Bellevue City Council in Washington agreed last month to support a light-rail tunnel in the city.
City staff drafted a letter to Sound Transit supporting a tunnel that will run along 110th Avenue Northeast.
The cost of the tunnel exceeds the budget for that section of East Link, the light-rail line that will run from Seattle to Overlake. City manager Steve Sarkozy, however, explained ways the city could cut project costs.
The cuts included contributing back to the project additional sales-tax and business-tax revenues the city receives as a result of the light-rail project, helping to make city property along the route more affordable. According to Sarkozy, the cuts would be worth between USD 104M and USD 150M.
Sarkozy also said that Sound Transit staff could find ways to cut costs, such as applying savings from other parts of the line to the tunnel.
Last year, the council endorsed a tunnel that would run underneath 106th Avenue and would have cost some USD 600M more than East Link’s budget. Sound Transit staff then began studying the shorter and cheaper 110th Avenue tunnel.
