Tag: light rail

Transit, Transportation

Expert Panel “Disappointed” In Sound Transit’s Lack of Progress on Recommendations to Avoid Overruns, Delay
With Sound Transit poised to enter the most intense period of capital spending in its history, an advisory group expressed alarm at the agency’s apparent lack of urgency on key recommendations.

By Erica C. Barnett

A panel of outside experts established last year to help Sound Transit reduce delays to its burgeoning portfolio of megaprojects expressed disappointment last week with the agency’s progress on six recommendations it made in February, noting that many are just now getting underway after many months of delay. With the agency entering the most intense period of capital expansion in its history, members of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) told Sound Transit’s executive committee on Wednesday, the agency needs to act aggressively to avoid major overruns and delays.

“We’re trying to up your game in order to get the dollar to go a lot further. I want to make sure you understand the value of that,” TAG member Grace Crunican told the board committee. “That’s why we’re nervous about the fact that you’re not up and running. We came to you saying, ‘Hey, let’s go,’ and it’s a year later, and, ‘hey, we haven’t gone.’”

The TAG’s recommendations included restoring lost trust between the Sound Transit board and top agency staff, including CEO Julie Timm; empowering staff to take action, such as signing off on contract changes, without running every decision up the management chain; and hiring an “experienced megaproject capital program executive team” to oversee the expansion of light rail to Tacoma, Lynnwood, Ballard, and West Seattle. The agency’s deputy CEO in charge of system expansion, longtime Sound Transit staffer Brooke Belman, quietly announced she was leaving earlier this year.

“I think we talked about it being a wave, and the wave was coming. The wave is not coming. It is on us right now. And that means the sense of urgency of moving forward with our recommendations is very, very real.”—Sound Transit Technical Advisory Group member Ken Johnsen

Since the recommendations came out, TAG members said, the agency has shown little urgency about putting them into practice. “It’s important to me that the top leadership embrace these changes and work on them diligently, and we’re a long way off from ‘diligently’ at this point,” Sound Transit board member Claudia Balducci told PubliCola.

“There’s been some work—we voted recently to change our contract approval thresholds so that more contracts can be completed and moved by the CEO… but when you get a recommendation that says you need to rebuild trust… that feels to me like something where there needed to be some intentional time invested by the board and the CEO and management to work on that.”

Meanwhile, Sound Transit continues to approach a point in its schedule where it will need to spend between about $5 billion and $8 billion a year to stay on track—a level of annual spending that will dwarf everything Sound Transit has built to date. “We have to change the way we do business,” Balducci said. Every day of delay, Technical Advisory Group (TAG) member Ken Johnsen told the committee, could have cascading effects on Sound Transit’s ability to deliver the projects it has promised, some of which are already running years behind schedule.

Pointing to a chart that shows the amount of money Sound Transit needs to spend on its projects each year in order to avoid major overruns and delays, Johnsen said, “if we sometimes sound overly aggressive on our sense of urgency and why these things need to be moving, it’s because of that chart. I think we talked about it being a wave, and the wave was coming. The wave is not coming. It is on us right now. And that means the sense of urgency of moving forward with our recommendations is very, very real.”

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A key issue the TAG noted in its initial report was that “Sound Transit’s current culture appears to discourage decision-making”—staff either don’t feel like they can make decisions on their own, or don’t do so “for fear of making the wrong one and getting reprimanded.” These issues can produce delays that cause contractors to bid on projects where they know they’ll get paid on time and consistently; already, according to the February TAG report, top-tier contractors prefer to seek contracts with other agencies because of long delays getting invoices approved and paid.

“I feel that our recommendations were pretty clear and concise, but that’s not what we saw in these first meetings,” TAG member Connie Crawford, added. “And just the fact that it’s eight months later, nine months later, when we’re having the kickoff meetings [with staff]—that’s been a disappointment to us.”

After the discussion last week, the board went into executive session to discuss a performance review for Sound Transit CEO Julie Timm, who has been at the agency since last September. When they returned to the dais, after extending the session multiple times, the committee no longer had a quorum and had to end the meeting. However, questions about Timm’s future at the agency may be answered on Friday, when her performance evaluation is on the agenda for the board’s public meeting.

