On September 20 Sound Transit published the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the proposed light rail extension to West Seattle. Ordinarily, publishing the FEIS is one of the final steps in the decision-making process with subsequent Board approval only a formality. However, in this instance information revealed in the FEIS is so unfavorable that the Board may realize it is time to reconsider whether it makes sense to proceed as planned.
The news that got the Board’s attention was a cost increase from the 2023 estimate of $4 billion to somewhere between $5.1 and $5.6 billion. The bad news didn’t end there. Sound Transit staff then offered an even higher “opinion of probable cost” of between $6.7 and $7.1 billion, which is “based on a different cost estimating methodology and considers potential savings due to value engineering and other agency changes.” Whoa!
The new estimate is about triple the cost estimate provided in 2016 when the ST3 plan was approved, which, at $2.3 billion, was hardly a bargain. The revised cost is over $1.5 billion per mile for a line that is only four miles long and adds just four stations. On a per-mile basis that would make it one of the costliest light rail lines in the world, but nowhere near the most productive.
The Sound Transit Board seemed surprised at the cost increase, but they had every reason to expect the West Seattle extension would be difficult and expensive. The proposed alignment runs through built-up areas; most of the line needs to be elevated or in tunnels; a tall bridge over the Duwamish River will be needed; and considerable right-of-way will need to be purchased from businesses and homeowners. Even if Sound Transit didn’t have a 20-year history of large cost over-runs on rail projects, the West Seattle extension poses obvious challenges and risks likely to drive up the cost.
In the past Sound Transit has been resourceful in handling cost overruns. A combination of strategies including pushing out completion dates, increasing debt, and securing additional federal funding has allowed projects to go forward, even if much more slowly than originally promised. Now, however, Sound Transit is approaching its debt limit. The agency’s financial plan already assumes issuance of $24.7 billion in bonds through 2046, plus another $4.2 billion in federal loans to be repaid. By 2038 Sound Transit expects to pay over a billion dollars per year in debt service. Therefore, piling on more debt would be problematic, and in any case wouldn’t improve performance of the project, only make the ultimate cost even higher.
Faced with this difficult situation, a financially prudent governing board would ask whether it makes sense to proceed with a project that has tripled in cost and busts the budget. But the Sound Transit Board has taken a different approach. In board motion M2024-59 Sound Transit directs staff to “…develop a workplan on the programmatic, financial, and project level measures and opportunities the agency will pursue to improve the agency’s financial situation and move WSLE through design to inform a financially sound project to be baselined…”. What the motion does not do is develop alternatives or ask whether the project still makes sense. And “baselined” is a euphemism for moving the goal posts.
The Board’s motion shows that Sound Transit is approaching the problem as though it is just about the agency’s budget, but that narrow view ignores the bigger question raised by the FEIS, which is that despite the extravagant cost the project accomplishes very little. The fine print of the FEIS reveals total transit ridership in the region under the No-Build alternative would produce 99.7% of the ridership of the light rail alternative. In other words, the light rail extension would produce less than a 1 percent increase in total transit ridership for an investment of over $6 billion.
That is an exceedingly poor return on such a massive investment. You might be hoping that even if the project doesn’t do much to increase ridership it might reduce congestion or greenhouse gas emissions. Alas, the FEIS also informs us that vehicle hours of delay would change by less than one half of one percent, and total vehicle miles travelled changes even less, just two tenths of one percent. As result, the West Seattle extension will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve transportation system efficiency, or meaningfully improve the mobility of West Seattle residents.
Why does spending billions of dollars on a light rail line accomplish so little? Part of the reason is that King County Metro already provides RapidRide express bus service along the same route. The incremental improvement in service that light rail might provide is very small, in fact so small that it attracts very few new riders. The existing RapidRide service also has the advantage that it starts farther south and continues through downtown to the South Lake Union area. In contrast, the light rail line would serve only three stops in West Seattle, require downtown transfers to reach other destinations, and be useless for most trips that West Seattle residents make.
The success of the RapidRide routes suggests a solution to Sound Transit’s problem. It wouldn’t be difficult to further enhance RapidRide service so it served more destinations and ran more frequently. The RapidRide C line already benefits from bus-only lanes on the West Seattle Bridge, HWY 99, and Westlake Ave. Additional transit-priority improvements could be made to increase speed and reliability.
