The Issaquah City Council voted unanimously to support light rail Proposition No. 1, Sound Transit 3, at the Sept. 19 meeting.

The decision came minutes after a public hearing was held, during which eight citizens gave their viewpoints on the $54 billion measure that will be found on November’s ballot. If approved, ST3 is slated during its 25-year building timeline to add 62 miles of light rail between Everett and Tacoma, including a 23-minute train line between Kirkland and Issaquah. ST3 would also provide more bus rapid transit and commuter parking on the Eastside.

At the Sept. 6 council meeting, the council had heard a presentation on ST3 from Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff, and had afterwards voted unanimously to direct the administration to prepare a resolution in favor of the ballot measure.

Five citizens spoke for Proposition No. 1 during the hearing, while three spoke against. Additionally, 5th Legislative District Sen. Mark Mullet (D-Issaquah), who is running for re-election in November, gave a speech in favor of ST3 during audience comments.

The 26-minute hearing saw speakers who represented groups with vested interests in the matter, as well as citizens who simply came out to express their opinions. Some faces were the familiar ones of locals, and others came to Issaquah from different parts of King County. What all had in common was a strong feeling towards or against ST3.

“ST3 will connect Eastside cities so that people can live and work on the Eastside, and all over the region, with a stress-free commute,” said Hester Serebrin of the Transportation Choices Coalition, a Seattle-based nonprofit. She said that taking the train instead of sitting in traffic would save commuters an average of 63 hours per year “that could be spent with family and friends.”

Jesse Piedfort, vice chair of the Washington state chapter of the Sierra Club, focused his talk mainly on sustainable commuting, but echoed Serebrin’s words about relieving commuters’ stress.

“This will have a lasting environmental impact and will also have an impact on quality of life in the region,” he said.

Those in favor of bringing light rail to Issaquah spoke of making Issaquah more global, and catching the Seattle metropolitan area up to the major urban centers of the world that already have successful rail networks in place.

Issaquah Chamber of Commerce Chair and local business owner Alan Finkelstein spoke in admiration of the city of Atlanta’s public transit system, noting that Seattle had an opportunity to put in a subway in 1968 and 1970 but failed to do so. He called Atlanta’s underground rail the “subway system that could have been [in Seattle].”

“We already have two strikes against us,” Finkelstein said. “We have a chance to fix what we couldn’t fix in 1968 and 1970.”

Sen. Mullet, who has lived in London and New York City, said that he “really grew to appreciate light rail” while commuting to work in those cities.

Opponents countered that unlike other metropolitan areas, the Puget Sound’s density is not high enough to warrant a need for light rail.

“We do not have the density for light rail to work. We will never have the density for light rail to work,” Issaquah resident Rowan Hinds said.

“Sound Transit is adopting a system that was built for a high-density area,” concurred Frank Dennis, chair of the anti-ST3 coalition People for Smarter Transit. “It’s too expensive, and what it’s doing is taking the money that should be spent on buses.

“If you spend this money on this rail system, you are walking away from your primary obligation, which is to move people by bus,” Dennis continued.

Hinds agreed that the billions of dollars ST3 would cost would be better spent on buses.

The two sides used the financial aspects of ST3 in their arguments, with those against ST3 highlighting the high cost of the measure.

“If you approve ST3, it’s a tax forever. It’s a blank check,” Kirkland resident and former Kirkland City Councilmember Santos Contreras said.

Dennis commented that the city of Paris is putting in over twice as much rail for about half of ST3’s $54 billion. He surmised that the cost of ST3 would actually double by the time of the project’s completion.

Issaquah resident Lisa Callan, a proponent of Proposition No. 1, said that ST3 would help with “job creation, employment, recruitment and retention.” As an Issaquah School Board director, Callan said she knows from experience that “getting and keeping good teachers” is “greatly impacted by our regional traffic and transit solutions.”

Finkelstein said according to polls done by the chamber, Issaquah businesses “overwhelmingly all want to support this.”

Piedfort drew attention to the environmental benefits of light rail, noting that the trains would save 793,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, which he explained are equal to 89 million gallons of fuel.

“If we’re actually serious about meeting our climate goals and environmental goals as a region, we just don’t see how you can do that without providing fast, reliable and clean alternatives to sitting in traffic,” he said.

Mullet warned that if ST3 fails, Issaquah is not likely to be included in future light rail proposals. He had previously told the Reporter that it is largely thanks to an effort put out by Costco, Issaquah landowner Skip Rowley and himself that Issaquah was put on the ST3 map at all.

“Because they have included our community, we can acknowledge that by providing our support,” Mullet said.

Both Dennis and Contreras said that Mayor Fred Butler’s membership on the Sound Transit Board of Directors played a key role in making sure light rail came to Issaquah.

Rogoff called Butler “our most diligent member” at the Sept. 6 council meeting.

“You’re gonna get [this rail segment] because you’re lucky enough to have the mayor on the executive board who’s able to deliver the goods to you folks,” Contreras said. “But you have to look at the price tag.”

Mullet agreed that ST3 is very pricey, but said that large infrastructure projects “never ever ever get cheaper.”

“You can always wait and it just becomes more and more expensive,” he said.

Mullet did acknowledge that “people have a right to complain about the timeline and the 25 years,” but promised that he and his colleagues in the Washington state Legislature “will pursue all state and federal options to try to speed up project timelines … to find ways to move up these project timelines”

After the public hearing ended, Councilmembers Paul Winterstein, Bill Ramos, Tola Marts and Mariah Bettise all spoke in favor of ST3.

“Every time you need to travel somewhere, the first choice and only choice shouldn’t always have to be just your car … we must act and think globally,” Winterstein said.

He added that the ST3 opponents who advocated a need for buses were “completely ignoring” the aspects of ST3 that include bus rapid transit and additional parking.

Ramos said that transportation projects always cost money, and that in a city where traffic is one of the major problems, the cost is worth the solution.

“I’ve never seen any community say, ‘God, I wish we hadn’t built that mass transit system,'” Ramos said.

“I think it’s really the time to be visionary and invest in our infrastructure — I think it’s critically important to Issaquah’s future,” Bettise said. “I too think about having a lasting environmental impact and dealing with all of the issues we have regionally with traffic.”

Council President Stacy Goodman was not present for the vote.