Sound Transit Boosts Railcar Order by 25%

Posted on by Zach Shaner
Wikimedia

In its Capital Committee meeting on Thursday, Sound Transit announced its intent to exercise a contract option for an additional 30 light rail vehicles (LRVs) to be purchased from Siemens. This option comes on top of the 122 vehicles Sound Transit ordered last September. The 30 new vehicles will arrive no later than 18 months after the original order has been fulfilled, and the total order will more than triple Link’s fleet to nearly 220 vehicles. Ordering now locks in a lower unit price from Siemens, with price escalation if the Board waits to order beyond May 2017.

Once Northgate is open in 2021, Link will move to all 4-car train operations. The 122 vehicles originally ordered are required to operate the Lynnwood and Overlake extensions opening in 2023, and the additional 30 are required for the Downtown Redmond and Federal Way extensions opening in 2024. The current operating plan calls for 8 minute peak headways on each line and 10 minutes off peak, with combined 4 minute peak and 5 minute off peak headways between Lynnwood and International District Station. Current riders from International District to Angle Lake will see their peak headways decline a bit, from 6 minutes to 8, but will also see capacity boosted by 25%, from 24 LRVs/peak hour to 30.

The Siemens S70 vehicles will be roomier, quieter, and have more bike storage than the current fleet. The aisles will be wider, especially in the center articulated section, improving passenger flow. Otherwise they will function much like the current Kinkisharyo vehicles, with 4-car trains and 8 cab cars running in fully interchangeable push-pull trainsets. This maximizes operational flexibility but also diminishes capacity slightly.

Sound Transit anticipates the new vehicles will begin arriving in mid-2019, with a steady but slow drip of 1-3 vehicle deliveries per month between 2019-2024. This delivery schedule means that though ST will be able to boost capacity on current operations between 2019-2021, they will also not be able to fully backfill the loss of tunnel buses within the One Center City timeframe. The vehicles take roughly 100 days for commissioning and testing, some of which can be done in revenue service, somewhat minimizing the need to do overnight testing. By purchasing off-the-shelf, the S70 LRVs are a known quantity and should be able to expedite burn-in processes. This model already successfully runs in places such as Portland, Minneapolis, San Diego, Salt Lake City, and suburban Paris.

As new vehicles arrive and are certified, the current Forest Street Operations and Maintenance Facility (OMF) will max out its capacity. Once the new East Link OMF is complete in 2020, a mix of old and new vehicles will be trucked there for storage, where ST promises to “keep the trains warm and move them around.”

Once fully operational, Link will have two nearly-maxed out OMF facilities, and additional cars will be stored on the lines overnight. Lynnwood and Redmond will be able to store two trainsets overnight, much like Angle Lake and UW can today. But in the south, Sound Transit is planning much more substantial storage. An extended tail track south of Federal Way will hold additional vehicles, and ST is also planning a pocket track between Federal Way and Star Lake that can hold 1-2 additional trainsets. Having vehicle storage at all 3 termini will allow quicker start of service each day, and minimize vehicle deadheading.

The full Board will likely approve the $132m option at its regular meeting on April 27.

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News Roundup: Non-MVET Edition

Posted on by Zach Shaner
SounderBruce (Flickr)

This is an open thread. 

35 comments

The Overheated MVET Debate

Posted on by Dan Ryan
If reduced MVET revenues impact project delivery, suburban parking projects are first in line to be delayed

Last night, the Washington House of Representatives approved HB 2201. The bill effectively resets the valuation schedule for the 0.8% ST3 portion of the MVET to the lower of the 1999 and 2006 schedules. The outcome is lower taxes for owners of cars less than 10 years old, and a refund for those who have already paid their 2017 car tabs.

Reversing voter-approved taxes, barely five months after the ballot, isn’t a great look. But it is within the Legislature’s authority (second-guessing of initiatives is not new). Democrats have responded to sincere voter anger. The MVET increase was greater than many expected even if voters who carefully read the ballot ought to have understood. Owners of newer cars are taxed against a scheduled valuation higher than their vehicle resale values. Even though Sound Transit has used the same schedule for twenty years, and never presented it otherwise, it just seems unfair.

If HB 2201 becomes law, Democrats expect it to correct the anomalous MVET valuations while delivering ST3 projects on schedule.

