In last weekend’s post I said that Link could only get built beyond the Federal Way city limit by cancelling all other South King projects. That statement was a failure of imagination. There are ways to do it, although I think they’re all unpalatable and we’d be better off just waiting for ST3:
- Delay. Sound Transit could restore the revenue target by collecting taxes for longer, and pushing back completion accordingly. Given the steep drop in projected subarea revenues, it would probably be a significant delay. Meanwhile, delaying construction also pushes back retirement on the bonds, pushing back the entire ST3 timetable.
- Run at-grade. While saving money, this has obvious drawbacks with respect to operating speed and interaction with traffic.
- Local match. Just as Bellevue did, cities along the line could find ways to chip in.
- Eliminate a station. There are only three, and S. 200th is already in final design. But if reaching Federal Way suddenly became a primary objective, cutting Kent/Des Moines Road could save some money.
For the record, although South Link should hardly be the highest priority in the region, I don’t share the apparent anger of some commenters that it’s being built. No system is ever designed in a purely optimal fashion, and over time patterns adjust to accommodate built infrastructure. If South King (and Pierce) leaders want it built there, then by all means build it there, and it will do some good where it lies.
4. Eliminate South Link, which is a phenomenal expenditure for suburban commuter service. Replace it with improved South Sounder service and construction on the Renton-West Seattle portion of a Ballard-West Seattle-Renton line.
Renton is in East King, so you’re really talking about Burien-Southcenter. Not a terrible idea, but meh.
And any case the point of the post is that you can get to Federal Way if you’re willing to do unpalatable things.
Going at grade is extremely short sighted. For a section of track that will only have at most 3 stations? Being at grade works if the train is running slow and stopping frequently to pick up passengers. Otherwise it just becomes a cross traffic blocking device making local traffic worse.
totally different areas are being serviced here. An improved East Valley Sounder, does nothing to support the West Hill area, and does little for the final goal of giving tacoma a direct link to the airport.
The only idea worse than extending Link to Federal Way is extending it to Tacoma.
Link is a rapid-transit system in everything but name. Rapid transit through suburban wasteland is a waste. Tacoma-Seattle needs reliable Sounder service. If we focus on West Seattle-Renton, then we can serve Tukwila Sounder station with decent service, making it a one-transfer ride from Tacoma to Sea-Tac.
Mmm, Federal Way isn’t as close to DT Tacoma as it appears on the map. And with respect to travel time I can understand why it’s become a suburb of two cities. According to Google it’s 12.7mi/20 minutes Federal Way to Tacoma and 23.3mi/31 minutes to Seattle. Tacoma to Seattle is 33.8mi/41 minutes on I-5. Link from SeaTac to University St. is 36 minutes. ST 574 is 25-30 minutes from Federal Way TC to Seatac. If Link could cut that time in half it’s still over an hour from Federal Way to DT Seattle. The 577 makes the trip in 27 minutes. Why would anyone want a direct “Link” that takes twice as long?
Not saying that light rail from Federal Way to Tacoma makes sense now but in 2040 maybe (and it’s a huge maybe) it could possibly make sense. That would require a renaissance in Tacoma and a complete transformation of Federal Way. But Link from Federal Way to Seattle is a non-starter already and if infill stations are added (RV, Boeing Access Rd.) it gets worse.
I’m not too well versed on plan, but doesn’t the Kent/Des Moines station serve Highline CC?
Yes. It would be a terrible idea to axe in favor of Federal Way.
I think the entire LINK project (which I support) needs to have an abrasive cost accounting. The numbers and timelines are way, way to high for the deliverables. Maybe it’s time to rebid the project to a more efficient provider.
“abrasive cost accounting”
What’s that? Is it where you sandpaper off a couple of zeros?
It’s just normal accounting, but with Bailo present.
It is where someone with a personality that reminds you of sandpaper negatively assesses the validity of your project without taking into account the history, constraints, political perversions and primary & secondary goals which have shaped it.