Density, Development, Environment, housing, legislature, Transit

New State Housing Laws Could Mean Big Changes for Seattle
Under the new law, the area within a quarter mile of frequent transit, like light rail, can have up to six units per residential lot. Photo by Brett V, via Wikimedia Commons

By Ryan Packer

House Bill 1110, which allows new multifamily housing near transit stops, will impact residential neighborhoods in cities of all sizes across Washington state.

But some of the biggest changes will be in Seattle. The legislation, which passed last week, ties density to public transit infrastructure, allowing significantly more density—up to six units per lot—in areas near frequent transit stops.

The bill requires larger cities, including Seattle, to allow four residential units on every lot, and to allow six units on lots within a quarter-mile walking distance of bus rapid transit, light rail, and streetcar stops.

That means that in significant segments of Queen Anne, Madrona, Wallingford, and Mount Baker, where property owners are currently limited to building two accessory dwelling units—like a basement apartment and a backyard cottage—courtyard apartments, six-unit apartment buildings, and townhouses will now be legal.

Seattle’s lobbyists quietly worked to support bills like HB 1110 throughout the session, while trying to make sure they wouldn’t interfere with the city’s own density laws, such as Mandatory Housing Affordability; MHA requires developers to provide affordable housing or contribute to an affordable housing fee when building in the cities’ designated “urban villages.”

“It’s still Seattle and there’s still a process that we still have to go through, but I do think by having these frameworks in place now, it’s going to be able to help accelerate some of the development that we need, and have needed for a long time.”—Sen. Joe Nguyen (D-34)

“I think it’s going to have a huge impact on Seattle,” Senator Joe Nguyen (D-34), whose district includes Pioneer Square, West Seattle, and Burien, said.

“Obviously, I don’t think it will be perfect, because it’s still Seattle and there’s still a process that we still have to go through, but I do think by having these frameworks in place now, it’s going to be able to help accelerate some of the development that we need, and have needed for a long time,” he said.

The legislature also made some significant changes to how the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) affects individual housing projects. Currently, as part of the official SEPA review process, anyone can appeal a proposed housing project over its potential impacts, such as loss of views, increased noise, or traffic. These delays can add months or years to project timelines, even if they’re ultimately dismissed. A group called Save Madison Valley, for example, appealed a proposed mixed housing and retail development featuring a PCC in both 2018 and 2020, delaying the project.

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Senate Bill 5412, sponsored by Senator Jesse Salomon (D-32, Shoreline), will limit those appeals. Under the adopted bill, if a proposed housing project complies with a city’s existing comprehensive plan, it will be categorically exempt from SEPA review, eliminating the lengthy appeal process that’s now common for developments that are controversial for reasons that have nothing to do with local environmental law.

The final version of the bill includes a provision that allows projects in Seattle to take advantage of it before other cities in Washington.

“A lot of the costs that are associated with delay and with litigation get passed on in the high cost of housing,” Councilmember Andrew Lewis, who represents downtown, Queen Anne, and Magnolia, said. “Ultimately as consumers we pay for all the lawyers that interject into these processes along the way.”

“We can legalize increased density, but it’s not going to come very quickly if you keep in place a lot of the tactics and methods that people use to slow it down or to whittle the ambition of the projects down,” he said.

“The debate [now] really is about how we can be thinking about new nodes of development, or new corridors where denser development will happen. How are we thinking about integrating things like corner stores, or other basic or essential services, into those neighborhoods?”—Futurewise Executive Director Alex Brennan

Lewis says intense environmental review of dense housing in the middle of cities is counterproductive and notes that dense housing provides an environmental benefit in its own right. “In the aggregate, it has a colossal environmental benefit. If we are unable to build a significant amount of new housing units in the City of Seattle, in an efficient amount of time, we’re just going to have compounding challenges relating to climate.”

A spokesman for the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections said it was too early to say how the new batch of housing legislation would impact SDCI’s work.

The collective impact of changes to statewide zoning will impact Seattle’s comprehensive plan update, due in 2024, as city planners grapple with how to accommodate at least 112,000 new units of housing—Seattle’s share of King County’s growth target—over the next two decades. The zoning provisions in HB 1110 automatically take effect six months after that update to the comprehensive plan.

