Timeline

In 2025, Enterprise Initiative work focused on setting a baseline of the known challenges the agency is facing. 

Staff established four discrete Enterprise Initiative workstreams (planning and policy, service delivery, capital delivery, and finance) and began exploring cost-saving opportunities and trade-offs for each. 

Staff also worked closely with Board members to define the challenge ahead and develop guiding principles for decision-making:

• Advancing regional connectivity
• Supporting future growth
• Prioritizing the passenger experience
• Protecting public investments with fiscal integrity
• Maintaining ST3 performance characteristics

In March 2026, staff presented three approaches for a revised, affordable capital program. Each approach reflected different points of emphasis in order to help the Sound Transit Board surface priorities and weigh trade-offs.

You can find details in the March 2026 Board retreat presentation.

Staff and Board members also worked together to incorporate cost savings opportunities at the project level (such as optimizing Link station designs) and programmatic ones that could support and benefit the entire portfolio of projects (for example, reducing procurement time).

And in addition to capital program work, the Enterprise Initiative advanced in three other workstreams:

• Identifying possible changes to policies and planning assumptions. This includes financial policies that can increase agency financial capacity, project delivery policies that could save time and open new lines and stations faster, and program policies to boost transit-oriented development, passenger access improvements, and sustainability.
• Confirming potential resiliency investments and other opportunities that help deliver reliable, cost-effective service. These could include predictive maintenance technologies that anticipate and address issues before they impact service, integrating real-time monitoring systems for rapid response, and optimizing asset management strategies to improve equipment lifespan.
• Recommending enhancements to agency financial capacity. These opportunities could include new partnerships, updated grant strategies, and other approaches within the Board’s authority to increase Sound Transit’s financial capacity.

The Enterprise Initiative will culminate in updates to two important agency plans:

• First, an amended ST3 System Plan. Voters approved this plan in 2016, and the Sound Transit Board amended it to realign the capital program in 2021.

  On May 7, staff presented a proposed update to the ST3 System Plan to the Board’s Executive Committee. The full Board will consider a version of this proposal at its May 28 meeting.

• And ultimately, an affordable Long-Range Financial Plan. The Long-Range Financial Plan is a model, and Sound Transit’s obligation is to have that model balance out through 2046.