Sound Transit Board sends ST3 to ballot; Mass Transit Now campaign launches to pass it

Sound Tran­sit’s eigh­teen mem­ber Board of Direc­tors vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to adopt the revised draft ST3 (Phase III) plan and refer it to the vot­ers of urban King, Pierce, and Sno­homish coun­ties this after­noon, suc­cess­ful­ly con­clud­ing sev­er­al years of exten­sive plan­ning and pub­lic outreach.

Board Chair Dow Con­stan­tine thanked Sound Tran­sit staff for their hard work in putting the pack­age togeth­er, and declared that the cam­paign to pass the mea­sure (Region­al Propo­si­tion #1) would begin immediately.

“Sound Tran­sit 3 will dra­mat­i­cal­ly expand our light rail sys­tem, which is crit­i­cal to our region’s mobil­i­ty and our eco­nom­ic future,” said Constantine.

“A sin­gle light rail line can move 16,000 peo­ple per hour — [that’s] an entire new [express­way] of reg­u­lar car lanes. After decades of lag­ging behind on tran­sit, we final­ly have a chance to catch up. This care­ful­ly craft­ed, major mobil­i­ty expan­sion – six­ty-two new miles of light rail, plus high capac­i­ty bus and rail improve­ments – is exact­ly what the peo­ple of this region have been demand­ing. I urge every­one to join the Mass Tran­sit Now coali­tion – let’s make his­to­ry this November.”

Pierce Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Pat McCarthy and Sno­homish Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dave Somers added their enthu­si­as­tic sup­port at a news con­fer­ence short­ly after the adjourn­ment of Sound Tran­sit’s final June board meeting.

“The exten­sion of reli­able, pre­dictable light rail ser­vice from Fed­er­al Way to Taco­ma, addi­tion­al Sounder com­muter rail ser­vice, and the exten­sion to Taco­ma Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege means that Taco­ma and Pierce Coun­ty will now be reli­ably con­nect­ed to SeaT­ac, Seat­tle, and our entire cen­tral Puget Sound region. That is going to be a huge plus for the South Sound econ­o­my and for the qual­i­ty of life of Pierce Coun­ty res­i­dents,” said McCarthy.

“Pass­ing the Sound Tran­sit 3 mea­sure at the bal­lot is key part of ensur­ing that the future of Sno­homish Coun­ty will be bright,” agreed Somers, who became Sno­homish Coun­ty Exec­u­tive last year. “Con­nect­ing Everett with the rest of the region through quick, reli­able light rail mass tran­sit will reduce con­ges­tion, boost our local econ­o­my and improve our qual­i­ty of life for decades to come.”

Eighty-five elect­ed offi­cials have already endorsed a YES vote on Propo­si­tion #1, and that list will be grow­ing in the com­ing weeks.

Here is an overview of the final Sound Tran­sit 3 plan:

• Adds six­ty-two more miles of Link light rail with sta­tions serv­ing thir­ty-sev­en neigh­bor­hoods. The first ST3 sta­tions would open in 2024. If ST3 is approved, light rail would be expand­ed to the fol­low­ing places: 
  • Bal­lard
  • West Seat­tle
  • Down­town Redmond
  • Everett via Paine Field
  • Taco­ma via Fed­er­al Way
  • Issaquah
  • South Kirk­land
• Improves ST Express bus ser­vice by mod­i­fy­ing I‑5, I‑405, SR 518, SR 167, I‑90 to allow bus­es to run on high­way shoul­ders dur­ing peak com­mute times, and add hun­dreds of thou­sands of addi­tion­al ser­vice hours
• Cre­ates two new Bus Rapid Tran­sit lines: one to serve the I‑405 cor­ri­dor (Lyn­nwood-Burien) and one to serve the SR 522 cor­ri­dor (UW Both­ell and Wood­inville to NE 145th Light Rail Sta­tion); both would open in 2024
• Cre­ates new tran­sit access park­ing in Ren­ton (with a new tran­sit cen­ter), Sam­mamish (with a new park & ride), as well as Muk­il­teo, Edmonds, South Kirk­land, Ken­more, Lake For­est Park, and Bothell
• Expand Sounder com­muter rail ser­vice south from Lake­wood to serve new sta­tions in DuPont and Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM)
• Extend the Taco­ma Link Street­car to Taco­ma Com­mu­ni­ty College

A com­plete list of projects and inter­ac­tive map is avail­able at SoundTransit3.org.

The total pack­age would cost $53.8 bil­lion and would be financed through a mix of sales tax­es, prop­er­ty tax­es, vehi­cle fees, and bonds. The typ­i­cal adult in Sound Tran­sit’s juris­dic­tion would pay about $17 more a month for the projects.

“If imple­ment­ed, the ST3 Plan is pro­ject­ed to up to quin­tu­ple Sound Tran­sit rid­er­ship from what it is today, increas­ing it from approx­i­mate­ly 145,000 each week­day to between 561,000 and 695,000 dai­ly rid­ers in 2040,” the agency said in a news release, in which it not­ed that express bus trav­el times are dete­ri­o­rat­ing due to heavy con­ges­tion on high­ways like I‑5 and I‑405.

“With ST3, the share of all tran­sit trav­el in the region on Sound Tran­sit rail lines will grow from 17 per­cent today to 69 per­cent in 2040. This means more than four times as much tran­sit trav­el will occur on vehi­cles that don’t get stuck in traffic.”

Research con­duct­ed by Sound Tran­sit shows that the region is hun­gry for more light rail and that the con­cern of most res­i­dents is how fast it can be delivered:

In a phone sur­vey that Sound Tran­sit con­duct­ed in April, 65 per­cent of respon­dents stat­ed they strong­ly (30 per­cent) or some­what (36 per­cent) sup­port­ed the ST3 draft pack­age in a ques­tion that described the asso­ci­at­ed tax increas­es. Fol­low­ing a ques­tion describ­ing the plan’s pre­vi­ous­ly pro­posed project time­lines, 59 per­cent of respon­dents strong­ly (24 per­cent) or some­what (35 per­cent) sup­port­ed the draft pack­age. The soundtransit3.org web­site includes a pre­sen­ta­tion sum­ma­riz­ing the pub­lic input and phone survey.

Oppo­nents of ST3 include many of the same cast of char­ac­ters who pre­vi­ous­ly opposed ST2 eight years ago. Those against the pack­age have sig­naled their cam­paign will be based on the premise that light rail is a bad invest­ment — the same argu­ment vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly reject­ed eight years ago.