Alex Brennan, the director of Futurewise, a statewide smart growth advocacy group, says allowing four housing units per lot increases Seattle’s options for future growth. “We don’t have to fight for that baseline anymore,” he said. “So, the debate really is about how we can be thinking about new nodes of development, or new corridors where denser development will happen. How are we thinking about integrating things like corner stores, or other basic or essential services, into those neighborhoods?”

Density, Development, Environment, Guest Contributor, legislature

Growth Is Coming. The Legislature Needs to Plan for It.
David Shankbone, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Alex Brennan

When I was growing up here in the 1980s, Seattle was one of the most affordable cities in the country. My parents rented a house for $100 a month, allowing them to save enough for a down payment before I was born. Since then, the city’s unique combination of affordability, natural beauty, and economic dynamism has attracted people from all over the world to our region, further enriching our cultural diversity, civic engagement, and economy.

Unfortunately, housing has not kept up with growth—especially where we need it most. Now Seattle’s housing is some of the most expensive in the world. Many of my childhood friends have been priced out and many beloved newer friends are struggling to stay. These problems extend across the state.

Since the 1950s, popular culture has sold us a vision of prosperity where you get a big house with a big yard and drive everywhere. Suburban property owners, developers, and other powerful interests rigged a land use system that stripped away other options. This growth pattern has damaged critical wildlife habitat and prime farmland, strained infrastructure, isolated households, and priced out whole communities. We were sold a bad bill of goods.

Standing in the way are a handful of small but powerful suburban cities, home to some of the wealthiest people in the world. Many welcoming people live in these places, but the organized voices representing them in Olympia are saying no—no to taking their share of growth, no to affordable housing options, no to people who do not have cars or cannot drive, and no to sharing their parks and schools.

This old model for growth is broken and cannot meet our needs. We need a new model that offers housing for Washingtonians at every income level—especially near jobs, transit, and essential goods and services. That is why this year, a broad, unlikely coalition of business and labor, environmentalists and developers, affordable housing providers and social justice advocates have come together to support new housing options in addition to new ways to design and invest in our communities. Our success moving past the House-of-origin cutoff shows that, after years of advocacy and coalition building, we finally have an opportunity to make this new vision a reality. Right now, legislators have three important bills before them:

• HB 1110 would allow duplexes in most single family neighborhoods across the state, and triplexes, fourplexes, and some sixplexes in larger cities. These more diverse housing types, often termed “missing middle” because they fill in the gap between single-family homes and larger apartment buildings, are essential for providing lower cost options in all our neighborhoods.

• SB 5466 would set minimum densities near light rail stations and other high-capacity transit. We need to let more people live near the transit that can provide access to major job centers and essential goods and services without getting stuck in traffic. This legislation, which  also provides incentives and funding for affordability and requires that cities develop anti-displacement plans for high displacement neighborhoods that are impacted.

• HB 1181 incorporates climate change into the State Growth Management Act, the framework for how our state, cities, and counties plan for growth. Local governments will be directed to implement local policies and investments that will create more compact, walkable, transit-oriented neighborhoods that reduce the need to drive.

These three policies are also part of a broader package of housing policies including the Covenant Homeownership Act, which addresses past racial discrimination in mortgage lending and makes record investments in the state housing trust fund. Together, this broader package will move Washington toward a more sustainable and inclusive future.

Standing in the way are a handful of small but powerful suburban cities, home to some of the wealthiest people in the world. Many welcoming people live in these places, but the organized voices representing them in Olympia are saying no—no to taking their share of growth, no to affordable housing options, no to people who do not have cars or cannot drive, and no to sharing their parks and schools.

But we can make a different choice. We can ensure that working class communities from all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds have a place in our state. Our housing options, just like our communities, should be plentiful and diverse with everything you need—fresh groceries, the doctor’s office, your favorite restaurant, parks and libraries—available within easy reach of your home. Whether you want to live in a big city or a small town, we all deserve an affordable home in a neighborhood built for people and communities.

I feel lucky to live in the city where I grew up. I want other long-time residents to be able to stay and thrive in their communities and I want to welcome new people to come here and enjoy what makes Washington such a great state. We have the tools. Now it is our legislators’ turn to fulfill this promise and pass these important bills this session.

