Notes On the Senate Transportation Budget

39 Replies to “Notes On the Senate Transportation Budget”

1. “Interestingly, it also puts $200 million into the SR-99 tunnel to make up the expected shortfall in toll revenue. The stand Protect Seattle Now and Mayor McGinn took in 2011 clearly made a difference – there hasn’t been a peep about Seattle being “on the hook” for this money, despite posturing from legislators in the past. I think the legislature realizes that actually trying to stick Seattle with the bill for the project’s poor planning would lose them support for future revenue from our voters. You don’t always have to pass a measure to make an impact.”

   Exactly! Just like candidates for president who don’t stand a chance, they’re in it to help set the tone of the debate. While it would have been nice to have passed the measure, we all knew that at the very least it put those in the legislature wanting to skewer Seattle on notice.

2. Two theories on the defunding of the Tacoma Tressle:

   1) They’re much, much dumber than they look.

   2) They want to scuttle HSR (and/or Sounder expansion) but they can’t actually come out against it for political reasons.

   I have no idea which is true. If there’s a third possibility, please explain.

   1. Third possibility – they don’t know they’re doing this.

      1. That’s part of possibility 1, isn’t it?

      2. No, smart people can miss things too.

         Dumb is a characterization, only applies once they’re informed and still reach the same decision.

   2. I think that they just know they can force Sound Transit to make up the funding difference themselves. I’m not sure about this, but it’s possible that ST can’t add Sounder round trips until the trestle is done either. So it’s like chicken where they know ST won’t call them out on it.

      1. Sound Transit does not have the funding for the trestle. It’s fundamentally a WSDOT responsibility.

         It’s the top unfunded priority (after you landed all that federal money in 2008) for the *entire* Cascades program from Vancouver to Eugene.

         It’s possible that the way the restriction is written does not prevent the trestle from being built, providing it’s considered to only partly be a Sound Transit project (since, um, it is only partly a Sound Transit project).

         However, everyone in WA needs to contact their legislators and make sure that any final budget DOES fund the trestle replacement one way or another, whether through Sound Transit or through Tacoma Rail (the owners) or through WSDOT (for Cascades) or what.

      2. Nathanael, I’m having trouble parsing your comment.

         Nothing here is a restriction on building the trestle. The Senate budget just cuts $7m from it. Sound Transit appears to have submitted more than $40m in addition to that already.

         The House budget already retains funding for the trestle. It’s just the Senate budget that cuts $7m from it.

      3. What I’m saying is that it’s only a funding cut if they are still planning to use Sound Transit as the pass-through entity for the trestle rebuild. The alternative is to simply have WSDOT do it using WSDOT money.

      4. Right, ST could pull out of the project entirely. But then ST would cause enough bad blood with WSDOT that it would make it less likely for ST to get revenue authority for ST3.

3. Tacoma Rail no longer is the owner of the right of way between BNSF’s TR jct and D Street. Sound Transit recently purchased that segment, which puts it squarely on ST’s hands.

   1. By that logic, all these Amtrak Cascades upgrades on BNSF right of way are BNSF’s responsibility.

      If it’s not funded, the state is the one that loses $800 million. So it’s really their funeral if they decide not to help.

      1. In a technical sense, it is BNSF’s responsibility and property since they do the track work, maintenance, etc. The state gives money to BNSF for the work.

         Again, that is just technical and anal.

         Sound Transit still has the funding set aside for the overall project, but it will not be started at its targeted date (2018 instead of 2014), at least that was what ST explained to me when I was asking about the project.

         That is the only reason I can gather they cut the funding is for exactly that reason.

      2. Why would they be BNSF’s responsibility? If it was up to them they wouldn’t run Amtrak over their right of way.

      3. It’s kind of like a customer who wants a vendor to improve his service when he is the sole customer.

         The vendor wants to be compensated.

         The customer feels he should be served.

         The vendor knows the customer has no place else to take his business.

         The customer knows he’s already getting a deal by not having to build and maintain the service himself.

      4. Brian, the project wasn’t delayed to 2018. Can you cite stuff like that when you say it, rather than make me steer you back? That’s a 13-14 project.

      5. Ben,

         I will e-mail you the details in a moment. I’ll let you decide if that is good enough for you since it came from Sound Transit.

         I did get the timeline wrong though, the accelerated construction date would be 2016, IF the grant was passed, which it hasn’t. The original construction date still 2023.

   2. “Tacoma Rail no longer is the owner of the right of way between BNSF’s TR jct and D Street. Sound Transit recently purchased that segment, which puts it squarely on ST’s hands.”

      Interesting, I missed that press release. Can you link to it? It does get “one more cook” out of the situation.

      1. Ditto, but discussion of the then-ongoing negotiations was made near the end of a November News Tribune piece:
         http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/11/03/2355317/tacoma-rail-rolls-past-hard-times.html

      2. It does not seem to have happened yet.

4. [sarcasm] This budget is written by two people who just don’t get that they owe the 10th Legislative District a big one instead of a big owe. Perhaps because they are illegal aliens.

   For without Mary Margaret Haugen being tossed w/ STB help, Barbara Bailey wouldn’t be the critical vote for a Senate Majority Caucus nor help Tracie Eide get promoted. I always knew something was wrong with State Senator Eide… perhaps we can make her an illegal alien as much as that illegal alien from Yakima.

   I hope just as State Senator Bailey helped keep illegal aliens out of our institution of higher learning, her phasers and photon torpedoes from the USS Oak Harbor, NCC-2013 will waste this Borg budget.[/sarcasm]

   1. This is impenetrable, or perhaps just way too ‘inside baseball’ for me. The nonsensical references to “illegal aliens” is particularly nonsensical. If you have something to say, please say it.

