For those of us in the Southend, a parking garage at Tukwila would be an immense improvement. Many of us drive from Kent Auburn etc. to ride, as Sounder does not offer the schedule flexibility that Light Rail does. By 8AM most days, there is no parking and people are getting creative with local businesses getting irritated. Perhaps ST could negotiate with the casino across the street, as their parking garage is almost vacant.

Those living in the city have buses to shuttle people around. Covington, Black Diamond, Enumclaw and Federal Way have nothing but their car, unless you have the flexibility again to leave at 3 AM and get home at 7 PM riding the bus.

Please note that Capitol Hill, with way more residents and greater density, will only be getting one station. If anything, any excess money that ST has should be used for an additional station there. This article sounds like a lot of whining.

Riding along MLK, I have wished many times it was possible to stop & patronize some of the restaraunts the train passes, but the distance from the station makes it unfeasible. The proximity to the Othello station to the businesses around the station makes them very attractive to folks coming in from Downtown or from the south. If I worked anywhere near a Link station that would be a regular lunch stop for me. I don't buy that building a new station is too difficult. It seems that the beauty of rail transit is it's componentization: you have too many riders, you add cars. You have a place people want to go, you add a station. Simple.

Speaking of additional stations, I work within spitting distance from the Link line in Tukwila. I watch them go by & think that having a station near here would be fantastic, because I am approximately at the half-way point of the 5-mile section between the Rainier Beach & Tukwila stations. I sometimes take my bike on board at Sodo, get off at Tukwila & ride downhill to work, but it is much more discretionary than practical. Having a station along 599 somewhere would be great, but the way the route is built, almost entirely elevated, probably makes it out of the question.

Pet peeve: Does every story about trains have to refer it's motion as "chugging", or include phrases like "All aboard", etc? I don't recall Strunk & White or the AP Stylebook requiring this for all railroad-related stories. As my journalism instructor would say, avoid cliches like the plague!

There's plenty of money for all proposals if the stop is not as opulent as the existing stations. Might be time to turn the page and start building realistic stations, the ones built now are way over the top and in questionable locations. And at SeaTac maybe some system could be put in place to get those who need assistance with luggage to the airport or from the airport. As it is now you need to be young and healthy and wearing and backpack to use the airport access system. I've got a bum knee and I know.

It's laughable at best to compare the new Trimet Max Blue line station in Graham to anything along MLK. The stop in Graham is basically in the woods. Have a look: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=NW+Civic+Drive+and+NW+15th+Street+Gresham,+OR≪=45.508069,-122.44098&spn;=0,0.00052&sll;=45.509808,-122.439997&sspn;=0.006295,0.006295&layer;=c&cbp;=13,279.67,,0,0.09&cbll;=45.508069,-122.44098≷=us&t;=h&z;=21&panoid;=ZEiu2qyLk1NpWkR9W9KViQ

One other factor Bruce Gray probably didn't want to mention. There was lots of pressure during the EIS process to run Link straight down 99 to Tukwila and the suburbs, making it essentially commuter rail and bypassing the densest population area south of Jackson St. The RV alignment was slower and more expensive -- especially the Beacon Hill tunnel -- but served far more people. In order to placate suburban interests, ST had to speed up the RV alignment and not building Graham Street probably shaved a minute off the travel time.

Before anyone from the suburbs gets on their high horse about this, it's worth noting that not building the RV alignment would NOT have resulted in Link being able to make it further south, due to the subarea equity concept baked into ST's enabling legislation at the behest of Rob McKenna and the Eastside.

It's also very dubious to just pick up the phone and ask Trimet how much their infill stations cost. For example, a Graham Street station may well require widening that intersection at MLK, which might in turn require property takes. Did Trimet have to do that? Did Trimet have to rearrange any of the rail signals or caternary? If it's just case of pouring concrete and putting up a shelter and TVMs, a few million will cover it, but a huge number of other factors could serve to increase the cost dramatically.

Regarding Capitol Hill, an additional station north of the planned station would cost literally about 100 times more than a Graham St station -- probably half a billion. Not gonna happen. It's true that Cap Hill is getting only one station, but the station and the frequency of service (probably twice that of the RV) there will be more than adequate to handle Cap Hill's traffic.

Regarding parking at Tukwila, the proposed S 200th St station will have ginormous park'n'rides attached precisely for the reasons that the first commenter mentions. Parking demand at Tukwila has outstripped expectations, but also keep in mind that as the line extends (slowly) south, the demand changes as commuters park closer to home. If ST had built a huge parking structure at Tukwila, it would probably be full now but half empty after S 200th St opens. That wouldn't make sense.

