Following Sound Transit’s announcement today that it is considering reducing the long-planned Ballard Light Rail Extension and cutting Ballard, City Councilmember Dan Strauss (District 6), also a Sound Transit Board Member, called on the agency to keep the promise it made to voters and create a plan that gets light rail to Ballard.

Sound Transit presented its board members today with three options to address their long-term financial challenges. All three options fail to extend light rail to Ballard as was approved by voters under Sound Transit 3 (ST3).

“Sound Transit needs a plan to get to Ballard. Anything short of that is unacceptable. The Ballard Link Extension is projected to serve the most riders of any project in Sound Transit history and would do so at one of the lowest costs per rider gained of any expansion. Sound Transit needs to sharpen their pencils, do the analysis, and bring us a plan that gets to Ballard to keep the promise made to voters,” said Councilmember Strauss.

The Ballard Light Rail Extension is projected to attract between 132,00 and 173,000 daily riders after it’s completed. That’s more than triple the number of daily riders expected to use the long-awaited East Link Extension set to open on March 28.

The three options reducing light rail extensions presented by Sound Transit are one step in a multiple step analysis by the agency known as the Enterprise Initiative – an effort to address long-term budget challenges. A recent cost-saving exercise looking at the West Seattle Light Rail Extension found around $2 billion in cost savings compared to earlier estimates. That cost savings exercise has not been applied to other potential light rail extensions, including Ballard.

The Ballard Light Rail Extension would connect five regional and neighborhood centers in areas currently not served by light rail — parts of Downtown, South Lake Union, Uptown including Seattle Center, Interbay, and Ballard. The City of Seattle has already rezoned all of these areas to add new capacity for housing and jobs.

When ST3 was approved by voters a decade ago, some of the strongest support came from Ballard voters. The 36th district is the highest density of registered voters in the state and some of those precincts adopted ST3 with nearly 90% of the vote.

The Sound Transit Board of Directors will consider options to address its long-term budget deficit in the coming months.

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