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There IS money for Seattle's waterfront tunnel

Letter in Seattle Post-Intelligencer from Dr. Richard Harkness published on February 25, 2007:

Seattle could still have its waterfront tunnel if local politicians were willing to change course. Next fall, voters may be asked to approve a multi-billion dollar transit and roads package of which almost $9.8 billion would go toward the 125-mile, $26 billion light rail system Sound Transit (ST) wants to build.

Meantime, ST has consistently suppressed and disparaged a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) alternative, which ST’s own studies reveal would cost half as much as light rail, attract just as many riders, and have more capacity. With over 200 miles of HOV lanes, flyover ramps, and express buses already in place, BRT is well underway. Removing remaining HOV bottlenecks is far less expensive than building a whole new network of railroad tracks at over $200 million per mile.

Although the Sound Transit board stubbornly stays the course on light rail, it’s now time to consider Plan B: Use half the $9.8 billion now intended for light rail on regional BRT instead. Use the remaining $4.9 billion to pay the extra $1.8 billion needed to tunnel the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and spend $700 million to eliminate tolls on the new 520 bridge. $2.4 billion would still remain for other projects.

Additional detail follows next.

Explanatory Notes

The fall ballot alluded to is the joint RTID/Sound Transit ballot. It would increase the sales tax going to ST by five tenths of one percent (on top of the 4 tenths of one percent ST has been collecting since 1996). The new $9.8 billion tax increment (in 2006 dollars) would fund mostly light rail capital expenditures according to a description posted by Sound Transit.

A map in the Environmental Impact Statement for Sound Transit’s Long Range Plan suggests a 125-mile light rail system is being pursued. ST has never published the expected cost, but transportation planner James MacIsaac, P.E. has used Sound Transit documents to estimate it would cost $26 billion in 2006 dollars.

Sound Transit has never said in so many words that BRT would cost half what light rail costs. That figure was derived by this author based on detailed study of technical documents from Sound Transit and its predecessor agencies. The details are to be found in Part 6 of the author’s research report called How Sound Transit Abused the Planning Process to Promote Light Rail. The 50% is taken from Figure 6.3a.

The fact that BRT would have more capacity than light rail is explained in Part 5 of the aforementioned report.

Other sources have found BRT far less expensive than light rail:

1) Sound Transit published a comparison between a BRT and light rail system for east King County in a document called Issue Paper E.1. In a still unanswered April 2005 letter to Sound Transit Board Chairman Ladenburg this author challenged the validity of the cost and ridership estimates in that document. Among other abuses the author found that Sound Transit had artificially inflated the cost of the BRT alternative by including about $2 billion for building dedicated HOV to HOV ramps in all eight quadrants of the I-405 to I-90 and I-405 to SR 520 freeway interchanges even though these ramps are not needed since today there is not enough transit demand to support even a single bus route in six of those eight quadrants. The other two quadrants have one bus about every half hour. This "mistake" was admitted when ST was challenged by WSDOT’s Expert Review Panel. ST also admitted to the panel that both systems would attract the same ridership. When this cost distortion is corrected for, the BRT alternative is about half the cost of the BRT alterative if HOV improvements are included in the cost of BRT but not in the cost of light rail. If however, HOV improvement will be needed regardless of what is done with transit then the cost to put BRT on those lanes is a small fraction of what Light rail would cost.

2) A separate WSDOT study called the I-405 Corridor Study independently compared BRT with light rail on the eastside. It concluded light rail would cost $2.72 billion whereas BRT would cost $540 million.

3) The US General Accounting office looked at BRT and light rail systems across the county and found BRT to be much less expensive.

According to WSDOT the Puget Sound Region now has over 200 lane miles of HOV in operation with more under construction.

The 15-mile light rail line which ST now has under construction from downtown to Seatac is costing $2.5 billion. The next 3 miles to the UW stadium parking lot will cost $1.5 billion. The total 18-mile line will cost $4.0 billion, or about $220 million per mile. These cost figures are shown by Sound Transit in the Link progress reports.

A City of Seattle document quoted by The Seattle Times states that the 6-lane viaduct-in-tunnel option would cost $4.6 billion and the 6-lane aerial viaduct option would be $2.8 billion. The State has agreed to pay $2.8 billion toward whichever option is finally chosen. Thus the central Puget Sound region would need to raise $1.8 billion extra to get the viaduct placed in a tunnel.

The $700 million to be raised for SR 520 by tolls has been widely reported in The Seattle Times and elsewhere, and is documented in a report from the Puget Sound Regional Council planning agency.

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Last modified: February 07, 2011