“The harsh reality is that Sound Transit can’t just absorb cost increases on the magnitude of 40% — let alone the 67% to 77% increase the agency’s new bottom-up accounting method turned up on the West Seattle Link Extension.”
“With eye-popping cost increases impacting West Seattle Link, the big question that’s mostly being left unanswered right now is what the state of the larger ST3 program looks like, in particular for West Seattle’s sister project, Ballard Link.”
“Sound Transit staff told the Board the more expensive Preferred Alternative would require third party funding, but now they’re assuming Seattle, King County, and Sound Transit will somehow find the funding, which is implausible given the large shortfall.”
“Now that the plans are getting more specific and Sound Transit can do bottoms-up estimates, it turns out that the projects are more complicated, and cost is quite a bit higher.”