I would opt for running at grade before axing a station. While I dislike at grade, I would rather have it service the most people. But again if Federal Way wants it so bad, they should chip in
“Meanwhile, delaying construction also pushes back retirement on the bonds, pushing back the entire ST3 timetable.”
Construction timetables have absolutely nothing to do with when the bonds are paid off. Moreover, ST3 will be on the ballot in 2016, and the bonds for ST2 won’t be paid off until 2054 or so. Sorry, Martin, you are WAY off base here . . . .
OK Deb,
What funding authority are they going to use? All of the current authority is dedicated to paying off those bonds.
“All of the current authority is dedicated to paying off those bonds.”
No, the taxes must be collected at the current rates while any of the bonds are outstanding. That does not mean all that tax revenue “is dedicated to paying off those bonds.”
Even if there is no ST3 after 2022 there will be huge surpluses generated every year, with tax revenue far in excess of debt service needs. By the time the bonds are paid off (in the 2050’s) there will be huge surpluses . . . scores of billions of dollars worth.
Deb,
That would be good news if true. It conflicts with what several officials have told me. Do you have a link I can research on this subject?
Yes, the 2011 Financial Plan at the “Financial Documents” page at soundtransit.org shows debt service costs out through 2023.
Right now the latest budget document shows debt service is about $40 million per year, and tax revenues are about $600 million per year.
By 2023 there should be about $8.5 billion of debt outstanding, with debt service costs of about $450 million annually. The tax revenues at that point will be about $2 bln annually, leaving significant surpluses. That’s especially true going forward from that point, as the debt service costs will decrease as bonds are paid off, and as the needs for payments to cover capital expenses end (the lines will be built out).
The debate is whether ST3 should be in 2016, with additional revenue, or in 2024 when there will be sufficient new bonding capacity and surplus tax revenue from the existing sources. It just depends on how quickly people want the additional train capacity, and whether or not the legislature will grant the additional funding sources to allow the 2016 ST3 vote.
Deb,
Thanks! This is very interesting and I’ll look into it.
And by the way Deb, I’d appreciate it if you could stick to one handle in comments.
You’re leaving out the burdon of operational subsidy. ST builds capital projects with a 50/50 split of cash/debt. At ~$7/rider the annual operational subsidy for Central Link is around $50 million a year. The East sub-area currently adds about $80 million a year to it’s piggy bank. The piggy bank will be emptied to build East Link and the current surplus will be completely absorbed by operational subsidy and debt service. In fact, just the debt assuming the project is on budget and interest remains at the current historical low rate will come to about $80 million a year (interest at 5% on a billion dollars of 30 year money).
But weren’t ridership projections supposed to reduce the cost per boarding much lower by 2023?
Bernie writes: “The piggy bank will be emptied to build East Link and the current surplus will be completely absorbed by operational subsidy and debt service.” You are referring there to what the situation would be in 2023. After that the reserves will start piling up, as operation subsidies and debt interest will be much less than tax revenue. That is why if ST3 goes on the ballot in 2025 or so it would have essentially no new tax cost to people.
What assumptions are you making to come up with a huge surplus? A booming economy, smashing ridership projections, the project coming in on time and under budget, continued record low interest rates and inflation? If the economy rebounds back to the go go years of last decade then construction costs and interest rates are bound to go up. If STs ridership model is consistent operational subsidies are going to be much higher than predicted. I can’t see any combination of circumstanses that will lead to “huge surpluses” that aren’t just reckless financial modeling. East Link’s already blown through it’s reserves and has it’s hand out to the City of Bellevue to complete the project.
“No, the taxes must be collected at the current rates while any of the bonds are outstanding.”
“Even if there is no ST3 after 2022 there will be huge surpluses generated every year, with tax revenue far in excess of debt service needs.”
