Latest news with #Snedden
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Contractor Allegedly Tried To Bribe An Extra $52 Million Out Of Amtrak With A Purebred Puppy And Luxury Watches
Built during the early 1930s, Philadelphia's 30th Street Station is one of the country's final railroad temples and still serves millions of passengers today as Amtrak's third-busiest station. The federally-owned railroad awarded a $58 million contract in 2015 to Mark 1 Restoration to clean the station's monumental limestone facade and restore its windows. A federal lawsuit filed last week alleges that Mark Snedden, the company's owner, heaved lavish gifts at an Amtrak official for an additional $52 million in change orders, skyrocketing the deal's value to over $100 million. The value of the gifts provided to Amtrak's project manager exceeded $325,000, according to the Engineering News-Record. The list of claimed bribes from Snedden and three Mark 1 vice presidents includes classics like over $7,000 in cash, cash, jewelry and expensive dinners, as well as a $4,700 purebred German Shepherd puppy and all-expenses-paid vacations to Ecuador and India. The filing claims that the Amtrak employee was able to upgrade a few of the gifts. After being given a $5,600 Tourneau watch, the project manager wanted a different timepiece and returned the Tourneau for an $11,000 watch. Read more: These Should Be The Next Mail Trucks When The Post Office Gets Privatized Snedden is slated to be arraigned on federal bribery and false claims charges at the end of the month. The three Mark 1 vice presidents have already pleaded guilty to a single count of federal bribery each and are awaiting sentencing. Although the Amtrak project manager isn't named in the lawsuit, the project manager was identified as Ajith Bhaskaran. He was charged with wire fraud in September 2020 for allegedly defrauding the Social Security Administration but died of a heart attack a month later at home while negotiating a plea deal. While the Trump administration continues to let Elon Musk and his unqualified DOGE lackeys run rampant through the federal government, they should be tackling cases of real government waste like this. The 30th Street Station restoration was 90% funded by federal taxpayers. Contractors, like SpaceX, are willing to do anything to milk the federal budget. Last year, the Pentagon discovered that Boeing overcharged the Air Force by nearly 8,000% on spare soap dispensers on the C-17 Globemaster. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Chicago-area contractor accused of bribing Amtrak official with trips, steaks and a puppy in Philadelphia train station project
The owner of a Chicago-area construction company has been charged in a scheme to bribe an allegedly corrupt Amtrak official overseeing a $58 million contract to renovate a historic train station in Philadelphia with hundreds of thousands of dollars in lavish gifts, including trips to India and the Galapagos Islands, meals at an expensive steakhouse, and a German shepherd puppy with doggie training. Mark Snedden, 69, of Munster, Indiana, the founder and president of Dolton-based MARK 1 Restoration, was charged in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia in a criminal information made public Friday with one count each of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery and making a false claim, court records show. An arraignment date has not been set as of Monday. The charges carry a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison, though Snedden has been cooperating with the investigation since at least 2019 and is expected to plead guilty in exchange for a recommendation for a reduced sentence from the U.S. attorney's office. Prosecutors are also seeking about $1.5 million in forfeiture from Snedden, according to the charges. Snedden's Chicago-based attorney, Joseph Duffy, was not immediately available for comment. Three other current or former employees of MARK 1, Donald Seefeldt, Lee Maniatis and Khaled Dallo, have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing, court records show. The charges come nearly four years after the Tribune exposed the Chicago-area connections to the investigation, which centered on an Amtrak official, Ajith Bhaskaran, who allegedly approved tens of millions of dollars of extra payments for MARK 1 over the course of the project to restore the facade of Philadelphia's 30th Street train station, nearly doubling the amount promised in the original contract. Among the gifts allegedly bestowed upon Bhaskaran by Snedden's company was a Tourneau watch that cost more than $11,000, according to the charges. Shortly after receiving the watch, Bhaskaran approved millions in additional spending for MARK1, the charges alleged. On Jan. 23, 2017, Maniatis forwarded the approval of the change order to Snedden with the notation, '$ ding.' Later that year, Maniatis, with Snedden's approval, $4,700 related to the purchase of a purebred German shepherd puppy from Mittelwest breeders in Wonder Lake, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit unsealed several years ago. Bhaskaran later named the dog Matcha. About a month after receiving the dog, Bhaskaran requested that Amtrak authorize an additional $5.7 million for the façade restoration project, with much of the requested funds to go to MARK1. Then, in early 2018, Bhaskaran emailed Maniatis a $1,475 invoice from a dog-training school with instructions to 'Please call and discuss this with me.' Credit card records show Maniatis paid for that invoice as well as an additional charge from the training school for $3,875 in March 2018, the affidavit alleged. FBI agents later were watching Bhaskaran at his home and took photos of him with the dog. 