Sound Transit ridership rises; funding takes hit
Because of the recession, Sound Transit will collect $3.1 billion less tax than originally planned in the next 15 years, the agency's finance director predicted Thursday.
By Mike Lindblom
Seattle Times transportation reporter
Because of the recession, Sound Transit will collect $3.1 billion less tax than originally planned in the next 15 years, the agency's finance director predicted Thursday.
Sales and car-tab taxes, the main local funding sources for light rail, plummeted 20 percent from July 2008 to August 2009.
Among the consequences: Future light-rail lines will need to adhere to low-cost, simple designs, agency managers said. No cuts in service were suggested at Sound Transit's board meeting Thursday.
The tax shortage is expected to wipe out a budget cushion of about 15 percent in the overall construction program — leaving little room for cost overruns, officials said.
The money problem isn't entirely a surprise, but Thursday's figure is worse than the $2.1 billion shortfall that finance director Brian McCartan announced in February.
Transit-board members told senior managers to work toward keeping the promises made in last fall's winning Proposition 1, a 15-year plan to deliver more Sounder commuter trains, more express buses, a First Hill streetcar and light-rail lines to Northgate and Lynnwood, to downtown Bellevue and the Overlake Transit Center and to north Federal Way.
If Sound Transit can avoid costly changes or amenities in its projects and control operating costs, "we have a fighting chance to keep to the schedule," said planning and policy director Ric Ilgenfritz.
He said a landmark project such as the high-rise Tukwila International Boulevard light-rail station, which features a wing-shaped roof, may not be possible again.
Board members were told to expect hard decisions, as neighborhoods and cities ask for more aesthetic or transportation features. Already on Thursday, East Link project manager Don Billen said he won't explore a citizens proposal to add a light-rail park-and-ride garage along Interstate 405 in Bellevue that he thought might cost $100 million.
In July, Sound Transit opened its first 14 miles of Seattle light rail, from Westlake Center to Tukwila. Weekday ridership has been just shy of 15,000 boardings per day. Because fares bring in a small fraction of the agency's total income, they do not sizably affect the challenge of funding construction.
McCartan told the agency board he foresees a slow economic rebound next year, but any improvement in tax income begins from today's depressed base. He predicts the agency will collect $12.6 billion through 2023 instead of the $15.7 billion forecast last year.
Fortuitously for Sound Transit, agency planners added a 15 percent financial cushion while making project estimates in 2007-08.
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