Sound Transit can no longer give King County residents all it promised them within the 15-year timeline of the Sound Transit 2 package that voters approved in 2008.

Auburn leaders learned Monday that means a deferral on the second transit parking garage.

That’s what Rachel Smith, Sound Transit government community relations specialist, told the Auburn City Council as she presented the agency’s draft budget for 2011.

Smith said that the agency forecasts a revenue shortfall of $3.9 billion, or 25 percent, below the $14 billion forecasted in 2008 through 2023, the 15-year lifetime of the voter-approved ST2 plan.

Smith blamed the recession and the painfully slow recovery.

“It is no longer possible for us to conclude the entire ST2 program of projects and services within the original framework,” Smith said. “Our proposed 2011 budget includes a program realignment of that plan.”

Mayor Pete Lewis offered a blunt warning for Sound Transit should the agency go before the voters of South King County again, seeking more funding.

“(Sound Transit) may also be looking for further funding. I can guarantee there won’t be any support in South King County for that if this doesn’t go forward. There can’t be any other conclusion by any reasonable person if they try to bring this forward again for a vote.”

By approving the Sound Transit 2 plan, voters authorized a 0.5 percent sales tax and a 0.4-percent motor vehicle excise tax to provide more bus service, more commuter rail and 36 miles of light rail, including lines to Bellevue, Federal Way and Lynnwood.

With the dip in revenue, however, Sound Transit won’t be able to build rail from Sea-Tac Airport to 272nd Street in Federal Way by 2023. Instead, the board proposes to accelerate plans to build the South 200th Street station in Tukwila by 2016, five years ahead of schedule, so it can take advantage of good bidding conditions.

With funding no longer available for light rail to reach Federal Way, Sound Transit now talks about spending $2.5 million to study alternatives for a shorter route or for something different altogether.

According to Smith, South King County will probably take the biggest hit. That’s because under Sound Transit’s subarea equity framework, each of its five geographic subareas is looking at a different financial picture. Revenues collected within each area’s boundaries must be used for projects identified to benefit people living there. Recession impacts are worst in the South King County subarea, where forecasted revenues are down about 31 percent.

Sound Transit is considering putting off by one year the addition of four round-trip Sounder commuter trains in South King County and suspending plans to build additional parking around the Sounder stations in Auburn and Kent. Instead of building, Smith said, Sound Transit will conduct a study.

That rubbed City leaders raw. Lewis claimed that Sound Transit and its predecessor, the Regional Transit Authority, have been promising Auburn a second garage since the mid-1990s.

Later, when the RTA became Sound Transit, he said, funding for the second garage was pulled, and Auburn would have to wait for the next revenue package to come to the voters. In 2008, the Sound Transit 2 ballot measure was presented, and Lewis said that included the second parking garage in Auburn. He said Sound Transit assured city officials that if Sound II passed it would build the second parking garage, and many community members campaigned for a “yes” vote on this measure knowing it included the second garage. The measure passed by a large margin, and the Director of Sound Transit reiterated to City officials that the garage would be built, Lewis said.

“The day after the vote was taken, I was on the phone to Sound Transit Director Joni Earl, asking, ‘Are you going to build a garage,’ and she said ‘yes.’ Now they say it can’t be done.”

He said the City has done its part to find alternatives to the lack of parking availability, that it partnered financially with Pierce Transit, King County Metro and Sound Transit to provide a shuttle to the garage, partnered with Metro on their VanShare program and encourages citizens to carpool to the garage when possible.

“…I don’t think this is appropriate, reasonable, and I don’t think it was done with the kind of transparency that Sound Transit and the board talk about,” Lewis said. “And from my perspective, we regard this as not being very true to the promises put forth by the Sound Transit board.”

Sound Transit Spokeswoman Kimberly Reason said Tuesday that ST2 did not promise a second Auburn parking garage.

“The ST2 plan that we have been working on that passed in 2008 does not stipulate, promise, propose a second garage,” said Reason. “What it proposes is to look at all the Sounder stations and to conduct a study that would determine, based on usage of that station by load, what would be the best way to serve that station for parking, for more bicycle lockers, or any number of things that constitute the best way to serve that particular transit center. That study was launched in July, and will take 18 months.”

City leaders were also visibly irked that plans to build the $1.9 billion light rail extension from downtown Seattle to Capitol Hill and the University of Washington will not be effected. The Eastlink light rail to downtown Bellevue and the Overlake Transit Center is also fully funded. Nor will the revenue shortfall squelch a proposal to build a tunnel for light rail though downtown Bellevue. The Bellevue City Council has agreed to commit $150 million to tunnel construction to cover half of the costs.