The bill creates a credit for taxpayers offsetting the difference in valuation schedules. Crafted this way, HB 2201 doesn’t interfere with Sound Transit’s bond program and doesn’t require defeasement of Sound Move bonds. It means the 0.3% Sound Move MVET, pledged against bond repayments on the now obsolete 1999 schedule, is not prematurely repealed and can remain in place until the bonds are paid off in 2028. Unlike some Republican proposals to simply switch schedules across the board, HB 2201’s credit does not increase taxes for owners of older cars.

The vote was 64-33, with all Democrats in favor. Republican reaction was mixed. Some are willing to accept any tax reduction; others decried that the bill didn’t meet their more ambitious goals. The bill moves to the Senate today where Republicans may make a play for larger tax cuts.

The revenue impact is modest. $780 million in revenues is 1.4% of the $54 billion program over 25 years, albeit front-loaded so the real impact is higher than the year-of-expenditure (YOE) calculation. The credits only run through 2028, after which the Sound Move 0.3% MVET expires and the ST3 MVET switches to the ‘lower’ valuation schedule.

Continue reading “The Overheated MVET Debate”

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House Democrats All Vote Against Sound Transit

Posted on by Brent White
RapidRide C, photo by S.S. Sol Duc, wikicommons
for which voter-approved funding of from November 2016 is now threatened under EHB 2201

In an apparent shocking apparent betrayal of their constituents who voted to pass Sound Transit 3, House Democrats voted unanimously for Engrossed House Bill 2201, which would effectively lower the ST3 portion of MVET bills from the 1994 valuation, as prescribed in ST3’s enabling legislation, to the 2006 valuation, which would lower the bill for most cars under 10 years of age and leave the valuation at the lower 1994 valuation for older cars, removing even more funding from Sound Transit than what Republicans had demanded.

To date, no fiscal note has been made available for the bill, but it appears to cost Sound Transit ca. $780 million in direct revenue and ca. $2 billion after higher borrowing costs. If federal support for Sound Transit evaporates as a result, the damage could balloon. While kneecapping the funding for which voters in the ST3 district just voted to tax themselves for, the state legislature has shown no interest in providing direct state funding of Sound Transit.

EHB 2201 would create a pecking order for projects to be cancelled, starting with parking projects, then commuter rail, then bus service, and then light rail projects if everything else is cut.

In Sound Transit’s north subarea, consisting of Seattle and Shoreline, that likely means Sound Transit subsidies of RapidRide service would go away, and then 130th St Station, Graham St Station, and Boeing Access Rd Station would be on the bubble. Grade separation of West Seattle and Ballard Link might be jeopardized, too. Without the fiscal note normally made available for bills before they even pass out of committee, the depth of the cuts is hard to calculate.

The bill still has to get through the State Senate, where the Republican majority may amend the bill for the sake of maintaining their ability to campaign on the issue, even after House Democrats gave the Republicans more than they originally asked for. Or, the Senate Republican majority could declare victory and send the bill, as is, to the governor’s desk.

Update: Rep. Jessyn Farrell responded to the post, conceding that legislators missed that the older valuation schedule was prescribed for the MVET in the ST3 enabling law until the ST1 bonds are retired, and that they had not intended to use a schedule that doesn’t reflect car resale value, which the 2006 table does very well. In response to a question on regressiveness, she pointed out that Sound Transit opted not to use the progressive head tax the legislature authorized. In response to what happens next, she was firm, “We say no deal if the Senate changes the bill at all in a negative way.”

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Holding the Line for Transit

Posted on by Guest Contributor

By Transportation Choices Coalition

The 2017 Legislative Session has been incredibly challenging for Sound Transit. On the heels of the passage of Sound Transit 3 in November, the agency has had to defend a host of bills designed to dismantle the voter approved plan and change its governance structure. Last Friday, the Senate passed ESB 5893 which slashes Sound Transit’s Motor Vehicle Excise Tax authority from 1.1% to 0.5% among other things. TCC opposed that bill.

TCC Executive Director Shefali Ranganathan

In the House, legislators are considering a relatively more modest proposal, HB 2201 which will create a $780M direct revenue gap in the Sound Transit 3 finance plan or an estimated $2.3B impact once you factor in higher borrowing costs. This bill was passed by the House Transportation Committee and seems well on its way to approval by the House as chronicled by the blog here.

Let’s recap for a quick moment how we got to this point. In 2015, as part of a deal on the Connecting Washington Transportation package, the Legislature granted Sound Transit the taxing authority to seek voter approval for a transit expansion plan. At the same time, it voted to approve an increase in the gas tax to fund road projects without requiring a public vote. It was a deal that advocates including Transportation Choices Coalition (TCC) made for a chance to complete the high capacity transit system that has eluded us for nearly 60 years.

