Yesterday, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell held a press conference in Ballard to reaffirm his administration’s support for moving forward with light rail projects to Ballard and to West Seattle, nine years after voters approved the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) package. Flanked by political supporters, but no Sound Transit officials or board members from jurisdictions outside of Seattle, the defensive posture of the event was evident.
Based on previous Sound Transit Board deliberations, such an approach appears unlikely to build bridges with other cities and counties looking to build out their portion of the regional light rail network.
Harrell’s remarks came in the wake of news released by Sound Transit last week, showing that the agency faces an estimated funding gap between 20% and 25% through 2046, which translates to a 20- to 30-billion-dollar shortfall for planned system expansion projects.
Beyond issues with capital projects, the budget crunch stems for projected increases in operating costs and a decrease in revenues Sound Transit collects. An agency-wide reset, being dubbed the Enterprise Initiative, is set to seek cost savings in programs that have avoided realignments in the past, including Sound Transit’s transit operations and financing tools.
Flanked by MLK Labor Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Katie Garrow and Transportation Choices Coalition Executive Director Kirk Hovenkotter, along with King County Councilmembers Jorge Barón and Teresa Mosqueda, Harrell framed any delay to Seattle’s next two light rail projects as unacceptable. Harrell is facing a tough election challenge from Transit Riders Union head Katie Wilson, who earned the endorsement of The Urbanist Elections Committee (on which I serve). In the primary election, Wilson led by nearly 10 points over the incumbent.
For most of his four years in the mayor’s office, Harrell has generally let Sound Transit run on autopilot, apart from supporting new last-minute alternatives to planned station locations in Chinatown-International District and South Lake Union, which either added on environmental review time or threatened to. A fight for his political life could be changing that posture.
“We know that the voters approved the significant expansion back in 2016, and quite honestly, we have a responsibility to deliver on that promise,” Harrell said. “This is real money. These are real challenges. However, we cannot and will not derail our commitment to Seattle voters who overwhelmingly supported this transformative investment. It is that critical to our optimization as a city, our vibrancy, getting back to the potential that we have as a city. If the West Seattle and Ballard extensions are delayed, there will be no new light rail construction in Seattle for at least four years. That is not what our residents voted for.”
Harrell touted work that Seattle has done to streamline planned light rail permitting, creating a new Office of the Waterfront, Civic Projects, and Sound Transit that reports directly to the Mayor’s Office. Reform of the City’s development standards are expected to cut the average length of time for permit approval from more than 200 days to less than 100, with a cadre of new City staffers being hired to help shepherd those permits along.
All that being said, the mayor put forward few new concrete proposals Tuesday that might be able to speed Seattle’s light rail projects up any further.
The Mayor did throw his cautious support behind reconsidering the necessity of building a second light rail tunnel under Downtown Seattle as a part of Ballard Link, which King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci put on the table last week. Without a second downtown tunnel, Sound Transit might not have enough capacity to achieve promised frequencies on all of the ST3 lines, but some transit agencies tackled similar constraints with technology upgrades and fine-tuning operations.
District 6 Councilmember Dan Strauss, who represents Ballard and serves on the Sound Transit board, has pushed back on the idea of phasing the Ballard Link project in the past, noting that the project won’t reach Ballard without getting across the finish line. But on Tuesday he went a step further and asserted that the agency should be planning for future extensions beyond the ST3 package, which includes projects set to be delivered into the mid-2040s.
As part of the Enterprise Initiative work, Sound Transit will be updating its long-range plan for the first time since 2014, but it’s not clear how much appetite regional voters would have for another rail package as the existing projects remain mired in delays.
Strauss’s rhetoric seemed to be a way to draw other regional governments into seeing the long-term impacts of any delays — or cancellations — to Seattle-only light rail lines.
“A decade ago, it was visionary to say at 15th and Market, we could get downtown, or light rail would reach West Seattle,” Strauss said. “Today, it is simply an unmet need. We must plan for a future where catching light rail at 15th and Market, you can go to Northgate or to Downtown. When you’re in West Seattle catching the train at the junction, you should be able to get downtown or to White Center, Burien and straight to the airport.”
Mosqueda, on hand to represent West Seattle, also portrayed the region as needing the full package of ST3 projects, even as West Seattle Link has come under significant criticism for rising costs and relatively high cost per rider gained. West Seattle Link has been the canary in the coalmine for Sound Transit’s budgetary woes, with cost increases of around 75% announced last year as it advanced toward federal approval.
“If we fail to build out Seattle’s light rail as promised, and create access to these amenities and drive the economic engines of our neighborhood, we fail the entire region,” Mosqueda said. “Without strong Seattle connections through Sound Transit 3 the spine does not work, the rail does not reach its full potential. That is why we must keep going, [and the] West Seattle and Ballard projects must remain on track. This is a win, win, win that helps Everett, helps Tacoma, helps Bellevue, helps workers and students and elders and families across these three counties be able to live freely and make sure that they’re able to have greater self-determination.”
While the event was clearly designed to push back on Sound Transit board members from the outer suburbs who would prefer to focus on bringing light rail to Everett and Tacoma, the board is still at the point of wanting to take an all-of-the-above approach to moving forward. Leaders won’t be faced with hard trade-offs that could see stations dropped in Avalon or South Lake Union for several more months, at the very least.
By the time of that reckoning, the regional value of Seattle’s ST3 projects will likely take a back seat to coalitional politics, with Seattle’s board delegation appearing to take a step toward isolating itself Tuesday.
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 BikePortland, Seattle Met, and PubliCola. They live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.