Looking at a map, it seems totally reasonable to add a station at Graham street. It will add another minute or so to the total time to get to the Airport, but if that one minute is the difference between making your flight and missing it you haven't spent 20 minutes in the TSA line!

In a district with as many immigrants as Southeast Seattle, says Pham, “it’s amazing that the signs are only in English.”

I hadn't realized this, as I've only taken the light rail once. New Orleans has Vietnamese on its transit signs — at least those on the St. Charles Avenue streetcar — surely we can do the same.

A hypothetical Graham station "didn’t add ridership," ST deputy executive director Ron Lewis told me; it would merely have served “the convenience of people already there.” So what’s wrong with passenger convenience — isn’t that what builds ridership?

Oh my. I can't believe Lewis actually said this on the record.

bjan wrote: "Regarding Capitol Hill, an additional station north of the planned station would cost literally about 100 times more than a Graham St station -- probably half a billion." So, if we do the math, it looks like bjan estimates that the proposed Graham station would actually cost $50 million. Does that sound right to everyone out there?

Half a billion is five hundred million. Graham St (on the strength of the slender information we have here) is in the ballpark of five million. 500/5 = 100. QED.

Why is it – and I speak from four decades of local journalistic experience – so many bureaucracies in Washington state become so tyrannical?

When I moved here in 1970, my model for bureaucratic absolutism was the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, deservedly notorious from coast to coast for its arbitrary and often gleeful heavy-handedness.

As I soon learned, a few agencies here are infinitely worse.

But these arbitrary Sound Transit decisions of which Mr. Scigliano writes – they take the proverbial cake.

At a time when all public transport in Washington state is increasingly under attack as a form of welfare, Sound Transit intensifies the controversy. It makes itself vulnerable to accusations of malfeasance and bigotry – charges it is not only a willing tool of the developer-lobby but implicitly biased against anyone who doesn't speak or read English – which at the very least is a breathtaking public-relations disaster.

Meanwhile the transit authority's socioeconomic bias – the fact it is dead set against providing light-rail service to Federal Way and Tacoma (no doubt because those areas are relatively low on the Big Bucks scale) – becomes ever more obvious.

Thus even the most gullible Tacomans concluded long ago their share of Sound Transit's light-rail system is nothing but pie-in-the-sky: not only that it will never be built, but that it was never intended to be built.

For those of us who are adamantly pro-transit, as I surely am, the real outrage here is double-edged. First there's the fact such policies ensure the Puget Sound metropolis will remain notorious for the worst public transport in the United States – at least 40 years behind any demographically comparable part of the nation. Secondly but just as damning is the (additional) ammunition this sort of dictatorial management gives mass transit's many enemies.

It's as if the Sound Transit bureaucracy were secretly in league with that inner circle of infinitely rich, obscenely powerful Seattlites who see the Pacific Northwest as their own private country-club – and believe sand-bagging public transport is a sure way to keep out "undesirables": obviously including anyone who (for whatever reason), can't drive a car.

This article and the comments following illustrate why Central Link light rail is such a stupid waste of billions of tax dollars.

For a fraction of the cost of Link light rail, we could have had improved bus service -- Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) -- like the excellent SWIFT bus route between Everett and the Aurora Transit Center. This could have included frequent service, off-board payment, 3 wide doors on each bus, etc.

Adding a BRT bus stop at Graham Street, or anywhere else on the route, would cost very little, and cause virtually no disruption to traffic.

And, because BRT costs a fraction of Link light rail, we could have had several different BRT routes, including "Express" routes, for far less money than the one Central Link light rail route.

So, there could be a BRT Express taking I-5 between downtown and SeaTac airport, taking 10 minutes less time than Link on that route.

Then there could have been a "local" BRT route down MLK Jr Way, serving more stops than Link. Then there could have been a third BRT route down MLK serving basically the same stops as Link does, and also going all the way to Tukwila and SeaTac, for the people who travel between Rainier Valley and the airport or Tukwila.

SWIFT BRT cost about $30 million for a 17-mile route. The three BRT routes I mention above, which could have been built instead of Central Link, would probably have cost less than $30 million each, for a total of under $100 million. This is about 1/25th of the cost of Central Link, and would have provided faster trips between downtown and the airport, and would have served more stops in the Rainier Valley than Central Link.

Is there a cake in Proberbs?

