Sound Transit 3 measure to appear on November ballot

Screenshot (467).pngThe Sound Transit Board unanimously voted Thursday to send voters a final Sound Transit 3 ballot measure for consideration in November. The plan’s proposals include completion of a regional light rail network as the area’s population grows by an estimated 800,000 people before 2040.

The ST3 plan would build a total of 62 miles of light rail with stations serving 37 additional areas. Improvements introduced following public comment on a draft plan in April would speed up most of the extensions by two to five years.

Light rail to Everett via Paine Field would open five years earlier than what was stated in the draft plan released by the Board in March. Extensions to downtown Redmond and Federal Way would be completed four years sooner, while the Ballard, West Seattle and Tacoma extensions would open three years sooner. The agency would work with partners to further improve timelines where feasible.

If approved by voters in November, ST3 would also build light rail between South Kirkland, Bellevue and Issaquah, while expediting the establishment of bus rapid transit service on I-405 from Lynnwood to Burien, and on SR 522, with faster buses running every 10 minutes during peak commute hours. The plan would expand the capacity of fast-growing Sounder commuter rail service linking Seattle, Tukwila, Kent, Auburn, Sumner, Puyallup, Tacoma and Lakewood, with extension of the line to reach Joint Base Lewis-McChord and DuPont. The Tacoma Link light rail line would extend from Hilltop to Tacoma Community College.

Among a number of other projects in the plan, early investments would include speeding up existing bus routes by enabling them to run on the shoulders of freeways where possible. Details of the plan are available at soundtransit3.org, including an interactive map. The detailed plan documents adopted by the Board on Thursday will soon be added to the documents library after amendments have been incorporated.

The ST3 Plan’s $53.8 billion in investments would be funded through new voter-approved sales, MVET and property taxes, with estimated additional $200 annual or $17 monthly costs for a typical adult in the Sound Transit District.

The adopted plan proposes to replace bus routes with rail and faster, more frequent bus rapid transit services to improve travel for riders, particularly during peak-hour commutes.

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. 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.

Today, Sound Transit’s express buses rely heavily on regional HOV lanes that are experiencing deteriorating performance. Between 2012 and 2014 alone, the Washington State Department of Transportation reported major deterioration of HOV lane travel times:

  • I-5 Everett to Seattle: weekday morning average HOV travel time increased 22 percent to 45 minutes. Reliable* HOV travel time increased 17 percent to 74 minutes.
  • I-5 Federal Way to Seattle: weekday morning average HOV lane travel time increased 18 percent to 39 minutes. Reliable* HOV travel time increased 20 percent to 55 minutes.
  • I-405 Lynnwood to Bellevue: weekday morning average HOV lane travel time increased 23 percent to 27 minutes. Reliable* HOV lane travel time increased 30 percent to 39 minutes.
  • I-405 Tukwila to Bellevue: weekday morning average HOV lane travel time increased 38 percent to 22 minutes. Reliable* HOV lane travel time increased 65 percent to 33 minutes.

* Defined as the time allowance required to arrive on time 19 out of 20 times.

The final ST3 Plan is based on extensive public input. An online survey generated nearly 35,000 responses and more than 1,200 people attended seven open houses held across the region. The agency received a total of 2,320 written comments from individuals and more than 90 letters from jurisdictions and organizations. By far the most frequent theme was interest in completing projects more quickly.

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.

  1. Hope everyone really studies this boondoggle…there are very HIGH hidden costs here and ST3 needs to be soundly defeated!

    The ST3 work needs to be done in phases and not funded with never-ending increasing taxes!

    1. Care to enlighten us as to some of those hidden costs?

      The ST3 work WILL be done in phases, because by law it can only be done when funding exists – they can’t take out bonds.

      The point of approving a longer term proposal is to reduce the lag time inherent to building such proposals. When project 1 finishes early and under budget (as ST has a history of doing), project 2 starts early. So on and so forth.

      Quality transit costs money. What alternative proposal do you have for dealing with the expected growth in our area?

  2. The report above is an exact copy of a Sound Transit press release posted at https://soundtransit3.org/news/board-approves-st3-plan-for-november-ballot.