Transit planning should also recognize that many West Seattle residents travel to Renton, South Center, Auburn, and Kent. None of those places are served by light rail but all could easily be served by expanded bus service. That would cost only a small fraction of what Sound Transit proposes to spend on the light rail extension, and the service could be added much sooner without having to condemn property, bulldoze homes, and cut down trees, all of which would happen if the preferred light rail project goes forward.
Sound Transit, if they were forward thinking, could also begin to plan for ways to improve local circulation and connections to neighborhoods with automated vehicles. The rapid pace of autonomous vehicle development suggests such vehicles may be widely available years before the light rail line would be in service.
If the Sound Transit Board insists on viewing the situation as just a budget problem they are likely to discover there is no good solution. If, however, they broaden their thinking to consider alternatives to light rail they will discover there are vastly superior ways of improving mobility. Rather than directing staff to find new revenue, the Board should request an analysis of lower-cost and lower-risk alternatives. That should include a benefit/cost analysis that provides an objective basis for comparison of the possible alternatives.
In 1996, 2008, and 2016 Sound Transit sold voters on the idea that building a light rail system was the solution to the region’s growing transportation needs. Now the FEIS for West Seattle extension project shows that the agency’s rigid adherence to light rail has become the obstacle to consideration of far more cost-effective alternatives.
Charles Prestrud, a veteran budget analyst, is Director, Coles Center for Transportation at the Washington Policy Center, where this article first appeared.
Thank you for this analysis. Two questions: Does the EIS fully analyze the greenhouse gas emissions from construction? Cement and steel manufacturing are heavy emitters. Including construction-related emissions, and using ST ridership projections, would the project ever reduce GHG emissions compared to the status quo?
You have missed the rationale for the Sound Transit west Seattle extension: IT IS A JOBS GENERATOR – has little to do with rail transportation need or efficiency. This and other mega projects (think SR520 $1.5B, 1 mile Portage Bay Bridge) are about generating jobs. No question that unions are behind the politicians who advance these costly projects. Of course, buses and rapid ride make more sense from a transportation perspective, but buses only need a driver and not hundreds if not thousands of union wage jobs.
The never ending struggle. Mr. Prestrud’s offers the standard arguments about cost-overruns and the high overall cost of light rail. He later goes on to argue that the issues are not purely budgetary issues.Indeed, and therein Mr. Ryan and Mr. Delaunay’s comments are on target.
If you take the existing and expanding light rail in Seattle the arguments for economic development and attendant jobs is visible. Housing and small business sprouting like asparagus plants around every stop along the corridors. The growth of an orban economy that decentralizes from downtown includes reduction in automobile traffic for those who choose to build. their economic and social lives in new growth areas; businesses that see the opportunity of development in other than downtowns. West Seattle has unrealized potential that RapidTransit Bus lines cannot fulfill.
Mr. Prestrud logically cherry picks the arguments of the FEIS for the points that support his view, but the never ending struggle over light rail expansion needs equally fervent supporters who see potential where Mr. Prestrud seens only high costs and overruns
Not only jobs are in play with this proposal, but also rewarding the voters who strongly support Sound Transit by running lines to Ballard and West Seattle. Those who would pull the plug on this extension will soon find that Sound Transit is a political juggernaut. Only if the suburban members of the ST board could come together (unlikely given the feuding in the burbs) could they outvote the Seattle interests and divert the money to finishing the long-delayed suburban extensions. The Ballard Express was always dependent on federal funding, and the feds, facing such costs and such small benefits, may finally pull the plug.
The FTA pays significant attention to ridership and cost-effectiveness; the Ballard line, serving two urban centers and the Ballard urban village, would attract significant ridership. It is probably the best ST3 project. ST is not expecting much FTA funding for its weaker ST3 lines.
When asked, voters continue to approve the expansion of light rail. Their main complaints are usually “why is it taking so long?” and “why don’t you build more of it?”, which are not the complaints of the author and his conservative think tank. Voters have been told – repeatedly – that this stuff is expensive and that other options exist. Why don’t they listen? Probably because they prefer the train! RapidRide is nice, but it isn’t bonafide bus rapid transit. It’s limitations are well known to regular riders, and while these investments are big, they will last well into this century and the next.