'Your affiant is aware, based on FBI surveillance, that Bhaskaran is the present owner of a German shepherd,' the affidavit stated. Bhaskaran was found dead in his home of an apparent heart attack in October 2020. At the time, he had been negotiating a plea deal with the government on separate charges alleging he bilked the Social Security program out of a quarter-million dollars, the Tribune previously reported. The bribery scandal, which began when an anonymous letter accusing Bhaskaran of fraud was sent to Amtrak's inspector general in March 2018, is one of the biggest to ever hit Amtrak, a quasi-public corporation that is heavily subsidized by the U.S. government, with nearly $4.3 billion in taxpayer funds going to the agency in 2022. Amtrak has said it 'took swift and definitive action to terminate the employees' involved in the scheme and enhanced its oversight to 'protect the company from criminal activities.' 'We continue to cooperate with the investigation,' the company has said in previous statements. The contract to restore Philadelphia's 30th Street train station was inked in December 2015 and originally called on MARK 1 to be paid $58.5 million to restore and clean the almost 90-year-old building's limestone facade and provide a 'complete window restoration,' records show. To do the job, MARK 1 had to replace nearly 950 limestone panels, which were made from stone mined in Alabama and then fabricated in Chicago before being shipped back to Philadelphia for installation. The company also replaced or restored more than 2,000 window panes from the old Art Deco windows, outsourcing some of the work to an Oregon glass manufacturer to match the originals. As a program manager for Amtrak's major capital construction division, Bhaskaran oversaw work on the project and had control over the purse strings, approving payments to MARK 1 as well as any applications for additional funds due to cost overruns, according to the charges. In March 2016, just three months after the contract was granted, a MARK 1 project manager emailed Maniatis saying he had been given inside information by Bhaskaran and that they had plans to take him out to dinner, the affidavit stated. 'Keep it tight between us,' the email quoted in the document stated. 'When r u coming into Philly? … Steak dinner, cigars and whiskey. Let me know.' Maniatis replied with a smiley face emoticon and wrote, 'Plan on steak Tuesday night baby.' The affidavit alleged that over one two-day period, Maniatis and his team racked up more than $2,000 in charges at a high-end Philadelphia steakhouse and a nearby cigar bar. After one such excursion in Jan. 19, 2017, Maniatis received notification that Amtrak had approved extra funding submitted by Bhaskaran and sent a text to MARK 1's owner reading, 'Dinner was worth it,' according to charges filed against Maniatis last year. FBI agents raided MARK 1's headquarters on Maryland Avenue in Dolton on Nov. 14, 2019, seizing cellphones and other items from company executives and employees involved in the Philadelphia project, the records show. Bhaskaran was arrested the same day on separate wire fraud charges alleging he used his deceased former mother-in-law's information to fraudulently collect $250,000 in Social Security benefits, court records show. At the time of his arrest, Bhaskaran had an 'armada' of fancy cars in the driveway, including a Mercedes and two BMWs, according to a filing by prosecutors. He also had a number of fraudulent passports and other government-issued IDs and more than $7,000 in cash that he could not explain, the filing stated. In a post-arrest statement to investigators, Bhaskaran 'admitted to accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes from contractors performing significant contract work for Amtrak,' according to prosecutors. He was negotiating a plea deal with the government when his body was found at his home in Cherry Hill on Oct. 16, 2020, according to court records. jmeisner@
Chicago Tribune
31-03-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago-area contractor accused of bribing Amtrak official with trips, steaks and a puppy in Philadelphia train station project
The owner of a Chicago-area construction company has been charged in a scheme to bribe an allegedly corrupt Amtrak official overseeing a $58 million contract to renovate a historic train station in Philadelphia with hundreds of thousands of dollars in lavish gifts, including trips to India and the Galapagos Islands, meals at an expensive steakhouse, and a German shepherd puppy with doggie training. Mark Snedden, 69, of Munster, Indiana, the founder and president of Dolton-based MARK 1 Restoration, was charged in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia in a criminal information made public Friday with one count each of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery and making a false claim, court records show. An arraignment date has not been set as of Monday. The charges carry a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison, though Snedden has been cooperating with the investigation since at least 2019 and is expected to plead guilty in exchange for a recommendation for a reduced sentence from the U.S. attorney's office. Prosecutors are also seeking about $1.5 million in forfeiture from Snedden, according to the charges. Snedden's Chicago-based attorney, Joseph Duffy, was not immediately available for comment. Three other current or former employees of Mark1, Donald Seefeldt, Lee Maniatis, and Khaled Dallo, have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing, court records show. The charges come nearly four years after the Tribune exposed the