Pierce, King, Snohomish residents to be asked to vote on tax package for transit

Voters in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties will be asked in November to approve a slate of new taxes to pay for a $54 billion plan to extend light rail and other transit options throughout the Puget Sound Region.

The Sound Transit board, which is made up of elected officials from those three counties and some cities within them, on Thursday unanimously approved placing the measure on the ballot. The Pierce County contingent — Sumner Mayor Dave Enslow, Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland, Lakewood City Council member Mary Moss and Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy — supported the measure.

“I think it is momentous,” McCarthy said. “We talk about connectivity and quality of life, this plan will improve all of them.”

If approved by voters and constructed, the light-rail network would connect 16 cities with 108 miles of track and more than 70 stations.

The plan would extend the so-called light rail “spine” to Tacoma by 2030 and to Everett by 2036. It also would run lines to Ballard and Edmonds over the next 25 years.

Sounder commuter train service would be expanded to DuPont, and bus rapid transit would be built along Pacific Avenue in Tacoma.

A number of supporters addressed the board before the vote, calling the measure visionary and saying it would do much to offer transportation alternatives in a region choked with congestion.

Others criticized the plan, calling its long time lines and price tag absurd.

Members of a group called Smarter Transit called Sound Transit 3 too expensive and inflexible, especially the light rail expansions that are at the core of the Sound Transit 3 measure.

Expanding bus service would be much less expensive per mile than light rail, they said.

Sound Transit would raise the money to pay for Sound Transit 3 by raising the sales tax in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties by 0.5 percent, increasing the motor vehicle excise tax by 0.8 percent and adding 25 cents per $1,000 valuation to local property taxes.

The regional transit agency estimates the tax increases would raise about $27 billion. The remaining money would come from “other revenues,” most likely federal grants earmarked for light rail.

Transit planners said the proposal would cost the average adult about $200 per year, but that’s dependent on whether that person owns a home or car and the values of those things.

This story was originally published June 23, 2016 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Pierce, King, Snohomish residents to be asked to vote on tax package for transit."