For the history buffs out there. When facing cost overruns the Monorail proposed 50 year bonds.

We need a constitutional amendment that prohibits the president from pardoning crimes committed during their administration. Post haste

Two things can be true. It can be bad fiscal policy to do 75 year debt and it can be bad public policy to do nothing on climate change.

So that’s 17’. Each train is 8’8” wide. What do you want the rest for?

This is akin to the 50-yr mortgage. Avoids the underlying structural problems and makes things more expensive. Wealth transfer from sales tax payers to bankers.

Sound Transit Seeks Hail Mary Financial Tool to Complete ST3 Buildout » The Urbanist # With creative tools needed to get the entire Sound Transit 3 network across the finish line as planned, Sound Transit is turning to the idea of 75-year bonds. If the Washington State Legislature OKs...

akin to proposing 50-yr mortgages to improve housing affordability without addressing zoning / permitting. Obscures underlying issues driving ST3 costs up. It will increase total costs and make future expansion less affordable. @sound-transit.bsky.social

www.theurbanist.org/2026/01/21/s...

What metric would you propose for setting station capacity and how would you define it?

Reduce the cost to build one project and use the money on another is the argument. ST has chosen a LOS C at the PM Peak to set platform size. Same logic that is applied to highways and strip mall parking lots. Overbuilding isn’t free. Other projects will be cut to pay for it.

Thank you!

My argument is that overbuilding is an opportunity cost. It’s not about spending less. An over built over budget project in one area is non-built project in another. Planning for free flowing platforms during a peak period means that we have less transit everywhere.

The issue-as I see it- is less the concept of LOS and more how it is defined and the decision to optimize for a level of service C under weekday peak period conditions. That is bloat. Life is tradeoffs. I would rather have more smaller platforms than fewer giant platforms.

And further, saving money on construction doesn’t mean lower taxes. It means more transit. Which, in my opinion, is the goal.

An alternate take. ST is funded by sales tax (regressive) and overruns benefit the contracting community.

If you look at the length of car, segmentation, and door placement - the incremental gap created by the 10k foot curve is 0.22” at the max.

So I guess the question is, what is their current design criteria and what tolerances will they allow?

Have you been talking to my family?

There is undoubtedly political risk. The risk you fear is not unreasonable. A risk I think a lot about is that this becomes the CHS Rail of local transit and used nationally as an example for anti transit folks.

The thing about risk. It is everywhere. The key is to understand the risk, the likelihood it materializes, the impact if it does, and how to mitigate the risk. We have seen some of the 1st. But not much else.

I would argue that platform connections across all lines is a vastly superior rider experience than limited transfer points from stations that will require multi-minute walks between platforms.

And the “resilience” is much more limited than advertised.

I don’t think it’s a cut. I think it is a defer

There are lots of ways that Madrid is able to pull this off. And it isn’t labor cost.

I think one can do a deep dive into ST design and engineering standards / decisions and see that we could get more and better transit today.

Another ironic twist. A big reason costs are so high is we are building super deep stations (bad rider experience) and very few of them.

All so we don’t inconvenience drivers in the short term.

To me that is a scarcity mindset.

I would rather spend my time asking HOW everywhere else in the world can build transit for 1/2 to 1/3 the cost.

Do that.

And get way more transit.

@typewriteralley.bsky.social an engage board member might ask, how many of the DSTT resilience projects are baked into the state of good repair budget. My suspicion is at least some. So that may be a bit of a double count in the report from last week

The lack of rigor in the analysis of DSTT resilience and the 2nd tunnel is pretty stunning. The resilience report is almost entirely qualitative and to the extent there are number, they are descriptive statistics of the past not a projection into the future

I think your “why” is a part of my “how”. The point of “how” is to force the agency to offer solutions to the shortfall that going beyond cutting critical scope

If you want to get really provocative. Ask why there is no transit in the tunnel. Could run express in from Alaska Junction to Aurora and Harrison tomorrow

Op-Ed: Defer Seattle’s Second Downtown Rail Tunnel to Save ST3 » The Urbanist # Tabling a second light rail tunnel through Downtown Seattle and redesigning Ballard Link to use the existing tunnel could save $4.5 billion, and Sound Transit has been too quick to dismiss the idea,...

Former SDOT Director Scott Kubly weighs in on the issue of the second downtown light rail tunnel, which is set to be front-and-center at today's Sound Transit board meeting.
www.theurbanist.org/2025/12/18/o...

~15% of the overall shortfall and ~25% of the cap ex shortfall

Not the 10% somers mentioned.

Also. Based on a number from a staff that is clearly sandbagging an approach they don’t want to pursue