Chicago-area connections to the investigation, which centered on an Amtrak official, Ajith Bhaskaran, who allegedly approved tens of millions of dollars of extra payments for MARK 1 over the course of the project to restore the facade of Philadelphia's 30th Street train station, nearly doubling the amount promised in the original contract. Among the gifts allegedly bestowed upon Bhaskaran by Snedden's company was a Tourneau watch that cost more than $11,000, according to the charges. Shortly after receiving the watch, Bhaskaran approved millions in additional spending for MARK1, the charges alleged. On Jan. 23, 2017, Maniatis forwarded the approval of the change order to Snedden with the notation, '$ ding.' Later that year, Maniatis, with Snedden's approval, $4,700 related to the purchase of a purebred German shepherd puppy from Mittelwest breeders in Wonder Lake, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit unsealed several years ago. Bhaskaran later named the dog Matcha. About a month after receiving the dog, Bhaskaran requested that Amtrak authorize an additional $5.7 million for the façade restoration project, with much of the requested funds to go to MARK1. Then, in early 2018, Bhaskaran emailed Maniatis a $1,475 invoice from a dog-training school with instructions to 'Please call and discuss this with me.' Credit card records show Maniatis paid for that invoice as well as an additional charge from the training school for $3,875 in March 2018, the affidavit alleged. FBI agents later were watching Bhaskaran at his home and took photos of him with the dog. 'Your affiant is aware, based on FBI surveillance, that Bhaskaran is the present owner of a German shepherd,' the affidavit stated. Bhaskaran was found dead in his home of an apparent heart attack in October 2020. At the time, he had been negotiating a plea deal with the government on separate charges alleging he bilked the Social Security program out of a quarter-million dollars, the Tribune previously reported. The bribery scandal, which began when an anonymous letter accusing Bhaskaran of fraud was sent to Amtrak's inspector general in March 2018, is one of the biggest to ever hit Amtrak, a quasi-public corporation that is heavily subsidized by the U.S. government, with nearly $4.3 billion in taxpayer funds going to the agency in 2022. Amtrak has said it 'took swift and definitive action to terminate the employees' involved in the scheme and enhanced its oversight to 'protect the company from criminal activities.' 'We continue to cooperate with the investigation,' the company has said in previous statements. The contract to restore Philadelphia's 30th Street train station was inked in December 2015 and originally called on MARK 1 to be paid $58.5 million to restore and clean the almost 90-year-old building's limestone facade and provide a 'complete window restoration,' records show. To do the job, MARK 1 had to replace nearly 950 limestone panels, which were made from stone mined in Alabama and then fabricated in Chicago before being shipped back to Philadelphia for installation. The company also replaced or restored more than 2,000 window panes from the old Art Deco windows, outsourcing some of the work to an Oregon glass manufacturer to match the originals. As a program manager for Amtrak's major capital construction division, Bhaskaran oversaw work on the project and had control over the purse strings, approving payments to MARK 1 as well as any applications for additional funds due to cost overruns, according to the charges. In March 2016, just three months after the contract was granted, a MARK 1 project manager emailed Maniatis saying he had been given inside information by Bhaskaran and that they had plans to take him out to dinner, the affidavit stated. 'Keep it tight between us,' the email quoted in the document stated. 'When r u coming into Philly? … Steak dinner, cigars and whiskey. Let me know.' Maniatis replied with a smiley face emoticon and wrote, 'Plan on steak Tuesday night baby.' The affidavit alleged that over one two-day period, Maniatis and his team racked up more than $2,000 in charges at a high-end Philadelphia steakhouse and a nearby cigar bar. After one such excursion in Jan. 19, 2017, Maniatis received notification that Amtrak had approved extra funding submitted by Bhaskaran and sent a text to MARK 1's owner reading, 'Dinner was worth it,' according to charges filed against Maniatis last year. FBI agents raided MARK 1's headquarters on Maryland Avenue in Dolton on Nov. 14, 2019, seizing cellphones and other items from company executives and employees involved in the Philadelphia project, the records show. Bhaskaran was arrested the same day on separate wire fraud charges alleging he used his deceased former mother-in-law's information to fraudulently collect $250,000 in Social Security benefits, court records show. At the time of his arrest, Bhaskaran had an 'armada' of fancy cars in the driveway, including a Mercedes and two BMWs, according to a filing by prosecutors. He also had a number of fraudulent passports and other government-issued IDs and more than $7,000 in cash that he could not explain, the filing stated. In a post-arrest statement to investigators, Bhaskaran 'admitted to accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes from contractors performing significant contract work for Amtrak,' according to prosecutors. He was negotiating a plea deal with the government when his body was found at his home in Cherry Hill on Oct. 16, 2020, according to court records.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Farmers and small business owners were promised financial help for energy upgrades. They're still waiting for the money.