      1. Senator Bailey held the line to keep illegal aliens out of some state grant, hence the sarcasm.

5. When I look at transportation funding in the Pacific Northwest…well, boy, I have to shake my head.

   It seems like exorbitant amounts of money are concentrated into very specialized parts of a system…tunnels, for example. While the basic service of transporting a lot of people quickly over long distances…seems to be not a concern at all!

   It’s kind of like some esoteric faux-transit is being built, or there’s someone who doesn’t really want it to be built, or else, simply, crooks are pocketing most of the cash and leaving us with little or nothing to show for it.

   To wit, after 20 years and billions spent, we still have the same traffic problems and congestion. For all but a few places, there is no quick and available all day and weekend rapid transit. There is no fast rail between our sister cities. There is no concern with building any high speed trains where they should naturally be.

   And if you think otherwise, a simple trip to Vancouver BC will quickly leave your jaw hanging open, wondering…what happened in Seattle.

   1. Well said, and true. Of course part of the problem is that Puget Sound “got discovered”. And it’s suffering the pains of growing into a world city. Things are quite nice still; enjoy them while you can, folks.

   2. “or there’s someone who doesn’t really want it to be built,”

      Best evidence is that there are several someones of this sort.

   3. Tunnels and speed are the same thing. If you want speed, it has to be grade-separated, and that’s expensive.

6. I take sounder from Tacoma daily. This hits close to home. Tacoma is getting very little from ST2 due a divided city govt. More sounder service is one the few. This clearly threatens that. The point defiance bypass needs the double track from this project. The Senate’s action here is threat to freight mobility as much as passenger service.

   1. I hope you let your Senator know that you need their help!

7. I’m pretty sure the Tacome trestle rebuild is not required for Amtrak trains to move to the Point Defiance Bypass route or for WSDOT to add the Cascades trips tied to the $800M federal funding. If it were, it would have been included in the Point Defiance Bypass Environmental Assessment. Otherwise, that project wouldn’t have independent utility as a standalone project. I didn’t even see the trestle rebuild among the ‘reasonably foreseeable’ projects included in the cumulative effects analysis of the Environmental Assessment.

   1. If I’m not mistaken, the Point Defiance Bypass EA was done without the assumption of more Sounder round trips. Now that Sound Transit owns that trestle and plans to put more trains on it, the trestle capacity will be needed.

      1. On page 3-2 on the Point Defiance EA

         Sound Transit’s Sounder commuter passenger trains became operational in October 2012 between the

         Tacoma Dome Station at Freighthouse Square in Tacoma and Sound Transit’s Lakewood Station (on the Point Defiance Bypass route). Once fully functional, Sound Transit would operate as many as 18 Sounder trains per day between Freighthouse Square and the Lakewood Station. For this EA, Sounder service is considered as the existing corridor condition.

         And under segment 3.2.5

         Operational changes refer to the type, frequency, and speed of rail traffic that can be expected on a daily
         basis once the Project is completed.
         Amtrak’s existing Cascades and Coast Starlight passenger train service would be rerouted from the Puget
         Sound route to the Point Defiance Bypass route. The Project would also provide for the addition of
         Amtrak’s Cascades service by increasing the number of round trips provided from four to six, or a total of
         12 Cascades service train trips. Amtrak Coast Starlight would also travel on the Point Defiance Bypass
         route for a total of two service train trips. Train speeds along the route would vary from 30 mph for
         Sounder trains to an operating speed up to 79 mph for Amtrak trains on this section of the PNWRC.

      2. Thanks!

         However, that might not apply to this project. See that “between FH Square and Lakewood”? The trestle is east of it – it might be out of the scope of the EA in the first place.

      3. The trestle project wouldn’t be out of scope if the project was required in order for the Cascades and the Coast Starlight to use the Point Defiance Bypass. It would be an essential part of the project.

   2. “I’m pretty sure the Tacome trestle rebuild is not required for Amtrak trains to move to the Point Defiance Bypass route or for WSDOT to add the Cascades trips tied to the $800M federal funding. ”

      I believe this is technically correct.

      However, the Tacoma trestle replacement is required for the next additional Cascades trip in the Long Range Plan *after* the ones tied to the federal funding. And it’s required to meet the time schedule reductions in the Cascades Long-Range Plan. And it’s required for any additional Sounder trip. And it’s required for extending more Sounder trips to Lakewood (yes, really — single-tracking issues).

      And, worst of all, something like 10 years from now, the trestle will deteriorate to the point where its replacement will be required to maintain ANY service. Best to do it now.

      1. Yes, I was speaking to Ben’s point in his original post that stated the trestle project was “required for the state to keep its $800 million in federal high speed rail funding, and therefore a state responsibility.” I don’t know whether the next new round trip would be the tipping point that requires more capacity. The answer to that question may be “it depends”.

         As far as timing goes, remember we are talking about a $50-$60 million dollar project that is part of ST2 and probably hasn’t even been designed yet in any kind of detail. ST evidently already has some cost savings ideas. I doubt that not getting $7M from the Legislature this coming biennium would necessarily cause a delay. I’m sure getting $7M would ‘grease the skids’ though.

         http://www.soundtransit.org/documents/pdf/projects/planning/S25_Sounder_Track_Structure_Updates_Tacoma_Dome_Station_Res.pdf

      2. According to the 2013 TIP, there is about 1.8M budgeted to the project in 2013 & 2014 for PE and environmental permitting.

         Paul, I couldn’t open your link; is it a bad URL?

      3. @aw – I could open it without any problem. It’s a PDF, though.

      4. Weird, it worked on a second try.

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