Not true at all. Both the ST1 and ST2 legislation have tax roll-back and accelerated debt pay-off provisions. After construction is finished and if no new projects are approved the taxes will be reduced to just cover debt repayment and operational expenses, there will be no surplus revenue.
The Pierce County subarea has been saving debt capacity for light rail between Federal Way and Tacoma Dome. If that’s not happening, a significant expansion of Tacoma Link could be financed. Alternatives analysis is happening this year for that project.
Chris, the debt is not issued — or spent — on a subarea basis. All the debt is sold on an agency-wide basis, and the revenues are used irrespective of subarea tax revenues. That’s why there won’t be any spending of bond sales revenue on East Link, even though it has a large tax revenue surplus.
Really, there needs to be some information about this from the agency.
As some one in South King County (Auburn) I don’t see any reason for Link to go to Federal Way when there is better and faster bus service. No direct link to the Airport? Do we keep forgetting the 574 Express? It’s as direct as any line could be to the Airport and get there 25 minutes faster… You all know me as a avid supporter of Link, however, it coming to Federal Way and Tacoma, I just don’t see the sense in it. If it IS built, build it at grade. The road speed limit, which Link would be subjected to, is 45mph from 200th to 336th and 50mph after 356th to the Port of Tacoma Rd.
If the ultimate decision is to terminate the construction at Highline CC, that would be the best option for it and stop it right on the campus.
I would rather see improvements of Sounder to hourly service and weekend service before Link gets extended any further than the community college OR Burien – Tukwila Link route but that is just me.
5. Build a serious bus-based transit grid for South King, both to access Link at SeaTac and for other circulation in the subarea. There are several overlapping alternatives but they must cover all these corridors: SeaTac-FW-Tacoma, SeaTac-Kent, SeaTac-Auburn, Kent-East Hill-Renton, Burien-SeaTac. ST and Metro can make a joint plan, with ST subsidizing some RapidRides until Metro’s funding improves. Possibilities:
– Reconfigure RR A to SeaTac-FW-Tacoma, absorbing PT 500.
– Extend 574 to Kent Station or East Hill. (Lakewood-Tacoma-FW-SeaTac-Kent) Delete 272nd stop and close P&R.
– Make 578 duplicate 574 north of Federal Way, to give frequent service between FW, SeaTac, and Kent. (Puyallup-Sumner-Auburn-FW-SeaTac-Kent, sometimes Tacoma)
– If travel time on new RR A is acceptable, make 574 daytime-only, or possibly even weekday-only. Truncate 578 at FW eves/wkends?
– Extend 120 to SeaTac. (downtown – White Center – Burien – SeaTac)
– Reconfigure RR F to SeaTac-Southcenter-Renton (skipping TIB and Burien).
– Replace 180/169/101 with RapidRide on SeaTac – Kent Station – East Hill – Renton – Rainier Beach. Add #102 peak expresses as necessary. Keep #180 on Kent-Auburn.
– Replace 166/168 with route on Highline CC – Kent Station – East Hill – Covington, minimum 30 min frequency. (Potential future RapidRide.)
– Note: if all of these are done, it would overserve Pac Hwy to Kent Station, but that can be addressed in the planning process.
– Eliminate the “double U” overlap on East Hill: Renton route goes on 240th, Covington route on KK Road. Gap between them on 104th is 16 blocks, or 8 blocks from the midpoint. If this is unacceptable, put both routes on KK Road, but that would prevent shorter travel time to Renton.
This was meant to be a top-level proposal. :(
Why skip Burien and TIB?
It comes down to whether more riders from Renton are going to TIB or SeaTac. TIB is straight west but it’s the middle of nowhere, while SeaTac is a major destination in itself. That allows the same route to serve both Link trips and airport trips. There are five possibilities: (1) the official alternative serving only TIB; (2) a V-shaped route serving only SeaTac; (3) Southcenter-TIB-SeaTac-Burien; (4) Southcenter-SeaTac-TIB-Burien; (5) truncate at SeaTac with another route serving Burien.