Fast forward to 2016, hundreds of meetings and tens of thousands of public comments later, the agency put forth a $54B transit expansion plan the details of which has been discussed in great depth on this blog.  A grueling six-month campaign ensued and despite the best efforts of the opposition spearheaded by the Seattle Times, voters approved the plan by nearly 54%. The Puget Sound region finally embraced its transit destiny. Or so we thought.

As 2017 kicked in, higher MVET renewals started appearing in mailboxes, a media feeding frenzy ensued, and anti-transit legislators seized the opportunity to attack the voter-approved plan and the agency. TCC which led a broad coalition of business, labor, transportation, environmental and social justice advocates to pass the ST3 responded with a broad strategy which included an on-the-ground staff presence in Olympia, a joint coalition letter signed by 26 business, labor and community groups, and thousands of emails and petitions to legislators urging a measured approach that does not derail projects.

Yet here we are, battling bills that jeopardize projects, in the name of tax payer relief.

TCC cannot support HB 2201 as it is currently proposed. We appreciate the need to address tax payer fairness and find reasonable solutions that do not impact voter-approved projects.  We suggested improvements to the legislation to address tax fairness for working families while keeping voter-approved projects on track including:

  1. The reimbursement or credit should only be provided to cars valued at or below $30,000, providing relief to middle and low-income families who need it the most.
  2. Find solutions to reduce the $780 million revenue gap created by this bill, either by limiting the tax adjustment to working families or other policy options that address the loss of revenue to Sound Transit.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much traction to move these changes forward.

Let us pause for a moment to consider the irony – the most progressive taxing source available to pay for transit, the MVET, is being undermined in the name of fairness in a state that has the most unfair tax system in the nation (Seattle Times $). That a measure approved by 700K residents which took three years and an incredibly robust public dialog to shape, can be so easily be scuttled by so few.

It will be easy to point fingers and assign partisan blame. Instead I encourage you to consider the following – transit is under attack at the federal and state level. Transit funding is being politicized for bigger battle – the control of the State Legislature. We should be careful to separate the policies from the politics. Voters want more light rail to more places. It is why ST3 passed last year. Now more than ever transit advocates and our broader coalition will need to stick together to defend our gains at the ballot. I urge you to join us in our fight by signing up for updates and opportunities to engage with your elected  representatives to hold the line on transit.

49 comments

Democrat Bill Reducing ST Funding on House Floor

Posted on by Brent White
Robert Ashworth (Flickr)

House Bill 2201, which would reduce Sound Transit 3 funding by as much as $3 billion, has moved quickly in the legislature. In a rare move, it got heard in the House Transportation Committee and voted out on the same day Monday. (Start at 23:00 in the video.) Even more unusually, no fiscal note was available to the public. Then Tuesday, it moved out of the House Rules Committee onto the House second reading floor calendar. It could come up for a vote at any time.

Two pro-Sound-Transit groups came out against the bill quickly: Transportation Choices and Seattle Subway.

The bill would reduce the valuation used to calculate Sound Transit’s motor vehicle excise tax from the formula used by the 1994 legislature to the formula used by the 2006 legislature for the 0.8% ST3 portion. Both formulae are based on the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP), but the newer one features a quicker depreciation schedule which charges less for newer cars and a little bit more for older cars, making the 2006 formula less progressive. The ST1 portion of 0.3% of the vehicle’s value would continue at the 1994 formula until ST1 bonds are paid off, which is expected to happen after the last of the bonds mature in 2028.

Once the ST1 bonds are paid off, the ST1 portion of the MVET will go away. The Sound Transit sales tax rate will also drop from 1.4% to 0.9%, reflecting the end of the ST1 sales tax.

The bill that authorized ST3, Second Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5987 (from 2015) specified that the MVET would continue to be calculated under the 1994 formula until ST1 bonds are paid off, and then it would be calculated at the 2006 formula. (See page 69 of the bill as passed, and page 8 of the final bill report, and also listen to the staff testimony from the HB 2201 hearing.)

Sound Transit provided a calculator to estimate individuals’ taxes during the 2016 ST3 campaign.

Rep. Mike Pellicciotti

HB 2201 is sponsored by Rep. Mike Pellicciotti (D – Federal Way). Rep. Pellicciotti put out a press release on Monday making his case for the bill.

