"Agreement would bring light rail to SeaTac"

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Agreement would bring light rail to Seattle-area airport
The Seattle (WA) Times


Sound Transit and the Port of Seattle announced yesterday they have agreed
on a plan to extend light rail to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport by
December 2009. 

Sound Transit officials said the agency can pay for the $225 million project
without asking voters to raise taxes, mostly by liberalizing its financial
policies so it can borrow more money. 

The 1.7-mile light-rail extension isn't a done deal. It's part of a complex
plan for reconfiguring access to the airport that hinges on adding another
eastbound lane to Highway 518, the freeway that funnels most traffic from
the airport to Interstate 5. 

There's no money to build that lane now. And without it, light rail to the
airport won't happen. 

But that didn't dampen the enthusiasm of politicians who gathered at the
airport for the announcement yesterday. 

"We are 90 percent of the way there to making sure this is going to happen,"
said Pierce County Executive and Sound Transit board chairman John
Ladenburg. "This may be the best Christmas present for the entire Puget
Sound region." 

Extending light rail to the airport is among voters' top regional
transportation priorities, according to several polls conducted over the
past year. 

The airport was included in Sound Transit's original plan for a 21-mile
light-rail line from SeaTac to Seattle's University District. When cost
overruns and changes in airport plans forced the agency to scale back the
project in 2001 to a 14-mile line from downtown Seattle to a park-and-ride
lot in Tukwila, critics ridiculed it as a "train to nowhere." 

With yesterday's announcement, "this light-rail line is a line to
somewhere," Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said. 

The downtown-Tukwila segment is under construction now, with service set to
begin in mid-2009. If the airport extension sticks to the schedule outlined
in the Port-Sound Transit agreement, it would open just six months later. 

During those six months, rail passengers would take shuttle buses from
Tukwila to the airport. 

The airport light-rail station would be built near the northeast corner of
the parking garage, at the same elevation as the skybridges that now link
the garage with the terminals. Passengers arriving by rail would walk about
1,000 feet on covered walkways across a skybridge and through the garage to
reach the nearest ticket counters. 

That's about the same distance between Seattle's King Street Station and the
west entrance of Qwest Field, Sound Transit said. 

"They won't have to pay for parking," said Metropolitan King County
Councilwoman and Sound Transit board member Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac. "They
won't have to find a shuttle bus. They won't have to wait." 

But transportation consultant James MacIsaac, a longtime Sound Transit
critic, said 1,000 feet is a long way to walk with a full suitcase. 

Another skybridge from the station would cross Highway 99, also known as
International Boulevard, to a high-density "downtown" the city of SeaTac
hopes will grow there with housing, offices, retail and entertainment. 

Sound Transit estimates about 3,000 passengers would board trains at the
airport daily in 2020. Trains would run every six to 10 minutes. 

Tracks from the Tukwila station to the airport would be partly elevated,
partly on the surface down the median of a relocated North Airport
Expressway. 

The airport station would displace "return to terminal" ramps at the north
end of the garage. Motorists leaving the terminal and wishing to return
instead would use new ramps that would be built on the North Airport
Expressway near South 160th Street, just south of Highway 518. 

The light-rail station won't be built until after those ramps are built.
And, because traffic sometimes backs up from eastbound 518 onto the
northbound expressway past 160th, officials said the new ramps won't be
built until a third lane is added to 518 between the airport and I-5. 

"Everything else is dependent on making that work," said Port Commissioner
Paige Miller. 

She estimated the cost of the extra lane at $25 million, and she expressed
hope the Legislature will provide the money. The Port, which expects to
provide $60 million to $80 million for the access-road changes, also is
willing to pay some of the 518 cost, she said. 

Environmental studies on the 518 project aren't scheduled to be finished
until 2006. Spokeswoman Linda Mullen said there's no money in the state
Department of Transportation's proposed 2005-2007 budget to build it. 

She also said Miller's cost estimate probably is low, and that the
department should have an updated number by late next month. 

Sound Transit's assertion that it could come up with $225 million to build
light rail to the airport without raising taxes came as a surprise. The
financial plan the agency released last month said just $57 million in
unused financial capacity was available. 

But Tacoma City Councilman Kevin Phelps, Sound Transit's finance chairman,
said yesterday that another $100 million can be generated by loosening a
longstanding Sound Transit financial policy that restricts how much debt the
agency can take on. 

Another Sound Transit financial policy assumes the agency will pay 5.85
percent interest on its debt. Reducing that assumption to about 5 percent
would generate another $50 million to $60 million, Phelps said. 

The rest of the money for the airport extension could come from small
federal grants administered by the Puget Sound Regional Council or from
reallocating some money now assigned to other Sound Transit projects in
South King County, he added. 

Changing the financial policies would require approval from the Sound
Transit board. But Phelps and chief financial officer Hugh Simpson said the
agency's financial status would remain strong. 

"Our [financial policies] are so conservative, compared to most," Phelps
said.

MacIsaac disagreed. "I am just not favoring all of this debt-thinking we're
getting into," he said. "They're taking all of the margins out. There's no
room for a mistake to occur." 

The $225 million estimate includes all capital costs and reserves, and it
accounts for inflation, officials said, but doesn't include financing costs.


Sound Transit, the Port and the city of SeaTac have been working on the plan
announced yesterday for nearly two years. Originally, they assumed the
extension couldn't be built until 2011. 

Now, Sound Transit board chairman Ladenburg said, light rail could link the
airport and downtown in time for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.


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