WE ARE WEST SEATTLE RESIDENTS CONCERNED ABOUT SOUND TRANSIT’S PROPOSED LINK LIGHT RAIL EXTENSIONS
It's not just us. Other voices on Link light rail's soaring costs:
“West Seattle is extremely well suited for an enhanced bus network — yet they never seriously considered it. Not only were the areas chosen for enhanced service arbitrary, but so too were the projects themselves.”
Better Busses in Seattle by Ross Bleakney | Seattle Transit Blog
“It’s clear that a future ballot measure or another revenue source is needed to finish what ST3 started, just like how ST3 finished ST2 projects, and ST2 finished Sound Move. However, voters will also expect to get something new; not just something they were promised in 2016.”
Build the Best Parts First by Nathan Dickey | Seattle Transit Blog
“Sound Transit is about to trade billions of dollars and a decade of delay for capacity we don’t need yet, while starving the rest of the region of the transit we need now.”
Op-Ed: Defer Seattle’s Second Downtown Rail Tunnel to Save ST3 by Scott Kubly | The Urbanist
“I’m just saying there are a lot of questions and tradeoffs we have not delved into, and that’s, I think, unfortunate,” Balducci said.
Sound Transit Board Sets Aside Idea of Skipping Second Downtown Tunnel by Ryan Packer | The Urbanist
“It’s a bit too much of a coincidence that sum of all high end estimates at $21.4 billion magically match with the same cost as the original ST3 Ballard Link Extension at $21.4 billion.”
No New Tunnel Downtown? Sound Transit Explores Ballard Link Alternatives by Wesley Lin | Seattle Transit Blog
“It has been politically expedient for Sound Transit to assume that extending light rail lines will increase ridership and accommodate a meaningful share of travel demand in the region. However, ridership trends cast doubt about the effectiveness of rail projects to increase transit mode share.”
“The second thing Dow and Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell did was to move Midtown and CID Stations to CID/N and CID/S by changing the preferred alignment after the vote. They did this because the county has an obsolete administration building at 4th & James, and this way ST would help fund its demolition and replacement…” — Mike Orr’s comment
Midweek Roundup: Limbo - Comments section | Seattle Transit Blog
“Fundamentally this is a project that has seen dramatic cost escalation — it has gone from $4 billion to over $7 billion. And all our programmatic work that our capital team is going to do not going to pull $2 billion out of this project,” Dammeier said ahead of the vote. “It’s going to still be dramatically over anything we’ve envisioned and anything the system budget can handle in mind.”
Sound Transit Board Rubberstamps West Seattle Link Route, Amid Cost Issues by Doug Trumm | The Urbanist
“The Board’s motion shows that Sound Transit is approaching the problem as though it is just about the agency 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 West Seattle Link Extension has gone off the Rails by Charles Prestrud | Washington Policy Center
“While the summary talks about the positive impacts, it misleads the public by not even mentioning any adverse carbon impacts from its construction.”
West Seattle Link and Climate Change by Martin Pagel | Seattle Transit Blog
Sound Transit expansion continues to be a hot button issue and the co founders of Smarter Transit are calling for a pause on the expansion efforts, despite being big believers in public transit.