Seattle mayor urges Sound Transit prioritize dense neighborhoods amid rising costs

(The Center Square) – Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell is advocating for Sound Transit to prioritize projects that connect high-density neighborhoods amid project costs increasing 25%.

Sound Transit’s 30-year financial plan – set at $150.5 billion – was recently projected to increase by somewhere between $22 billion and $30 billion due to cost growth on the agency’s capital program. The capital program includes major ST3 light rail projects that would connect the agency’s transit network to Seattle’s Ballard and West Seattle neighborhoods, Tacoma, Everett, South Kirkland and Issaquah.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Harrell voiced his support for Sound Transit to prioritize the Link Light Rail expansion into Seattle’s Ballard and West Seattle neighborhoods, which he said deliver the greatest ridership and serve the densest communities in the Puget Sound.

According to Harrell, if the West Seattle and Ballard extension projects are delayed, the city will not see new light rail construction for at least four years.

“That is not what our residents voted for . . . and as mayor, that is totally unacceptable,” Harrell said in a press conference on Tuesday morning. “We must deliver in the densest communities with the greatest ridership.”

The Seattle mayor said the best approach to managing ballooning light rail costs is by advancing Sound Transit projects as quickly as possible. Harrell pointed to the city’s previous efforts to streamline its permitting process to speed up light rail construction and increase its affordable housing capacity.

On Thursday, Harrell intends to propose Sound Transit establish a working group that would provide third-party review and validation of assumptions related to cost, revenue and project risk.

The agency could face an unaffordable long-range plan if it does not keep cost trends in line with lower projected revenues. However, the presentation to the board of directors notes that the agency still has significant financial capacity to deliver what ST3 promised when it was first approved by voters in 2016.

Charles Prestrud, the director of Washington Policy Center’s Cole’s Center for Transportation, calls the ST3 plan a “trainwreck,” as costs continue to skyrocket. According to Prestrud, the light rail extensions in the ST3 plan would carry less than 1% of the region’s daily trips.

“If those light rail projects were deleted from the plan it would have just about zero impact on overall transportation system performance, and open up the possibility of using the tens of billions of dollars saved for much better transit investments that could be implemented decades sooner,” Prestrud said in an email to The Center Square.

Sound Transit’s Link light rail currently has up to 3.4 million boardings a month. Harrell anticipates the West Seattle and Ballard extensions to bring in more than 200,000 daily boardings.

The agency’s Finance and Audit Committee is planning to make initial assessments of policy and revenue opportunities to increase financial capacity later this month.