History of Link Light Rail - Dark Years

Dark Years

Beginning in early 1999, the light rail program became beset with problems that mired Sound Transit and local governments in political ire. In late February 1999, a financial analysis stated that building light rail out as far as Northgate might not be possible for over a dozen years due to decreases in the amount of federal grant money available to local transit authorities and Seattle-North King County having used so much of its local taxing authority and ability to borrow money to pay for light rail. A vote by the Sound Transit board on February 25, 1999, that made only minor modifications to the route, did little to ease the concerns Seattle's southern neighborhoods and northern and southern suburbs. Increasing land values and the changes to the route voted in by the board added hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost, requiring cuts to the plan to bring the project back to within budget. The cuts were finalized in a November vote that deferred construction on two stations, to only partially build the station under Beacon Hill, and route modifications.

Differences between the University of Washington and Sound Transit over station locations, impacts from the route's running under several science buildings on the campus, and construction impact deferments threatened to delay the project and raise costs. After months of negotiations, University regents and Sound Transit reached agreement in April 2000 with Sound Transit agreeing to install dampeners on the rails that run under the science buildings, air cushions to tables in the science buildings, and to mitigate environmental impacts due to construction and traffic impacts from having the station on university grounds. However, in November, the Sound Transit board voted to defer construction on the tunnel to the university when the construction estimate came in $171 million over budget. This news prompted concerns that Sound Transit could lose out on $500 million in federal grants, but King County Executive Ron Sims said he had been in contact with FTA officials who said the grant was still possible. This announcement coincided with the resignation of light rail's chief, Paul Bay. Two weeks later, Lyndon Wilson Jr., the man credited with turning around Portland's MAX Light Rail project, was tapped as the systems interim director.

Within days of Wilson's arrival, more bad news came out as new estimates from Sound Transit staff increased the cost of the 21-mile project from $1.9 billion to $3.8 billion and added three years to the construction time. The report cited the frequent changes made to the route in order to appease community members, third-parties, and the wishes of board members and the ambitious construction schedule as reasons for the cost increase. Just days later, Capitol Hill business and civic leaders withdrew their support from the project due to concerns that two years of construction needed to build the station on Capitol Hill would drive customers away from area businesses and force those businesses to close.

In January 2001, the Sound Transit board accepted a $500 million grant from the FTA even though the FTA had not completed the review of the project it started when the cost overruns were announced in December and had not offered Sound Transit the grant. The decision effectively locked Sound Transit into building a 7-mile route from Lander Street to the University of Washington. Days later, the chairman of the House Appropriations transportation subcommittee, Hal Rogers (R-KY) sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater saying his committee could not approve the grant and requesting a review by the Inspector General. Despite this, Sound Transit was still optimistic that the grant would be approved later that week. Representative Jennifer Dunn (R-Bellevue), Washington's ranking House Republican, voiced her support for the independent audit, but stopped short of calling for the FTA to not approve the grant. Despite these questions, on his last day as Transportation Secretary, Rodney Slater, signed the agreement granting Sound Transit $500 million in annual installments through 2006.

However, the grant approval still was not enough to prevent the resignation of Sound Transit's executive director, Bob White. White cited a need for new leadership to restore public confidence in the agency.

March was another difficult month for the light rail project. On March 9, Sound Transit's citizen oversight committee criticized the agency's optimistic assumptions about building costs, its reliance on receiving an additional $931 million in federal grants, and that the agency was in danger of repeating prior mistakes. The next day, Representative Rogers summoned Sound Transit and its opponents to Washington, D.C to testify in front of his subcommittee about the "problem" project. By the end of March, Link light rail was in danger of losing its first installment of federal grant money as Rogers noted the project's local opposition, cost overruns, and reliance on record levels of federal money as troubling.

In April, the Seattle City Council's unwavering support started to falter when a proposal requesting a Sound Transit citizen panel to explore alternatives to light rail was proposed by Councilman Nick Licata. The proposal would have had little to no effect on Sound Transit's plans if it had passed in its proposed form, but by the time it passed the contents of the proposal had been replaced with language praising the agency and explaining the cost overruns as unavoidable and out of Sound Transit's control. Avoiding the City Council's attack was only a short term victory as the next date the US Inspector General's office recommended that federal funding be suspended until the agency is able to provide a final estimate for the project. The Inspector General's report also estimated the cost of the project at $4.1 billion, meaning the cost of the project had increased by $2.5 billion in seven months. The day after the IG's report brought a suspension of the $75 million federal grant for the next year, Sound Transit learned that the $50 million grant from the current year was also in danger.