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   http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/25-year-wait-for-   
   sound-transit-to-finish-light-rail-heres-why/   
      
   To complete such an ambitious light-rail project, it would take years for   
   Sound Transit to collect the taxes, absorb citizen demands and deal with   
   engineering challenges.   
      
   A few nights ago in Ballard, a crowd of 300 people booed and hissed when   
   Mike O’Brien, their Seattle City Council representative, said the   
   neighborhood might not see light rail for 22 years.   
      
   The same frustrations are simmering up north, where the draft Sound   
   Transit 3 plan, aimed at the November ballot, would take 25 years to reach   
   both the Paine Field industrial area and Everett Station. Elected   
   officials there are making a counterproposal they say would cut eight   
   years off the timeline.   
      
   In most regions of the country, when expensive proposals are unveiled —   
   and this one would raise sales, property and car-tab taxes an average $400   
   per household per year — local politicians would brace for a tax revolt.   
      
   That may yet occur, but a more immediate threat for Sound Transit is   
   disillusionment from the left. Urbanists, transit supporters and ordinary   
   citizens are impatient.   
      
   “You’ve got a large voter base here,” said Mike Kahrs, a Ballard resident   
   who stood up to question officials at the forum. “You’re going to put   
   forth a package that would make us wait 22 years for service. Is that a   
   wise decision?”   
      
   After years of encouraging people to demand light rail, Sound Transit has   
   backed itself into a corner. To go big takes a very long time.   
      
   The $50 billion program offers 58 miles of light rail, including the   
   Everett-Tacoma “spine,” spokes to Ballard, West Seattle, Issaquah and   
   Redmond, a new downtown Seattle tunnel and a Paine Field loop, plus   
   Sounder commuter rail to DuPont, I-405 and Highway 522 bus lines and park-   
   and-ride spaces. It will take a quarter century to do all that, officials   
   say.   
      
   New taxes to fund construction would arrive very gradually, over five   
   decades. In Seattle, the east downtown tunnel and five underground   
   stations would have to fit among building foundations and other tunnels.   
   And in the Northwest, everybody wants to be heard before the dirt turns.   
      
   “We’ve tried to be realistic about what it takes to deliver the projects,”   
   said Ric Ilgenfritz, the agency’s planning director.   
      
   The size is a function of political geography.   
      
   A shorter, faster plan likely wouldn’t reach enough communities — or allow   
   for  enough colored route lines on campaign mailers— to attract support   
   from the 1.7 million voters in  Sound Transit’s service territory.   
      
   To ask for still higher taxes, for the purpose of accelerating the plan,   
   is forbidden by a cap in a 2015 state law, even presuming voters could be   
   persuaded to dig deeper.   
      
   Public comment ends Friday, followed by a final transit-board vote in June   
   on a final plan for the November ballot.   
      
   “We have a lot of people who want their project done first and want it   
   done perfectly,” said Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff. He said the current   
   version is workable, but that’s what the April barnstorming is about, to   
   hear feedback.   
      
   “Bottom line is, it’s going to be important that folks not let the perfect   
   be the enemy of the good. Once we’ve worked it out with community partners   
   as best we can, we need people to rally behind it,” Rogoff said. “When   
   ballot measures fail, the next ballot measure brought back is smaller.   
   Some projects in ST3, should it fail, may not be on the next measure going   
   forward.”   
      
   http://static.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/54e4cbe2-08f5-   
   11e6-b2f8-49e91e9a711d-1020x1760.jpg   
      
   Sound Transit, along with L.A. Metro, stands far beyond other regions in   
   its ambition on this year’s ballot to focus growth around high-capacity   
   rail, said Jason Jordan, executive director of the national Center for   
   Transportation Excellence, which tracks pro-transit ballot measures.   
      
   Los Angeles voters this year are expected to consider a 40-year, $120   
   billion request for a sales-tax increase of which two-thirds would go for   
   transit and one-third toward streets and highways.   
      
   Tom Rubin, a prominent bus supporter, and former chief financial officer   
   at L.A. Metro, considers the Seattle-area rail timeline realistic. “If the   
   question is, why would it take 25 years for Sound Transit to build out 58   
   miles of light rail, a better question would be ‘Why would anyone want   
   to?’?” he said.   
      
   The nonpartisan Smarter Transit, formerly the Coalition for Effective   
   Transportation Alternatives, accuses politicians of ignoring a cheaper   
   transit solution — bus-rapid transit — that could be implemented much more   
   quickly to go beyond the Lynnwood Station, which will open in 2023.   
      
   Here are some reasons ST3 would need a quarter-century:   
      
   • Cash flow   
      
   Similar to state highway funds, regional transit money is leveraged on the   
   taxpayers’ credit card.   
      
   Rail projects already approved or completed are so expensive that   
   principal and interest payments are scheduled to continue until about   
   2050, including obligations of $445 million a year during the 2030s.   
   Existing taxes from Sound Move in 1996 and ST2 in 2008 are expected to   
   cover about $9 billion of ST3.   
      
   And the agency can’t just sell bonds for the whole thing right away.   
   Fiscal policies require that Sound Transit not commit to more than $100 in   
   debt payments for every $150 of net income, after operating costs.   
      
   Chief Financial Officer Brian McCartan therefore must calibrate the start   
   date for each track line and bond sale, so as not to get overextended in   
   any given year. His full financial plan is expected in a few weeks.   
      
