SEATTLE — Sound Transit’s light-rail construction projects to Lynnwood and Federal Way will receive almost $600 million in federal grants sooner than expected, plus $116 million extra to keep up with inflation.
These cash advances in 2023 won’t open the train service any sooner.
But they should relieve pressure on the regional agency’s cash flow, so it’s easier to finance the coming wave of projects, such as a series of new bus rapid transit stations along I-405 by 2027, and light-rail construction to Tacoma, South Everett and West Seattle in the early 2030s.
Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash., announced that funds they championed for Sound Transit, and other projects nationwide, are part of the omnibus spending bill approved last week.
Lynnwood Link train service can be ready by summer or fall 2024, despite last winter’s concrete truck drivers strike, Sound Transit CEO Julie Timm said in a Dec. 8 update. However, the Federal Way line promised by 2024 will be severely delayed into perhaps late 2025, because soil near wetlands at South 252nd Street is more unstable than expected. Engineers must redesign the foundations for some elevated trackway columns.
Looking ahead, Sound Transit has yet to solve a potential $6.5 million gap revealed two years ago, to cover what’s currently a $138 billion finance plan from 2017-46, to build and operate current lines plus 12 new corridors. The financial pinch hits hardest around 2030, when officials were hoping to launch multiple voter-approved projects at once. Sound Transit’s governing board already postponed some lines by two years so construction borrowing matches the yearly tax revenues.
But the region’s slow pace of design and political decisions, along with errors in forecasting real estate inflation, also are to blame.
Federal dollars can help. By reducing Sound Transit’s near-term need to borrow, accelerated Federal Transit Administration payments could save the region $41 million in debt repayments through 2046, said spokesperson John Gallagher.
FTA previously committed $790 million for a three-station, $3.2 billion line from Angle Lake to downtown Federal Way, and $1.17 billion toward the five-station, $3.3 billion extension from Northgate to downtown Lynnwood. Both also received federal loans with low interest and easy payback schedules.
According to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill:
- The Federal Way Link Extension will get $329 million next year, while Lynnwood receives $254 million, because FTA will accelerate its pace of sending grants. This will fulfill FTA’s Federal Way pledge three years sooner, Cantwell said in an announcement Tuesday. Normally the cash arrives in lower installments. The bigger 2023 outlays have appeared in FTA reports since March, anticipating congressional approval of the Biden administration’s infrastructure package.
- An additional $61.4 million is coming in 2023 for Federal Way and $54.1 million to Lynnwood, within a $425 million national increase in the FTA’s Capital Investment Grants fund.
“Making sure Sound Transit has the federal resources it needs to meet more and more ambitious expansion efforts is a top priority for me,” Murray said in a statement.
