Sound Transit announced Tuesday that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has officially approved its Record of Decision for West Seattle Link, putting a rubber-stamp on the project’s environmental approval process. That approval, which had been delayed during the Biden Administration and then further delayed as the Trump Administration took office, is a required step before the agency can fully advance design work on the $6.7-$7.1 billion project.
The latest delay, which Trump officials attributed to a need to review the project to ensure “consistency with recent executive orders,” alarmed many transit advocates when it was announced in February — especially given an overall hostility to public transit in the new administration. But this week’s action, which is not tied to any federal funding request, is a fairly routine approval under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
“With this record of decision, Sound Transit will advance engineering and design on the route and station locations selected by the Board in October 2024,” a Sound Transit release noted. “At the same time, Sound Transit is continuing work to inform a financially sound West Seattle Link Extension project, including financial, programmatic and project-level measures to improve affordability.”
Federal approval comes on the heels of a vote from the Sound Transit board just last week to unlock $61.4 million allocated to West Seattle Link’s budget to fund design work, a decision that gave many board members a significant amount of heartburn. With the news last fall that costs had increased by around 75% compared to the original $4 billion budget, there’s significant trepidation about advancing the least regionally-significant Sound Transit 3 (ST3) project before the full impact of cost increases on the entire ST3 program are known.
With a relatively modest ridership forecast — 27,600 riders by 2042, when connected directly with the rest of the link system at SoDo — and significant property impacts projected within West Seattle during construction and permanently in some instances, the project has been under fire by neighborhood groups who would like to see Sound Transit reassess the project. But Seattle voters in 2016 explicitly signed on to build light rail to West Seattle and Ballard, helping to push the ST3 ballot measure over the finish line with over 70% support. This helped overcome much lower support in some other quarters of the taxing district, which covers three counties.
“I’m nervously supporting this,” Tacoma Councilmember Kristina Walker said ahead of last week’s unanimous vote. “It’s a really, really important project as part of the system, but I also have a very important project at the end of the line in Tacoma and I want to make sure that we get there.”
One reason that board members are more fully on board with moving forward with West Seattle Link is the fact that the project is the tip of the spear when it comes to Sound Transit’s cost analysis work, being managed by Deputy CEO Terri Mestas. Earlier this year, Mestas’ team detailed the progress already being done to try to cut costs for West Seattle Link — cost saving measures that could be transferred onto other ST3 projects if successful.
Among those changes? Switching West Seattle Link’s aerial guideway from cast-in-place concrete to precast segments that could be brought in from off-site. In addition to saving the project around $60 to $70 million, this move could reduce construction impacts at the same time it saves construction crews nine months of time.
Optimizing guideway foundations for shorter spans is another wonky area where the agency sees potential savings, to the tune of $100 to $130 million, with that same amount potentially available if Sound Transit is able to optimize station construction at SoDo station and reduce the rebuilt station’s footprint there.
“I understand that this investment is going to help us towards budget savings, which are critical for the ST3 program, but I think as we very cautiously proceed on this, we really have to hold firm our commitment to delivering the spine as the highest priority, as promised to our voters, and getting to Tacoma and Everett,” Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin said. “So I can very cautiously support this, but this is kind of, for me, the end of those investments until I have that commitment and the full financial picture of how we’re going to be able to complete the spine.”
That being said, last week’s meeting was one of the first board conversations to bring up the subject of “off ramps” for West Seattle Link. Fife Mayor Kim Roscoe brought up the idea of “partial line completion” — in the case of West Seattle, stopping short of Alaska Junction — and Lynnwood Mayor Christine Frizzell cited a desire to meet with project opponents.
“I’m quite interested in meeting with the people from West Seattle and hearing what they have to say,” Frizzell said. “I’m interested in looking at ridership forecasts and making sure that this is meeting the needs — environmentally, we’re meeting the needs of our climate. There’s a lot of environmental situations going on on this part of the project, and I’ve done a tour out there with a number of Sound Transit folks and… it’s going to be really disruptive. But I’m willing to go a little bit further.”
Sound Transit will likely need all of the cost savings it can manage in light of potential funding cuts to transit moving forward at the federal level. A $25 million grant for the Graham Street infill station has already been put in jeopardy thanks to a US Department of Transportation funding review. This week House Republicans moved to rescind most of the funding allocated under the Neighborhood Access and Equity Program, which includes a nearly $70 million grant for Sound Transit to help build two Stride BRT stations in South King County.
For now, West Seattle Link will advance into design work, even as some type of program reset for all of the Sound Transit 3 projects seems all but inevitable.
At last week’s board meeting, Sound Transit board chair and Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers summarized an impetus behind the unanimous board vote, despite clear trepidation. “Now is not the time to pause,” he said.
Ryan Packer has been writing for The Urbanist since 2015, and currently reports full-time as Contributing Editor. Their beats are transportation, land use, public space, traffic safety, and obscure community meetings. Packer has also reported for other regional outlets including Capitol Hill Seattle, BikePortland, Seattle Met, and PubliCola. They live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.