   Some transit boosters ask if cities, especially Seattle, could somehow   
   offerlending capacity to Sound Transit. Whether that’s doable, and whether   
   it would ravage other city services, is undetermined.   
      
   “It’s got to be part of the conversation,” said City Councilmember Rob   
   Johnson.   
      
   The current ST3 plan assumes federal grants would cover 11 percent of the   
   light-rail work, and any increase would reduce the need to borrow.   
   Previously the feds approved $1.3 billion for the Tukwila-UW corridor and   
   $1.2 billion for the Northgate-Lynnwood segment, both favorable signs.   
      
   Cost estimates for new projects need to be somewhat high because so little   
   engineering has been done.   
      
   “You don’t really know what these things are going to cost until you have   
   30 percent design, so they’re going to be pretty conservative,” said Scott   
   Rutherford, University of Washington professor of civil engineering. “If   
   everything goes right, as on U-Link, you become heroes when you save $150   
   million.”   
      
   Then there’s revenue risk.   
      
   Following the 2008 ballot win, the recession and slumping sales-tax   
   revenues led Sound Transit to break its promise of a north Federal Way   
   light-rail stop by 2023. That station and points south are in ST3.   
      
   • Planning process   
      
   If there is any hope of saving time, Rogoff said, it’s in the preparation,   
   not the construction.   
      
   Sound Transit says a major light-rail route has needed one to three years   
   to study alignment options, an additional four to six years for   
   environmental study and preliminary design, and two to three years for   
   engineering.   
      
   Its $3.7 billion East Link line took eight years to advance from voter   
   approval to Friday’s groundbreaking, and Bellevue service won’t begin   
   until 2023, two years late. Transit and Bellevue officials didn’t propose   
   a specific alignment until after the 2008 election, and they struggled   
   over how to split the costs of a downtown tunnel that was added at   
   Bellevue’s insistence.   
      
   Everett-area officials insist huge delays are unnecessary.   
      
   In their counterproposal last week, they suggested placing the   
   northernmost three miles next to I-5 instead of along Evergreen Way,   
   reducing land costs and disputes.   
      
   “Wherever two or more are gathered in Snohomish County, there in the midst   
   will be opposition to the ST3 2041 schedule,” said County Executive Dave   
   Somers, a transit-board member.   
      
   Everett Councilmember Paul Roberts said his experience in siting Boeing   
   aircraft factories, and the experience of other officials, prepares them   
   for light-rail planning. The north line’s aerial trackway is   
   straightforward to engineer and build, Roberts said, as proven at Tukwila   
   and SeaTac.   
      
   “We know how to do this stuff and we have a team assembled to do it. We   
   are going to figure it out,” he said.   
      
   Over in West Seattle, a proposed elevated route (instead of a tunnel   
   portrayed as one possibility last year) may trigger lengthy study and   
   complaints about bulk, as with the smaller, unbuilt Green Line monorail in   
   the early 2000s.   
      
   • Difficult engineering   
      
   The University District, where the station is due in 2021, shows how   
   unforeseen technical challenges can cause delays.   
      
   After it was approved on the 1996 ballot, cost estimates and schedules   
   exploded following discovery of boulders under Portage Bay. The solution   
   required a completely new route below Montlake Cut.   
      
   In the case of Ballard in ST3, that distant 2038 goal is driven mainly by   
   the complexity of building a tunnel through downtown, uptown and South   
   Lake Union. A second Westlake Station would be built just east of and   
   below the existing transit hub — while trains operate nearby.   
      
   That’s the latest feature to make Link light rail more expensive than   
   other Western light-rail programs, including Portland MAX. Sound Transit   
   is building four-car stations to meet capacity far beyond current needs,   
   along with miles of soft-ground tunnels, and unique pivoting rail joints   
   on the I-90 floating bridge.   
      
   A tough question for Ballardites is whether a tunnel under Salmon Bay,   
   requested by community groups, would take more years to deliver than the   
   70-foot-high train drawbridge currently proposed.   
      
   For now, transit staff and consultants haven’t even estimated how long it   
   might take to tunnel under Salmon Bay, because it would eliminate any   
   chance to fund a West Seattle line, said spokesman Geoff Patrick.   
      
   Attempts to save money can backfire, as City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw   
   hinted in a speech to the Ballard crowd.   
      
   “Every bridge has a cost as well; you have to buy more property, you have   
   to be sure there are easements,” she said.   
      
   Councilmember Johnson cautioned that even 24-hour-a-day construction   
   wouldn’t do much to speed the project.   
      
   Johnson, who isn’t 40 yet, joked about the underlying assumption “that   
   everybody in this room will be dead in 22 years, but we’ll all be alive in   
   19 years.”   
      
      
      
   --   
   His Omnipotence Barack Hussein Obama, declared himself "Pooptator" of all   
   mentally ill homosexuals and crossdressers, while declaring where they   
   will defecate.   
      
   Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $19 trillion in the seven   
   years he has been in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood   
   queer liberal democrat donors.   
      
   Barack Obama, reelected by the dumbest voters in the history of the United   
   States of America.  The only American president to deliberately import a   
   lethal infectious disease from Africa, Ebola.   
      
   Loretta Fuddy, killed after she "verified" Obama's phony birth   
   certificate.   
      
   Obama ignored the brutal killing of an American diplomat in Benghazi, then   
   relieved American military officers who attempted to prevent said murder   
   in order to cover up his own ineptitude.   
      
   Obama continues his muslim goal of disarming America while ObamaCare   
   increases insurance premiums 300% and leaves millions without health care.   
      
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