"the fact it is dead set against providing light-rail service to Federal Way and Tacoma"

Lies. Rail to Federal Way and preliminary engineering to Tacoma were in ST2. Both are going to be delayed or abandoned until a future ballot measure because tax revenue in the South King subarea has dropped 30%. If the money was there, ST would build it. It's also idiotic to suggest that ST is biased against poor people or minorities when they spent a huge effort building rail through the low-income, high-minority Ranier Valley rather than building commuter rail past Boeing.

"Thus even the most gullible Tacomans concluded long ago their share of Sound Transit's light-rail system is nothing but pie-in-the-sky"

More lies. Tacoma's share is Tacoma Link and a fleet of express busses that move thousands of people daily between Tacoma, Seattle and the intervening cities.

"Puget Sound metropolis will remain notorious for the worst public transport in the United States"

Total rubbish. I moved here in part because of the decent bus system and the excellent (if not perfect) light rail system that's being built here.

"obviously including anyone who (for whatever reason), can't drive a car."

I don't have a car.

Try learning something before you start running your keyboard.

Oh yeah, and I forgot: Sounder, including the D-to-M-Street project which will extend Sounder to the south. This is what the public in Pierce County wanted ST to spend their money on.

A couple of additional observations:

Where S. 133 St crosses under SR 599 the rail is prepared for a station. This was done under original contract. When the station would be built, was never discussed, but the switching is ready for an add-on station.

People are correct; the original plan was to travel down SR 99. The problem was City of Tukwila saying no, and with all the legal obstacles presented by Tukwila, ST made the decision to drop off the hill and parallel I 5. This was the path of least resistance relating to Tukwila. As far as opulent stations go, I do not know about the airport station, but Tukwila again, had a lot to do with the foolish waste of money on the station there.

Regarding bus vs. light rail, give me light rail any time especially in winter, buses get hung up in traffic all the time. Light rail only is hung up if they are involved in an accident. Perhaps six times in the last 3 years that I can count. I have made the move to LT or Sounder from my car every chance I get. Unfortunately, the opportunity does not present itself to me enough.

More signs in other languages? How about the people learn basic english? I am sorry but this is an english speaking country and it costs $$$ to print all those signs and brochures and hire translators. Money that could be better spent on Transit!

lorenbliss's accusation that Sound Transit is fighting to keep rail from serving low income residents is an outrageous accusation not supported by facts. The same demographic that exists at the Graham Street location also lives/works/shops at locations with stations immediately adjacent. If anything, the vicinity around the Othello station is even poorer than Graham. The fact is that SoundTransit fought to put the line along MLK Way, and many people who opposed it ("Save Our Valley") used the identical rationales of racism and classism to OPPOSE siting rail in those communities. So combining the logic of ST's opponents, it's racist to put Link along MLK, and it's racist to NOT put Link along MLK. Hard for SoundTransit to win that connundrum.

Additionally, the statement that "SoundTransit is dead set against extending rail to Federal Way" as proof of ST's unwillingness to serve low income communities is absurd. The truth is that revenues in the South King County Sub-Area zone have been hit harder by the recession than have other subareas. As a Seattle resident, I'd have no problem with my taxes going towards extending rail in other locales, such as Federal Way or Redmond (or even for a possible tunnel under dt Bellevue), but ST's hands are tied by a policy pushed in large part by rail transit opponents. Sub-Area Equity was a necessary compromise to get high capacity rail built in this region. But using lorenbliss's rationale, apparently SoundTransit is also dead set against extending rail to Redmond, which must have a well-hidden low income population.

Regarding Tacoma, Pierce County has not been as friendly to transit, of any kind, as has King County. The 2008 ST2 vote was rejected by Pierce County voters, even though it was approved by King County. Pierce Transit's bus service has been cut severely as a result of the same drop in revenues faced by ST. SoundTransit is not the problem when it comes to building more transit in this region, and I don't understand why "transit supporters" focus their ire on the one regional agency that's actually buidling a comprehensive multi-modal regional transit system. Maybe people making bogus social justice arguments against SoundTransit should focus their efforts instead on convincing voters to be more supportive of funding transit in a more equitable way than sales taxes?

If you're going to quote me, bjan, wipe away sufficient mouth-froth you can see well enough to quote me correctly: "the worst public transport in the United States – at least 40 years behind any demographically comparable part of the nation."

Anyone knowledgeable in transit issues – and I covered public transport on both coasts and in New York City before I became involved in transit-advocacy here – recognizes the ugly truth of what I wrote: the Puget Sound area has – by far – the worst mass transit of any comparable U.S. urban area. It's not just infinitely better in Portland and Vancouver B.C.; even the chronically backward cities of the South beat Pugetopolis in providing citizens with public transportation.

