What’s the Payoff?
September 30, 2008
By J.B. Wogan
Prop 1 adds a handful of buses to some Sammamish area routes
Laura Hernandez, 25, waited for her local bus at the Issaquah Highlands Park-and-Ride Sept. 25. Every day she takes Sound Transit’s 554 express bus to and from Bellevue Community College,
then hitches a ride on the King County Metro Transit’s 269 bus back to 228th Avenue. Then she walks to her home in the Summer Ridge neighborhood.
“It requires a lot of planning to take the bus,” Hernandez said. In the winter, the waits for each bus can be excruciating with the rain and wind.
“Then I’m cold, wet and cranky,” she said.
Hernandez said she hasn’t studied up on Sound Transit’s Proposition 1, and doesn’t know which way she’ll vote, but in general, she’s in favor of more bus service.
“I’m always waiting for buses. If there’s more of them out there, that gives me more options,” she said.
Sound Transit’s plan does seek to offer Hernandez and Eastside riders like her more options. For an estimated $17.9 billion over 15 years, the plan would use taxpayer dollars to fund light rail construction from Seattle to Bellevue and Redmond; it would also pay for expanded bus service around the Eastside, including Redmond and Issaquah.
The proposition, also known as Sound Transit 2, will appear on county ballots Nov. 4 for voters in King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties.
The math
Sound Transit’s estimated $17.9 billion would be spent from 2009 to 2023 and would include capital costs, operations and maintenance fees, reserve funds, bond payments and inflation, according to Geoff Patrick, a spokesperson for Sound Transit.
Taxpayers would continue paying the increased sales tax after the 15-year period. Sound Transit’s projections include an additional $4.9 billion accumulated in interest fees from bonds.
Patrick said there is a rollback provision that would cause the sales tax to return to its pre-Proposition 1 status after the projects had been completed and paid off. Sound Transit estimates the rollback would take place around 2038.
Taxpayers would pay for the $17.9 billion from a sales tax increase of about five cents added to each $10 purchase. For the typical adult, the increase would be about $69 per year, according to Patrick.
The organization’s definition of “typical adult” assumes that the median income for a taxpayer in the Sound Transit District is $64,405. The district includes urban areas of Snohomish, Pierce and King counties.
Of course, the cost varies depending on spending.
“People who spend more, pay more,” Patrick said.
About $344 million* would go to increased bus service, he said.
What would change for Sammamish
One route that would receive some improvements would be the 554, which runs from 5th Avenue and Lenora Street in Seattle to the Issaquah Highlands Park-and-Ride just outside of Sammamish. The 554 also runs to the South Sammamish Park-and-Ride for selected trips in the early morning and late evenings on weekdays.
It is one of three Sound Transit express buses — the other two are the 555 and 556 — that run regularly from downtown Seattle to the Issaquah Highlands Park-and-Ride.
From the Issaquah Highlands Park-and-Ride commuters can link up with the 269 bus, which runs along 228th Avenue in Sammamish from about 6-10 a.m. and 3:30-7:45 p.m. on weekdays.
With funding from Proposition 1, the 554 bus would have increased frequency of service — every 30 minutes — on evenings and weekends, with buses every 15 minutes from 6-8 a.m. on weekdays, with an extra 30 minutes of service every day, according to Andrea Tull, who specializes in Eastside bus service for Sound Transit.
Also, the 545, a line that starts at the Bear Creek Park-and-Ride in Redmond and crosses into Seattle, would run more frequently — every five minutes — during peak hours (6-9 a.m. and 3-6 p.m.). Service would also expand by an additional 30 minutes on weekdays.
Tull said expansions in Sound Transit bus service are dependent on voter-approved propositions such as the one in November. There isn’t enough outside funding to provide added bus service, she explained.
In the future, if voters passed Proposition 1, a Sound Transit 3 proposition could appear on ballots in 15 years that would include Issaquah as a new destination site of the light rail, according to Patrick.
Potential problems
Some critics say Sound Transit 2 doesn’t benefit Eastside voters enough to justify its cost.
Jim Horn, Chairman of the Eastside Transportation Association, is one of those critics.
“It costs too much. It does too little. It is too late. And there is a better solution,” Horn said.
Horn levels many criticisms at the proposition, but one is that there should be more bus service and no light rail on the Eastside.
“The amount of bus service increases that they’re offering is minimal. Why don’t we just do the bus service and forget the light rail?” He said.
Horn is a former city councilman for Mercer Island and a former state representative for the 41st District.
Part of his association’s solution for providing Eastside commuters better transportation across the 520 and Interstate 90 bridges is carpooling.
“We can have people carpooling for virtually one-tenth of the cost and we can carry 50 percent more riders than the light rail does,” he said.
The key to increasing carpool numbers across the region is in aggressive advertising, Horn said.
Horn added that he believed the light rail portion of the proposition would have negative environmental impacts to the area, would be logistically challenging to design and implement over Lake Washington, would be too expensive and would not offer enough ridership capacity to commuters.
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.
*This version corrects the amount going to bus service.
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[...] Horn, the ornery chair of the Eastside Transportation Association and former state senator, just hates Prop 1’s expansion of light rail: “It costs too much. It does too little. It is too late. [...]