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist, BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina, WABE, Atlanta's NPR station, WBEZ, a public radio station serving the Chicago metropolitan region, and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan. The Trump administration's freeze on funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark climate law from the Biden era, has left farmers and rural businesses across the country on the hook for costly energy efficiency upgrades and renewable energy installations. The grants are part of the Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP, originally created in the 2008 farm bill and supercharged by funding from the IRA. It provides farmers and other businesses in rural areas with relatively small grants and loans to help lower their energy bills by investing, say, in more energy-efficient farming equipment or installing small solar arrays. By November 2024, the IRA had awarded more than $1 billion for nearly 7,000 REAP projects, which help rural businesses in low-income communities reduce the up-front costs of clean energy and save thousands on utility costs each year. But now, that funding is in limbo. Under the current freeze, some farmers have already spent tens of thousands of dollars on projects and are waiting for the promised reimbursement. Others have had to delay work they were counting on to support their businesses, unsure when their funding will come through — or if it will. REAP is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Secretary Brooke Rollins said the agency is 'coming to the tail end of the review process' of evaluating grants awarded under the Biden administration. 'If our farmers and ranchers especially have already spent money under a commitment that was made, the goal is to make sure they are made whole,' Rollins told reporters in Atlanta last week. But it's not clear when the funds might be released, or whether all the farmers and business owners awaiting their money will receive it. For Joshua Snedden, a REAP grant was the key to making his 10-acre farm in Monee, Illinois, more affordable and environmentally sustainable. But months after installing a pricey solar array, he's still waiting on a reimbursement from the federal government — and the delay is threatening his bottom line. 'I'm holding out hope,' said Snedden, a first-generation farmer in northeast Illinois. 'I'm trying to do everything within my power to make sure the funding is released.' In December, his five-year old operation, Fox at the Fork, began sourcing its power from a new 18.48 kilowatt solar array which cost Snedden $86,364. The system currently offsets all the farm's electricity use and then some. REAP offers grants for up to half of a project like this, and loan guarantees for up to 75 percent of the cost. For Snedden, a $19,784 REAP reimbursement grant made this solar array possible. But the reimbursement, critical to Snedden's cash flow, was frozen by Trump as part of a broader review of the USDA's Biden-era commitments. Snedden grows the produce he takes to market — everything from tomatoes to garlic to potatoes — on about an acre of his farm. He also plans to transform the rest of his land into a perennial crop system, which would include fruit trees like pears, plums, and apples planted alongside native flowers and grasses to support wildlife. A solar array was always part of his plans, 'but seemed like a pie in the sky' kind of project, he said, adding he thought it might take him a decade to afford such an investment. The REAP program has been a lifeline for Illinois communities struggling with aging infrastructure and growing energy costs, according to Amanda Pankau with the Prairie Rivers Network, an organization advocating for environmental protection and climate change mitigation across Illinois. 'By lowering their electricity costs, rural small businesses and agricultural producers can put that money back into their business,' said Pankau. That's exactly what Snedden envisioned from his investment in the solar power system. The new solar array wouldn't just make his farm more resilient to climate change, but also more financially viable, 'because we could shift expenses from paying for energy to paying for more impactful inputs for the farm,' he said. He anticipates that by switching to solar, Fox at the Fork will save close to $3,200 dollars a year on electric bills. Now, Snedden is waiting for the USDA to hold up their end of the deal. 'The financial strain hurts,' said Snedden. 'But I'm still planning to move forward growing crops and fighting for these funds.' At the start of the year, Jon and Brittany Klimstra were nearly ready to install a solar array on their Polk County, North Carolina farm after being awarded a REAP grant in 2024. As two former scientists who had moved back to western North Carolina 10 years ago to grow apples and be close to their families, it felt like a chance to both save money and live their values. 'We've certainly been interested in wanting to do something like this, whether it be for our personal home or for our farm buildings for a while,' said Jon. 'It just was cost prohibitive up to this point without some type of funding.' That funding came when they were awarded $12,590 from REAP for the installation. But, after the Trump administration's funding freeze, the money never came. 'We were several site visits in, several engineering conversations. We've had electricians, the solar company,' said Brittany . 