Issaquah Claims Victory at Sound Transit, Despite Rail Delay to 2050
The mood was celebratory at Issaquah's historic train depot this past Monday night for a community meeting, a fact that seemed to disguise the fact that just a few days earlier the Sound Transit board had voted to delay the city's planned light rail line by more than half a decade. Issaquah Mayor Mark Mullet, who has thrown himself headlong into advocacy for the proposed 4 Line between South Kirkland and Issaquah since being elected last year, framed the outcome as a big win.
The 4 Line's delay to 2050 – after initially being scheduled for 2041 when voters approved the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) package – came as part of a larger rebalancing of Sound Transit's system expansion plans. A project dubbed the Enterprise Initiative, spun up in response to a budget shortfall that threatened project timelines by the early 2030s, forced the Sound Transit board to reckon with some tough choices.
By Thursday's vote, the agency had shrunk a projected $34.5 billion shortfall to around $10 billion in unfunded projects, Issaquah's light rail line not among them.
"We can change our purple shirts from 'Save Issaquah Light Rail' to 'Saved Issaquah Light Rail,'" Mullet said. "After the mayoral election, everybody I met with said, 'Prepare to be cut out of the light rail path,' because they were like Sound Transit has this $35 billion deficit, the Issaquah line is going to get cut and you guys are screwed and you have to wait until ST4."
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