@1:

Thanks Captain Obvious...

It's going to cost a lot, but mass transit is never too expensive: you get to keep it for decades, if not centuries. How much wealth do you think was created in NYC due to having a ubiquitous, frequent, and grade separated transit for more than 100 years? My wager is somewhere in the 100s of trillions in today's money. Connecting the U-District to Lynwood ain't exactly Coney Island to Morningside Heights, but it seems pretty clearly that 100% of the cost will be recaptured.

@1: it's not a "few billion more". it's a "few" hundred million, <1 billion.

if I'm reading this right, 510 million per ST's escalation, & the feds added 200 million for risk assessment.

for comparison, the 99 tunnel is going to cost 3.2 billion. eggs, omlettes...

Captain Blovious @1/2 the thread: we’ve been voting on Sound Transit since 1996, and your side has lost every time. Not only did we already know the very few facts you’ve ever bothered to learn about it, we also know there is no way you’d ever be in favor of mass transit.

Shorter version: you’re wasting your time because you’re not fooling anyone except yourselves.

(Posted from my iPhone. Aboard Sound Transit Central Link Light Rail.)

Just get it done!

#9 it’s the naysayers that have brought us to the $52 billion number. If we started this 25 years ago that number would be dramatically less.

Road light rail in Salt Lake City last year. They had it put in 25 years ago. It’s a tough pill to swallow knowing Seattle is 25 years behind Salt Lake City when it comes to public transit.

If the naysayers had their way we wouldn’t start this for another 20 year, and the cost would be $100 billion.

Close your bold tag.

The USA has a real problem with cost control in infrastructure projects of all kinds (not just mass transit ones). Even Sweden (not precisely a land of low labor costs) does much better.

https://www.vox.com/2014/6/2/5771880/us-…
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2…

@6: you're slippery-sloping. what is your acceptable contingency for that ST project? 10%? 20%? 200 million is 7% higher, and its a risk-assessment, not a confirmed cost escalation.

do you make these same complaints about WSDOT projects in E. Washington? the lake kecheelus project on I-90 is 1 billion. do you think the wildlife overpass portion is "wildly spending other people's money"? it's just for animals!

There's much more at stake then just Northgate and Lynnwood. ST2 also includes Roosevelt, 145th St, Shoreline, and Mountlake Terrace. Since Sound Transit is too dumb to realize property values have and always will increase, I'd suggest they cut the streetcar that's also included in the proposal. But they'll probably just use it as an excuse to ask for more money.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/defau…

@1 congratulations.

This the first time you didn’t post your usual moronic lie about “only Seattle and King county approved ST3.”

I guess you are almost capable of learning.

@11 is totally right.

I blame dipshits like KIRO’s Dory Monson.

On one hand he whips the mouth breathers like #1 up over traffic, tax hikes and public project and “socialism.”

Aaand then cheers on and refuses to regulate the market forces that drive the inflated property taxes in the first place.

These dumb fucks refused to go for a state income tax when we had the chance. They fought tooth and nail against every infrastructure improvement when costs were lower.

They even fight against these meager minimum wage hikes and then bitch that all the new comers working for Amazon are ruining the city.

Our resident northwest rightwing numbskulls are like Cade studies in logical fallacies becoming a reactionary suicidal political movement.

@11: "If we started this 25 years ago that number would be dramatically less."

26 years earlier, to be precise: http://www.historylink.org/File/3961

Typical - Sound Transit understates their budget by millions in order to garner support. Then hides the fact that they will be overbudget as long as possible in hopes they can get to the point of no return without anybody noticing.

SoundTransit's execution has been really good for a long time. They've been meeting schedules and coming in under budget on a lot of projects. What's important is that we have a strong expectation that the promises which are made today are actually going to be kept. We can trust SoundTransit's numbers even while acknowledging that the Fed's assuming a bit of slippage isn't unwarranted.