A group of regional transit experts has assembled an alternative Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on Sound Transit's WS light rail plan.  You can find its version 5.1 here.  At less than 20 pages, it is more accessible than the nearly 1000-page FEIS generated by Sound Transit.  The group, calling itself Regional Transit Colleagues, has looked at the project from several angles, starting with how Sound Transit tax dollars — about $1780 per household per year in King, Snohomish & Pierce counties — are being spent. 

To start, none of the money approved by voters eight years ago in the 2016 ST3 package has been used yet to upgrade transit, as proposed in ST3.  A small portion may have been shared with Metro Transit for Rapid Ride C and H.  But the bulk of the money has been used to pay off ST2 projects, and ST2 and ST3 debt, to generate a West Seattle-Ballard (WSBLE) Draft EIS, and a WS-only (WSLE) FEIS, and to stage public meetings.  All Sound Transit monies are co-mingled, making it difficult to trace any one funding thread through the Sound Transit organization. 

Next, ST re-estimated the cost for its 4-mile, SODO-WS rail stub (WSLE) at $6-$7 billion, up from the $4 billion cost announced in 2022, and more than three times the $1.7 billion figure voters approved for ST3 in 2016.  The new number amounts to $1.3 million per rider, since Sound Transit informed the Federal Transit Administration on May 12, 2023, that only 5400 riders per day would be using West Seattle light rail between 2032-2042, not the 27,000 it had originally estimated.  This is because:

    (1) WSLE would only run between West Seattle and SODO, and passengers would have to transfer there to reach downtown or West Seattle, and

    (2) Metro would continue running its Rapid Ride C and H, and 21 lines directly to downtown, so passengers would not have to transfer at all on that corridor.  

A reminder:  Metro Transit will cancel a bus route if it costs more than $10 per rider.  Rather than transfer at a SODO train station, Sound Transit logically anticipates that most riders will board a bus that will take them directly between West Seattle and downtown.  After 2042, however, Metro plans to stop the buses at light rail stations.

Sound Transit has now broken the West Seattle-Downtown light rail project into two segments:  one — SODO-West Seattle, and two -- SODO-downtown (a tunnel that will cost another $2-$5 billion).  The Ballard light rail segment (estimated at another $12 billion) is being re-considered, and its funding may be delayed or canceled, since the Sound Transit board is re-directing an increasing share of limited funds budgeted for WS-Ballard light rail (WSBLE) into SODO-West Seattle (WSLE) only, and Sound Transit is approaching its state mandated debt limit. 

Buses now carry about 27,000 riders per day.  ST estimates in its FEIS that WSLE + tunnel in 2042 will carry 27,000 riders per day.  For $6-$7 billion, Sound Transit will apparently provide no better transit by rail in 2042 than Metro Transit provides by bus today.

Buried deeply in its 1000-page FEIS, but clearly shown in the Regional Transit Colleagues’ version, is the steep environmental cost to WSLE.   Construction will bulldoze three acres of Pigeon Point forest (Olmsted & Duwamish legacy land), erase additional green space, and severely damage beaver, salmon, heron and other habitats there and in Longfellow Creek. It will also generate more than 614,000 metric tons of carbon, that running trains will likely not mitigate until the year 2100.  ST's mitigation strategy is based upon WSLE encouraging enough drivers to leave their gas-powered cars for train rides, and thereby decrease carbon output.  However, if in seventeen years and beyond drivers have switched to electric cars, there will be little, if any WSLE carbon reduction.

Regional Transit Colleagues also found omissions of research and absences of data by Sound Transit in other areas, including but not limited to:

 

• No Modal Alternatives Analysis conducted, calling into question the choice of light rail to serve the West Seattle-Downtown Seattle corridor.
• Carbon calculations and reductions are not transparent, mitigation strategy requires 50-80 years to effect.
• Opportunity costs not calculated by Seattle or King County:  10 year’s loss of business and property tax revenues for Seattle and King County, degrading of transit service and ridership, degrading of community equity, irreparable environmental damage, no budget calculation for man-made elements to replace erosion control, storm water management, oxygen production, carbon sink, shade, and other ecosystem services.
• Destruction of forest canopy and habitat will exacerbate heat islands, mostly impacting low income and of color communities, and lose natural carbon absorbing resources.