#1 puts riders at TIB who don’t want to be there. #5 complements the existing proposal to extend the 120 to SeaTac to serve White Center-Airport riders. #2 is less favorable in this case if my assumption is correct that more people from White Center are going to the airport than people from Burien are going to TIB, Southcenter or Renton. #3 and #4 add a straight north-south detour in the middle which increases travel time.
Against this is the fact that 154th between TIB and Burien is nonstop because it’s the north border of the airport property, so you’d lose this express routing.
Well….the current plan still has South Link going to HL CC even though only the first part to S. 200th is currently in design and shortly going out to bid. So we are really only talking about the final stretch from HL CC to FW.
I’d do as much prep work as possible on the final segment into FW, then work on reducing cost while waiting for economic recovery. And while we’re doing that, we can be working on the Feds. It’s a long shot given the current funding situation, but a little Federal money would really help.
And maybe if Federal Way actually did something constructive and worked toward getting this done we could make some progress, bus so far they just seem more interested in whining….
One of the arguments “for” Link is that it spurs development. It would seem to me that Pacific HWY South is as good an alignment as any to create dense communities oriented to transit. And particularly where one doesn’t have to compete with an expensive already built space. AFFORDABLE communities could be built around Link stations in that area and since we’ve lost the Aurora alignment possibility, it isn’t going to happen on NorthLink… It seems like people around here are desperate to prevent urban development in south King County. Remember 1.5 MILLION people are coming this way. Where are we going to house them?
It’s interesting that people are for putting Link on north 99 and against putting it on south 99, even though both have similar development potential.
5. Charge for parking at all ST parking lots in south King County.
6. A variation of my 5.
– Add Swift on 99 from SeaTac to Tacoma, stopping only at the would-have-been Link stations, and maintaining 10-15 minute frequency until 10pm every day. The A and 500 remain as-is for local stops.
– Reduce 574 to peak only.
– Reconfigure 578 to Puyallup – Auburn – Kent – nearest Link station, bypassing Federal Way. It’s supposed to be a “Sounder shadow”, so this would make it shadow Sounder more closely. Federal Way better not complain because it’ll still have more service than Auburn-Kent-Link.
– Other routes same as my #5 above.
The main stumbling block for South King transit is Kent’s difficult geography. It’s worth making the problems explicit. (1) There are multiple paths from Kent Station to 99. (2) East Hill’s development is north-south on 104th, which can’t be directly served by an east-west route without detouring. The simplest naive grid would put an E-W route on Covington – Kent Station – 99, and a N-S route on Renton – East Hill – Auburn. But that’s unsatisfactory because all of East Hill needs to be connected to Kent Station and 99, and there’s little demand for 104th – Auburn service. Back to that later.
West of Kent Station there are four paths:
(1) Kent-Des Moines Road to Highline CC. This works only if the Highline CC Link station is built, otherwise people would have to transfer twice to the slower A and then Link.
(2) 64th – 112th – Orilla Rd – 188th – SeaTac. The 180 does this now, and it’s quasi-express because there are few obstructions. But it still takes 20 minutes, meaning a Seattle-Kent trip is 12 minutes slower than the 150 even before you add the transfer time.
(3) 64th – 112th – Orilla Rd – 200th station. This would require a bridge over I-5 and a pass through the ridge.
(4) 64th – 228th – Military Road – 200th station -OR- KDM Road – Miltary Road – 200th station. I don’t know how Military Road compares to Orilla Road, it may be slower due to more cross streets and narrowness.
(5) KDM Road – I-5 – 200th station. This would presumably be fastest, but would preclude stops north of KDM Road.
The other issue is the majority of ridership seems to be an “L” shaped corridor on Renton – Benson Rd – Kent Station. This violates the grid. The bus has to turn on 240th bypassing part of East Hill, or make a “U” shape to KK Road which adds to travel time.
