By Erica C. Barnett
On this week’s episode of the Seattle Nice podcast, we did a deep dive on the Sound Transit board’s decision last week to indefinitely defer the voter-approved light rail extension to Ballard, a stretch that boasts by far the highest projected ridership of any line in the Sound Transit 3 package voters approved ten years ago.
Seattle City Councilmember Dan Strauss, who represents Ballard, has been beating the drum on this issue for months, arguing it would be irresponsible to renege on such a significant commitment to Seattle voters. The new plan preserves the “spine” to Everett and Tacoma, along with a second light rail tunnel through downtown Seattle, leaving Ballard in limbo unless Sound Transit can come up with cost savings and unless someone, most likely Seattle voters, can provide the funds to build the expansion.
The board adopted a couple of amendments last week that will move planning for a potential Ballard line forward and that commit to looking for ways to make the plan more affordable. But they rejected a proposal from Strauss that would have switched up ST3’s sequencing to build a “starter” line between Westlake and Ballard before adding a second transit tunnel.
Suburban Sound Transit board members said last week that prioritizing Ballard would doom the rest of the system. As a result, Sandeep noted, the suburbs got everything they asked for, leaving Seattle without any leverage to get additional funds for its projects in the future. Indeed, several board members made that explicit, saying Seattle would need to find its own money if it wants to build to Ballard and complete the West Seattle line in the future; there will be no regional Sound Transit 4, they said.
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One suburban Sound Transit board member and longtime light rail proponent who voted (along with Strauss) against the entire proposal, King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci, told me last week she thought it was time to take a serious look at Sound Transit’s governance. Currently, the agency is run by an 18-member board of elected officials who represent every “subarea” of the region—an ever-changing cast of characters with no specific transit expertise. This structure, Balducci suggested, has made it difficult to anticipate and forestall cost overruns like the $34.5 billion hole Sound Transit is currently attempting to fill.
David, Sandeep, and I also discussed some of the potential reasons for Sound Transit’s persistent overruns—excessive process, changes in response to neighborhood complaints, and engineering decisions that add millions to even relatively simple projects, like the long-deferred Graham Street Station, which the latest plan at least moves into the “funded” column.
Finally, we had to spend a few minutes on the latest shakeup in Mayor Katie Wilson’s office—the departure of housing and homelessness advisor Jon Grant, who was at the center of the mayor’s plan to add thousands of new tiny house-style shelters around the city. Grant, along with Wilson’s former chief of staff Kate Kreuzer, reportedly clashed with council members and staff while the council was working to pass emergency legislation to expedite Wilson’s shelter proposal.
I don’t see the issue as just a suburb versus Seattle conflict. I see it as mis-prioritization of projects within the North King sub-area. If the Seattle/North King sub-area officials had been willing to put the brakes on West Seattle, they could probably have kept Ballard funded. But instead, they decided to prioritize West Seattle, even though it is objectively a relatively much less valuable project, simply because it is farther ahead procedurally.
It seems like their strategy is to first lock in the spending for West Seattle and then seek more funding for Ballard, which should be an easier sell because of its relatively greater value. It’s like funding more marginal projects with baseline tax revenue and then seeking funding for core services and more popular programs via special levies. I understand the temptation to use this approach, but it seems like a risky strategy because voters will eventually hit their limit, and say, “no more,” and the more valuable programs will remain unfunded.
Is this a way to gentrify Ballard and the areas surrounding?
This whole debate is a symptom of a deeper failure of imagination. Sound Transit was designed to build one thing, so it builds that one thing, and every corridor gets evaluated against whether it deserves that one thing. A city that had internalized what transit actually does — not commuter conveyance but urban connective tissue — would be asking completely different questions. Not “does Ballard deserve light rail” but “what’s the fastest, most useful, most buildable connection between Ballard and Fremont and South Lake Union and Capitol Hill and the existing Link spine, and what mode serves that best.”
Examples:
Water taxi frequency doubled.
BRT on 15th with actual signal priority.
Trams along the waterfront and up 15 or up Westlake, if we can somehow convince motorists that 60 people on a tram are at least as important as one in a car. Crossing the ship canal is an opportunity or a challenge, based on your mindset.
Any or all of these before 2030, for less than the contingency budget on the West Seattle tunnel.
“Water taxi frequency doubled.”