As to getting by without an automobile, I know of no U.S. urban area where that's more difficult than here. (And, yes, I have lived in Bellingham and Seattle as well as Tacoma, also major cities in Michigan and the South plus Baltimore and of course New York and New Jersey.)

Because Washington was afflicted even more than California by Mad Mall Disease – because there are no longer self-contained urban neighborhoods or midtown central business districts – the shopping trips that typically take an hour or two by car take a day or two, or sometimes three, by bus.

For one who is semi-retired, as I am, this is a vexing theft of time that could otherwise be put to good use. I know of no one who can think uninterrupted thoughts – much less read or write – during the herky-jerky passage of a crowded local bus.

And for someone still in the workforce, dependence on buses adds as much as four hours to the workday, even if one lives and works within the same city limits.

As to the grave and now-prohibitive Tacoma/Pierce County skepticism toward Sound Transit, that too is a matter of public record.

Sound Transit's 2007 ballot measure was rejected in Tacoma and Pierce County by a stunning 57 percent of the voters (73,170 to 54,333 or 57 to 43 percent).

Even with the boosted turnout of a major national election, the transit authority's 2008 ballot measure was again defeated there, 129,536 to 124,856 (51-49 percent).

Moreover, Tacoma/Pierce County is the only district within the Sound Transit area to have defeated the 2008 proposal.

Prior to both elections, letters to the editor at The News Tribune and discussions on its website made it clear the pivotal issue was – just as I said above – voter distrust of the TA's bureaucracy.

Worse, that anti-Sound-Transit skepticism has morphed into hostility toward transit in general. It's intensified by the misguided, Teabagger/Eymanoid notion “transit is welfare,” further reinforced by the Republican campaign of ever-more ginned-up hatred toward lower-income people in general.

Thus the devastating attack on Pierce Transit via last February's special election: a minuscule tax increase, three pennies on a ten-dollar bill, defeated by 73,914 to 62,290, or 54 to 46 percent.

The result is a ruinous 35-percent service reduction. The buses – those still running – now routinely inflict standing-room-only misery on their riders, including those of us who, like myself, are cripples.

Hence bjan I suggest you follow your own advice: "try learning something before you start running your keyboard."

"Maybe people . . . should focus their efforts instead on convincing voters to be more supportive of funding transit in a more equitable way than sales taxes?"

Heh! Dow Constantine, Larry Phillips, Julia Patterson, Greg Nickels, Ron Sims . . . all of them built their careers on pushing sales tax confiscation plans in the name of transit. That's why we have the most regressive tax regime in the country - primarily because of the high sales taxes for Metro and Sound Transit. Those politicians (and the state legislators) had no intention of giving voters the ability to fund transit via progressive taxes.

Look at TriMet in the three-county region around Portland - there's no direct taxing of individuals and families around there for those growing bus and rail services. Same thing in the Twin Cities for the light rail line built in the early 2000's from downtown to the airport (with a tunnel) - no new direct taxing of people was involved. Here the average family of four pays about $455 per year in direct transit taxes. That is FAR higher than in any peer region, and that amount is set to grow year after year for decades because of the bond sales contract security pledges.

Don't blame voters for the terrible financing plan and absolute lack of taxpayer protection provisions in ST2. Voters only were given an abusive tax scheme by the governments' heads around here.

Voters never got the chance to fund transit in more equitable ways than sales taxes because the state and local policy makers didn't want them to have that option. It's disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

It's not just the type of taxing done in the name of transit around here that's so abusive, it's the amount of taxing. Peer regions provide good bus and light rail services for much less local taxing of any type. Here the profoundly abusive technique of securing long term bonds by pledging to collect new local regressive taxes at or near the maximum rates while any of the bonds remain outstanding is used. That means that those bondholder security provisions will require Sound Transit to confiscate about $85 billion in new taxes through 2052 or so, all for a rail system of marginal utility. That's FAR more than is needed to cover capital and reasonable operations costs over the next four decades.

Everyplace else uses little or no new additional long-term bonding for light rail, and instead relies on federal and state grants and diversions of existing income streams to pay for rail infrastructure. Why such a condescending approach to the financial situations of people around here? It stems from how the handful of individuals who call all the policy shots for Sound Transit are completely unaccountable to the millions of people they have the power to tax via the authority delegated by the state to that behemoth local taxing district.

