New plan would take light rail to Sea-Tac

Sound Transit, the Port of Seattle and SeaTac city officials yesterday announced a plan that would allow light rail to go from downtown Seattle to Sea-Tac Airport, instead of falling 1.7 miles short.

And it could be done without Sound Transit's having to ask voters for more money, the officials said.

If successful, the plan would ease one of the most-ridiculed aspects of a light rail project that was sold to voters as a 21-mile line, but was scaled back when it ended up costing more than twice as much as expected.

Before yesterday's announcement, the plan called for the 14-mile line to end at South 154th Street. Travelers would then have to lug their suitcases onto shuttle buses to get the rest of the way to the airport.

Sound Transit officials were buoyant at a news conference unveiling the plan to complete the segment to Sea-Tac.

"Light rail is a line to somewhere," said Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, vice chairman of Sound Transit's board.

By 2020, Sound Transit officials estimate that about 3,000 riders a day would board trains at the airport for a 33-minute ride to downtown Seattle.

Work on the final segment to the airport is expected to be finished by December 2009, a few months after the rest of the line is expected to open, and in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C.

King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac, said the line would bring benefits far beyond the Olympics.

"You won't have to pay for parking. You won't have to find a shuttle bus. You won't have to wait," she said.

Port Commissioner Paige Miller said: "All of us have worked to get Sound Transit to go all the way to the airport. We're keeping our promise to do that."

Sound Transit critic Emory Bundy did not know the details of the plan, but said he was skeptical Sound Transit could really find its $225 million share of the cost of the proposal.

The total $300 million plan would also alleviate congestion around the airport by widening state Route 518 and make street improvements in SeaTac.

Tacoma City Councilman Kevin Phelps, a Sound Transit board member, said the agency's finance committee will begin discussing a financing plan in February and could be finished by the end of that month or in March.

Phelps, who chairs the finance committee, said the agency could come up with the money, partially from about $57 million it has left over from building the rest of the light rail's initial segment. Some costs have come in under budget and the agency has gotten more car-tab revenue than it expected.

Also, Phelps said the agency had been estimating higher interest rates than has been the norm, and it could reduce financing costs by allowing loan repayments to take up a greater share of its revenue. And he said the agency could get federal grants.

At the same time, Phelps was confident the agency would not see its cost estimates skyrocket as in the past.

For one thing, the extension does not have to go through tunnels, but would run on the ground or in an elevated structure. Martin Schachenmayr, Sound Transit's light rail program control manager, said changes the agency has made in coming up with cost estimates have made them more accurate.

As part of the deal, the port agreed to pay part of the $25 million cost of adding an eastbound lane on a one-mile stretch of state Route 518. Sound Transit officials in turn pledged to help push the state to help pay for the work.

The port estimates that by 2020, traffic will be backed up from state Route 518 to the parking garage and that it will take 20 minutes to get from the garage to the highway. Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, Sound Transit's chairman, said SR 518 would have to be expanded regardless of light rail, and would have to be expanded more if light rail were not being built.

State Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said he had not been briefed on the plan, but that it would be difficult for the state to find the money without additional revenue.

The 5-cents-a-gallon gas tax increase legislators passed last year is already spoken for, he said. Murray said it would be possible to come up with the money if a coalition of businesses and environmentalists are successful in persuading the Legislature to pass an additional 10-cents-a-gallon gas tax.

The plan, which officials said was a testament to Sound Transit, the Port of Seattle and the city of SeaTac working together, involves a number of facets.

The light rail line, once leaving the South 154th Street station, would run along the center of an expanded Airport Expressway, which runs from state Route 518 to the terminals.

Then the train line would rise in an elevated structure to an airport station adjacent to the fourth level of the parking garage, roughly where there are now ramps circling back to the terminals.

Travelers would enter the terminal from the station through a roughly 1,000-foot sky bridge.

A second sky bridge from the station would cross International Boulevard to downtown SeaTac, and the "Back to Terminal" ramps from the parking garage would be replaced by new ones.

P-I reporter Kery Murakami can be reached at 206-448-8131 or kerymurakami@seattlepi.com

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