I feel ya…but we can’t even keep our own current ferry fleet floating
Once Metro cancelled the # 29 route running exclusively during rush hours from/to Ballard to/from downtown (pretty much where light rail would go) due to paltry ridership, this canard “a stretch that boasts by far the highest projected ridership of any line in the Sound Transit 3” was exposed as only in theory and a failure in practice. Should have taken that bus, Uff Da!
The 29 served Ballard – Queen Anne – Downtown, which is a different route. The D is a near-exact parallel (though it doesn’t serve SLU), and has been doing good post-Covid. The 17 runs express on a similar route, and I believe that Metro is considering reinstating the 15 (which is the express variant of the D) to alleviate crowding on the D at rush hours now.
I drive to work instead of taking the D from my house in Crown Hill, because to drive takes 25-45 minutes, and to ride that crowded slow thing takes me 70 minutes, door to door, on a good day. That’s an hour a day I pay for out of my own pocket, and am pleased to do so.
Sound Transit sucks at this point. I remember celebrating their opening, with a friend who lives in Seward Park. For the past 10 years he’s had quick transit to downtown, just like I do :).
Fascinating discussion. I live in Seattle and am a big rail cheerleader, but I don’t see this as Seattle getting “screwed” at all! Seattle accounts for less than 1/4 residents in the taxpayer pool for light rail, yet we’ve gotten near half of all stations so far. Did our progressive elected really “get played,” or are they making nice with other cities in the sandbox who have been patiently paying their taxes and waiting for service?
Also, agree with the assessment that Seattle voters/taxpayers are a bit checked out on tracking outcomes promised by their elected officials. They’ve been very generous with all amount of levies for capital and operating levies, but weak accountability creates some serious vulnerabilities for achieving goals and maintaining public trust. Wish I had a better sense of why the disconnect in a top five most educated city in the US.
I would suspect that well over 50% of transit ridership regionally is within the City of Seattle, and that this trend predates Sound Transit existing. Metro still carries more rides than all other Puget Sound transit agencies combined (including Sound Transit). Of course, some of that is outside the City of Seattle, and most people don’t really care about municipal boundaries in their day-to-day existence. But a cursory look at ridership numbers for Link will show that Seattle is the primary trip-generating area — especially Downtown, Capitol Hill, and UW.
It’s also misleading to imply that suburban communities have somehow gotten nothing this whole time. Sounder and Sound Transit Express buses predate Link and are really quite good by US regional transit agency standards (well outside of Sounder N anyways). Since 2002 (first year of NTD records), Sound Transit has supplied 11.4 million vehicle revenue hours to buses (Sound Transit Express) and 1.0 million vehicle revenue miles to commuter rail (Sounder) compared to 4.3 million to Light Rail (Link). Of course, all these services benefit everyone, so it’s not really useful to try to do some accounting, but in general Sound Transit Express and Sounder are suburban services run in the interest of suburban commuters, with only a few routes being aimed at reverse commutes (mostly from Seattle to the Eastside). But of course, Sound Transit never ran any Capitol Hill -> Redmond services despite the obvious demand evidenced by the Microsoft shuttles.
The question of if Seattle got played depends largely on what you consider the purpose of Sound Transit as an agency to be. Normative ideas about what transit agencies do (provide public transit to the public) don’t really apply in a sense, since Sound Transit is clearly an agency tasked with the nebulous idea of “regional mobility”. This generally means suburban -> urban services, which almost definitionally mean poorly serving urban parts of Seattle without strong job/social links to the ‘burbs (aka places that aren’t downtown, UW, or a sports stadium). I personally think cutting part of the highest ridership line to assuage suburban mayors with extremely long extensions to poorly placed park and rides is silly, and that Seattle residents got the short end of the stick on the ST3 vote. But I’m a person who thinks metrics like “ridership” and “ridership per capital dollar spent” are worthwhile, and that Sound Transit express buses are very good services that more people should be happy to use.
Let me say this… most people in Everett and Tacoma disagree with you. Express buses are not for the City of Destiny, my friend, Bring on the light rail. Mello and Somers carried the day here. Great job gentleman!
The real story here is “No Show Katie”. I’m saying it would have made much of a difference, but what big city mayor takes this without making a big stink and rallying support? Get pissed at Mayor Wilson if you have to be angry at somebody. She let Seattle down.
