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Op-Ed: Sound Transit's Board is About to Vote on a Fantasy
Alas, West Seattle Link is not shovel-ready.This week the Sound Transit Board will approve a plan based on a 2032 “opening date” for the West Seattle Link Extension and treat the project as "shovel ready," and ready to break ground in 90 days. Neither claim survives basic scrutiny.
Before any vote, the board owes the region revised, evidence-based dates for every Sound Transit 3 (ST3) project, and the CEO, board, and staff should be willing to bet their jobs on hitting them.
The current situation presented by the agency is dire. The reality is worse.
What’s past is prologue, we hope
Sound Transit has secured four federal New Starts grants, one each for: Central Link, University Link, Lynnwood Link, and Federal Way Link. The story of these projects is remarkably consistent, averaging 2.6 years from a Record of Decision (ROD) to a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA), when excluding outliers time from ROD to opening takes 9.2 years.
https://www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-sound-transits-board-is-about-to-vote-on-a-fantasy/