Sound Transit, the Puget Sound’s public transit agency, has provided light rail, buses, and commuter rail for the Seattle region since 1999. Despite the agency’s successes in delivering new transit projects, on Sept. 11, Sound Transit acknowledged in a public board meeting that it faced a $20-40 billion shortfall in its system expansion plans. This acknowledgement put the roadmap for completing Sound Transit 3, a voter-approved ballot measure that would expand the current light rail network, in jeopardy. The project would deliver light rail to Ballard, West Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Kirkland, and Issaquah. Additionally, the 2025 Seattle mayoral election is scheduled for Nov. 4, 2025. The issue of light rail system expansion and the state of the Puget Sound’s transportation network was a discussion point for both mayoral candidates, Katie Wilson and incumbent Bruce Harrell, during a debate held on Oct. 2.
The Puma Press reached out to both campaigns on the importance of public transportation.
“Katie is absolutely like the transit expert, the transit nerd, but she’s much more than that, too. Projects like the G line (a bus rapid transit line running from Downtown Seattle to Madison Valley, completed in September of 2024)…those sorts of infrastructure projects are things that we can expect Katie to work on and advance rapidly,” lead organizer of the Katie Wilson campaign, Matt McIntosh said.
As a member of the Seattle community, Wilson knows that Sound Transit faces funding issues and will need to make sacrifices on its expansion plans. McIntosh believes that she has fought for greater transit expansion for many years through her work in the Transit Riders Union, and that she would continue advocating for the completion of transit projects on time as mayor.
“Katie’s background is as the founder and leader of the transit riders union. She started her work there by organizing to protect bus lines that were slated to be cut during the austerity years. She knows that we have to stand up and fight for this,” McIntosh said.
When the Puma Press reached out to Sound Transit spokesperson Henry Bendon on the issue of budget problems with future light rail expansion projects, Bendon did not give a direct response. Instead of addressing the long-term funding challenges that were publicly acknowledged by the agency in September, Bendon chose to refute the claim that the 2025 budget did not have to be addressed, a claim that was not made by the Puma Press.
“One thing of note: There are no near-term budget issues that would need to be addressed in the 2025 budget,” Bendon said.
Despite no issues with the 2025 Sound Transit budget, Sound Transit was still forced to adapt to the fact that the agency does not have enough money to complete ST3 on time, a project still planned to be completed by 2041. In August of 2025, the Sound Transit board approved Motion M2025-36, an initiative that aimed to ensure the delivery of ST3 projects within a budget that can be paid for.
“The Enterprise Initiative (Motion M2025-36) is designed to help us with long term changes in project cost and projected revenues,” Bendon said.
As a current member of the Sound Transit Board, incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell has worked to prevent delays and put ST3 on a schedule that delivers projects in a strategic and timely manner.
“I firmly believe that the best approach to managing costs is advancing our projects as quickly as possible. Every day of delay adds unnecessary expense to taxpayers. That’s why Seattle has taken unprecedented steps to support Sound Transit’s work,” Harrell said in a public statement on August 29th.
Despite revisions in the plan to deliver light rail to the Puget Sound region, Sound Transit Board Chair Dave Somers believes that Sound Transit’s immediate goal should be finishing the “spine,” or completing light rail on a north-south axis from Everett to Tacoma.
“Let’s finish the spine. Let’s connect Everett and Tacoma. Ultimately, we want to finish the whole package, but I think over the next coming months I’ll argue, let’s do what’s most economical and get our biggest bang for a buck,” Somers told The Center Square, a nonprofit news organization based in Washington State.
However, Mayor Bruce Harrell has contradicted this statement, saying that he believes that the agency should prioritize getting light rail to places where it is needed most, such as the West Seattle and Ballard neighborhoods of Seattle.
“As we evaluate our options, we must prioritize delivering projects that will deliver the greatest ridership and serve the densest communities. The West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions represent exactly this kind of strategic investment—connecting vibrant, growing neighborhoods with high ridership potential to our regional transit network,” Harrell said in the same statement.
A resident of Ballard, sophomore Julia Cutting believes that light rail is necessary to get around Seattle, especially due to the inefficiency of the bus network, and that therefore Seattle is the city that needs more of it.
“I think having a light rail is a great way to transport from place to place,” Cutting said. “And busses are great, but busses can take a while, and having a light rail just quickly getting you from one location to another, and then being able to transfer onto another light rail, I think that’s crucial for us.”
Cutting, a Ballard resident, says that she would take the light rail to get around Seattle if she still lived there in 2039, when the Ballard light rail extension is planned to begin service. She often takes the bus to get around the city from her neighborhood, but having a light rail nearby would provide a valuable alternative.
“I definitely take the bus more often than the light rail right now, and I think especially because right now I have to go all the way to Roosevelt to take the light rail, and so it’s easier to just take the bus places. But if I was still a kid and still living in Ballard and there was a light rail, I think that would be my go-to,” Cutting said.
Many other students and faculty rely on the Seattle region’s public transportation network to commute or for recreation. A poll surveyed by the Puma Press found that 28.5% of the student body takes public transportation sometimes or daily to or from school. Additionally, 67.5% of respondents said that they lived within 10 minutes of a light rail station. Clearly, transit is a core part, or could be a core part, of how students get around.
As both candidates face a tight race to City Hall, a central theme of the race has become how Seattle’s two mayoral candidates can best prioritize public transportation, an issue that is a key part of how Seattle functions day-to-day.
Want to see Sound Transit’s expansion map?