Let’s say the power team on the ST board (Somers and Mello) wouldn’t have carried the day in this last fight? Seattle would have beaten the “hicks from the sticks” and Pierce County would have gotten stuck with paying billions in taxes for light rail that never leaves Seattle City limits? I doubt Ms. Barrett or many of her readers would have felt the least bit bad about Tacoma getting a terrible deal… because Progressive Seattle’s idea of ‘social justice” dies at Skyway.
It’s not simply about who rides light rail more, it’s also who pays into the system and how are we playing together as a region. (Remember, fares account for less than 10% of operating funds, a sore spot for many.) Why shouldn’t other Puget Sound cities get access to the airport via light rail? Is it enough that ‘burbs get a bus to downtown and if so why isn’t that good enough for Ballard?
And yeah, looks like suburban officials are running with the task of advocating for service that their voters have assigned them. As progressive and noble Seattle voters fancy themselves to be, they got some things to learn from their scrappier suburban counterparts.
tacomee, we both know that no amount of short-term work by Mayor Wilson would have moved the needle here. The question should be if Sound Transit is using some kind of good metric to make decisions. I don’t see evidence of that, and since most metrics conceivable would bias them towards projects that serve Seattle (by virtue of there being more transit demand in Seattle).
Hmmm, my point is that suburban leaders implying that they are paying taxes for nothing are wrong and stupid, and that Sound Transit is set up to serve suburban interests. Why should suburban access to one destination be more important than a line serving a lot of urban riders? We both know the answer – the reason is that Sound Transit is set up to serve suburban interests. Often, suburban and urban interests overlap in the Seattle area. Most of the Link extensions up til now have been like this (outside Central Link I guess). But for a Seattleite, the value of something like Tacoma Link is basically zero. The 594 will be way faster still, especially if you’re going to a real place in Tacoma like downtown (which Link will not serve). Everett is probably better on this metric, but it’s still sort of meh with the long deviation to Boeing.
But all of that is besides the point. The point is that suburban areas have gotten a ton of transit investment – both directly and indirectly – from Sound Transit. When they took over express buses to Seattle from the local operators (well started funding them anyways), the operators were able to redirect funds back into local service. And Sounder plus Sound Transit Express is a good service for people who currently ride transit. Ballard has no Sound Transit service of any kind, and Metro has cut back heavily on express services since 2020. Ballard – a regional growth center – gets 5 round trips peak-hour only to downtown Seattle. Tacoma still has express service to UW that bypasses downtown to save riders a transfer to the super fast downtown – UW Link.
@Tacomee — couldn’t help yourself and take a pot shot at Mayor Wilson even though she supported your position, eh? Did it ever occur to you that she was advocating for YOU? Like, Bye. @blumdrew is right that suburban stations aren’t much of a value add to Seattleites, although I’ll concede that Tacoma more than most outer Puget Sound cities has its charms.
blumdrew is right. Look at Lynnwood Link. When Lynnwood Link opened, ridership dropped dramatically at Northgate. Based on the ridership data, more than half the people were using Link already. Thus they were coming from the north — Shoreline and Snohomish County. They simply changed parking lots. Or their bus went to a different place. Thus riders from Everett and Tacoma are definitely benefiting from the improvements that are in place — in many cases more than they will an expansion. An express bus from Everett to Lynnwood is faster than the train will be. From Tacoma, Sounder is faster to Seattle. The express buses are also faster most of the time. A trip from Downtown Tacoma to Federal Way is as fast as Link will be. Both require a transfer, so there is little benefit.
But without the other pieces there is little value. Imagine a train line from Federal Way to Northgate or Tacoma Dome to Tukwila. It would get some riders, but not many. So not only have people from outside Seattle enjoyed the light rail in Seattle, the extensions they are paying for are highly dependent on them.
It also doesn’t work in reverse. Quite a few people commute or visit Seattle from the suburbs. But those in Seattle have little interest in doing the reverse. I used to live in Lynnwood. I have nothing against the people that live there. But now that I live in Seattle I have absolutely no interest in going there. The same goes for Federal Way, Tukwila and just about all the other stations. Even in Shoreline there aren’t that many people taking trips to the north — people just don’t ride transit that much between the suburbs. They ride it in or to Seattle. This is why most cities around the world — especially those who know a lot about transit — start from the inside out. They often just end their subway system at the edge of town. Riders take regional rail or buses into the city. From there, the subway system allows them to get around. Like riders in Baltimore who can visit just about anywhere in DC they are interested in going.
