On April 28, KUOW's Soundside did a special show on Sound Transit system expansion deliberations that heavily featured our very own contributing editor Ryan Packer. It's a great primer on the debate about how to best close Sound Transit's long-term budget gap, which has been estimated at $34.5 billion.
The Urbanist has been covering this story extensively, with every subarea of Sound Transit's operating area making the pitch that their projects are too important to be cut or sent to the back of the line. Advocates held rallies in Tacoma, Everett, Seattle, Issaquah and elsewhere to push to avoid local cuts. But ultimately the agency need a long-range financial plan that lines up to keep federal grants and projects approvals rolling in. Something has to give.
Give it a listen!
After this aired, the recent rebalancing proposal released by Sound Transit Board Chair Dave Somers revealed the regional light rail "spine" from Tacoma to Everett indeed was the priority as the agency reworked the sequencing projects and cut costs where feasible, as Packer and others predicted.
Libby Denkmann
