In next month’s election, voters will be asked to approve a ballot measure that could expand mass transit throughout the Puget Sound area, including Redmond.

According to the King County Elections website, Sound Transit’s Proposition 1 will expand light-rail, commuter-rail and bus rapid transit service in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

If the measure passes, it will pay for Sound Transit 3 (ST3). Sound Transit would be authorized to levy an additional 0.5 percent sales and use tax; a property tax of $0.25 or less per $1,000 of assessed valuation; and additional 0.8 percent motor-vehicle excise tax. Sound Transit would also be authorized to use existing taxes to fund the local share of the $53.8 billion estimated cost (including inflation), with continuing independent audits.

City of Redmond mayor and Sound Transit board member John Marchione said while Sound Transit 1 (ST1) and Sound Transit 2 (ST2) were about building a light rail “spine” from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Northgate in Seattle, ST3 is about extending from that spine and into regional neighborhoods.

Marchione said ST2 already has light rail coming to the Overlake Transit Center at Northeast 40th Street and SR-520. ST3 would bring it to southeast Redmond and into downtown. There are also two stations planned: one just east of Marymoor Park in King County near Redmond and one somewhere behind Half-Price Books along the Redmond Central Connector in downtown.

The Redmond portions of the package would cost about $800 million.

“For our economic vitality, we need light rail,” Marchione said.

He said this is because Redmond has about 60,000 residents, but a daytime population of about 120,000. People come here to work and they can’t build enough roads to satisfy the travel demand, Marchione said.

In addition, the ST3 proposal includes two parking garages — one in north Sammamish and one by the proposed Marymoor light rail station. The former would have spaces for 1,600 cars and the latter would have spaces for 1,500 cars.

Marchione said these two garages, while not in Redmond, would help open up parking spots at the Redmond Transit Center in downtown as commuters from Sammamish, Duvall, Woodinville and even Monroe could park there instead. This would also help relieve congestion in and around downtown Redmond, he said.

The light rail station in Overlake is scheduled to open in 2023. If Prop. 1 passes, the downtown station will open in 2024.

While predictable travel times and easing congestion may be a selling point for ST3 for some people, Redmond City Council member Hank Myers has some concerns.

He said ST3 is very expensive and thinks a better and cheaper alternative is battery-powered electric buses. Myers said with the advances of technology, the cost of these vehicles continues to go down. In addition, he said, it is cheaper to build roads than rails. He said electric buses can also have designated right of ways like a light rail train would, so travel times could be more predictable.

Myers added that millennials have twice as many jobs as their parents. So just because they might live or work by a light rail station now, does not mean they will always be near one.

“Rail can’t be everywhere,” he said. “Buses can.”

Myers also noted that the planned light rail station for downtown Redmond is about three blocks away from the transit center and the proposed solutions to get people from one location to the other — such as walkways or shuttle buses — are also expensive.

“Future of mass transit is already here and it’s not light rail,” he said.