A heated Bellevue Mayor Don Davidson accused the Sound Transit board Thursday of ignoring the city's preferences when it comes to light-rail routes for South Bellevue.

Sound Transit has bypassed a South Bellevue route endorsed months ago by a divided City Council which would send trains east along I-90 before jogging north on the BNSF Railway. The board instead has pushed forward with a route that would head north on Bellevue Way Southeast and 112th Avenue Southeast. By supporting the Bellevue Way route, Davidson said the transit board essentially had been telling Bellevue residents and businesses that its local government was irrelevant.

"You’re all elected officials and with it you all have constituencies you represent," Davidson said during a regular transit board meeting. "How would you like an agency to come in, go door-to-door and tell your citizens and businesses that your local government is irrelevant to the decisions being made?"

"Shame on you," he added.

Davidson spoke to the transit board during a discussion about six potential light-rail routes for 112th and the location of a Bellevue hospital station. The transit board supported a west-side route for 112th and also endorsed a hospital station for further study and engineering.

Davidson added that the council's preferred route would provide faster travel times and avoid conflicts with traffic. It also would make it easier to extend light rail east and south, he said.

But several board members appeared displeased with Davidson's remarks. Board member and King County councilmember Julia Patterson said she was concerned that Bellevue would not uphold its agreement to help fund a tunnel. The board and the city have a tentative agreement to split the costs of paying for a tunnel, which could add as much as $320 million in costs to the project. Bellevue has agreed to contribute about $150 million, while Sound Transit agreed to find $75 million in cost cuts, including choosing the straighter and more affordable 112th Avenue Southeast route.

The agency has said the council's preferred route along I-90 and the BNSF would make a tunnel too expensive.

"We bent over backwards to make it possible for Bellevue to have a tunnel," Patterson said. "I’m going to be watching very closely now that we’ve heard from the mayor of Bellevue, considering the way we have been chastised today. ... I hope we’re able to move forward with Bellevue’s tunnel."

Board member Dave Enslow asked Davidson if the city still wanted a tunnel, and Davidson said yes. But Enslow later said he was still skeptical about Bellevue's commitment to paying for the tunnel.

"I’m left to wonder if we don’t have that funding partnership in place and it's not robust and enthusiastic, is there a reason to spend a whole lot of public money on a tunnel that may never get built?" he said.

Board member Joe Marine said he was "slightly offended" Davidson tried to shame the board for its decisions.

Marine, mayor of Mukilteo, said Sound Transit's board had regional representatives to make sure that the route was affordable and served the entire area.

"If Bellevue ran this board, I’m sure you’d get exactly everything you wanted," he said. "That’s why it’s not a Bellevue board, it’s a regional board."

After further engineering and study, the transit board's final decision on routes for East Link, scheduled to open in 2021, should come next year.