By Claudia Balducci
It’s no secret that our region needed high-capacity transit yesterday — or better yet, four decades ago. As a lifelong transit rider and a regional transportation leader, I’ve spent much of my career fighting for East Link, passing ST3, improving transit service, and delivering the kind of system our communities deserve. This work is essential: transit connects people to opportunity, makes our region greener, and—more personally—helps my teenager find their independence.
The West Seattle and Ballard light rail extensions alone are historic in scale—the largest public works undertakings in Seattle’s history. These extensions will connect two culturally and economically prominent Seattle neighborhoods that can be hard to access. That’s why traffic-free rail to these destinations has been part of our civic vision for decades.
But Sound Transit’s recently reported rising costs threaten our ability to deliver on ST3—the bold plan voters approved in 2016 to expand rail and bus rapid transit throughout King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties. The reasons for these rising costs include increasing construction costs, high interest rates, and an uncertain federal transit funding picture. So, here’s the fundamental question: How do we meet the promise of light rail without breaking the bank?
I’m asking Sound Transit to consider three key questions this fall:
- Can we reimagine the second downtown tunnel?
ST3 originally proposed a second tunnel between the Chinatown–International District and Westlake Center to support a growing regional transit network. But before building new infrastructure, let’s explore whether technology and reliability upgrades could allow us to interline—running all three lines through the existing Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.
Consider this: London plans to run more than 30 trains per hour in a tunnel that first opened during Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, simply by upgrading to modern signaling systems. Surely, with similar technology, we can optimize Seattle’s existing tunnel—built during Ronald Reagan’s presidency—to meet our service needs. If feasible (and this will require detailed analysis from outside experts), using a single downtown tunnel could save billions—funds we could reinvest to bring light rail to Ballard and West Seattle. A central question is whether this can be achieved while maintaining reliable service. It’s a critical issue that deserves resolution.
- What strategies can we find to deliver projects faster and cheaper?
We must build on the work of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG), which I proposed during the last Sound Transit realignment process during COVID to identify cost-saving strategies. Can we break up transit megaprojects—an approach used by other mass transit systems across the globe—into smaller contracts to attract more bidders to a heated construction market, lowering costs and improving accountability? Can we streamline permitting at the local and state levels? And can we proactively acquire key parcels of land early to lock in real estate prices before they rise?
- Can we adopt service-led planning that puts riders first?
Service-led planning is the standard globally for delivering the best rider experience. Investments are prioritized based on how they support speed, reliability, and service integration. Voters endorsed ST3 for the freedom its services entailed, not the scale of what would be built. Therefore, the service enabled by any piece of infrastructure must be the highest priority.
Using these principles, if the existing Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel can support the operations of three light rail lines by using modern signaling technology and design standards, the second tunnel becomes a nice-to-have, not a must-have. Even better, interlining will improve the rider experience by supporting easier transfers across platforms, rather than forcing long walks to adjacent stations, or cumbersome transfers across whole neighborhoods. It could also solve the longstanding challenge of how to serve the Chinatown-International District without digging up that neighborhood yet again.
It’s easy to list reasons why something won’t work. The real test is imagining how it can. For every “that’s impossible,” we must ask “how can we?” In this moment of scarcity, our creativity is our greatest resource. At Sound Transit, we’ve shown we can innovate before. Now it’s time to do it again.
We owe it to our region to solve the real problem—connecting people region-wide—and leave no good idea unexplored.
Claudia Balducci is a King County Councilmember and Sound Transit Board Vice Chair
I think it’s crucial for us to consider these questions seriously. High-capacity transit is long overdue, and we need to prioritize sustainable solutions for our community.
The hitchhiker’s guide to building a lot subways:
https://thetransitguy.substack.com/p/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-building
Truly good public policy starts with getting agreement on What’s the problem we are trying to solve? Followed by, What are the viable alternatives to solving it? And then an honest cost benefit analysis of those alternatives. Council member Balducci and the Board continue to believe that the problem is that we don’t have light rail (LR). BTW, It’s called light rail because of capacity, not weight. It is NOT high capacity transit. I helped get Sound Move passed in 1996. I was the transit advocate on the King Co. Council from 1994-2001. I currently live in a cottage home development and we have just one car and it’s electric. But since 2000 I’ve been working with transit professionals and supporters to try an bring the facts about key performance measures even with full build out of light rail (ST3). Our newest co-chair does not own a car.
Please see smartertransit.org for the true costs and benefits of ST3 and other viable alternatives to reducing single car use in our region. For instance…
Buried in Appendix H of the Puget Sound Regional Council* (PSRC)2050 Transportation Plan, which assumes LR to Everett, Tacoma, Issaquah, Ballard and West Seattle and assumes increased densities around the stations, by 2050 we will see:
-Only 3% of all the 24,000,000 trips/day by car, ferry, transit, bike, walk, will be on Sound Transit trains
-Congestion increases 54%
-Only a 6% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from all sources. This number does not take into account the enormous amounts of forever CO2 emissions generated to build light rail. The goal for our Region is an 80% reduction.
