The Sound Transit board voted 16-2 in favor of a $17.9 billion plan to extend light-rail lines to Lynnwood, Redmond and Federal Way by 2023 and beef up regional bus service and Sounder commuter trains between Lakewood, Tacoma and Seattle. It would involve a sales tax increase of 5 cents per $10 purchase.

King County Executive Ron Sims and King County Councilman Peter von Reichbauer of Federal Way were the only “no” votes on the plan. But all 18 board members voted to put the measure on the Nov. 4 general election ballot.

Last November, voters in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties soundly rejected Proposition 1, a $47 billion proposal that included billions of dollars of highway work in addition to a bus-and-rail expansion that would have brought light rail to Tacoma by 2028.

The $17.9 billion price tag on the latest proposal is how much would be spent between 2009 and 2023, taking into account inflation and repayment of some of the borrowed money. By comparison, Proposition 1’s $47 billion price tag included those same expenditures extended from 2008 to 2028.

Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, immediate past chairman of the Sound Transit board, said he voted for the proposal because “I think it has enough” for Pierce County.

“I don’t think it’s a perfect plan, but it’s a good plan,” Ladenburg said.

Sumner Mayor Dave Enslow, Tacoma City Councilwoman Julie Anderson and Lakewood City Councilwoman Claudia Thomas also voted in favor of the plan.

The 15-year plan would pay for additional regional bus service from Lakewood and Tacoma to Sea-Tac Airport and Seattle and add four round-trip Sounder trains from Tacoma and Lakewood through the Puyallup and Green River valleys.

It also would provide matching funds for a possible extension of the Link rail line in downtown Tacoma to Tacoma General Hospital or to the Puyallup Tribe casino and planned resort on Tacoma’s East Side.

About half of the property needed to extend light rail from Federal Way to Tacoma could be bought with Sound Transit money, Ladenburg said, giving some assurance that the line eventually would reach Tacoma.

However, it would take another tax vote before light rail could reach Tacoma.

The plan calls for expansion of commuter train stations in Tacoma, Puyallup, Sumner and Auburn. “Sounder is a very big deal for the whole valley,” Enslow said.

Von Reichbauer said the plan “doesn’t deal with the here and now,” so he voted against it.

The board voted to add about 100,000 hours of bus service starting in 2009, but that isn’t enough, he said. “Too many people are standing up on buses,” he said.

“If this plan passes, we will lose the motivation and momentum to get to Tacoma, and Federal Way and Pierce County will be the losers,” von Reichbauer said.

Former state Sen. Jim Horn of Mercer Island, now president of the Eastside Transportation Association, said the whole plan is too Seattle-centric with its focus on light rail.

Three-fourths of transit trips today go from suburb to suburb, yet they would get only 14 percent of the money in the new bus-and-rail plan, he said.

“A better approach is to provide more bus service for the 76 percent of riders who don’t want to go to Seattle,” Horn said. “We can’t afford to wait 15 years for light rail.”

The first 19-mile segment of light rail, from downtown Seattle to Sea-Tac Airport, is scheduled to open in late 2009. The new plan would add 34 miles to the system by 2023.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, chairman of Sound Transit, said polling indicates the public wants mass transit, “and they want it now.” The new plan is “cheaper, faster and smarter than last year’s measure,” he said.

Sound Transit planning chief Ric Ilgenfritz said the new plan gets light rail to Federal Way and Lynnwood five years faster than Proposition 1 would have, and to the Overlake Transit Center in Redmond seven years faster.

Horn noted that the amount of money Sound Transit is seeking from taxpayers for mass transit is the same as it was in Proposition 1. The horizon for building is shorter – 15 years instead of 20 years – but the sales tax rate of 0.5 percent is exactly the same, he said.

“Your proposal is not a reduced program,” Horn said. “The taxes are the same. The only thing you’ve reduced is the amount of infrastructure you promise to deliver. You can’t fool the public when the taxes are the same.”

All the taxes that were approved in 1996 will remain in effect through at least 2028 and will be used to pay for parts of the next phase. And the new, increased taxes would stay in effect at least until 2038, but could be lowered to cover only operation and maintenance costs.

However, if there is a third phase, those taxes most likely would be extended, too.

Aubrey Davis, former chairman of the Washington Transportation Commission, former mayor of Mercer Island and a former Federal Transit Administration official, said the region has dallied far too long.

“We missed an opportunities in the early ’70s,” said Davis, who is now in his 80s. “We’ve been talking about this for 40 years. Let’s get on with it.”

Joseph Turner: 360-786-1826

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