Alex Brennan is the Executive Director of Futurewise. Born and raised in Seattle, he now resides in Capitol Hill and works across the state. Futurewise is leading campaigns to pass HB 1181, HB 1110, and SB 5466.

 

Mayor Harrell, Transit

City Paid Consultant Tim Ceis $280,000 to “Encourage Agreement” and Build “Community Consensus” for Harrell’s Light Rail Route
Four potential light rail routes through the CID; the Sound Transit board adopted the third route from left, which Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell sponsored, as its preferred alternative last week.

By Erica C. Barnett

The city of Seattle spent $280,000 over the past year paying longtime local consultant Tim Ceis—a former deputy mayor widely known as “the Shark” for his combative, “Machiavellian” style—to lobby Sound Transit on a West Seattle-to-Ballard light rail extension, PubliCola has learned. The no-bid, sole-source contract falls just under the maximum amount, $285,000, that city agencies can legally pay consultants before they have to solicit public bids.

According to Ceis’ contract, his work included building “community consensus” on behalf of the city’s preferred light rail alternative—a controversial last-minute option that eliminates long-planned stations serving the Chinatown-International District and First Hill in favor of a second station in Pioneer Square and a new station a few blocks from the existing Stadium Station. Mayoral spokesman Jamie Housen said the contract amounts to around 20 hours of work a week, although it’s unclear how many hours Ceis has actually worked on the mayor’s behalf.

Harrell sponsored the new alternative with the support of King County Executive Dow Constantine, at a meeting where the Sound Transit board adopted Harrell’s proposal as its preferred alternative last week.

According to a redacted copy of Ceis’ amended contract, his work for the city involved “developing and representing the Mayor’s position” on the light-rail route, “developing positive board-level relationships that support Seattle’s goals for [the West Seattle-Ballard Light Rail Extension] and enable effective decision-making at the ST Board” and “encourag[ing] agreement around recommendations and modifications considered by the ST Board.” Formally, the contract is between the Seattle Department of Transportation, which answers to the mayor, and Ceis’ firm, Ceis Bayne East.

Update March 29: At PubliCola’s request, the city’s website has been updated to include Ceis’ original contract, which was not publicly available until today. The contract includes heavy redactions, including a blacked-out page titled “Consultant costs and estimated hours,” as seen above. State public disclosure law requires disclosure of public documents except in specifically, clearly defined cases; I’ve asked which exemption they believe Ceis’ contract terms fall under.

Update April 3: After PubliCola asked for a legal justification for redacting Ceis’ costs and estimated hours, the Seattle Department of Transportation provided unredacted copies of the original contract and the amended version. Both show that Ceis claimed 20 hours of work per week at $250 an hour—a rate that’s significantly lower than what consultants at Ceis’ level (both as a partner in his own firm and with his decades of experience) generally charge. Ceis’ contract does not require a specific accounting of hours.

Harrell and King County Executive Dow Constantine have repeatedly suggested that “the CID community” was united in support of a light rail alternative that bypasses their neighborhood, but the illusion of that consensus was decisively broken when thousands of people signed a petition supporting a station in Chinatown, and dozens showed up to hold signs and testify against a route that skips their neighborhood, last week.

Under the contract, Ceis was responsible for getting “key constituencies” to support the mayor’s preferred route and station locations and helping them craft their “comments and positions” in favor of this route.

Supporters of the “north-south” alternative have argued that “the CID community” was united in support of a light rail alternative that bypasses their neighborhood, but the illusion of that consensus was decisively broken when thousands of people signed a petition supporting a station in Chinatown, and dozens showed up to hold signs and testify against a route that skips their neighborhood, last week.

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Ceis and his firm are being paid significantly more per year than Anne Fennessy, a consultant hired by then-mayor Jenny Durkan to serve as the city’s dedicated representative to Sound Transit in 2018. Fennessy’s $180,000-a-year contract raised eyebrows both for its size and the fact that Fennessy was a personal friend of Durkan’s. Fennessy’s work consisted largely of representing the city in meetings with Sound Transit staff and coordinating technical input, according to her contract.

