The 27th Seattle Times Editorial “Sound Transit Board Can’t Let Delays, Higher Costs Derail System Plan” concludes “the board must find new ways to pay for promised extensions” and “avoid asking taxpayers to pay for something they’ve already paid for”. Yet Sound Transit tried and failed to get additional money with 75-year maturity bonds and taxpayers are already forced to pay for current bonds until 2061. Operating costs for trains on the extensions will be a perpetual burden for taxpayers.
Sound Transit has a staff of more than 1600 and a $1.1 billion budget whose primary goal is to manage expanding light rail. (They contract with others to manage nearly all their current transit system operations.) The board has spent a decade and hundreds of millions on outside consultants trying to reduce the extension costs. (They recently decided to request assistance from UW.)
Thus, it wasn’t a surprise a May 29th Seattle Times Traffic Lab article announced the board decided to proceed with their version of what was affordable. That a second tunnel and Duwamish waterway bridge, North and South Maintenance Facilities, light rail to Tacoma Community College, and the Everett Link were all affordable. The link to Ballard was shortened and the West Seattle link lost a station. That “Partially funding projects through planning and design” were also affordable. Some projects weren’t currently affordable, and others were classified as "Deferred".
Again, it was Sound Transit’s attempt to “use available resources to fund the most necessary projects and services that best achieve the ST3 objectives". Their criteria apparently being which projects were further along The problem is neither Sound Transit Board nor Seattle Times editors apparently recognize the ST3 light rail extensions won’t reduce congestion. Thus, whatever the extensions in the Sound Transit affordable capital program, they won’t reduce the congestion in their service area.
One problem is 4-car light rail trains don’t have the capacity to reduce peak hour congestion on roads into Seattle and cost too much to operate off peak. The Sound Transit Board compounds that problem by choosing to use light rail trains to replace bus routes into Seattle, reducing transit capacity into the city. The ST3 extensions just add to the lost capacity with riders added doing nothing to reduce GP lane congestion and reducing access for current riders.
A second problem is providing access to light rail doesn’t assure ridership. February ridership data indicated the Lynnwood extension added 8948 boarders and Federal Way 7702, far less than the 35,000 and 25,000 predicted. Potential riders in both areas already had better access to bus routes for transit into the city with more convenient drop off locations in the city and pickup locations for their return. (The benefit of the cost of a bus stop being a small fraction of that of a light rail station.)
The bottom line is the Seattle Times doesn’t recognize the Sound Transit Board continues to approve changes proposed by a Staff attempt to lower cost on ST3 light rail extensions rather than recognize they don’t need the extensions. Our grandchildren will have to pay off the bonds funding the extensions and that paying for the resultant train operation will continue for as long they continue to run.
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