Link light railTransitTransportation How Ballard and West Seattle Light Rail Became a $30 Billion Undertaking

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

When voters across Puget Sound hovered a pen above their ballots in the fall of 2016, considering the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) ballot measure, they were taking a leap of faith by filling in the bubble next to yes. Only a few months before, Sound Transit had finally delivered light rail to the University of Washington, a promise that the agency had been making since it first went to the voters in 1996. Light rail had only been running between Downtown Seattle and SeaTac airport for six years, and most of the promises of the 2008 Sound Transit 2 ballot measure were still undelivered: light rail across I-90, up to Lynnwood, and down to Federal Way.

With most of those planned light rail extensions focused on expanding the network into suburbs, many voters in Seattle saw ST3 as the next step for the city’s own transportation system. The funding package would finally make good on the failed promise of the Seattle Monorail Authority — which had collapsed a decade earlier after building nothing — and connect West Seattle and Ballard with trains that don’t get stuck in traffic.

A vote to approve ST3 was a vote to make up for lost decades of progress when it came to how Seattle residents can get around their city.

Nine years later, Sound Transit’s critics have ammunition on their side, even as Sound Transit’s current network continues to draw the kind of ridership that makes other elected leaders elsewhere in the U.S. jealous. None of the major ST3 rail projects are even close to starting construction, and this summer Sound Transit announced that the cost of building light rail to West Seattle and Ballard had gone from a $7.1 billion project in 2016 to a $30.5 billion one today. By the time both lines are built, the agency expects to spend as much as $42.5 billion after keeping up with inflation.

https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/10/10/how-ballard-and-west-seattle-light-rail-became-a-30-billion-undertaking/

[LisaM]

1. To be clear, it doesn't exactly "draw ridership".

They've effectively eliminated every other option on multiple routes, including getting to the airport, to downtown, and to the stadiums. So we're forced onto this. It's also an extremely unpleasant ride, with limited and uncomfortable seating, not to mention frequent breakdowns.