Seattle City Council member Debora Juarez really, really wanted Sound Transit’s latest taxpayer-funded boondoggle to include a 130th Street station in her North Seattle district. Apparently, the first $50 billion version of Sound Transit 3 (ST3) had light rail heading north from Northgate past 130th and stopping at 145th Street before continuing north.
Due to do the lack of a stop on 130th street, Juarez did what any good liberal elected official is trained to do – try blackmail by threatening to oppose ST3. Via Crosscut:
“On Monday, May 9, [Juarez] calls Mayor Ed Murray, King County Executive Dow Constantine and fellow Councilmember and Sound Transit board member Rob Johnson to say she has a deadline. She isn’t going to immediately denounce the package, but wants to have a plan toward removing the ‘provisional’ status. If the package continues to march forward without the station, that’s when she is going to go to community members and say she will not support it.”
Well, the Sound Transit board — so nonchalant with how they spend taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars, because after all, it’s not their own money — catered to Juarez’s demands. The so-called “revised” $54 billion version of ST3 includes a station at 130th for the price of $80 million.
There was a reason why a stop at 130th was not in the original proposal — even with the spend-crazy Sound Transit board members in charge. Jackson Park Golf Course and low-density housing surround the site. Just last year, Sound Transit predicted a stop at 10th street would “only add 1,500 daily boardings and would slow the trip to Lynnwood by a minute.”
But, what’s another $80 million of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars when you are asking for $54 billion… right?