Ceis’ firm, which helped draft the Compassion Seattle initiative, received $25,000 for its work on Compassion Seattle, the failed initiative on homelessness that Harrell adopted as a pillar of his homelessness policy. Ceis maxed out to Harrell’s mayoral campaign in 2021 and worked behind the scenes on an independent expenditure committee supporting Harrell.

Ceis directed our questions about his contract to Harrell’s office. Housen said Ceis “filled a gap” when the city was transitioning between dedicated representatives to Sound Transit, “providing expertise, analysis, and historical context over the last year.”

Equity, King County, Mayor Harrell, Transit

Sound Transit Board Adopts Major Last-Minute Changes to 2016 Light Rail Plan, Skipping Chinatown and First Hill

By Erica C. Barnett

After five hours of public testimony and a lengthy, often contentious debate, the Sound Transit board voted Thursday to adopt as its “preferred option” for the light rail extension through downtown Seattle a last-minute, back-of-the-napkin alternative that eliminates two long-planned stations serving the Chinatown-International District (CID) and First Hill neighborhoods in favor of new stations at Pioneer Square and just north of the current Stadium Station. The plan represents a stark departure from the Sound Transit 3 package voters approved in 2016, which included both the CID and “Midtown” stations.

The board also voted to keep a Fourth Avenue “shallower” station option on the table for further study.

King County Executive Dow Constantine, who promoted the new “north-south” option in his recent State of the County speech, said keeping Fourth on the table would give people “false hope” about the possibility of a future station in Chinatown, while arguing, along with Harrell, that skipping the CID entirely was what “the community” wanted.

But the meeting, which I covered in real time on Twitter, starkly illustrated what should have been obvious to Sound Transit board members all along: Far from being a monolith united in opposition to a station in Chinatown, the CID community is starkly divided, with a large contingent favoring a station that actually serves the neighborhood, even if it means ten years or more of construction on Fourth Avenue.

Advocates for both alternatives sorted themselves, over the course of the meeting, into two sign-waving groups on either side of the meeting room—black T-shirts and white signs against the CID station on the left, and a larger group of red T-shirts and signs supporting the station on the right. Each group clapped and hollered when someone testified in favor of their position—a clear sign, if the board needed one, that the prevailing narrative about a single “community” opposed to the CID station had always been reductive and condescending.

This wasn’t what County Executive Dow Constantine and Mayor Bruce Harrell had in mind when they introduced the new  “north-south” alternative just two months ago. Both men have argued that skipping over the CID is the best way to avoid harming a vulnerable community. Constantine has also portrayed a second Pioneer Square station as an opportunity to develop a whole “new neighborhood” where the King County Administration Building and downtown jail currently stand, part of what he’s calling his “Civic Campus Initiative.”

“Quite candidly, [the new option] came organically from the community. There are no backroom deals being made. We’ve been trying to be transparent. We’re trying to work openly and thinking out loud as things evolve.” —Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell

Harrell, who attended the meeting virtually from out of town, has argued that moving the station out of Chinatown is the only option that prevents Sound Transit from repeating the region’s legacy of disinvestment, redlining, and harmful development in the neighborhood, which was divided by I-5 in the 1960s.

“A construction period for 10 to 12 years could cause irreparable harm,” Harrell said. “And this is a treasure; this is a gem.” Suggesting repeatedly that Fourth Avenue supporters were looking at the issue from a  “pure transit plane,” Harrell said equity was more important than what makes sense for transit riders who may just be passing through the neighborhood.

“Quite candidly, [the new option] came organically from the community,” Harrell said. As someone on the pro-CID station side of the room yelled, “Not true!” Harrell continued, “There are no backroom deals being made. We’ve been trying to be transparent. We’re trying to work openly and thinking out loud as things evolve.”

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Many community members who testified—including the leaders of the Seattle CID Preservation and Development Authority (SCIPDA) and Uwajimaya—argued that the majority of people in the CID actually support keeping the station in the neighborhood, as long as Sound Transit provides mitigation for construction impacts. “Simply put, this is the best choice for the future of our community,” said Jared Johnson, the co-executive director of SCIPDA. “To have a world-class transit hub at the doorstep of the CID means a future full of opportunity and connectivity for our residents and businesses.”

