(New timeline, as reflected on Sound Transit website)

6:17 PM: Sound Transit dropped a bombshell during today’s meeting of its board’s System Expansion Committee – the opening date for the West Seattle Link Extension, long at 2032, is now delayed three years to 2035. Here’s how ST summarized it via email late today:

The West Seattle Link Extension is moving forward with an updated project schedule. Under the updated ST3 System Plan, the project remains fully funded and will advance toward construction. The anticipated opening date is now 2035, rather than 2032.

The updated timeline reflects both the cost-saving work completed to make the project affordable and refinements to the construction schedule. Concurrently, the project team continues to advance design and reduce community impacts. These efforts include a new SODO design solution that avoids significant utility relocations on 6th Avenue S., reflecting significant collaboration across Sound Transit, the City of Seattle, Seattle City Light, elected leaders, and community stakeholders.

We know many people have been eagerly anticipating light rail in West Seattle. We’re committed to delivering the project on a realistic timeline the agency can confidently stand behind.

We have more to report from today’s committee meeting and will add that soon.

ADDED 6:55 PM: The major West Seattle news on the committee agenda was originally – as we reported Tuesday night – proposed property acquisitions and a budget increase to pay for them (and other project costs). The presentation of those was when ST executive Brad Owen began the presentation, calling the West Seattle launch-date delay “difficult news to share,” describing it as an “unfortunate consequence as staff worked to identify an affordable path forward for the project, and as the board and the agency focused on addressing a nearly $35 billion gap in our long-range finance plan through the Enterprise Initiative.”

As part of the announcement, ST revealed the aforementioned new design plan for the SODO segment involving city high-voltage lines, as explained here, including:

The new SODO segment design will relocate major City infrastructure, Seattle City Light’s 230 kilovolt and 26 kilovolt transmission poles and lines, entirely within the light rail project footprint in the SODO Busway. This means that Sound Transit will not need to move massive powerlines onto 6th Ave S, which significantly reduces construction and lasting impacts on adjacent properties and businesses. The new design is expected to save the project over $100 million and remove the risk of damage to other critical City transportation and water infrastructure.

Presenting the 55 proposed property acquisitions – about half in SODO, half in West Seattle (all listed here) – ST managers told committee members they had used phone and email to contact all affected property owners to confirm they knew the plan was going to the board.

They also promised that they have a “vacant property strategy” so that none of the properties are unoccupied for more than a few months “before they’re actually needed for construction” and so that they “will not become burdens to the communities in which they are located.”

With a unanimous voice vote, committee members sent the plan to the full board, as they did with this companion resolution, a three-quarters-of-a-billion budget amendment to allow spending almost half a billion dollars for property acquisitions and another $300 million for “construction support services … through final design.”

Both resolutions will be up for a vote of the full board at its next meeting, August 27.