How much would Sound Transit 3 cost you? Try the online calculator

sound transitWant to know what the Sound Transit 3 proposal would cost you? Our online news partner The Seattle Times has prepared this calculator here.

Sound Transit says its fall ballot measure would cost a typical adult $14 per month in new taxes, “which is a friendlier way of breaking down a yearly estimate of $169,” the Times said. The story goes on to note that “your own lifestyle, though, is surely anything but average.”

The No on ST3 campaign has already published its own calculator, and a message that “all these taxes will NEVER solve our traffic problems.” Sound Transit says it will also create a tax calculator soon.

The $54 billion measure that will appear on the November 2016 general election ballot features light-rail extensions to Everett, South Kirkland, Issaquah, Tacoma, West Seattle and Ballard, as well as added South End commuter-train capacity, and bus rapid transit in the Interstate 405 and Highway 522 corridors.

Sound Transit’s Link light rail system is already being extended to Lynnwood, with a stop at the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center, with expected completion by 2023.

  1. Actually, it includes every man, woman and child for about $15/mo. or about $45 per month for the average household.

    Anyone that uses the “calculator” published by Sound Transit is pretty crazy. What? You think they were telling the truth?

  2. You should be glad you have that service available to you. People in other communities are dying for this kind of service and access.

  3. More money, more money, more money. If your retired and on a fixed income, there is no more money!!

    1. Agree Agree Agree. That is why my wife and I will not vote for it or any other transit boondoggle. We will encourage all of our friends and family members to vote NO NO NO!!

  4. How often are we asked how much it costs for roads and cars? It’s not just the freeway construction and maintenance costs, but citizens are forced to buy a car to use such infrastructure so that’s essentially a tax that needs to be factored into any comparison. Not to mention the environmental and health related costs of auto-based transit. Mass transit like ST3 is a much better deal – in fact, it doesn’t go far enough.

  5. The best way to find out your costs is at st3tax.com – That is because it tells you the total cost for all of the years that projects are to be constructed, not just the first year, which is what the Seattle Times website will tell you. It is telling that, despite ST being asked by public officials to put a calculator on their website, they have declined. They are hoping that “service available” is the winning argument, hoping that taxpayers don’t realize that this package does little for today’s commuters, with the bulk of projects not completed for 20-25 years in many cases, and that’s if they are delivered on time. This also assumes that you’ll still be alive in 2041 and wouldn’t be priced out of wherever you presently live. Consider this: did you live in the same place 1991? Was this area the fastest-growing market back then? Even the st3tax.com calculator is a conservative estimate, for it assumes zero inflation, and it doesn’t predict other places that sales taxes might be levied: services and more widely on Internet purchases being the most likely. The latter two are possible in response to the state funding shortfall in funding schools, a.k.a. “The McCleary decision.”

    1. Once a tax gets in it always seems to grow grow grow in the years to come. You simply cannot “believe” the ST3 calculator. Once it is in and grows your property tax in future years, it is too late to say I told you so. My wife and I, our friends and family will be voting NO, NO NO.

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