Ballard light rail idea rejected while Sound Transit OKs other lines

In a setback for thousands who want light rail to reach Ballard, the Sound Transit governing board voted Thursday to keep its austerity plan to build first from Sodo through downtown, and stop the line short at Seattle Center.

Members rejected a last-minute amendment by Seattle City Councilmember Dan Strauss to build a Westlake-to-Ballard segment first, opening new territory that could serve roughly 70,000 daily passengers where slow buses operate now.

We need to move riders," Strauss said just before losing the vote. "It provides access to riders who don't have access to light rail today. We need to take a look at whether the starter line is possible ... I am committed to getting that downtown tunnel built because it's good for the whole region."

The board's 14-4 vote to stick with funding and digging Sodo-to-Seattle Center and leave the extra miles to Ballard off the "affordable" list was just one of many decisions Thursday, as the agency copes with a $35 billion long-term budget gap that threatens to stall out regional rail construction in the late 2030s.

This latest regional project menu will keep lines from Sodo to West Seattle, Federal Way to Tacoma, and Lynnwood to Everett moving and considered affordable, and save the Graham Street infill station in South Seattle, along with a streetcar extension to Tacoma Community College. A Boeing Access Road station in north Tukwila is on ice, but efforts will continue to revive it.

Missing Ballard, where the agency once promised to go by 2035, represents perhaps the most unnerving of many broken and delayed promises since Sound Transit formed in the mid-1990s. Board member Claudia Balducci, of Bellevue, pointed out this is the fourth "realignment" in which routes were postponed due to runaway or unforeseen costs, and she said the cycle must be broken.

Strauss was attempting to overturn a cost-saving strategy released by board Chair Dave Somers this spring. The project list included a second transit tunnel downtown, for $17.8 billion (including inflation) from Sodo to Seattle Center. It deferred planned stops at Smith Cove, Interbay and Ballard.

Somers argued Thursday the best thing for Ballard is to keep the existing design work on track, and $300 million was approved to fully design that segment, for whenever it becomes affordable.

Most board members worried that a reversal, to reach Ballard first, would halt or force rewrites of engineering and environmental impact studies across Snohomish, King and Pierce counties - nearly a decade after voters passed a regional Sound Transit 3 tax hike to build a dozen megaprojects.

"We will get to Ballard, but we won't do that at the risk of collapsing the entire system, and I don't say that melodramatically," said Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello, who is counting on a Federal Way-to-Tacoma line to get moving.

When voters passed ST3, the ballot measure's centerpiece was a mostly tunneled route from Sodo to downtown and Ballard, promised by 2035. It's now considered unaffordable as a whole.

Ballard supporters point to Sound Transit's own estimates that the full line would serve about 135,000 daily passengers, including downtown stations. About half would board trains at a second Westlake Station and points north.

In other highlights, the board voted to fully fund a surface-level station at Graham Street, a South Seattle project that was facing the ax a few weeks ago.

"This was a special promise to serve a community that absolutely deserves it," said King County Executive Girmay Zahilay, who grew up nearby.

For the first time, the transit board brought up possible new taxes, by passing Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson's amendment Thursday to examine "a future revenue package," that might include a regional Sound Transit 4 measure, authority to raise a levy, or limited local taxes, to make good on service promised to the voters.

"If Seattle wants to ask for more revenue, go for it," said Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin. "Everett is certainly not ready for that and won't be until we have trains in our community."

A park-and-ride station at Boeing Access Road still missed the cut, but that north Tukwila neighborhood will get $10 million to develop other transit options.

As of this week, a staff report projects heavy construction to start in 2028 in West Seattle, in 2030 from Federal Way to Tacoma, and 2031 from Lynnwood to Everett, with no target date to begin Sodo-Seattle Center. Those timelines should be considered optimistic, since none of these lines yet have full engineering, construction contracts, a clear finance plan or federal grants.

Board members paused for a closed-door executive session to discuss possible litigation in which publicity could harm the organization.

"There's legal risk in changing a big project mid-stream," Somers said, asked to explain the closed session.

To Strauss' surprise, the board voted 13-5 to have transit staff return by Aug. 1 with a specific date or time range to reach Ballard, information he said will help repair trust.

And they unanimously agreed to study new technologies, including automated trains, that might save time and money reaching Ballard.

In other highlights, a Sodo-to-West Seattle line will proceed, though it's supposed to serve only 25,000 daily boardings for $6.8 billion, far fewer than new Ballard or downtown trackways. So why do it first?

To keep momentum. West Seattle's line is further along, having a federally approved environmental impact statement, and permission to condemn land.

Zahilay, Wilson and King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda hailed Thursday's decisions, in particular because they give West Seattle the green light to continue.

New freeway buses connecting Lynnwood, Bellevue, Renton and Burien will proceed and open in the late 2020s. The sparsely used N Line commuter trains will be retired in 2033, trips will be added for the busier S Line, and an S Line extension to DuPont will get money for planning, but not construction.

Renton's freeway parking garage near I-405, which was in jeopardy, will now be funded with $100 million in future funds.

"It's a critical part of infrastructure, because if we don't have it, people are just going to drive," said new board member Steffanie Fain, a King County councilmember from South King County.

A South Kirkland-to-Issaquah light rail line barely made the affordable list by 2050.

Sound Transit is required by state law to pass an updated plan now, rather than proceed with planning more work than it can afford, said Alex Krieg, enterprise planning director.

The board voted to raise an existing car-rental tax 80 cents to $2.17 per $100 of rental fees, which Krieg said would raise $330 million through the 2050s.

Sound Transit collects about $2.4 billion local tax a year, roughly $700 per capita, plus federal loans and grants. The latest finance projections call to spend $195 billion to build and operate all corridors from 2017-52.

"This is arguably the most complex transit project in the world, and we're making it (ST3) more complex every day," Somers said.

Only Balducci and Strauss voted against the overall plan, known as the Enterprise Initiative. "This is not a rejection, this is a challenge to do better. I hope to vote yes in the fall," Balducci said, when a deeper financial plan shows up. "I want to see us commit to a path for Ballard better than we have today.

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This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 6:47 AM.