Washington taxpayers are being asked to fund Oregon’s costly light rail operations, and Representative-elect John Ley is sounding the alarm. In a recent interview on The Lars Larson Show, Ley highlighted the shocking $22 million annual operations and maintenance cost being pushed onto Washington. With light rail extensions barely crossing into Washington territory, Ley calls the proposal a “Ponzi scheme.” Learn why Ley believes this project is a bad deal for Washington and what steps he plans to take. Watch the full discussion in the video.
Transcript
Lars Larson
Welcome back to the Lars Larson Show. If I told you that the people in one state had a money-losing government operation, and it had fewer users and much higher costs, and they were losing money by the millions every day. But they want somebody in another state to pay that cost. You’d say, well, Lars, that’s kind of crazy, except that exactly describes what’s going on.
Lars Larson
TriMet is the transit agency for the Portland metro area. I don’t think it’s much more fiscally responsible than, say, Sound Transit in Puget Sound. They both waste billions of dollars on transit projects that are not carrying nearly enough people to actually justify those projects. But TriMet, while it’s losing money, has said we want to build billions of dollars of new projects, except we’d like to find somebody to pay the tab for us.
Lars Larson
Representative-elect John Ley joins me now, who follows this issue closely. He’s now been elected to District 18, Position 2, in the Washington State Legislature. John, welcome back to the program.
John Ley
Hey, thanks for having me on. Just when you think the interstate bridge project can’t get any more ridiculous, they come up with something else. And in this case, they want Washington State taxpayers to pay their operations and maintenance costs for a 1.8 to 1.9 mile light rail extension. It’s absolute insanity when both states are having alleged budget deficits and they are unable to fund their own transportation.
John Ley
A different aspect of this whole boondoggle is they’re asking for that 22 million bucks that you cited earlier…
Lars Larson
$22 million a year, not one time. Right?
John Ley
That’s exactly right. And in reality, that is more than triple the actual O&M costs for light rail. So they’re telling the project, we want to fudge the books and demand Washington state come up with more than three times what we’re actually paying to operate the system. And Greg Johnson and the Interstate Bridge Replacement team don’t even bat an eye.
John Ley
They don’t check the veracity of those numbers. They just pass it along. And right now, the Vancouver mayor is begging the C-Tran board of directors to go beg Olympia for the money. Well, this elected legislator says not only no, but heck no.
Lars Larson
Yeah. And in fact, when they beg it from Olympia, they’re saying, can we get everybody in the state of Washington out of the general fund to pay to meet the costs demanded by another state for this project? There was one number I didn’t have, John, because I think people should be stunned to begin with, that it’s a one point.
Lars Larson
As you said, it’s 1.83, maybe 1.9 miles and is more than 2 billion in the estimated cost, assuming they finish at the estimated cost, they may finish a lot higher. It’s already the most expensive light rail project on planet Earth at $1 billion a mile. But how much of that project actually is in the state of Washington? Is it is it even half a mile of the 1.9 miles?
John Ley
Well, they’re saying any number of things, but rough wag. It’s about half of that which would be about 9/10 of a mile.
Lars Larson
9/10 of…
John Ley
I don’t know, exact. Yeah. We still don’t know exactly where it will end. They’re saying an Evergreen Street overpass, but we don’t have the exact location of how they will end that. Those details are not forthcoming yet.
Lars Larson
I mean, it would be crazy enough if they said we have 10,000 ft, roughly, you know, two miles of light rail, and it’s going to be for 10,000 ft. The operations and maintenance is 21 or $22 million a year, but only half of that actually sits in the state of Washington. So it’s almost as though TriMet said the minute we can touch ground on the north side of the Columbia River, then Washington state owes us a giant chunk of money to finance a project of which 99.5% of sits in the state of Oregon.