King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, who cast the lone “no” vote on the new north-south option, said, “Construction impacts are temporary. The benefits of transit in a community are permanent.”

Not only will eliminating the CID station kill all future hope of a single Seattle transit hub where people can transfer between Sounder, Amtrak, light rail, and buses, it will cut off access to the neighborhood from Southeast Seattle, another community that has been neglected and poorly served by major infrastructure projects, like Sound Transit’s current at-grade light rail line. Under the preferred alternative, future riders between the south end and the CID will have to transfer between two stations at SoDo or go to Pioneer Square, transfer, and head back in the direction they came from.

Additionally, riders from the CID who want to access the new lines will have to either walk north to a new station near City Hall, at Fifth and James, or travel north several blocks from a station at the current site of a Salvation Army shelter in a forbidding, industrial part of south downtown crisscrossed by multi-lane arterial roads and bordered on the south by the elevated I-90 on-ramps, as the Urbanist has documented.

“It’s powerful to look out over the hearing room and see seniors, people of color, calling on us to support the Fourth Avenue option. Construction impacts are temporary. The benefits of transit in a community are permanent.”—King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove

As public commenters with limited mobility noted Thursday, walking long distances, especially up steep hills like the one on James St., isn’t an option for everybody; in practice, the new “north” and “south” stations will be inaccessible to them and many other people, particularly elders, living in the area.

Although Constantine said continuing to study the Fourth Avenue option would create “false hope” for those who support it, both he and Harrell joined a strong board majority in voting for an amendment by King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci and Washington State Department of Transportation director Roger Millar to continue studying that alternative.

Balducci was less successful, however, with another amendment (also co-sponsored by Millar) that would re-connect the “spine” of the system—which will be split into segments when expansion lines to Ballard and West Seattle open —preserving the existing connection between South Seattle and the CID and keeping a one-seat ride from Lynnwood to Tacoma.

Constantine, in a back-and-forth with Sound Transit planning director Don Billen, argued that the board rejected a similar plan in 2015 for reasons that still apply today. “We have to stop going back and reconsidering everything we’ve ever decided,” he concluded.

Balducci, exasperated, responded that the only reason she proposed her alternative in the first place was because Constantine just put two brand-new, never-before-considered stations on the table. “The reason I bring this up now is not just because I want to re-litigate things we thought about eight years ago, but because there’s a significant new proposal on the table that changes the way the system works,” Balducci said.

The cost and feasibility of the new stations and the tunnel that would connect them is unknown, as is the cost of mitigation the agency may have to provide for eliminating the Midtown Station, which would have served First Hill. If the north-south option goes forward, it will be the second time Sound Transit has cut First Hill out of its plans; when the agency eliminated the original First Hill station in 2005, it ended up having to pay for a new First Hill streetcar.

Although Seattle City Councilmember Debora Juarez said eliminating a station in First Hill would not raise the same equity concerns as building a light rail station in the CID, the Transportation Choices Coalition has noted that thousands of the 15,500 riders who would commute to that station are hospital workers who commute from outside the city, including Pierce and South King County.

Several Sound Transit board members raised concerns not merely about the details of the new station proposal, but about the implications of moving forward so decisively on station options that have barely been studied, have no engineering behind them, and whose true costs are still unknown. Although current cost estimates put the Fourth Avenue “shallower” option as much as $800 million more expensive than the “baseline” alternative, that baseline—a hub at Fifth Avenue that would have provided the most direct access to existing transit lines—was rejected long ago because of equity concerns, and should probably be retired as a point of comparison. In addition, much of the additional cost would come from replacing a City of Seattle-owned viaduct near Union Station—a disruptive project that will need to be completed eventually, whether the light rail station happens or not.

A small contingent of advocates showed up yesterday to make the case for station options at the other end of the downtown segment in South Lake Union, where the board is considering two alternative sites along Denny Way—a preferred alternative at Westlake Avenue, and a second option at Terry Ave. N. Harrell proposed keeping the Terry option on the table because of construction impacts at Westlake.