In a provision reportedly added by Joe Fitzgibbon (D – West Seattle), the bill would require Sound Transit to cut parking projects, commuter rail, and bus service, in that order, to keep light rail projects on schedule.

Tell your legislators to respect the will of the 55% of voters who passed ST3, for whom transit expansion is more important than lower car tabs. A new provision in the bill would only use the 2006 schedule if the

You can find your legislators and contact them using the district-finder tool. You can also contact the governor using this form.

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Action Alert: Ask Governor Inslee to Veto Transit Cuts

Posted on by Guest Contributor
Governor Inslee at U-Link Opening. Photo by Joshua Trujillo, seattlepi.com.

SEATTLE SUBWAY

Democrats in the Washington State House have passed a bill out of committee that will cut $2.3 billion dollars from the voter approved Sound Transit 3 (ST3) package. Following a well worn Democratic strategy of caving to the slightest pressure from the right, this signals that Democrats intend to pass the bill out of the State House. The bill will then be sent to the Senate where it will be further degraded (the Senate version cuts $6 Billion in transit) and then sent to the Governor.

In passing this bill, Democrats seem to give in to magical thinking:  “While this would reduce a stream of revenue on which Sound Transit depends for future expansions, Democrats said it won’t impair the transit agency’s ability to carry out the $54 billion worth of projects in the Sound Transit 3 plan as promised.”  This is an entirely unsupported statement.  Overriding the will of the voters and cutting transit funding will, in 100% of cases, lead to less transit and to transit built more slowly.

House Democrats now appear to be a lost cause.  Let Governor Jay Inslee know that this attempt to override voters is entirely unacceptable. Puget Sound voters were clear in their support of transit expansion. Further, making changes after the vote is an act of bad faith in regards to the state transportation bill passed in 2015. ST3 funding was a hard fought win for the Puget Sound Region in that negotiation – which also funds billions in highway expansion without any public vote.

Transit has a sad history in this state and tends to be the focus of constant second guessing and lack of investment. Washington is dead last in transit funding at the state level and has the most regressive taxes in the country.

Here the issues intersect:  The most progressive funding source in our state is being attacked in an effort to cut transit funding.

At the same time Democrats in Olympia are pushing cuts to local funding, Trump and Republicans are pushing for billions of dollars of cuts to ST2 and ST3 projects at the Federal level.

Governor Inslee:  This is an opportunity to be on the right side of history and support a better, more environmentally responsible future for our state.  Please veto this bill.

Contact Governor Inslee here and let him know you support a veto by emailing him, faxing him at 360-753-4110, or calling his office at 360-902-4111.

59 comments

House Committee Passes Bipartisan MVET Bill

Posted on by Zach Shaner
Crowded Link Train on April 6 (Seattle Subway – Twitter)

As ST3’s Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) drama continues, yesterday the House Transportation Committee passed HB 2201 by a bipartisan 20-5 vote. The compromise bill would require Sound Transit to use the newer 2006 vehicle depreciation schedule, and to offer credits and refunds to those who had already paid under the old one. In addition, the bill requires Sound Transit to find the money to do this without impacting project delivery. The bill states that if this new valuation method threatens project delivery, the agency has trim project elements in a specified order:

If, when implementing the program, the RTA is not able to deliver the plan as approved originally, the RTA must identify savings and cost reductions first, from parking facility projects; second, from commuter rail projects; third, from transit-bus related projects; and fourth, from light rail projects.

It’s hard to believe it’s only been six weeks since Sound Transit 3’s (ST3) Motor Vehicle Excise Taxes (MVET) took effect. Car tabs have always been a political minefield. People pay them up front in a lump sum, and those who drive but don’t take transit experience them as a punitive taking. On March 1, the voter-approved MVET went up by 266%, from 0.3% to 1.1%. Endless digital ink and legislative oxygen has been spilled decrying the MSRP-derived depreciation schedule that calculates the MVET. That formula tends to inflate car values over their realistic resale price for the first decade or so of a car’s life.

The resulting sticker shock has proven a golden opportunity for disingenuous legislative grandstanding. To hear Republican legislators tell it, this controversy proves that Sound Transit is an agency in need of sweeping accountability reforms after hoodwinking voters and stealing from them.

