The application of the ST subarea rules are flexible enough for Snohomish County to pay for the mile of alignment.

The key advantages for Snohomisish County transit riders are improved connections to the University District and Capitol Hill as they are two congested urban centers where buses go slowly. The peak direction trips to downtown Seattle can and are well served by buses on the I-5 reversible lanes.

ST Sound Move has already connected with Lynnwood and built three center access ramps. How about bus for the inter county trips? How about a center access ramp in the University District? The subarea equity rules do not require the same mode, only proportional expenditure to the revenue raised.

The Link LRT stations in the I-5 envelope will never develop into pedestrian centers; they will be dominated by the car and the freeway interchanges.

http://seattletransitblog.com/2007/11/01/why-you-should-read-the-p-i-instead/

Especially in light of other major population areas having no sophisticated transit options?

(I’ll even forewarn you this is a trap.)

Here’s the report for 2007:
http://soundtransit.org/Documents/pdf/about/financial/2007/ST07SubEquityMDAandSched7-1-08.pdf

You can find them on each year’s pages (except 2008, because it’s not over yet) here:
http://soundtransit.org/x1230.xml

Reardon won’t vote for the package without light rail to Snohomish – he’s made that clear. This is the only way he gets light rail. Sound Transit wasn’t planning to make it all the way to Lynnwood, but Reardon is forcing it and then complaining about it!

But any compromise between those two positions seems to leave a lot of room for arbitrary judgments about who gains.

I’d like to see the cost of each segment estimated, then the proportion of riders originating in each sub-area estimated, so that everything balances out. Instead, the whole process of determining sub-area equity is a mysterious black box.

I don’t doubt that the tens of millions could be spent elsewhere to some effect. But who does that 1.05 miles benefit?

Although there might be occasional trips from Seattle to Alderwood, and so on, it’s clear that the vast majority of riders on that segment will be Snohomish County residents.

So that’s the narrow “who does this benefit?” argument. Let’s take a regional perspective. The North King funds have to be used to benefit North King, by law. So if you want to take the tens of millions from that budget pile, you have to cut something else. From the diagram, you have the First Hill Streetcar, Rainier Ave. Link Stop, and SR 520 BRT. Speaking as a citizen of the region, which of these would you cut for the Ash Way parking garage?

Or, you don’t build that mile at all, and either SnoCo gets a light rail to nowhere, or lots of buses and Sounder.

That really isn’t the right attitude, even if Reardon is acting the way he is. The distance between NE 185th Street and the county line is about 1.05 miles. How much would it cost to build that segment? According to my research, light rail lines cost around $15 million to over $100 million per mile, but on average, the cost is now around $35 million (at least in the US). Depending on how the line will be built and any additional costs, I predict that $35 million will go up (about $80 million per mile for an elevated structure). That amount could probably pay for other improvements needed in Snohomish County, such as park & ride improvements, which apparently will not be completed by 2023 because of light rail extension into Lynnwood.

$80 million could pay for (according to ST’s website):
- one $64.1-70.6 million Ash Way park & ride garage
- one $67.9-78.1 million Everett Station improvements + garage
- one $69.9-80.4 million Mariner park & ride improvements + garage

Now, if you’ve ever been up in Snohomish County recently, you must have seen how many cars are packed into these park & rides. So, I guess you could say Snohomish County taxpayers are giving up alot to build just that little segment of light rail that will help regional connectivity.

Oh, wait. I forgot – we’re a region. Sound Transit gets to listen every day to people complain about how Sounder North is ineffective – but Snohomish County politicians demanded it. How about they help create some positive PR for once?

I wouldn’t characterize the phrase “I can sympathize with his position to some extent” as “shitty attitude” or “snark”. Sub-area equity is something I’ve defended in the past, but Reardon doesn’t deserve a cookie for the 185th offer — that’s pretty much the minimum that Snohomish County could reasonably provide.

If the SnoCo delegation does endorse this plan and chip in from 145th North, then they will be deserving of praise, but not before then.