Rail boosters to Sound Transit: Don't delay Link expansion
SEATTLE — A dozen advocacy groups encouraged Sound Transit leaders Thursday to deliver voter-approved rail and bus extensions faster, instead of accepting project delays as inevitable.
When 2021 began, elected officials on the agency’s governing board were notified of a $12 billion funding shortage to build nine rail extensions and two bus-rapid transit routes promised in the Sound Transit 3 ballot measure in 2016. Inaccuracies in early cost estimates, along with rapid land and construction inflation, played a major role, a consultant’s review found this spring.
The agency declared a self-imposed July 22 deadline to publish new construction schedules, known as a “realignment,” that postpone most opening dates two to 10 years. Doing so would spread costs out to 2045, so tax revenues don’t run low late this decade.
On Thursday, board Chairperson Kent Keel loosened his timetable to set a realignment vote for Aug. 5.
Board member Claudia Balducci, a Metropolitan King County Council member from Bellevue, is working on a counter proposal she said would “keep us on schedule as much as humanly possible.”
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/rail-boosters-to-sound-transit-dont-delay-link-expansion/
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