Sound Transit: Tim Eyman’s I‑976 would wipe out nearly $7 billion in revenue through 2041

In response to media inquiries about the impacts that Tim Eyman’s lat­est self-serv­ing, tran­sit sab­o­tag­ing statewide ini­tia­tive would have on its vot­er-approved light rail, express bus, com­muter rail, and bus rapid tran­sit projects, Sound Tran­sit today released a state­ment esti­mat­ing that the mea­sure, if imple­ment­ed, would wipe out near­ly $7 bil­lion in vot­er-approved rev­enue through 2041.

But that would­n’t be the extent of the dam­age. Since Sound Tran­sit reg­u­lar­ly bor­rows mon­ey to finance the projects vot­ers have autho­rized it to build, there would be addi­tion­al costs. The motor vehi­cle excise tax rev­enue the agency col­lects under ST3 is pledged to bonds, which I‑976 attempts to forcibly defease.

And, of course, that’s not all. Sound Tran­sit’s rep­u­ta­tion with investors could be seri­ous­ly harmed. The agen­cy’s care­ful­ly earned, ster­ling cred­it rat­ing might take a big hit if I‑976 is imple­ment­ed, jeop­ar­diz­ing even more of its projects.

Here’s the full state­ment from Sound Tran­sit pro­vid­ed to the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, KING5, and oth­er media out­lets regard­ing I‑976:

If enact­ed and enforced, the mea­sure would elim­i­nate a pro­ject­ed $6.95 bil­lion in Sound Tran­sit MVET rev­enues fore­cast­ed through 2041.

How­ev­er, the scope of the finan­cial impact would be much greater than that. The ini­tia­tive con­tains pro­vi­sions that, if enforced, seek to man­date Sound Tran­sit change the use of local tax­es from fund­ing vot­er-approved tran­sit projects and ser­vices to the retire­ment of pre­vi­ous­ly issued bond debt and TIFIA loans up to forty years ear­li­er than required in the bond and loan agreements.

Sound Tran­sit is ana­lyz­ing the scope of the fur­ther reduc­tion in the agency’s fund­ing sources and finan­cial capac­i­ty that would result from divert­ing tax rev­enues to retir­ing debt ear­ly, as well as from reduced bor­row­ing avail­able under a low­er tax rev­enue base and from hav­ing to pay high­er inter­est rates.

If enact­ed, the ini­tia­tive would divert a sig­nif­i­cant amount of tax rev­enues away from imple­ment­ing vot­er-approved tran­sit projects.

These projects include build­ing out a one hun­dred and six­teen mile light rail sys­tem that reach­es Taco­ma, Everett, down­town Red­mond, West Seat­tle, Bal­lard, South Kirk­land, and Issaquah; estab­lish­ing bus rapid tran­sit along the north, east, and south sides of Lake Wash­ing­ton; and expand­ing Sounder com­muter rail service.

The projects can­not be built as planned with­out the rev­enue and finan­cial capac­i­ty pro­vid­ed by the motor vehi­cle tax.

As a pub­lic agency, Sound Tran­sit can­not and will not take a posi­tion on Tim Eyman’s I‑976. How­ev­er, Sound Tran­sit does have an oblig­a­tion to the peo­ple it serves to respond to requests for infor­ma­tion about leg­is­la­tion or poten­tial bal­lot mea­sures that could impact its work, which is exact­ly what it is doing here.

NPI urges all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who val­ue free­dom of mobil­i­ty to join the coali­tion that is com­ing togeth­er in oppo­si­tion to Tim Eyman’s destruc­tive I‑976. Indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions may for­mal­ly join the coali­tion by sub­mit­ting this form.