Hmmm,
I didn’t take a pop shot at Mayor Wilson. Most of the ST board are elected officials of one sort or another from the ST tax district. Dan Strauss went down swinging here… and although I disagree with his position, I would expect nothing less from a Ballard guy. You have to fight for your people. You think Harrell would have had Dan’s back on this? I think Harrell would have been a tougher foe of the Somers/Mello team than Wilson was. Politics are a full contract sport in America.
Katie gets 4 years in office and every day is important. If she’s got big plans on housing or anything else, she needs to roll them out this Summer. Because the opposition knows there’s only 2 years until campaign season if she waits until Fall and she’ll get jammed up.
blumdrew,
Look, Sound Transit was voted on by the public and makeup of the board can’t be changed at this point. There’s not going to be any “expert” board members or “elected” board members to stack the deck for Seattle. The only thing that really matters about Sound Transit is the order in which projects are built. Because whatever is the last one… well, it’s 40 years away, if ever. Sure, there are structural issues with Sound Transit, but without an ST4 vote, that’s the way it is
I think the board left the option of a Seattle levy funded Ballard subway wide open if that’s what the City really wants. But the voters in Pierce County were promised a light line to the airport and there’s no cancelling that. Can’t Seattle be happy with the train to West Seattle? It’s not the City is totally cut out here.
“I don’t see this as Seattle getting “screwed” at all!”
No, the whole region got screwed. Part of the problem is the silly provincialism and mode fetish. Riders from Everett definitely benefit from the trains in Seattle and the all-day express buses to those trains. Riders in Tacoma definitely benefit a lot more from Sounder and the express buses to Seattle than they will if Link ever gets to the Tacoma Dome. But yes, Seattle got screwed and the region continues to get screwed because they are spending money on the wrong things.
Take West Seattle Link. It should not be a priority. It is not the best way to improve transit in West Seattle. Riders in West Seattle would be better off with improved bus service. West Seattle Link technically runs from SoDo to West Seattle. For around $5 billion you have two stations (for a couple billion more you can add Avalon). But then you have to get from SoDo to downtown. Ballard Link can just end at Westlake — you can’t just end West Seattle Link at SoDo. There are a lot of different ways of handling it (most agencies in the world would just interline West Seattle Link) but Sound Transit decided to build a new tunnel. Most agencies would take this opportunity to expand coverage in greater downtown (by covering First Hill) but not ST. So, you have a section from Westlake to West Seattle and the only new coverage is the two stations in West Seattle. That is roughly $13 billion dollars for two stations. Yet most people in West Seattle would rather have better direct service to downtown and/or better service within West Seattle. The only people that will benefit are those that walk to the station. So you are spending upwards of $13 billion to make life marginally better for at most 5,000 people.
Oh, and meanwhile, you’ve split the north and south lines. A lot of trips (UW to SeaTac, Northgate to Rainier Valley) will require a transfer. Riders coming from the south will use a new tunnel with inferior downtown stations. But before that happens, the SoDo Busway will be closed. Riders from Kent and Renton will be worse off.
The opportunity cost of ST3 is enormous. If we just paid for improved bus service within the region we would improve things a lot more than this. To be clear, I’m not advocating that — I’m just pointing out that the plans are so bad that if we just spent have of this on buses we would be better off. But it will also make things worse for a lot of riders.
It is quite possibly the worst transit project in the history of the world. I know that sounds like hyperbole but the U. S. is famously bad when it comes to building transit. We spend way more than other countries for the same thing. Our projects are often too expensive or just not very good. In this case it is both. It is just a terrible value.
And yes, Erica is of course right. It is a system failure. Just the choice of projects show it is systemic failure. There is no science behind it. No consulting with transit experts to figure out how to get the most bang for the buck. Just an arbitrary set of projects. Now they’ve simply chosen amongst those projects in the same manner.
” (most agencies in the world would just interline West Seattle Link)”
For example? Is there anything I can reference? How many of these places are there with their same issues that match ours??? I want to compare all of them.
“Just the choice of projects show it is systemic failure. There is no science behind it. No consulting with transit experts to figure out how to get the most bang for the buck.”
Wow wow wow we wa!
You spent all that time typing your tangent. And said this? No science? no consulting? just wow…You seem highly educated in that you can compare to many other places that did what you say should be done. And that all these people are idiots basically.
So why are you not making 6 figures doing the engineering etc? Sounds like they need you.