'It's been a very involved process.' Since the grant is reimbursement-based, the Klimstras have already paid out-of-pocket for some costs related to the project. Plus, the farm had been banking on saving $1,300 in utilities expenses per year. In a given month, their electricity bill is $300-$400. Across Appalachia, historically high energy costs have made the difference between survival and failure for many local businesses, said Heather Ransom, who works with Solar Holler, a solar company that serves parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. 'We have seen incredible rate increases across the region in electricity over the past 10, even 20 years,' she said. Through Solar Holler, REAP grants also passed into the hands of rural library systems and schools; the company installed 10,000 solar panels throughout the Wayne County, West Virginia school system. About $6 million worth of projects supported by Solar Holler are currently on hold. In other parts of the region, community development financial institutions like the Mountain Association in eastern Kentucky combatted food deserts through helping local grocery stores apply for REAP. Solar Holler also works in coal-producing parts of the region, where climate change discussions have been fraught with the realities of declining jobs and revenue from the coal industry. The program helped make the case for communities to veer away from coal and gas-fired energy. 'What REAP has helped us do is show people that it's not just a decision that's driven by environmental motives or whatever, it actually makes good business sense to go solar,' Ransom said. In her experience, saving money appeals to people of all political persuasions. 'At the end of the day, we've installed just as much solar on red roofs as we do blue roofs, as we do rainbow roofs or whatever.' The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Michigan draws over 1.5 million visitors every year. Jim Lively hopes some of those people will camp RVs at a nearby site he's planning to open next to his family's local food market. He wants to use solar panels to help power the campsite and offset electric bills for the market, where local farmers bring produce directly to the store. Lively helped promote REAP during his time at an environmental nonprofit, where he'd worked for over two decades. So the program was on his mind when it came time to replace the market's big, south-facing roof. 'We put on a metal roof, and worked with a contractor who was also familiar with the REAP program, and we said, 'Let's make sure we're setting this up for solar,'' he said. 'So it was kind of a no-brainer for us.' They were told they had been approved for a REAP grant of $39,696 last summer — half of the project's total cost — but didn't feel the need to rush the solar installation. Then, at the end of January, Lively was notified that the funding had been paused. The property runs on electricity, rather than natural gas, and Lively wants to keep it that way. But those electric bills have been expensive — about $2,000 a month last summer, he said. When they get the RV site up and running, he expects those bills to approach $3,000. Selling local food means operating within tight margins. Lively said saving on energy would help, but they won't be able to move ahead with the rooftop solar unless the REAP funding is guaranteed. Continuing to power the property with electricity rather than fossil fuels is a kind of personal commitment for Lively. 'Boy, solar is also the right thing to do,' he said. 'And it's going to be difficult to do that without that funding.' The grants aren't only for solar arrays and other renewable energy systems. Many are for energy efficiency improvements to help farmers save on utility bills, and in some cases cut emissions. In Georgia, for instance, one farm was awarded just under $233,000 for a more efficient grain dryer, an upgrade projected to save the farm more than $16,000 per year. Several farms were awarded funding to convert diesel-powered irrigation pumps to electric. The USDA did not directly answer Grist's emailed questions about the specific timeline for REAP funds, the amount of money under review, or the future of the program. Instead, an emailed statement criticized the Biden administration's 'misuse of hundreds of billions' of IRA and bipartisan infrastructure law (BIL) funds 'all at the expense of the American taxpayer.' 'USDA has a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people's hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar spent goes to serve the people, not the bureaucracy. As part of this effort, Secretary Rollins is carefully reviewing this funding and will provide updates as soon as they are made available,' the email said. Read Next Trump is freezing climate funds. Can he do that? Jake Bittle Two federal judges have already ordered the Trump administration to release the impounded IRA and BIL funds. Earthjustice, a national environmental law organization, filed a lawsuit last week challenging the freeze of USDA funds on behalf of farmers and nonprofits. 'The administration is causing harm that can't be fixed, and fairness requires that the funds continue to flow,' said Jill Tauber, vice president of litigation for climate and energy at Earthjustice. Rollins released the first tranche of funding February 20 and announced the release of additional program funds earlier this month. That did not include the REAP funding. The USDA announced Wednesday it would expedite funding for farmers under a different program in honor of National Agriculture Day, but as of March 20 had not made an announcement about REAP. Rahul Bali of WABE contributed reporting to this story. Earthjustice is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist's editorial decisions. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Farmers and small business owners were promised financial help for energy upgrades. They're still waiting for the money. on Mar 21, 2025.
