per hour in each direction.  Not only are Sound Transit CEO Rogoff’s claims for the Prop 1 extensions delusional, any riders added will reduce access to this limited capacity for current riders. 

Sound Transit is already proceeding with plans to  spend $2.8 billion on an 8.5-mile Lynnwood Link that will double the operating costs of the Northgate Link but does nothing to increase capacity.  The entire area will be forced to spend countless millions each year to cover the shortfall between costs and fare-box revenue with the longer routes. 

Clearly spending an additional $2 billion to tunnel from Ballard all the way to West Seattle for 100,000 transit riders into Seattle would seem to be a relative bargain.  Especially with the low operating costs for the added riders with the relatively short extensions. There would be no ST3 funding without Seattle’s 70% approval.  If Sound Transit can tunnel to Northgate they can surely tunnel to Ballard and West Seattle. 

The bottom line is the Traffic Lab  still doesn’t recognize the billions spent on Prop 1 extensions will do nothing to increase light rail capacity into Seattle.  The Ballard and West Seattle  extensions will.  The real concerns should not be about the added $2 billion for tunnels, but the fact Sound Transit intends to delay them until 2030 and 2035.  They should be expedited, not delayed.