EVERETT — Local leaders are pleading with U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, among others, for help ensuring Everett doesn’t get passed up for light rail in favor of places such as West Seattle and Ballard.
The appeal came as the Democratic lawmaker traveled the 2nd Congressional District this week to talk transportation.
“We’re hearing rumblings that we’re going to wind up on the short end of this,” Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson told the congressman. “… We’re going to need your power of persuasion with some of the decision makers.”
The discussion during an Economic Alliance Snohomish County round table wasn’t only about Sound Transit’s next phase of light-rail expansion, known as ST3.
Larsen’s main goal was to draw attention to the July 31 deadline for Congress to extend the Highway Trust Fund, the largest source of federal dollars for transportation projects. He also touched upon a new bill Larsen had introduced to create $300 million to improve safety and traffic flow at grade-level railroad crossings nationwide. There are 33 at-grade crossings on public streets in Snohomish County, about half of them in Marysville. They’d all have to compete for the cash.
“Just a warning: Not everybody is going to get their crossing fixed,” Larsen said.
Some ongoing or planned transportation projects that depend on federal dollars include I-5 bridge improvements north of downtown Everett that are due to begin this summer; the proposed second line of Community Transit’s Swift bus, between Paine Field and Bothell’s Canyon Park area, targeted to begin service in 2018; and work to replace the Mukilteo ferry terminal, which began in June.
Larsen doesn’t expect any of those projects to fall off the table if Congress delays action, but he’s frustrated at his colleagues’ resistance to passing long-term funding measures to assure local and state governments their road, bridge and transit projects will get money. Instead, he says federal lawmakers have granted piecemeal approvals that fund only part of what’s needed, creating uncertainty.
“The patchwork approach doesn’t work,” Larsen said. “It’ll end up slamming the brakes on the economy.”
Everett-to-Seattle commute times have increased 80 percent from 2010 to 2014, the Puget Sound Regional Council has reported. Congestion only promises to thicken.
The county, city and other local leaders who gathered Tuesday said it’s important to press the issue now, before the Boeing Co. starts construction on the 777X jetliner. The county is projected to grow by 200,000-plus people, to nearly 1 million, over the next 20 years.
Federal dollars would complement the $670 million for transportation projects in Snohomish County that state lawmakers approved this week as part of a new budget. The money would come over the next 16 years, paid for by increasing the gas tax by 11.9 cents per gallon.
State lawmakers have given Sound Transit permission to ask voters to approve $15 billion for the next phase of light-rail and rapid-transit bus expansion. The money would come through higher property taxes, sales taxes and car-tab fees. Sound Transit’s Board of Directors have pledged to put an expansion plan and funding package to voters in November 2016.
The expansion also would take light rail south to Tacoma, expand Eastside service and add a new rapid bus line between Lynnwood and Bellevue. There’s been talk of building light-rail spurs to West Seattle and Ballard, even though the original goal when voters approved the light rail plan in the mid-1990s was to build a line serving Everett, Tacoma and the Eastside, from Seattle.
Stephanson, Snohomish County Executive John Lovick and other local elected officials support a route that would serve Paine Field, Everett Station and the area around Everett Community College and Providence Regional Medical Center. Even if approved next year, light rail isn’t expected to reach Everett until the 2030s.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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