The PI.com reports that the city of Federal Way is considering a lawsuit against Sound Transit over its recent announcement that it can no longer afford to build light rail all the way to the city. Calling the decision a "broken promise," Federal Way Mayor Skip Priest told the PI,  "We will look at every step that is viable to ensure our citizens get the service they deserve and were promised."

Last night, the Federal Way city council adopted a resolution "strongly oppos[ing] Sound Transit's decision to put off building rail to federal way, and urging the transit agency to make any cuts across all five of its geographical subareas, change the route, and take other cost-saving measures to make it possible to get rail to Federal Way within the funds provided by ST2, the 2008 Sound Transit ballot measure.

However, as the PI notes, there may not be much the city can do. Sales tax revenues, which fund Sound Transit, are falling short in South King County, and thanks to the agency's policy of subarea equity, taxes raised in one subarea must be spent in that area; in other words, Federal Way can't legally demand money raised in, say, Seattle. Voters enshrined that principle in law when they first approved Sound Transit in 1996.

Without additional funding, Sound Transit now says the soonest it could get rail to Federal Way is 2034, and only if it cancels all its other projects in Sound King County.