Former Sound Transit Board Member David Baker called Sound Transit’s newest light rail station a waste of taxpayer money.
“It’s a $240 million boondoggle," he said.
The light rail system’s newest station opened Wednesday in a residential area of single-family homes and a golf course in North Seattle already served by two other stations, one a mile away and another 1.9 miles away.
Originally, the station was supposed to be built with mid-rise housing, and commuters from those buildings would take the trains.
But the housing has been delayed for years. The Seattle City Council has never approved zoning changes that would allow the development, an issue debated for more than a decade.
The Pinehurst station also won’t have a parking garage or even outdoor parking spaces, other than several for those waiting to pick up passengers.
Instead, passengers will be expected to reach the station via promised increased bus service.
“There is no need for it,” Baker said of the train station.
Sound Transit officials have said that 3,400 passengers a day will eventually use the station after the transit system is fully built, but those projections extend into the 2050s. Sound Transit projections back in 2016 showed as few as 1,100 passengers would use the station.
Transit officials did not respond to requests for comment on their latest passenger projections.
Sound Transit faces a nearly $35 billion deficit and, in recent months, has put on hold transit extensions, including to the Seattle community of Ballard, that were expected to bring tens of thousands of daily riders.
Voters approved a more than $50 billion bond issue in 2016 to build out the transit system, agreeing to pay higher taxes and auto registration fees.
Baker, former mayor of the King County community of Kenmore, said the station shows that politics alone can create an unwanted reality.
He said Seattle City Councilwoman Debora Juarez, who also served on the Sound Transit Board from 2019 to 2023, repeatedly lobbied to build the station. He said she almost single-handedly got the station built, building allies for it, including former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan.
Juarez lobbied in op-eds from her time on the City Council and later on the Sound Transit board, arguing that her North Seattle neighborhood deserved a second stop besides the Northgate station.
"I am not sitting around hoping there will be a change, I am out here pushing every button and looking for all the possible ways to get North Seattle what it needs," she said in a 2016 press release.
She wrote in one op-ed that the Pinehurst station would improve social equity because lower-income residents, including people of color in the Lake City and Bitter Lake neighborhoods, would travel to the station.
“North Seattle being ignored in citywide and regional matters," she wrote.
Three years later, she was on the Sound Transit board.
Sound Transit Board documents show board members debating whether the station was really needed and Juarez repeatedly advocating for her neighborhood and the station.
In 2020 the board approved final design work for the station, and in 2022, a $240 million allocation to build it. That was up from the original $65 million back in 2016.
The 2026 completion date would be five years earlier than the station's original opening date, with the board putting construction on an accelerated schedule.
Juarez did not respond to repeated requests for comment by phone and email.
“Councilmember Juarez’s staff asked me to loop back,” said City Council spokesman Brad Harwood in an email to The Center Square. "Unfortunately, she's unavailable for an interview this week.’’
In a statement on Tuesday, Seattle Mayor and Sound Transit board member Katie Wilson called the station's opening a milestone.
“Traveling around our city and region should be easy and affordable," she said. “Every new light rail station gets us further toward that goal. Pinehurst Station will create more and better options for people in North Seattle to get to the important places in their lives.”
Other officials and board members expressed similar sentiments in the press announcement of the station.
The next Sound Transit station after Pinehurst might not open until 2035, when the West Seattle line is scheduled to open. Budget issues helped delay the opening from 2032 to 2035 and have reduced the size of the line from four to three stations.
Sound Transit officials did not respond to requests for comment on why the Pinehurst station is needed. The station is the first infill station on the system, meaning it is being added to the existing line that goes from Northgate to Lynnwood.
Baker said the shame of the opening is that stations are really needed in other parts of Seattle and the region, unlike Pinehurst, which had no justification for it being built.
"There are needy areas where people don't have access to a car and need public transit to get to work," he said. "They are crying for a station."
