Arguments for and against Sound Transit 3

Bellevue Council Member and real estate developer Keven Wallace has been vocal about his opposition to the $54 billion ST3 tax package. He’s most concerned with a series of four contingencies in the proposal — methods of raising the costs of the projects after approval.

“They use ample contingencies and reserves because the projects are in early stages of design,” Wallace explained to KTTH’s Todd Herman. “So they place four contingencies on their construction cost estimates, which are conservative. And their contingencies don’t add, they multiply.”

The Todd Herman 2016 voter’s guide

Wallace points out that the first contingency, or increase, is set at 30 percent. That brings things up by about $1.3 billion. Then 15 percent on top of that.

“So when you take all four contingencies together and multiply them up, they add up to a little over 75 percent,” Wallace argued.

In other words, a 75 percent increase to the $54 billion price tag.

Another Sound Transit example

Wallace says that expensive projects are an issue with the mass transit agency, and he has experienced it firsthand as an elected official.

His example: Sound Transit and Bellevue were working on a road project for Spring Boulevard. Because they were working the same road for a similar project, the city asked to see Sound Transit’s contractor bids, Wallace said. Sound Transit’s bid was $26.8 million. That was too expensive for Bellevue. Bellevue officials went a step further and had their own transportation department put the exact same project up for bid — the same plans, everything. The lowest bid for the city came back at $12 million — less than half of Sound Transit’s option.

Wallace argues that Sound Transit has a bloat problem.

“When you look at project labor agreements and other things that they have signed on to, that drives up the costs,” Wallace said. “Keep in mind that Bellevue is public sector agency, we don’t come in nearly as low as a private sector project. But we are still coming in less than half of what Sound Transit has for the exact same project.”

Why others want ST3

But not everyone agrees with Wallace.

Just take a look at a Reddit conversation between Seattle-metro area residents debating the need for more mass transit and light rail.

Sound Transit loses more than $550K annually to fare jumpers

Some make the argument that even if there is a need, Sound Transit is the wrong organization to do it. But the other side of that argument is that Seattle is behind the times. They argue that that voting “no” is a myopic view — that those stumping for a “no” vote are the same people who have doomed the region to the inferior transportation system it currently has.

One person wrote:

Is sitting on 405 for an hour every evening not enough to make you vote yes? I get home faster on a bus going over 520, than in a car. ST3 will make 405 like that.

The east side is inundated with cars. East side city council people repeatedly shot down better transit options. I wish you guys were getting a bigger stick, but ultimately that was some other people making decisions. I’d vote yes on ST3, and try to scrap some of your council members. They clearly don’t have your interest in mind if they can repeatedly shoot down better transit options from Sound Transit, and be okay with the amount of traffic on 405.

And another:

So it doesn’t seem like anybody has addressed the core reason, which is simple.

I moved here from suburban New York when I was an adolescent, and the first thing that struck me was how much our public transit sucks. I’ve never gotten over it, and I won’t until it’s fully rectified.

Greater Seattle is, at all times, 20-40 years behind itself in terms of transportation (depending where you are in the area.) Population booms, we widen some freeways, it takes just as long as another population boom, we widen them some more.

A major city needs a functional rapid transit system. Buses alone do not constitute rapid transit because they share roads and contribute to traffic, even though they contribute much less. They’re also simply impractical and even dangerous in certain parts of town, such as the Aurora bridge where they are too wide to fit in one lane and have to straddle two.

The region has always been interdependent, and it’s increasingly so as the tech industry grows more and faster. Microsoft is now occupying multiple skyscrapers in Bellevue, in addition to its major Redmond campus. Amazon and other giants have taken over SLU. Expedia is moving to Seattle soon, and that’s thousands of people from the Eastside commuting across the lake who do not at present.

This place needs needs needs functional trains. And ST3 is actually a pretty good package – but even if it weren’t, it would have to be an absolute travesty not to be worth voting for. A ‘no’ vote means another 3-5, maybe even 10 years before a plan is drafted that the voters can get behind. That’s another decade we’ll be set back in this regard.

Approve ST3 now, allow the construction of additional branches to commence, and we’ll actually be capable of extending the system farther by the time we need to. Reject ST3, and by the time we start construction on a branch to Everett, we’ll need branches to run deep into Snohomish county, and deep into Issaquah, and God knows why there isn’t a branch across 520 already (Kemper Freeman is why.)

Another person had a different reason to vote yes:

You seem to be making the issue a personal cost/benefit choice. That’s a legitimate way to evaluate the issue, of course, and I hope that you will also consider other factors. What are your values about contributing to your society? What, if any, responsibility do you feel for improving the regional culture? How will your vote change the lives of folks here in the future? You have every right to vote on purely personal financial considerations, but I hope you will also identify your values and vote with integrity.

King County Executive Dow Constantine has been at the forefront of the campaign, putting a ton of political capitol into convincing voters to approve the $54 billion measure.

With all our growth, Constantine argues the massive transit plan that relies heavily on light rail and expanded, dedicated bus routes is the only way out.

And he bristles at those who argue it’s too big, too expensive.

“It is exactly what is needed to get this region moving again,” Constantine said. “We are all stuck in traffic and there is going to be another million people here over the course of the next three decades. It is only going to get worse unless we build our way out of it. And there is not enough land, there is not enough room to build our way out of it using a car-first approach, which is what we’ve done since World War II.”

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