Thank you for this honest and courageous writing. I’ve wondered for a long time: is light rail actually getting cars off the road? ‘Cause it sure looked to me like I-5 and 5-20 traffic is as bad as ever. And here is our answer: no.
Correct. The purpose of transit is not to reduce traffic congestion; it is to extend the range of pedestrians. It is best if it is provided its own right of way and reliability. Congestion can be reduced by tolling, deep recession, or Covid.
“The agency’s financial plan already assumes issuance of $24.7 billion in bonds through 2046, plus another $4.2 billion in federal loans to be repaid. By 2038 Sound Transit expects to pay over a billion dollars per year in debt service.”
Vote ’em out.
On Peter Herford’s comment, “West Seattle has unrealized potential that RapidTransit Bus lines [ meaning Metro’s RapidRide ] cannot fulfill.”
To which I would reply as researcher watching what’s happening around the world, with a few billion dollars diverted into King County Metro reprogrammed under existing Sound Transit authority from the phase 3 light rail program, RapidRide buses could be electrified and made to run on dedicated street lanes on the West Seattle peninsula with performance sufficiently close to light rail. And brought into zero-carbon operation way faster than years of carbon-generating heavy construction of new bridges, tunnels and stations. And way fewer trees being cut down and existing private structures razed.
Retired ST CEO boss, and former Federal Executive Peter Rogoff lives in Seattle and knows how to do this. Ric Ilgenfritz, retired from management at Sound Transit and building BRT in Snohomish County knows how to do this. Even Sound Transit staff and contractors are building up skill in new generation BRT [ bus rapid transit ] with its Stride program for corridors where light rail isn’t planned. Second phase light rail voted in 2008 is committed and will serve the urban core following completion of construction. Hopefully it will work on the I-90 bridge.
But the West Seattle stub line and other Phase 3 light rail voted back in 2016 and not even half planned should be paused to let the mobility industry turn existing know how into electric road-based transit on “complete streets” with incremental “tactical urbanism” that is visible in progressive communities around the world. Let’s do this instead of seeking a nostalgic return to the electric interurban trains of over 100 years ago and wiped out by consumer demand for road modes of travel that go to more places, more conveniently, and faster, than short, slow trains.
More people sharing space in fewer road vehicles is the future we need. A higher PMT to VMT ratio is the future that can save the planet from motordom. With the right incentives, this can happen. You would carpool more for $50 dollars a day, I bet? Research shows the price that would work is way less than that, and way less than what Sound Transit needs in tax dollars per train rider to get worse results.
In his ST history, Prestrud omitted no votes in spring 1995 and fall 2007; in the latter, ST was tied to the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID) that was to add limited access highways. Most of those were funded by the 2015 statewide package; that same law authorized ST3 that was approved in 2016. I was very disappointed in ST3 and voted no; the weak West Seattle line was among my many rationales for voting no. In parliamentary procedure, I was not on the prevailing side, so could not move to reconsider. Pretrud is asking the ST Board to reconsider West Seattle Link. They have already postponed smaller pieces of ST3 (e.g., Stride BRT, the contributions to lines C and D, ST3 parking).
The ST board, led by Executive Constantine has set a course to make ST3 Link worse by splitting the CID station and making the suspect second downtown Seattle tunnel deeper with longer access times. These steps may add 10 minutes to transfers between the south and east lines. The ST3 plan has always been to open the West Seattle line as a stub; that seems silly.
ST faces a similar fiscal crisis in 1999-2002. Sound Move was reset. The north King County subarea could not afford the updated estimated cost of a tunnel between downtown and the U District. The reset had several elements: north Sounder became one-way and with only four trips; the NE 85th Street center access ramp was dropped and its funds reallocated (though it has arisen again in ST3 with a much higher cost), the First Hill station was dropped, the NE 45th Street Link station was delayed (it opened in 2021), the South Graham Street station was delayed, and the two-way all-day busway on I-90 was not provided. In 2001, ST opted to build Link south-first; that was an epic decision.
Another wasteful planned ST3 light rail project is the proposed south Kirkland to Issaquah line. It would be much better for this route to be Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). The Sound Transit Board could reallocate the East King Subarea revenues originally intended for this ridiculous light rail route towards the completion of the planned BRT flyover ramps on I-405 at both the SR 520 and I-90 interchanges.