Improving access to transit: The plan expands travel and job opportunities throughout the region. People who live, work and study in regional centers will be attracted to improved transit options. For example, one in five people use transit for work and college trips in the University District today; with Sound Transit 2, that number will increase to one in three by 2030. In Bellevue, that number increases by 50 percent, from 8 percent to 12 percent by 2030. The addition of 36 miles of light rail, plus expanded Sounder and ST Express service, will increase travel options and may make it possible to reduce the number of cars per household, the number of annual miles driven, and/or the cost of vehicle operation and maintenance.
Boosting the economy: Improving transit capacity and reliability allows employers throughout the region to attract a broader base of workers and have better access to goods and services. Increased transit use reduces highway delay for personal, business and freight travel.
Improving the environment: With studies suggesting that transportation is responsible for more than half the region's carbon footprint (generation of greenhouse gases), Sound Transit 2 helps the environment. The high-capacity transit system will take cars off highways and, compared to doing nothing, reduce the number of miles driven and fuel used each day – resulting in less air pollution and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
Supporting livable communities: Throughout the United States, light rail stations help support the development of compact, urban, sustainable communities. Sound Transit 2 was developed to help achieve the land use and transportation demand management goals identified in Vision 2040 and Destination 2030, the region's long-range growth strategy and transportation plans. Vision 2040 and Destination 2030 make clear that our long-term transportation needs require a region-wide transit system that supports transit-oriented development around stations and serves our high-density population, employment and activity centers (such as Northgate, Bellevue and Lynnwood) with seamless connections between local transit, regional transit and ferries. Sound Transit 2 supports locally adopted land use plans by providing transit infrastructure to serve more dense development in population centers, helping the region absorb projected growth of more than 1.2 million new residents by 2030.
In 2008, the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) Executive Board unanimously found that the Sound Transit 2 Regional Transit System Plan conforms to the regional plans. Employment in urban Pierce, King and Snohomish counties is expected to increase by about 600,000 jobs. Sound Transit 2 will provide high-capacity transit service to over 75 percent of the employment in PSRC-designated urban centers in 2030.
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