John Ley
Yeah. And in reality, they’re drawn that line in the middle of the Columbia River for giving up the cost. It’s just such a Ponzi scheme. And as you and I have talked many, many times, what we need to do is get this in front of Elon and Vivek and the DOGE committee so that they can pull the plug on the federal funding on this.
John Ley
That would. And let’s put this to rest once and for all.
Lars Larson
Let me ask you something about representative government. You’re now a newly elected rep to go back to Olympia as a state representative. There are representatives on the C-Tran board. Didn’t the C-Tran board take a firm position on what they were willing to pay on operations and maintenance quite some time ago?
John Ley
They did. A couple of years ago, they said that they, the C-Tran board, would not be responsible for any of the operations and maintenance costs of light rail. Now, you and I would have wished they would have taken that stance saying no Clark County money. They didn’t go that far. But they said none of C-Trans money would go for it.
John Ley
Sadly, a month ago they reversed that position, and last week they were faced with the reality of them reversing that objection. And suddenly the numbers hit them like a freight train. And there was huge consternation by members of the board saying, what on earth are we doing? And the Vancouver mayor pivoted and said, let’s go to Olympia and ask the state for a bailout.
Lars Larson
So that’s o goal. By the way, I sent her a note last night, the mayor of Vancouver, and said, Will you come on the show and explain why you would go to Olympia, ask for money from everybody in one state to pay for a project that sticks about one mile into Washington state? But there’s more outrage to TriMet has said we need to buy new trains.
Lars Larson
How many new trains do they want for this? 1.8 or 1.9 mile extension?
John Ley
They’re demanding 19 brand-new vehicles for this extension. Basically, ten new cars a mile.
Lars Larson
So you’re. But use this back to what TriMet is doing is saying we’re losing $800 million a year. TriMet is. And we don’t have the money to pay for this. So let’s get Vancouver or Clark County or the state of Washington to buy the vehicles. They’re going to almost exclusively run in the state of Oregon. Right?
John Ley
Exactly right. And another part of this outrage is they, TriMet, has said they want basically 10 to $15 million per vehicle to buy those new vehicles. Yet earlier this summer, they just got done paying $4.5 million for vehicles. So they’re jacking up the price triple for what they just paid for these new light rail cars. There are so many facets of this that are a huge rip-off.
John Ley
And frankly, taxpayers in both states ought to be screaming bloody murder and heck no.
Lars Larson
Yeah. And in fact, I think I’ve told you before, I think the whole project is dead anyway because the Coast Guard still hasn’t signed off. I don’t think the Trump administration in transportation is going to sign off. The two states together, even with the federal money they have now, have barely half the money they need to build the project.
Lars Larson
And they’re planning on starting construction when? 2026?
John Ley
Yes, exactly right. That’s when they hope to put the first shovel on the ground. But between now and then, they’ve got the Coast Guard to approve this, which you and I hope and suspect they’re not going to approve. A bridge too low. They’re hoping to get the Federal Transit Administration to approve another billion dollars, which hopefully won’t happen under the Trump administration.
John Ley
And they’ve got their own huge problems. Oregon’s got a $3 billion funding shortfall on their 2017 transportation projects, and Washington state has well over $1 billion that our WASDOT is begging for just to keep our roads and bridges safe. Both states shouldn’t be wasting money on this boondoggle.
Lars Larson
No. And in fact, there was one other issue I wanted to ask you about, and it just slipped my mind. But the. Oh, I know what I want to ask you about. This has been voted three times in Clark County, 1995, I think 2012, 2013. They voted on three times and the voters said no every time.
Lars Larson
Any chance of getting it on the ballot?
John Ley
Well, the C-Tran board talked about increasing the sales tax for this light rail. All of them, if they couldn’t get the state to bail it out. And I have no doubt the voters would say, heck no. Far too many people are already having a tough time making ends meet. And that swerves into another facet of this.
Lars Larson
Hold on a second, John. That’s John Ley, who’s Representative Clark heading off to Olympia. We’ll talk about that another time.
