The Sound Transit Board of Directors adopted their 2012 budget on Thursday, Dec 15, which includes $2 million for the study of a high-capacity Ballard-to-Downtown streetcar line.

Seattle's elected leaders welcomed the Sound Transit board's vote.

"This is an important step forward for expanding high capacity transit in Seattle that makes sense for our regional network. We thank the Sound Transit Board and staff for supporting efforts to accelerate planning for the Ballard-Downtown Corridor by several years," said Mayor Mike McGinn, a Sound Transit Board Member, in a statement. "With this vote behind us, we can get to work developing an inter-local agreement between Sound Transit and the city of Seattle that will ensure our joint planning effort meets both the city's and the region's high-capacity transit needs."

Sound Transit and the city of Seattle will work early next year to craft an inter-local agreement before the planning work begins using these funds.

Approved by the region's voters in the Sound Transit 2 vote, this planning money, along with a $900,000 federal grant awarded to Seattle in October and City matching funds, will allow the City and Sound Transit to conduct a detailed analysis of alignments and technologies that will enable the city to meet the longer-term demand for transit between some of the fastest growing neighborhoods and downtown.

The Ballard corridor was highlighted in both the Seattle Streetcar Study in 2008 and the Sound Transit Long Range Plan in 2005. The corridor also ranked highly in the City's recently completed Transit Master Plan. Funding to study this corridor was included in the Sound Transit 2 package.

"As we look toward to the future and efforts to connect light rail to Everett, Tacoma, and Redmond, we can begin considering how to connect the substantial and growing transit market in Ballard and northwest Seattle to our regional transit system," said King County Councilmember and Sound Transit Board Member Larry Phillips in a press release. "This work lets eager transit riders in Seattle know we're planning for their future, while assuring our regional partners that we're committed to building out the light rail spine through the three-county region."

The overall 2012 Sound Transit budget is just over $1 billion and includes $733 million for capital projects and $199 million for delivering train and bus services.

Major milestones for 2012 include:

- Completing major tunneling operations on the 3.1-mile University Link light rail expansion between downtown Seattle and University of Washington
- Beginning early construction work on the North Link light rail expansion from UW to Northgate
- Selecting a design/build contractor for the South Link extension from Sea-Tac Airport to South 200th Street
- Beginning final design on East Link light rail
- Opening the Sounder commuter rail extension between Tacoma and Lakewood
- Building Mukilteo Sounder station's south platform and the permanent Tukwila Sounder Station
- Maintaining existing services and assets
- Continuing environmental studies to expand light rail from Northgate to Lynnwood.

Budget details and long-term spending priorities are detailed at http://www.soundtransit.org/Budget.