Theoretically East Hill could be served with a triangular route on Kent Station – KK Road – 104th – 240th – Kent Station, or a spatula-shaped route extending that to Pac Hwy. That would serve the most likely density opportunities — Kent Station, 104th, and KK Road — but the unusual shape would probably make the route unproductive.
In the next 15 years the economy will eventually get better, an when that happens there’s a good chance serious high density development will actually get started near Federal Way TC. That could make an extension there look pretty good for federal funding, especially because there will almost certainly be a large increase in federal transit funding in a good economy. I’m guessing an extension to Federal Way TC from Highline CC could be built that way within a couple years of the opening of the Highline station.
“The next 15 years the economy will eventually get better”
That may be true, but it could get a lot worse first. And in 15 years we may be back to where we are now, if we are lucky.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=200390
Talk about debt service issues!
Hopefully the economy will be booming in 15 years but there’s no guarantee. The trend of weak growth, is headed for a lost decade like Japan’s. The government needs to get off its duff and invest in the economy, make a real switch to renewable energy (the biggest job creator), fund infrastructure, fix the mortgage mess (make banks write down dud loans and take a haircut on underwater mortgages that never should have been lent at fake bubble prices), and close the regulatory loopholes that allowed the crash to happen. Congress needs to stop wasting time on trivialities. But there’s no sign of it happening yet. Federal funding is subject to the whims and politicians. Maybe the 2012 election will tell us whether more funding will come or not, or maybe it won’t change anything.
The significance of the debt can be debated, but US bond rates are at record lows and Germany’s went negative last week, meaning bondholders are begging us to take their money and spend it to fix the economy so they can get better returns later. We’re idling a ton of assets (unemployed workers), and saddling them with houses they can’t sell so they can’t move. That is harming our well-being as much as the debt is.
Federal way will get its light rail when it “goes around the gate keepers” rather than “waiting for permissions of the gate keepers”. eg. make its own low cost monorail connection from S. 200 station to Federal Way.
Once that was a approved and paid for by cities of Federal Way, Des Moines, Tacoma and Kent, then somehow, by instant magic, Sound Transit would get the connection to Federal way done. Its a simple formula of government power and harm to lower economic class “citizens”.
Sound Transit and its power cronies are presently fat and happy. They have all the power, and they tax the poor of Federal Way, whom get nothing, While ST kicks in money for a free Microsoft station and a fancy gold plated underground run through Bellevue for the high class rich there.
Threaten that power… and something may happen. the poor may even get a crumb.
Govani, do you even live in Federal Way or ride transit?
Have you noticed the armada of 577’s, 578’s, and RapidRide Line A’s that serve the fancy Federal Way Transit Center? You call that “nothing”?
An alternate funding source would be to set up a state bank. Then borrow money from it, at the Fed discount rate plus 1% to cover the cost of administering the funds.
Yes you still have to pay it back, but with such a low interest rate, you could either borrow more money or pay it back faster.
Once the money is paid back to the state, it’s again available to be borrowed against. This business of only funding transportation projects via the municipal bond market results in someone other than the state getting rich off of us.
Correct. A state bank is the way to go. But WA State politicians will never “lead” in such a manner. The power elete desparately fear a “government bank”.
For such a thing (like a state bank) by its mear name, implys it must be used for the good of the nation state (or in this case, WA State), and not for building things like new casinos, or barrowing funds to play the stock market.
And the next step for such a bank, is to issue its own debt notes. Not those of the privately owned (by the F.O.B > foreign occupation bankers). WA could issue notes of debt against almost anything of WA State value, that a productive mind can think of. Notes against the natural gas under the staight of Jaun De Fuca, Fresh water in the water table, salmon notes…. etc.
Regarding at-grade operation, the only obstacle I see is that the LRT’s have to obey traffic lights just like rubber-tired vehicles. If only the LRT’s could only get the same signal-priority devices that RapidRide buses have…