Sound Transit Board members are still months away from decision-making on a revised long-range plan and ways to pop projects’ ballooning budgets. But their committees are getting briefings along the way, and the West Seattle Link Extension was one of the focuses when the board’s System Expansion Committee met Thursday.
Starting at 1 hour, 25 minutes into the meeting video (see it here), deputy CEO Terri Mestas led the briefing on the “cost workplan” for capital projects, then focusing in on West Seattle (followed by Everett), concluding at the end, “We’re really turning over every stone.” She noted that the West Seattle project is now at 30 percent design.
CEO Dow Constantine said that since they’re now using “bottom-up” cost estimating, they are more confident about their numbers. Shortly afterward, ST’s Brad Owen revealed that the West Seattle estimate has risen again, now $7.1 billion to $7.9 billion – potentially almost twice as much as what the finance plan from four years ago covers.
He clarified that the number includes “total contingency” as required by a particular federal policy. That represents more than a fourth of the estimated cost, Owen said.
Then it was on to possible ways to reduce the costs. The only way to get the project within what the finance would cover would be the most dramatic proposal, phasing – cutting the project down to the SODO and Delridge stations, building the latter in a way that would enable some future extension to The Junction (and possibly beyond). This isn’t a formal proposal right now, just an example of what’s possible. Here are the details on that:
(Note that ST says going only to Delridge would drop estimated ridership dramatically, and would change the type of station needed there. In Q&A, board member Seattle City Councilmember Dan Strauss declared it to be “one of the worst ideas I’ve ever seen.”) Meantime, Owen also brought up the idea of dropping the Avalon station, which has been suggested and studied previously, including in the official environmental-impact statement. This could, he said, mean less impact on Longfellow Creek and the West Seattle Health Club; possible savings could be nearly half a billion dollars.
And “optimization” of the Junction station could save almost a quarter-billion dollars (stations are the costliest items on project lists, Owen noted) – one component of this would remove “tail tracks” that currently would stretch underground construction all the way to SW Hudson, a removal that they now believe would not have an operational effect, with benefits including less right-of-way needing to be obtained:
Other cost-saving possibilities included design changes in the SODO station and “aerial guideway and foundation optimization” for the entire WS project. No board member questions after the presentation, which again was just a briefing, not a formal proposal nor anything requiring a vote. Here’s the full slide deck (including the Everett project info, for a project that also could cost nearly $8 billion, though it’s a 16-mile extension, four times the SODO-to-WS Junction distance).
WHAT’S NEXT: It was noted in Q&A that the board will have to authorize more money and time before year’s end for the consultant that’s working on cost savings, if they want the consultant to keep ferreting out more possibilities. More discussions are ahead at other board/committee meetings as they move toward revising future plans next year.
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