Mayor's legacy is riding on light rail

No one will be happier when Sound Transit's light-rail trains roll forward for the first time Saturday morning than Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.

He's pushed for those trains for more than two decades, through delays, exploding cost estimates, voter rejections and calls to scrap the whole project. Now chairman of the Sound Transit board, Nickels is the panel's longest-serving member, and his legacy will be forever linked to light rail.

As he seeks a third term — amid shabby poll numbers and attacks from multiple strong challengers — Nickels and his advisers hope the sight of Sound Transit trains moving through the city will remind voters of his role in finally bringing big-city transit to Seattle.

True, the initial light-rail line is years late and seven miles shorter than what voters were told when they approved the Sound Move plan in 1996.

The line runs 14 miles, from Tukwila to downtown Seattle, and is scheduled to reach Seattle-Tacoma International Airport by the end of the year. Extending it to the city of SeaTac and Seattle's University District, as originally promised, will bring the cost of the entire line to about $5 billion — about double initial estimates.

Nevertheless, traffic-weary voters showed confidence in Sound Transit last year, approving an $18 billion extension of light rail to Lynnwood, Federal Way, and the Overlake Transit Center, at the edge of Microsoft's headquarters.

Nickels personally led that campaign, defying skeptics who said light rail should wait, given the recession and the defeat of a roads-and-transit package a year earlier.

In an interview, Nickels said although "no one person" can take credit for light rail, he's been in the fight as long as any elected leader.

"I've been there to be counted on on that issue for a long time, and I think that should count for something with voters," he said.

Despite all its difficulties, Nickels said within 15 years Sound Transit will connect with the vast majority of jobs and households in the Seattle area, providing an alternative to crowded freeways.

"That will transform the way people get around," he said.

1988

Nickels' light-rail record goes back to 1988, when as a new Metropolitan King County Council member from West Seattle, he co-sponsored an advisory ballot measure asking voters if they wanted to accelerate planning for a light-rail line "so that service in King County can begin before the year 2000."

While the measure had no money attached, the strong voter approval convinced politicians the public wanted trains more than buses.

"Frankly, it annoyed a lot of us because we were moving at that point toward a bus rapid-transit system," said state Sen. Fred Jarrett, D-Mercer Island, who served on an early transit advisory group. "That was the coffin nail for bus rapid transit being the central investment."

Instead, light rail became the main selling point of the Sound Move plan voters approved in 1996, after rejecting a larger proposal in 1995.

But by the time Nickels ran for his first term as Seattle mayor in 2001, Sound Transit's light-rail plan was mired in a financial crisis after ballooning cost estimates destroyed plans for the first segment to reach the University District and the airport.

Then-City Attorney Mark Sidran, running against Nickels, called it a "train to nowhere" and mocked Nickels' role as chairman of Sound Transit's finance committee.

Nickels blamed Sound Transit staff for withholding information about rising costs and refused to back away from the project.

"I felt like I had light rail stapled to my forehead that year," Nickels recalled. "I decided it was worth risking defeat rather than running away from something I believed in."

Nickels didn't extend the same loyalty to the effort to build a 14-mile Seattle monorail. While he'd previously supported the voter-approved project, Nickels yanked city support for the monorail in 2005 after its risky financial plan came under fierce criticism.

Perhaps Nickels most direct role in Sound Transit's future has come in the past couple of years, when he led the push to persuade voters to extend light rail into the suburbs even before the initial segment opened.

Sound Transit's board had wanted to ask voters for an expansion as early as 2006. But the Legislature demanded that the rail plan wait so it could be paired with a major roads package. The combined measure failed, opposed by environmentalist groups opposed to any expansion of roads.

Nickels quickly called for Sound Transit to try again in 2008, counting on a presidential election year to bring out a younger, pro-transit crowd. Some initially skeptical board members came around to Nickels' position after some negotiations and tweaks to the plan.

"I think Greg was extremely patient with those of us who hadn't made up our minds. There were no threats ... no arm twisting. He did a very good job of allowing us to come to our own conclusions," said King County Councilmember Julia Patterson, who initially was one of the skeptics.

Before he agreed to support the expansion, Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon negotiated with Nickels to extract a promise of express-bus service for parts of his county that light rail would not reach for more than a decade.

"He and I are very direct personalities; I respect him," Reardon said. "I think he has been very effective. When he became chair his number-one priority was to develop a package that voters would support. He did that."

Light rail is not an issue in this year's mayoral race the way it was in 2001. Even Nickels' opponents generally acknowledge his record as a Sound Transit stalwart.

Mike McGinn, a former Sierra Club leader running for mayor, does question Nickels' overall transit record, arguing the mayor hasn't protected city bus service and championed an anti-transit replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct with the $4.3 billion tunnel project.

King County Metro faces the possibility of deep cuts to bus service because of a chronic financial crisis.

"Light rail is great. But we have immediate transit needs that require more immediate action," McGinn said. Although bus service is run by the county, not the city, McGinn has made it a central theme of his campaign.

There are still light-rail critics who maintain an expanded bus system would be less costly and reach more people than the light-rail network.

But John Niles, a longtime bus rapid-transit advocate and light-rail foe, acknowledged that last year's lopsided pro-rail vote pretty much ended that debate for now.

Come Saturday, when the trains finally start running, Nickels deserves the credit or blame, however light rail works out, Niles said.

"Whatever happens, it really is Greg Nickels' train," he said.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com