SEATTLE — Sound Transit confronted a $34.5 billion budget shortfall for its Sound Transit 3 expansion as leaders searched for ways to deliver on voter promises amid soaring construction costs.
Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers, who chairs the Sound Transit Board, issued a statement outlining the board’s approach to the latest challenges.
“In the face of unprecedented inflation of construction costs, the Sound Transit Board is putting pressure on everything the agency does to find savings,” Chair Somers released in a statement. “By adopting an affordable system plan, the Board is committed to giving the region’s residents the benefits of Sound Transit 3. Since May of 2025, the agency has created a full toolbox of potential cost savings, and we look forward to analyzing the approaches offered by the agency to ensure revenues and expenditures are balanced and affordable while delivering on ST3 objectives. Sound Transit has a strong track record of delivering complex transit projects, and the Board has confidence in the agency’s ability to navigate these fiscal challenges and continue moving the region forward.”
Sound Transit’s updated “bottom-up” cost estimates in August and September 2025 revealed dramatic capital cost growth of $14 billion to $20 billion in 2025 dollars — or $22 billion to $30 billion in year-of-expenditure terms — across multiple Sound Transit 3 projects…