” No science? no consulting? ”
Of course not. What science was there behind “The Spine”. Keep in mind, this is the one driving force behind Link. It influences planning at every stage. Did anyone ever consider whether this was the most cost effective way to improve transit in the region? Of course not! If they did, they would have found the idea laughable.
What is true of The Spine is true of other parts of the system. Why is West Seattle the project we build next? It was basically picked out of a hat. Again, no one asked a transit expert to come up with a plan that provides the most benefit for the least amount of money –otherwise West Seattle Link wouldn’t have made the cut.
Or how about Kirkland. As you may remember, the City of Kirkland hired a private transit consultant to determine the best option for the Cross Kirkland Corridor. They recommended BRT. The board rejected this — they wanted rail. No particular reason, really — they just wanted rail. So instead, Kirkland ended up with a train line consisting of one station (next to the freeway) connected to Downtown Bellevue.
Of course once they pick a destination out of the hat they employ engineers to figure out how to get there. No one is disputing that. But the initial planning was arbitrary and part of the reason we are in this mess.
“Did our progressive elected really “get played,” or are they making nice with other cities in the sandbox who have been patiently paying their taxes and waiting for service?”
That implies that no one outside Seattle rides the train. That is absurd. Using that logic, only people from SeaTac benefit from the airport people mover. There are lots of people from outside Seattle who ride the train inside Seattle. They take a bus — or drive — to Federal Way or Lynnwood. In many cases, the train extension won’t be faster. Thus they are certainly gaining benefit from what has been built and the extension will be mostly about getting to places like Fife and Ash Way from Tacoma and Everett (oh, goody!).
“Why shouldn’t other Puget Sound cities get access to the airport via light rail?”
They do have access to the airport via light rail. They just have to drive to a station or take a bus there. The same will be true after the extension. Not many people will walk to the Tacoma Dome and take Link. They will drive or take a bus, just like they do now.
“Is it enough that ‘burbs get a bus to downtown and if so why isn’t that good enough for Ballard?”
Because no subway system in the world is about getting to downtown. It is about trips *within* the city. The most important, most cost effective section of Link is between Northgate and downtown. That’s because it provides so much more. Northgate to UW, Roosevelt to Capitol Hill. Those are the types of trips that justify rail in the first place. Remember, the buses were better for trips from Northgate and the U-District to downtown. The same is true of Ballard Link. Ballard to South Lake Union, Interbay to Uptown.
But there is also the question of speed. It takes a long time to drive from Ballard to downtown. The train would be faster than driving, at noon. That is not the case for Tacoma to Federal Way or Everett to Lynnwood. This is just mass transit 101. It is why you build subways in the first place. There is a lot of demand between destinations in the city. Travel time is extremely slow. There is very little demand between suburban locations. Getting into the city is often fast (via commuter rail or express buses).
“Seattle accounts for less than 1/4 residents in the taxpayer pool for light rail,…”
Based on what? The number of residents or actual taxes paid?
Your math is not the proper equations. It’s all about business. Not people. Businesses are not people.
The right one is “where’s the commerce”? It’s right here in downtown right? Amazon. Microsoft across the lake. The airport. Oh yes! and then there’s the rest of the entire state. Almost forgot the rest of the entire state. I will say the farmers and stuff make good tax paying feed. They pay too…
The goal is “how do we get as many people moved efficiently to the main corridors of commerce?” The reasoning is that for every dollar in transportation we spend? We want a dollar of GDP in return. Public transit is very very good at that. Thus we see it everywhere on the globe.
All that said? It’s inflation and COVID that has done the damage. Not some gross misstep in planning 10-20 years ago. We can’t even get a flippin’ ferry boat built. Back in the 70’s we built super ferry’s. Rainier was the beer. And coffee was 25 cents from a machine. Today is craft beer, $8 coffee made by slave labor and heavy poverty. Quite the contrast.
It’s the inflation and the lack of proper taxation. WA. is 49th most regressive tax state. The Amazons of WA. are not paying anywhere close to their share. The new Seattle is NEVER pay anything forward. Transplants are here to make money and leave. They do not care about the city. It’s strictly business.
I recall the Seahawks game where the opposing teams fans were louder than ours on NATIONAL TV!!! Chris Collinsworth said it all “WHOA!”. Because tech bro’s buy season tickets and scalp them with Airbnb properties they own. Helps pay for the sports gambling debts. They do not want to go to the games. The want to watch 16 picture in picture games to follow prop bets!