The Sound Transit Board‘s Executive Committee didn’t vote this afternoon on an ST revision after all, but the push is still on for a full board vote two weeks from today. The board’s chair, Snohomish County executive Dave Somers, said a vote wouldn’t be appropriate because too many amendments had either been, or were expected to be, proposed.
This afternoon’s discussion did shine more light on issues brought up by board members at their regular monthly meeting last week. For example – why are they updating the plan now? ST’s Alex Krieg said the ST3 plan approved by voters in 2016 required a plan update when the plan is out of alignment with the available funding, and they’ve certainly arrived at that point. They can afford $57 billion worth of projects, both fully and partly funded, and West Seattle light rail – currently priced, even without the Avalon station, at $6.8 billion – would be on the fully funded list. But unless they adopted a complete new plan, they wouldn’t be allowed to spend all the money they’d need to spend to get West Seattle on the track to completion.
Krieg insisted that the proposed revision doesn’t cancel or eliminate anything, and there’s still room and time to add things back – like the Ballard Link Extension, for example, with a price tag of $7 billion to $9 billion for the segment from Seattle Center to Market Street, which is left hanging in the proposed revision. Though he’s not on the Executive Committee, board member Dan Strauss – who represents Ballard on the City Council – was there to say he won’t settle for that. And Mayor Katie Wilson, a board member who is on the committee, said she wanted to at least see a date for when they envisioned completing Ballard in this revision. (Theoretically West Seattle, “fully funded,” is still on track for 2032 completion, although board chair Somers took issue at one point with the frequent usage of “shovel-ready” to describe it, saying “major construction” actually wouldn’t start until 2028.)
One date of note: CFO Hughey Newsom noted that the revision would extend the end date of ST3 financing from 2046 to 2052.
And he pointed out that the revised plan would totally max out their expected financing – not counting a 10 percent so any change in costs, for example, could throw it “out of alignment” again and require yet another revision.
In board comments, committee member Ryan Mello, Pierce County Executive, declared the board needs to take action – “delay will only add cost and risk and is not our friend.”
King County Executive Girmay Zahilay, also a committee member, said he supports a vote at the May 28 board meeting too.
Along the way, Somers pointed out that even a vote on this ST3 revision is not a final commitment to West Seattle or any other project – those would be separate votes. So here’s what happens next:
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