A pending vacancy on the Sound Transit Board of Directors was front-and-center on Monday night when King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda hosted a “visioning forum” centered on West Seattle’s planned light rail line. Following Girmay Zahilay’s election to the role of King County Executive this month, the game of musical chairs that will determine who sits on the board during a pivotal year for its decision-making is well underway. Mosqueda has made it clear that she’d like to step onto the 18-member board and shepherd the project across the finish line.
Costs on the four-station West Seattle light rail line have escalated from $4.2 billion in 2021 to upwards of $7.9 billion now — part of a set of cost increases pushing the entire slate of Sound Transit 3 light rail lines $30 billion in the red. Having an additional champion for the project on the board could be pivotal, with votes expected on major changes to the ST3 system plan by mid-2026.
Monday’s “visioning event” — part information session and part pro-transit rally — served as an opportunity for members of the public to get a broader handle on the work that the agency is doing to bring down costs on the project, efficiencies being uncovered the capital delivery team at Sound Transit headed by Deputy CEO Terri Mestas.
The event also appeared to function as Mosqueda’s board audition. Mosqueda lives in West Seattle, and has been taking an increased interest in Sound Transit expansion projects.
As Executive, Zahilay will automatically retain a seat on the board, and is in charge of putting forward candidates to fill the remainder of the 10 board seats held by King County elected officials as terms expire. On top of selecting someone to fill his former board seat, Zahilay will also be deciding whether to maintain a board presence for the County Councilmember representing District 5, after Steffanie Fain was sworn into that position last week. On top of that, a board seat held by Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus is expiring and could be up in the air.
“While increased costs are not unique to Sound Transit, there is absolutely a microscope on these projects and folks asking, how are we planning to reduce costs while still delivering services?” Mosqueda told the crowd, alluding to both pressure to prioritize other areas of the growing Sound Transit light rail network, and concerns from within West Seattle around the impact of property acquisition to build the line. “We want [transit] delivery to West Seattle and Ballard to be as reliable as service to Everett and Tacoma, while complementing existing community assets and recognizing the residential needs of the area.”
The cost-saving proposals presented were not new, and had already been reviewed by the board back in September and reported on by The Urbanist. They include commonsense ideas like a significant reduction in the size of the planned station in SoDo and the elimination of a redundant set of tracks around that station. But they also include the elimination of an entire station, at Avalon Way, a move that could potentially shave nearly a half billion dollars off the line’s total cost.
Sound Transit’s ridership projections currently show very little net change in system usage from eliminating Avalon Station, with only around 200 riders per day expected not to jump on a train at either Alaska Junction or Delridge Stations instead. At the forum, where potential residential and business displacement was at top of mind, the removal of Avalon Station was presented as being mostly upside.
Without Avalon Station, Sound Transit would be able to reposition the portal of its tunnel to Alaska Junction in a way that would reduce the need to acquire properties around SW Yancy Street.
“One of the tunnel optimization alignments that we’re looking at is really aimed at reducing the impact on some of the key things, like Longfellow Creek and the West Seattle Health Club. And so there’s some really good opportunities that have been unlocked by not having an Avalon station,” Jason Hampton, Sound Transit’s transit development manager working on West Seattle Link, told the crowd.
No one was on hand to make a case for Avalon Station’s retention, as an area of the city that has seen a significant amount of multifamily housing construction in recent years that would be well-served by frequent transit. Since Sound Transit’s ridership forecasts seem fairly blunt, it’s also unclear if there are changes the City of Seattle could be doing to adjust those numbers up — like rezoning the 49% of the station’s 10-minute walkshed currently zoned for single-family homes, per a 2022 station planning progress report.
Something that wasn’t put on the table Monday: another look at whether eliminating West Seattle’s tunneled portion could save the project a significant amount of money. That issue seemed mostly to be put to bed in 2022, when Sound Transit analysis showed that an elevated trackway would cost as similar amount to a tunnel, thanks to the elevated option’s pricey property acquisitions and constraints in utilizing public right-of-way. The board eliminated the elevated alignment along Fauntleroy Way from further study.
While the agency has refined cost estimates for the tunnel options in an upward direction, the public hasn’t seen a clear apples-to-apples comparison of switching back to elevated. However, given the cost jump for the preferred tunnel option, the elevated option could hold significant savings potential.
Even with the elimination of Avalon Station, West Seattle Link remains as much as $2.3 billion more than Sound Transit’s current finance plan would allow, which means the agency will need to continue to get creative about reducing costs in order to move forward. And despite the fact that it’s the only ST3 project that currently has been given the green light by the federal government, getting board members from other corners of the region to continue prioritizing it will likely be an uphill battle, given limited resources.
Mosqueda was direct about stepping forward and becoming West Seattle Link’s champion in the face of those headwinds.
“My hope is that we can actually do this on a regular basis as we head into 2026. I would be so lucky to be able to be on the Sound Transit Board, and I would be so lucky to be able to have these conversations with you on a regular basis,” Moqueda said, before later asking Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka to join her on stage. Saka represents West Seattle as well, and has been fairly vocal about the fact that he’d like to see himself on the Sound Transit board, from his position as chair of the city’s transportation committee.
Saka himself has opposed dropping the Avalon Station, calling the three planned stations within West Seattle the “bare minimum.”
“Don’t cut corners to pare those back,” Saka said at a transportation committee meeting in September. “If you only have three of something, and you take one away, it completely cuts the value proposition of the original thing.”
But with Councilmember Dan Strauss, who represents Ballard, already on the board representing the Seattle City Council, and incoming Mayor Katie Wilson virtually guaranteed to take over the seat that currently belongs to Mayor Bruce Harrell, it’s unlikely that the city would see a third representative appointed to the board directly.
“Neither of us are on the Sound Transit Board, as we said, but we are very interested in this feedback, and I think — fingers crossed — 2026 is the year for us to have some West Seattle board representation again,” Mosqueda said. “So, fingers crossed, we can continue these conversations.”
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.