SEATTLE, MAY 28: Completion of the long-awaited Everett link light rail station was definitively approved by Sound Transit board members in a 16-2 vote today after nearly a year of lobbying and strategizing, spearheaded by board chair and Snohomish County Executive, Dave Somers.
The vote clinched what had been some uncertainty that Everett’s light rail extension from Lynnwood might be short-changed to pay for light rail expansion in Seattle to the Ballard neighborhood in the city’s northwest quadrant after Sound Transit grappled with skyrocketing light rail construction costs and a projected $34.5 billion budget shortfall on a promised $54 billion price tag for phase “ST3”, approved by voters in 2016 with 54% support.
In a moment that foreshadowed the ultimate vote, Somers told the fellow board members and Ballard light rail supporters packing the meeting, “this is a starting point, not an end point” for the future of the light rail system…