    People for Smarter Transit, opposed to ST3, issued this press release at the time of the Sound Transit Board Meeting on Thursday:

    People for Smarter Transit Coalition Formed to Say No To Sound Transit 3

    Advocates for Better, Faster, and Cost-Effective Transit to more communities sooner announce NoST3.org

    Thursday, June 23, 2016 – At Sound Transit’s June 23rd Board Meeting, People for Smarter Transit announced the formation of a bipartisan coalition of political leaders, citizen groups, transit riders, environmentalists, and concerned individuals who will be working to educate the public about the issues and concerns with the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) system plan and to promote faster, better, and cost-effective transit to more communities sooner. The coalition welcomes others to join.

    People for Smarter Transit will be actively campaigning for a No vote on ST3 based on the following concerns:

    1) Traffic will increase. It does not solve the traffic problem. Sound Transit’s own planners, on June 6th, presented a ridership analysis that indicated ST3 will add 205 thousand new one-way transit boardings in 2040. Even if this number is correct, this represents just 1% of the officially forecast 19 million vehicle trips that will take place by 2040.

    2) Taxes that negatively impact low income & fixed income families increase. ST3 will significantly raise property taxes, the car tax, and bring the sales tax to over 10% in King County – forever. ST3 increases Sound Transit’s sales tax by 55 percent, from 0.9 cents to 1.4 cents, and nearly quadruples its vehicle-license tax, from $30 to $110 per $10,000 of value.

    3) It is the most expensive way to attract new riders. It will cost over a half million dollars per new rider, since ST3 will cost $54 billion and only provide 102 thousand new round-trip riders.

    4) Real Estate developers, lawyers and construction firms pushing this plan. The Yes campaign (run by Transportation Choices) is funded by corporations that will directly profit from ST3’s $54 billion tax. The majority of donors to Transportation Choices (Sound Transit’s Yes on ST3 campaign organization, known as “Mass Transit Now”) are transit industry corporations that directly benefit from Sound Transit projects through multi-million-dollar contracts.

    5) “It consumes the oxygen in the room.” (Senator Reuven Carlyle March 24, 2016 Seattle Times). Basic, critical maintenance of our existing infrastructure ignored. There has been little discussion about the opportunity cost of hitting taxpayer wallets for so much money to achieve so little benefit. This proposal goes after funding that should be used for schools.

    6) There are faster, safer and more cost effective ways to solve the region’s transportation challenges. ST3 has allocated 86% of its budget to low-capacity light rail, and yet we are in the midst of a transportation revolution with higher quality & capacity bus service, flexible van pooling, internet-dispatched ride sharing, car sharing, and zero-emission vehicle automation, to name a few.

    The coalition was pleased to learn that many of its concerns were also expressed by The Seattle Times Editorial Board in its June 18, 2016 essay titled, “Hold off on Sound Transit 3 ballot measure — give discussion time”.

    Many projects have not been sufficiently researched and presented to the ST Board, the independent Expert Review Panel and the public before the system plan approval today to be put before the voters.

    Sound Transit has played, ‘hide the ball’ with the most basic information on the costs and benefits of their $54 billion ask. The June 20, 2016 letter from the Expert Review Panel states, “The ST3 system plan has a series of appendices. The panel received a draft of Appendix C, titled, ‘Benefits, Costs, Revenues, Capacity, Reliability and Performance Characteristics’, today. Because we have not had time to review the document thoroughly, we will provide any comments regarding this document in our final letter.”

    This is irresponsible and screams “done deal.”

    For more information on People for Smarter Transit, go to http://www.NoST3.org. The web site details the concerns listed above, offers a tax calculator for individuals to see Sound Transit’s impact on his or her own tax situation, and ways to join and donate towards the coalition.
    ####
    Contacts: Frank Dennis, fld@franklindennislaw.com or John Niles, john@johnniles.com

  3. Thanks for the heads-up! This will take a LOT of everyone’s money for what the public will actually get.

  4. ST3 will sky rocket car tabs, sales tax, property taxes (and RENTS) across a 3 country area.

    The other ST’s have not met their goals and the money disappeared…hmm-m-m

    And now we have the biggest granddaddy boonedoggle of all! Amazon, Microsoft, etc are all pouring lots of dollars into passing this piece of social engineering to our long term detriment and cost!

    Do it in phases and justify each phase…what are we really getting for our hard-earned money?? And where is the accountability?

    Note that there is NO endpoint to the taxes derived from this levy. Why?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Real first and last names — as well as city of residence — are required for all commenters.
This is so we can verify your identity before approving your comment.

By commenting here you agree to abide by our Code of Conduct. Please read our code at the bottom of this page before commenting.