-Enormous destruction of sensitive areas, thousands of trees gone and neighborhoods and businesses destroyed.
*Our federally mandated regional planning agency for King, Kitsap, Snohomish and Pierce Counties and their cities.
Meanwhile the average family is paying $1800/year in Sound Transit taxes. And, truly transit dependent folks are waiting for the bus, in the rain with no shelters.
Lastly, we have to ask, given these numbers, why are our elected officials continuing to push light rail? Several public disclosure requests reveal that law firms, real estate firms, developers, PR Firms, non-profits and news outlets make millions and billions off these projects. Transportation Choices, for instance, receives $50,000/year to advocate for Sound Transit. They, in turn, donate to the campaigns.
We need to hold ST and PSRC accountable through our state Legislature. They created the agency and “they alone can fix it.” Please sign our Petition to the Legislature at smartertransit.org.
“It’s easy to list reasons why something won’t work. The real test is imagining how it can” is a big piece of the Seattle mindset and its lack of imagination. For all the space age/Century 21 trappings, it’s still the 1950/60s in practice. I don’t think it hurts enough yet, for people to commit to the kind of thinking that’s needed.
This is one of the most naturally beautiful parts of the country, the great outdoors is right there, with all kinds of activities, but also some of the worst traffic. The 40 years mentioned in the piece is about right…if you have hourly or more frequent traffic reports on your radio and TV that document that same pinchpoints, you have a proven use case for mass transit, but suburban development and the fear of others that defeats any form of dense development just makes the inevitable more difficult. It would take another Seattle fire or maybe that big quake we keep hearing about to force the kind of change that’s needed. Seems a bit drastic but here we are.
How, exactly, do you propose tying in a Ballard line to Westlake station? I’m afraid that answering that question engineering- and planning-wise will delay the project another 2-3 years which would lead to cost increases that offset any possible savings.
This is the thing. A tunnel is needed for the Ballard line to enter downtown, and once you have that, finishing that second tunnel is going to be cheaper and faster (so therefore ALSO cheaper) than figuring out a way to make a Y-intersection underground, which isn’t done for a reason (as explained extensively in a recent Urbanist article).
I appreciate the desire to make things move faster, but “going back to the drawing board” is something we’ve been doing too often and too easily, losing us way more time and money than we save.
I do like what I’m hearing on point #3 about “Service-led planning”. I would love to see more of that. But if we’re rewinding to the most basic planning stages right now, yet again, I’m ready to despair.
ST Boardmember Balducci was silent on that question. There has been extensive discussion on the Seattle Transit Blog on the topic. Many there would like ST to study a Ballard-Westlake line with transfers; further, some suggest it use a SkyTrain type technology: automated, shorter headway, shorter trains, shorter and less costly stations. Yes, another maintenance base would be required, probably in Interbay. (We lost the Northwest Center gym to the SMP base). The delay is happening anyway. Dow led the board to a tricky deal on the second DSTT; the outer subareas contributed to its cost based on the assertion it was needed for capacity.
West Seattle is not difficult to reach if the bridges are not out. Seattle controls both bridges and how well transit flows. Seattle opened the South Lander Street overcrossing in 2020. The ST3 concept of building the West Seattle first and operating it as as shuttle is silly.
Yes, service should drive capital and not the latter. This would be a huge reset for the agency.
Also, a quibble. I question this assertion:
“The West Seattle and Ballard light rail extensions alone are historic in scale—the largest public works undertakings in Seattle’s history.”
Oh really? You know, the Denny Regrade is only one of the large scale public works on Seattle’s history:
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/seattle-regrading-old-photographs/
Commentariat on the Seattle Transit Blog have suggested that a maintenance base for a SkyTrain-like automated line from Westlake to Ballard could be kept small if we build a one-track interconnection between it and the existing Westlake station box. The single track would permit Sound Transit to tow SkyTrain cars onto the existing central line to the SODO maintenance base for heavy overhauls. The single track connection between the central and Ballard lines could enter the Westlake station either at the west side or the existing station bell-end near where buses used to head off to the old Convention Center station. In either case, punching a single small tunnel into the station box would be a lot easier than building a flying junction to the existing TBM-bored tunnel.
SkyTrains could also be parked inside tunnels at night. This would eliminate the need to store them at the Ballard line’s dedicated maintence base, which would further reduce the base’s size to a small light-duty workshop that could easily be sited somewhere in the Interbay.
An automated Ballard-Westlake line could also be built with provision for extensions to First Hill, Judkins Park, and Mt. Baker. Trevor Jones at the Seattle Transit Blog has a detailed proposal: https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/02/25/automate-ballard-link/
Often when people suggest automating the Ballard Link, others raise the concern over where to site the maintenance base. As described above, there are solutions. I strongly think that Sound Transit should seriously look into building the Ballard Link as a separate automated metro with provision for future expansion. It would be much cheaper and less complex than trying to build DSTT2 or a full connection to DSTT1, and it leaves room to grow the network to serve more neighborhoods. Basically, automating the Ballard Link could just about save ST3 and set it up the system for future expansion.