(The Center Square) – Residents in the Ballard section of Seattle are mobilizing to save the light rail link they voted for a decade ago with their wallets.
A rally and walk Sunday along part of the proposed route of the Ballard light rail extension was attended by hundreds who demanded that the station be saved from the chopping block.
Sound Transit officials are considering axing the Ballard station, 5.8 miles from downtown Seattle, from the future transit map because of an overall $34.5 billion budget gap in the build up of the light rail system.
Voters throughout Puget Sound, including 90% of those casting ballots in Ballard, approved a more than $55 billion bond issue in 2016 to pay for an expansion of the system.
In turn, they are paying higher sales taxes, property taxes and auto registration fees to pay back the bonds.
Sunday’s rally co-organizer Carl Aslund, speaking at a Ballard park, said voters were misled with the promise to bring light rail to Ballard.
“And then over $100 billion later, there’s literally nothing to show,” he said as the crowd cheered, “Save Ballard Rail.”
The $100 billion referred to around what has been spent so far on building out the $180 billion transit system expansion.
Aslund noted the project is also delayed, Sound Transit current plan calls for light rail to reach Ballard in 2039, instead of 2035.
That is if it gets there at all.
Aslund’s group, Save Ballard Rail was just formed two weeks ago.
Sound Transit officials have said they will make a decision on how to rein in costs on the $180 billion dollar project in the coming two months.
At a board retreat in March, they presented three options that cut stations on the nine-station Ballard expansion that would start in the Chinatown/International District. None of the plans included a Ballard stop, the last station on that line.
Sound Transit officials said the costs of the full Ballard line have mushroomed to more than $20 billion dollars, twice the original estimates.
Sound Transit spokeswoman Rachelle Cunningham said the scenarios presented at last month’s Board retreat were “illustrative approaches for the Board to discuss – not proposals.”
“A range of potential cost-saving measures and program adjustments have been identified following the retreat.” she said in a statement to The Center Square. “The Board is expected to consider these options in the coming months, with decisions anticipated in May or June on how to move forward.”
But at a community meeting in Everett earlier this month, Sound Transit chairman Dave Somers said costs estimates to build the rail line all the way to Ballard were unmanageable.
Somers is the Snohomish County Executive and is pushing instead for the line to get to Everett, the county seat in Snohomish, sooner than its scheduled 2037 to 2041 anticipated completion date.
The debate over saving the Ballard station pits Seattle officials against those in the other parts of the region who want proposed light rail lines finished in their areas.
Seattle City Councilwoman Alexis Mercedes Rinck attacked Sound Transit officials at the Sunday rally.
“We know that Sound Transit has real problems. Inflation is real, construction costs are real, tariffs are real,” Rinck said. “We are not here to pretend the math is easy — but we are here to say you do not solve a financial crisis by breaking the trust with the people who funded you.”
Councilmember Dan Strauss, who represents Ballard and sits on the Sound Transit Board, made the same argument at last month’s board retreat.
“I say that it is unacceptable that we do not have a plan to get to Ballard,” Strauss said.
