Rantz: Another Sound Transit revision raises suspicion

Sound Transit claims it got the math wrong when estimating how much taxes car owners would pay if voters approved ST3, the $54 billion transportation package that many of us will never actually use.

ST3 would tax you $80 per $10,000 vehicle value — in addition to the $25 per $100,000 property values and a sales-tax hike of a nickel per $10 spent.

Related: Baristas forced Starbucks to cut hours, now they’re upset

Before the revision, Sound Transit said that car owners would get hit with $203 a year, per adult, because they thought more drivers owned newer, more expensive cars than they actually do.

But now they see that data suggesting more people own used, cheaper cars – and will end up paying less in taxes to the tune of about $43.

So why didn’t they have this data before? They say it wasn’t available. At what point do you get worried about the Sound Transit revisions? This isn’t the first revision. There are a bunch of people complaining that their plan wasn’t fast enough or didn’t go to certain neighborhoods, then they revised the plans.

Now you have people complaining about how much it’ll cost us, and suddenly, it’s cheaper — yet they’ll still fund all these projects fully? They have less money now, don’t they?

Doesn’t this indicate to you that they pushed this plan out prematurely and they’re trying to do too much? I know the estimates change; they’re estimates. But I’m suspicious because of how often things change specifically related to issues voters are griping about. What do you think?

Follow @https://twitter.com/jasonrantz