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SR 522 planned construction draws concerns, lawsuit threat from Lake Forest Park residents
A group of people living in Lake Forest Park are threatening legal action against Sound Transit for, what they say, is failing to consider the impacts of other projects in the area. Sound Transit's project page says construction will begin in 2025 for 'Stride 3″ a bus rapid transit project that will add BRT along SR 522, as well as 145th in Shoreline, to connect Bothell, Kenmore and other communities to I-5 and the Link 1 light rail line. The total project runs around 8 miles from I-405 to I-5. The group, under the acronym 'CORE' says they're concerned about a 12-block stretch from 153rd to 165th where there is no dedicated bus line for north/eastbound riders. They fear adding one is unnecessary, questioning the benefits for the cost of the project. 'We've mentioned this multiple times to them, and that is there is no need to build this roadway to build a dedicated lane, [It's] the most difficult terrain on all of Stride 3 and produces very little benefit to the bus rider,' said Jeff Snedden, a Lake Forest Park resident opposed to the construction. During a press conference Saturday, Snedden says he supports transit options for the community, but questions the benefit. He believes the 2.6 minutes Sound Transit says is saved for bus riders through the 3,300-foot stretch of SR 522 is exaggerated, based on traffic data he and the group have sifted through. The group claims that there is a disproportionate share of the cost and property acquisition for all of Stride 3 that occurs in the 12-block stretch, though KIRO 7 was not immediately able to verify those claims. 'It's difficult with sound transit because almost every project they touch is delayed,' Snedden said, 'It's so difficult from a terrain perspective and it costs so much. Then there are other projects that have the potential to start at the same time that the group worries could create SR 522 and 145th to become impassable. On the east end, a culvert replacement at 61st Ave Northeast to the west side where a new roundabout will be constructed at I-5 and 145th. The chief concern comes from the Revive I-5 project, a series of improvement projects along the Interstate stretching as far south as Renton, with the bulk of the projects between Boeing Field north to Shoreline. Snedden points to a Seattle Times article that said 84,000 drivers will seek alternate routes from the I-5 to avoid the lane closures. While not all of those drivers will end up on SR 522—because the scope of the I-5 project is far outside just that corridor—he worries to combination of BRT construction and more volume will create a 'traffic Armageddon.' 'We began to worry about the impact on this road which is a major state thoroughfare,' Snedden said. Snedden and his group have the backing of a law firm, claiming Sound Transit did not study the 'cumulative impact' of the construction projects occurring all at once. That is the basis of the threatened lawsuit. Complicating the matter is the Revive I-5 timeline, which was originally slated to begin this year but has been pushed to 2026. 'We have been engaged in ongoing conversations with communities along all three Stride routes, including Lake Forest Park, since the program was approved by voters as part of ST3 in 2016,' said John Gallagher, a spokesperson for Sound Transit. 'We have not yet broken ground on the project. Since the timing of Revive I-5 is at present unclear, its impact on Stride 3 is speculation,' Gallagher continued. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2025 and be completed in 2028, according to Sound Transit's project page. Snedden says, if their suit prevails, Sound Transit would likely have to redo it's environmental review, essentially relenting the project back to square one. KIRO 7 asked if that would be an unnecessary waste of taxpayer money. 'We don't want to have a lawsuit, we don't want to settle this in court, we think there is an elegant solution,' Snedden said. 'We believe that not doing anything here is the kind of mitigation we need.'