But this framing is like a hunter blaming the bear for stepping into a trap it set. The depreciation schedule was not a Sound Transit creation, but a legislative directive clearly contained in the 2015 transportation revenue package (SB 5987). From the Final Bill Report:

Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET). An MVET is a tax paid on the value of a motor vehicle. For the purpose of determining any locally imposed MVET, the value of a vehicle other than a truck or trailer is 85 percent of the manufacturer’s base suggested retail price of the vehicle when first offered for sale as a new vehicle, excluding any optional equipment, applicable federal excise taxes, state and local sales or use taxes, transportation or shipping costs, or preparatory or delivery costs, multiplied by the applicable percentage listed in the depreciation schedules. [emphasis mine]

And from the bill itself:

Notwithstanding any other provision of this subsection or chapter 82.44 RCW, a motor vehicle excise tax imposed by a regional transit authority before or after the effective date of this section must comply with chapter 82.44 RCW as it existed on January 1, 1996, until December 31st of the year in which the regional transit authority repays bond debt to which a motor vehicle excise tax was pledged before the effective date of this section. Motor vehicle taxes collected by regional transit authorities after December 31st of the year in which a regional transit authority repays bond debt to which a motor vehicle excise tax was pledged before the effective date of this section must comply with chapter 82.44 RCW as it existed on the date the tax was approved by voters.

So the ST3 MVET was intended to have a business-as-usual formula, just at a higher rate, and this language passed the Republican-led Senate 37-7 and passed the Democratic-led House 54-44. If anything, it was the conservatism of the package’s framers that has caused the controversy, as all parties involved simply grandfathered in an existing structure rather than create a new one.

None of this is intended to say that voters haven’t experienced unpleasant surprise at their car tabs, or that certain low-income or high-income-cash-poor citizens haven’t found it burdensome. Talks to rework the formula, or to add low-income rebates, etc, are valid discussions. Whether you support a rate reformulation or not, this sort of legislative back and forth is normal and healthy.

But the political posturing about Sound Transit’s conduct throughout this process continues to be dishonest and misleading. The aspersions cast upon the agency neglect the layer cake of process and filters through which all of these proposals must pass before they see the ballot box, the tax bill, or groundbreaking. It is all a painstakingly conservative process by design, and Sound Transit has been following the rules to the letter. If legislators want to change the letter of the law, that’s their prerogative. But Sound Transit works with what they are given, and they cannot bill us a penny without our aggregate consent.

59 comments

Study Shows No Significant Impact to Mercer Island

Posted on by Zach Shaner
Joe Wolf (Flickr)

Last Wednesday, CH2M submitted the I-90 and Mercer Island Mobility Study prepared on behalf of Sound Transit.

If you’ve not been following the drama, a quick recap: Mercer Island has been making considerable noise since 2015 about perceived loss of mobility due to East Link construction. Whereas prior complaints were more generic and white-hot, of late the complaints have been much more focused on mitigation for the closing of the express lanes for East Link construction and the coming SOV-to-HOV conversion of the westbound ramp from Island Crest Way to I-90. Islanders maintain that they are owed mitigation for this by the 1976 agreement granting their solo vehicles special access to the I-90 express lanes, and also by a 2004 amendment to the agreement holds that:

[t]o the extent of any loss of mobility to and from Mercer Island based on the outcome of studies, additional transit facilities and services such as additional bus service, parking available for Mercer Island residents, and other measures shall be identified and satisfactorily addressed by the Commission, in consultation with the affected jurisdictions.”

To date, WSDOT and Sound Transit have held that the agreement clearly and permanently committed the center lanes for transit and that Mercer Island SOV access was a temporary and conditional use. The agencies noted in a letter to Mercer Island that SOV use of HOV lanes, even temporarily, would be a violation of federal law and a trigger to repay grant funds to the federal government. In response, Mercer Island announced its intent to sue Sound Transit, threatening both the schedule and budget for East Link.

Things have softened a bit since then. Mercer Island reneged on its threat to revoke shoreline permits for Sound Transit, and the ST Board committed in March that the city and agencies meet regularly to negotiate issues around Mercer Island Station beyond traffic. The current study was an olive branch between the agencies and the city, seeking data to quantify the scale of any lost mobility, in the spirit of the 2004 amendment.

Well, the study results are out. In a memo to Sound Transit board members last week, Secretary Millar summarized that:

the Mobility Study concludes that the overall mobility for people traveling to or from Mercer Island will be similar to or slightly improved compared to existing conditions during the six-year East Link construction period, and will be improved once East Link light rail service begins in 2023.   A short summary of the study is attached. [emphasis mine]

Continue reading “Study Shows No Significant Impact to Mercer Island”

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