Sound Transit board approves $17.9 billion plan for November ballot

The Sound Transit Board unanimously approved placing a multi-billion dollar, 15-year mass transit package on the November ballot last week.

The plan rapidly increases express bus and commuter rail service and creates a 53-mile regional light rail system — all with a lower price tag, faster delivery dates and more public accountability than last year’s roads-and-transit package.

“This plan gets light rail to Redmond seven years sooner than last year’s plan and significantly increases bus service within the next four years,” said Board member and Redmond Mayor John Marchione. “Locally, that will help us manage our growth effectively. It will also help the entire region’s economy. When companies decide where to locate or expand, they look hard at how their employees will be able to get around. We need to catch up with the regions we compete against both nationally and globally.”

The package’s capital projects cost $13.5 billion in year-of-expenditure dollars that include inflation estimates. Adding operations, maintenance, reserves and debt service through 2023, the cost is $17.9 billion including inflation. Funding would come from a 0.5 percent increase of the local sales tax, or five cents on a $10 purchase. The approximately $69 annual cost of the increase for each adult is around the cost of a single tank of gas at current pump prices.

This transit-only package delivers projects significantly faster than last year’s Proposition 1 measure, which was voted down. The construction costs are 50 percent lower than Proposition 1, which included both roads and transit projects, and 23 percent lower than the 20-year transit package that was part of Proposition 1. While the package was forwarded to the ballot by a unanimous vote, the underlying plan as it was amended passed on a 16-2 vote.

The new plan responds to public input received in May and June, which showed strong desire to light rail extended further north and south than was proposed in 12-year options identified in April.

Details of the 15-year plan include an Eastward expansion of light rail to Bellevue and onward to Overlake Transit Center in Redmond by 2021, seven years earlier than Proposition 1, as well as partnership funding for Eastside passenger rail on existing freight tracks.

Planning studies could include further mass transit along the SR 520 corridor between Redmond, Kirkland and the University of Washington and further west into Seattle, as well as other areas.

More information on the plan is available at www.soundtransit. org.

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