Stations are the largest construction cost for urban rail transit with underground stations orders of magnitude more expensive than surface and elevated. Therefore, reducing the cost of underground stations can disproportionately impact overall project costs.

Underground station costs and time for construction increase with size and depth. By both metrics Sound Transit stations are substantially larger than global peers. According to Transit Costs Project, stations in Spain, France, and Italy are 5-20% longer than the trains they serve. In contrast Sound Transit's are a minimum of 40% with the proposed Sound Transit 3 stations the longest yet, approaching nearly 80% longer on average. This is a dramatic increase from the 43% excess length found in Sound Transit 2 stations.

Based on an analysis of all underground stations, published in The Urbanist, built and several proposed but not built in Sound Move, Sound Transit 2, and Sound Transit 3 there is a clear trend of station size and depth increasing independent of context. For example, the new standard tunnel station developed for construction efficiency features a platform 10' wider and 50' deeper than proposed Sound Move stations and 6' wider and 25' deeper than Sound Transit 2 stations.

The Sound Transit Board has the opportunity to shave hundreds of millions and years from Sound Transit 3 projects without sacrificing any quality, merely by studying and benchmarking to the world's best.