PSA: ST3's deficit is down to $11-13 billion
I keep waiting for the news to report on this so I can just post the article, but it's been three days and none of the outlets I follow have done so. So I guess I'll do it myself.
At the beginning of the year, Sound Transit's annual budget said, "[P]rojections estimate $34.5 billion in cost savings or new funding required to fully fund the ST3 program." Last Thursday, on May 7th, Sound Transit reported that the various cost-savings efforts over the last year have lowered that number to "$11-13B for capital investments that aren’t currently affordable". Sound Transit, in typical Sound Transit fashion, buried the good news in a bullet point on slide 37 out of 46, so the Board had to ask them to clarify, but their answer did confirm that the deficit is, in fact, way down.
Additionally, in a follow up question to the above, Sound Transit acknowledged that "the lack of dates creates this impression that things will not happen" and said "we can commit to bringing additional information relative to the time impacts [on "not currently affordable" projects]" by the board meeting on May 28th (see this timestamp from the video above). It remains to be seen exactly what that "additional information" will look like -- Boardmember Kristina Walker suggested date ranges, but the agency's answer sounded like they were thinking of a list of scenarios.
The headlines about how the current proposal still stops short of getting to Ballard are also true, of course. The proposal we saw Thursday isn't where it needs to be. It's important to keep going, to have an actual plan to build all the damn trains, not just hope and good intentions. It's also important to acknowledge the progress that has been made. Overly-negative misinformation only serves the car lobby.