Sound Transit is using the word "cuts" now — not "deferrals," not "available funding constraints" — and Seattle's 2035 growth plan showed up right on top of that like nobody told it what kind of day this was. This is Seattle Politics and Urbanism Daily. Today, KUOW is saying the ST3 situation more plainly than the board did, Seattle 2035 lands in the middle of a very awkward moment, and the state's middle-housing mandate is on the books — while the legal ground under it is still moving. The board voted, the deferrals are locked, and now Sound Transit itself is saying "cuts." So if anybody still wants to call this just a financing conversation, go update your script. We've got a lot of numbers to run against some very optimistic planning documents. Let's get into it. Joshua Mcnichols, writing in KUOW:
Sound Transit will celebrate opening a light rail connection across Lake Washington later this month, but behind the excitement, the agency faces a brutal financial future. Sound Transit can't deliver on its ST3 promises to voters by 2046 as planned.
KUOW's framing this morning is worth sitting with — not "available funding constraints," not "phased delivery," but "cannot be delivered on time." That's the agency's own path, in plain English, and it's a lot sharper than what the board was saying on Wednesday. And while Dow Constantine is out there saying the agency is on "firm financial footing," Sound Transit is in a room deciding which lines get cut. Those two sentences are not living in the same reality. To keep the thread straight: we've gone from overrun numbers, to board resolutions, to a Wednesday strategy session where "cutting projects" is now officially on the table. The 2046 promise doesn't pencil out — that's where the ST3 triage story is today. Boeing Access Road, Tukwila, South King — those have to be named in that strategy session, or they vanish into "portfolio adjustments." Once you're "considering cuts," that's the fork in the road: fight for those corridors, or watch them get dropped quietly. Here's the source:
This report describes a revised proposal for updating Seattle’s Neighborhood Residential zoning, including visualizations of potential outcomes. Neighborhood Residential currently represents Seattle’s lowest-density residential zoning and consists primarily of detached homes. We published an initial proposal in March 2024. This revised proposal includes changes that respond to feedback received…
This NR zoning proposal is dated October 2024 — the version the city used to hit the HB 1110 compliance deadline of June 30, 2025. So the upzone is already on the books. But the Comp Plan appeals are still in the Court of Appeals, and nobody seems to have a clean answer for Seattle's legal exposure if those appeals succeed after the city already rebuilt its whole NR framework around the comp plan update. Now put that document next to KUOW's ST3 cuts story from this morning. HB 1110 says build housing near transit. Seattle complied. The transit those units are supposed to be near is now under active review for cuts. That's a direct collision, right now. This one's from City of Seattle:
In 2023, the Washington State Legislature adopted House Bill 1110, often referred to as the “middle housing” bill. HB 1110 requires many cities in the state to allow a broader range of housing types in areas that have allowed predominantly detached homes. In Seattle, these requirements would apply in areas zoned Neighborhood Residential (NR) or Residential Small Lot (RSL).
Seattle hit the June 30, 2025 deadline — the NR upzone is on the books. But the Comprehensive Plan appeals are still moving through the Court of Appeals, and that plan is the legal scaffold under the new NR zoning. If an appeal wins after the city has already reworked zoning around the comp plan update, I don't think anybody has a clean read on the exposure. The state said "comply by June 30, 2025" — and this PDF is from October 2024. That's eight-plus months of process on a mandate that was already law. How many fourplexes sat on the shelf while Seattle was still workshopping the document? And here's the collision in today's rundown: HB 1110 requires six units within a quarter mile of a major transit stop. KUOW is reporting Sound Transit is actively considering light rail cuts. Those two things are on the same page today — and the density math assumes the transit is coming. The Urbanist's Seattle 2035 piece is sitting right next to the ST3 cuts story — the city is planning regional growth nodes while the rail lines meant to serve them are being trimmed in real time. Somebody needs to put those documents side by side in a council chamber and ask which one is actually real. The Urbanist writes:
Seattle’s major comprehensive plan update is entering its final stages before final adoption mid-year. Mayor Ed Murray released his Recommended Plan last week, which covers everything from future land use and implementation policies to existing capital facilities and future infrastructural needs. The plan, known as Seattle 2035, is a whopping 580 pages in length and charts a new path for the city over the next two decades.
The Urbanist is out with its read on Seattle 2035 — the recommended plan charting the city's growth through the next decade. And the timing is almost cruel: a 580-page plan for growth nodes and transit-served density lands the same morning KUOW says Sound Transit is actively considering light rail cuts. The city is publishing a growth plan that assumes the transit spine voters approved, and Sound Transit is over there sharpening scissors. Nobody is putting those two documents on the table together. HB 1110 is the connective tissue here — the state mandate requires housing density near transit, and Seattle upzoned to comply by June 30. That's done. But the Comp Plan appeals are still moving through the Court of Appeals. If those appeals succeed after the city already restructured Neighborhood Residential zoning around this plan, what's the actual legal exposure? Nobody's asked that directly yet. And South King — if the 2035 recommended plan is built around regional growth corridors that include those South King nodes, and ST3 cuts are now in active consideration, Tukwila and Boeing Access Road aren't just a line item getting deferred. They're part of a growth plan built on a foundation that's being actively pulled apart. Transportation Choices writes:
Transportation Choices has worked for three decades supporting transit agency funding measures and the delivery of voter-approved projects. At Sound Transit, we championed the Sound Transit 3 “ST3” measure in 2016, which passed with 54% support across the Puget Sound region. ST3 continues the work of building out a light rail system that will be one of the highest-impact transportation projects in the state.
Transportation Choices published this back in September 2023 — it frames Sound Transit delivery as an equity and efficiency problem to solve. That was before KUOW was saying "cannot be delivered on time." The gap between those two framings is where we are now. TCC spent three decades championing funding measures. Fine. ST3 passed with 54 percent. Also fine. But "equitable delivery of voter-approved projects" is doing a lot of work when Sound Transit is now "actively considering cuts" — that's KUOW's language, not the board's careful "available funding" framing. At some point advocacy has to deal with the gap between what got voted on and what actually gets built. The piece is from 2023, so it predates the board resolutions we've been tracking all week. Reading it now is a little like finding a pre-game press release the morning after a loss. Got thoughts on today's Seattle stories, a correction, or something we should chase next? Send us a note at seattledailyfix at lantern podcasts dot com. We do read them, and they help shape the show.
You can find links to every story we talked about today in the show notes. If something stuck with you, that's the easiest place to dig in a little more.
That's Seattle Politics and Urbanism Daily for this Friday, May 29th. This is a Lantern Podcast.