Mayor Harrell, neighborhoods, Transit, Transportation

Light Rail Board Members Seek Middle Ground as Plan to Skip Chinatown, Midtown Stations Moves Forward
Dow Constantine and Bruce Harrell have proposed a “North-South” light rail plan that would eliminate planned Chinatown-International District and Midtown stations. A compromise proposal, sponsored by Claudia Balducci and Roger Millar, would restore the “spine” of the system and keep some connections to the CID.

By Erica C. Barnett

On Wednesday, in advance of a Sound Transit board meeting that could reshape a long-planned light rail expansion linking downtown Seattle to Ballard and West Seattle, King County Councilmember and Sound Transit board member Claudia Balducci proposed an alternative route that preserves the existing “spine” of the system while eliminating a planned station in the Chinatown International District (CID). Voters approved the expansion, called “ST3,” in 2016.

The last-minute proposal is a direct response to, and amendment of, another last-minute proposal backed by King County Executive Dow Constantine and Mayor Bruce Harrell, who is sponsoring the motion. That “north-south” plan, which has no cost estimates, engineering, or design, would take a new light rail station on Fourth Avenue in Chinatown off the table, eliminate a planned “Midtown” station that would have served First Hill, and add a new “south of CID” station a few blocks north of the existing Stadium station south of downtown.

The big advantage to his plan, according to Constantine, is that in addition to eliminating the disruptive and harmful impacts of construction in Chinatown, it would set the stage for a whole new “neighborhood” centered around the site of the current King County Administration Building.

Compared to the “north-south” proposal, Sound Transit board member Claudia Balducc said, “this option would mean less out of direction travel and better connections for South and East riders [and] retain a one seat ride from South Seattle, South King and Pierce to the CID.”

Balducci’s proposal, co-sponsored by Washington State Department of Transportation director Roger Millar, would re-connect the “spine” of the system—which, under all previous plans, would be split into segments when expansion lines to Ballard and West Seattle open in the 2030s—keeping a one-seat ride from Lynnwood to Tacoma and, importantly, preserving the existing connection between South Seattle and the CID, which Constantine’s plan would eliminate. Essentially, it would create a true Ballard-to-West Seattle line (which no previous plans would do) while preserving connections to Chinatown from the east and south.

Compared to the “north-south” proposal, Balducci said, “this option would mean less out of direction travel and better connections for South and East riders [and] retain a one seat ride from South Seattle, South King and Pierce to the CID.”

Either of the two north-south options would eliminate the “Midtown” station, which would come the closest of any station to the dense First Hill neighborhood—echoing a similar decision in 2005, when the Sound Transit board voted to scrap a long-planned station in the neighborhood, a decision that eventually produced the First Hill streetcar.

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“If Midtown Station goes away, then they need to understand that what they’ve done is eliminate the highest ridership station in all of ST3 and that is going to require that they mitigate the hell out of it,” said Transportation Choices Coalition Alex Hudson, who noted that many of the people who work in First Hill hospitals live south of Seattle and could have used the new light rail line to commute to their jobs. “That’s 15,500 people who were counting on excellent [rail] service and have been paying for it and won’t get it—that’s not small change. That’s a real harm.”

Mitigating for the loss of the Midtown station, which could come in the form of expanded bus or other transit service in the area, will add costs to the project—eating into any savings from eliminating the station, Hudson said.

TCC wants the Sound Transit board to keep an existing option, the Fourth Avenue “shallower” option, on the table; as long as they’re considering an unstudied plan, she said, the board should keep a more thoroughly vetted option on the table. Balducci has introduced a second amendment that would keep that option on the table, and said that since the new Constantine-Harrell plan will require a supplemental environmental impact statement, “we should use that time to also study and improve the 4th option as much as possible. Then we’ll have the ability to make the most informed choice,” Balducci said.

“Before we walk away from the option to have a great transit hub on 4th that could both serve the CID and connect our light rail lines most effectively to each other, Sounder, Amtrak and other modes, I’m asking that the agency look harder at ways to address community concerns,” Balducci added.

It’s unclear whether Balducci and Millar’s proposals will gain traction, or if the Constantine-Harrell plan has so much momentum that it will steamroll efforts to keep other options on the table. The board meets tomorrow at 1:30 pm.