Recession Deepens Sound Transit Deficit SEATTLE (KPLU) - Sound Transit now expects to come up more than $3 billion short over the next 15 years. But the agency still hopes to build -- on schedule -- all the projects voters approved in last year's Proposition 1. Last November, central Puget Sound-area voters gave thumbs-up to a sales tax hike to pay for Sound Transit 2, a package of expanded light rail, express buses and commuter trains. But in a tough economy, people are spending less. Sound Transit's Geoff Patrick says that means sales tax revenue has slumped.

"The bottom line," Patrick says, "is that our revenues over the decade and a half that we plan to build Sound Transit 2 are forecast to come in about 20% lower than
was forecast at the time the ballot measure was put to voters."

Patrick says the Sound Transit board is looking at ways to design the projects to cost less and intends to focus on strict controls to keep the projects on budget. The latest forecast projects that sales tax revenue won't return to pre-recession levels until 2013.

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