Sound Transit pumps brakes on projects costing billions. Here’s how Tacoma will feel it
Faced with a nearly $8 billion shortfall caused by ballooning costs and declining revenues, Sound Transit is losing traction on several long-awaited regional projects. The agency’s board of directors met Thursday to discuss completing a realignment plan (translation: postponement plan) by the end of July.
For South Sounders, the main impact is a bitter pill to swallow: a delay in Tacoma’s high-speed light-rail connection to Federal Way and points north from 2030 to 2032.
What’s the big deal about two years? In the eyes of big-picture thinkers, probably not much. Building out the mass transit spine across Pierce, King and Snohomish counties will bring generational changes in traffic patterns, affordable housing development, economic growth and clean transportation — changes worth waiting for.
Plus, other segments of the transit grid up north, such as the Lynnwood-Everett and South Kirkland-Issaquah links, may get stuck with even longer delays.
But let’s not downplay the reality: For taxpayers in and around Tacoma, a two-year setback is a very big deal, and any attempt to pretend otherwise is a snow job. It makes the promise of a congestion-free, 35-minute light-rail trip from Tacoma to Sea-Tac Airport seem like a chimera forever floating in the distance.
That’s why Pierce County residents must take time to be heard during these waning weeks of the realignment process, and why their representatives on the Sound Transit board must fight to keep local interests front and center.
A new Sound Transit survey found that well over half of Pierce County respondents — and half of South King respondents — identified the Tacoma Dome Link extension as the most urgent priority in the south corridor.
Meantime, a pervasive feeling that we’re at the end of the line, and thus last served, has gnawed at the people of the 253 ever since Sound Transit formed and began asking us to help pay for the three-county system 25 years ago.
Pierce County revolted against Sound Transit in recent years, not once but twice: First, when a majority of local voters rejected the $54 billion Sound Transit 3 (ST3) package in 2016 (the measure still passed on the strength of King and Snohomish voters), and later, when a majority supported a statewide $30 car tabs initiative in 2019.
In the South Sound, trust in the transit agency is paper thin. Any delay in a deadline that’s already so remote, many of us will be retired or dead by the time the first light rail train arrives, could easily shred what’s left.
Sound Transit board members have an unenviable task in the next few months. They must address a budget-busting bill of up to $6.2 billion in unforeseen land and construction costs, coupled with an estimated $1.5 billion hit from declining ridership and tax revenues during COVID-19.
Three scenarios are under consideration, with amended versions likely to surface. All three would postpone the opening of the Tacoma Link to Federal Way by two years. They also would push back the construction of Tacoma Link parking spaces a full 10 years, to 2040.
Delays in other local projects vary under the different scenarios. A light-rail extension to Tacoma Community College could be delayed as much as six years (to 2044), for example, while a heavy-rail Sounder station in DuPont might have to wait nine extra years (to 2045).
Three of Pierce County’s four representatives on the Sound Transit board attended Thursday’s special meeting: County Executive Bruce Dammeier, Fife Mayor Kim Roscoe and University Place City Council member Kent Keel, who also chairs the board.
Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards was absent.
While there was no tub thumping for Pierce County, we trust they’re doing it behind the scenes.
A few board members from King County opposed taking action on such a dramatic realignment this summer. But Dammeier said he’s eager for Sound Transit to get on with the process, doing everything possible to deliver projects “better, faster and sooner” and “making adjustments as we can.”
The subtext, we hope, is to adjust timelines in ways that rebuild trust with Pierce County residents, not further tear it down.
To that end, celebration is warranted for a handful of local projects from a previous Sound Transit tax package that are finally coming to fruition. The Link extension from downtown Tacoma to the Stadium and Hilltop neighborhoods is set to open next year; so is a parking garage for the Puyallup Sounder Station.
But these projects are no tonic for the multiple ST3 detours ahead, which will go down especially hard in Pierce County.
Are delays inevitable? Perhaps. Are they acceptable? Definitely not.
The people of the 253 and their elected leaders should never grow tired of saying that.
News Tribune editorials reflect the views of our Editorial Board and are written by opinion editor Matt Misterek. Other board members are: Stephanie Pedersen, News Tribune president and editor; Matt Driscoll, local columnist; and Jim Walton, community representative. The Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom and does not influence the work of news reporting and editing staffs. For questions about the board or our editorials, email matt.misterek@thenewstribune.com
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 2:30 PM.