We're being shafted by LOUSY bond-centered financing plans the self-interested lawyers who get rich by taking a cut of the bond sale proceeds designed to enrich themselves.

. . .

"ST's hands are tied by a policy pushed in large part by rail transit opponents."

That's not true. Buried in the 135-page ST2 ordinance (R2008-10 Appendix B, page 7) is the following reference to some financial policies, including subarea equity: "These Financial Policies may be amended from time to time as the Board deems necessary to implement and complete the System Plan." The legal effect of that new language in 2008 was to amend Sound Move (which did tie the board's hands with respect to spending) and create instead a new type of subarea equity policy, one that the board can change if it sees fit.

You don't have to look much farther than the second paragraph to see what should happened to the extra $117 million:

"They’re supposed to be spent in Seattle and North King County, the subarea whose taxpayers originally contributed them."

Maybe get the light rail to Northgate 6 months sooner than planned. Or build a bigger parking structure at Northgate. Or, who knows, a trolley from Northgate to Lake City. This north King county resident would prefer any of these to building another station in Rainier Valley. I would like to take the train from near my house to the airport before I die.

I emphatically agree with under the clouds we need to fund transit "in a more equitable way than sales taxes."

As far as I know, no other state in the union makes mass transit so utterly dependent on local sales-tax revenues.

Alas – as we learn every time the issue is raised – pigs will be born with parachutes before the Ruling Class here allows state tax law to be changed.

Not only is the electorate too easily bamboozled; the politicians of "both" parties are (even more than elsewhere save maybe the South) wholly owned by Big Oil, Big Automotive and the fanatical Don't-Tax-the-Rich cult. Which means the requisite pro-transit tax reform is not just unlikely – it is (uniquely) impossible.

Apropos Sound Transit's discrimination against lower-income locales, under the clouds' own statement implicitly confirms it: "revenues in the South King County Sub-Area zone have been hit harder by the recession than have other subareas."

But the statement "ST's hands are tied by a policy pushed in large part by rail transit opponents" is only partially true.

The main proponents of sub-area equity were those who – repeatedly burned by Seattle's practice of grabbing the meat for itself and leaving only the gristle for everyone else – sought to avoid repetition of the short-changing they'd experienced too many times already, particularly at the hands of Seattle-centric Metro Transit.

Note for example the first Federal Way-Seattle express was initiated c. 1980 or 1981 by Pierce Transit as a Tacoma-Seattle express bus – this despite Federal Way's years of pleading with Metro to provide such routing.

But the administrative largess Pierce Transit demonstrated then is something we'll never see again. Given the present and future realities of capitalism and its war against governmental services, the bottom line is we're all...well, it's a word that starts with "f" and we can't use it in a family newspaper.

Because of the permanent contraction of the economy – because nothing short of revolution will restore the social contract (and that won't happen in the ever-more-submissive United States) – local transit will never again be expanded. Not now, not 50 years from now, not ever. The Ruling Class won't give up the money to finance it.

More likely – as is already happening in Tacoma – our woefully inadequate transit will continue to be downsized until it's gone the way of the Interurban.

More likely the $117 mil will ultimately go to shoring up the finances of the North Corridor HCT project (Northgate to Lynnwood), which is seriously underfunded due to the revenue shortfall in North King.

"More signs in other languages? How about the people learn basic english? "

We have a lot of tourists who come from Japan to watch Ichio play ball. That's $$$ in the pocket, and spending a few $ to have some signs so they know how to get around would be well worth the return on the investment.

the Puget Sound metropolis will remain notorious for the worst public transport in the United States – at least 40 years behind any demographically comparable part of the nation

@lorenbliss, I am so glad to see that someone else realizes this. I've been saying it for years.

I know of no one who can think uninterrupted thoughts – much less read or write – during the herky-jerky passage of a crowded local bus

Again, @lorenbliss, RIGHT ON! That this meme is so persistent speaks to the brainwashing of the transit fetishists. I bought a Vespa in 2003, and have never regretted it. The $20 add-on to car tabs will go down in flames if submitted to the voters (as will the $80(?) the City of Seattle proposes); if passed by a supermajority of King County Council, those members who vote for it will be recalled. The business model for public transportation is irretrievably, irrevocably broken. As you say, nothing short of a revolution will change this...

How about we give the money back to the north corridor and focus on completing the system? Once we've built the regional light rail system as envisioned in Sound Move and reconfirmed by voters TWICE, then we can decided when and where to build additional stations. Remember, this is a regional light rail system, not just King County's.