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Recent Progress
WSDOT, BNSF Railway and Sound Transit have been working for some time on a preferred track design that works for all users of King Street Station. However, Sound Transit needs the improvements completed to fulfill their contractual commitments to BNSF and begin operating nine daily round trips between Tacoma and Seattle, which they have scheduled for January 2008.
To construct the “preferred” design, the unused I-90 on-ramp from 4th Ave needs to be removed and BNSF needs to purchase two properties. WSDOT has only $3 million available in for this stage of the project, but the costs for this stage are anticipated to exceed $5 million. The ramp removal is scheduled to go to construction in July 2006. The ramp removal and property purchases are scheduled to be complete by November 2006, if the funds are available. Once the ramp removal and property acquisition is completed, the track construction is estimated to take about 20 months, which would mean Sound Transit could not expand their service until at least July 2008 without a change in their agreement with BNSF.
To avoid delaying their serve expansion, Sound Transit has directed BNSF to begin designing a modified track improvement that will fulfill their contractual commitments to BNSF and begin operating nine daily round trips between Tacoma and Seattle in January 2008. However, this will make construction of the “preferred” plan more difficult and costly. The precise cost and schedule ramifications of Sound Transit’s decision are not yet known.
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