By MIKE ORR
Shoreline started its Link station area planning with a public meeting on May 22nd at Shoreline City Hall. It was mostly an informational meeting, introducing the planners and the study areas. There was a wide variety of speakers, ranging from city staff to Sound Transit, the Puget Sound Regional Council, King County, a TOD consultant hired by the city, the activist group Futurewise, a seniors’ outreach group, and citizens’ groups. Roger Iwata from Sound Transit explained the rail line’s status along with Alicia McIntire, a Shoreline transportation planner. Shoreline land-use planners Miranda Redinger and Steve Szafran explained the station study areas and the process to reevaluate their zoning.
The primary question on many STBers minds is, “Where will the stations be?” There is still no definitive answer but the timeline and direction are clearer. ST will release a draft EIS this summer describing the tradeoffs between the alternatives, and will hold open houses in late July to solicit public comments on the draft. In the fall the ST board will make a decision on the stations and choose a Preferred Alternative. The final EIS will come out next year, and a federal “Record of Decision” filed in 2015.
The potential stations under consideration in Seattle and Shoreline are still 130th, 145th, 155th, and 185th. ST revealed that the following combinations are under consideration: (A) 145th + 185th, (B) 130th + 145th + 185th, or (C) 130th + 155th + 185th. 145th and 155th stations would definitely be elevated, while 130th and 185th may be either elevated or at-grade. “At-grade” here does not mean it would be subject to intersections and stoplights, but that it would be at the same level as I-5 and in the freeway’s right of way. All King County stations will be on the east side of I-5. That’s because there’s insufficent room in the median for a track or stanchions, and it would be very expensive to cross the freeway to the west side. Parking scenarios are 500 or 650 spaces at 145th, 500 spaces at 155th, and a garage plus 350-500 surface spaces at 185th. All of these would be in the freeway right of way as much as possible. There was no mention of parking at 130th. I don’t know if that means there wouldn’t be any or it’s outside Shoreline so it’s not their concern.
In Snohomish County the potential stations are Mountlake Terrace TC, 220th SW, and Lynnwood TC. The station sites and freeway alignment are more in flux here. One scenario has the Mountlake Terrace station at the transit center on the east side of the freeway, and remaining on the east side. Another scenario has the Mountlake Terrace station in the freeway median where the flyer station currently is, and crossing over to the west side for the 220th station. Some scenarios include the 220th station while others don’t. Three sites are under consideration for the Lynnwood station, but they’re all within a block or two of each other. The original choice is next to the freeway, while the alternatives are further north and west.
Shoreline’s timeline is to study two station areas now, at 185th and 145th. It’s starting with 185th first while it waits for ST to decide whether the southern station will be 145th or 155th. The study is currently soliciting comments on the study area boundaries. By September the city wants to identify potential land use changes (meaning upzones) around the stations. In December it will write a preferred alternative for land use, and adopt a final plan in June 2014. The study will also look at pedestrian and bicyle routes to the stations, at “complete streets” and traffic calming, at potential new job (employment) sites in the station areas, and other urbanist goodies to enable households to have fewer cars. The maps show they’re asking the right questions: 10-minute walk circles, 10-minute walk-on-streets diamonds, potential streets for cycle tracks, existing multifamily housing, and topographical barriers. The city is also in discussions with Metro about reorganizing the bus routes to be feeders to the train, which is a high priority for Shoreline.
One citizens’ group has already formed around its local station, the “185th Street Citizens Committee”. Another person announced the “Potential Citizens Committee for 145th and 155th Station”. That committee doesn’t exist yet but he’s trying to get it started.
Overall I’m glad that the 130th station and a three-station scenario is getting such serious consideration, and that Shoreline is asking the right questions about modifying its land use, and citizens’ groups are rallying around their local station rather than trying to push the line away. My main disappointment is that the ten-minute walk circles just barely reach Meridian Avenue (Aurora is another 10-12 minutes further), and the existing multifamily housing within the walk circles is infinitesimally small.
Finally, a humourous request. In honor of New York’s Central Park West, can we call the 130th and 145th stations “Jackson Park South” and “Jackson Park North”?
Mike, thank you very much for trekking out there and for making the report. Now we just need to make sure that ST understands, once it releases the draft EIS, exactly how important a 130th station is.
I’m optimistic about 130th. It has made it this far and is in 2/3 of the scenarios. The other scenarios come directly from the ST2 ballot map so there’s no way they could be omitted. There are no other scenarios without 130th. I believe the Seattle City Council voted unanimously for 130th, and Shoreline also made a friendly neighbor’s endorsement. ST’s first instinct is to defer to whatever the cities want; it only contradicts them in the worst transit-principle violations (Vision Line) or highest cost (Aurora routing). The fact that ST accepted the NE 6th station shows how far it defers to cities. Plus there have been tons of citizens’ feedback for the 130th station; I don’t think more is necessary. The main risk is if the cost of the additional station causes sticker shock to the board. But ST hasn’t balked at the cost of the station yet so that tells me it’s not likely to be a showstopper.
I was there and was majorly disappointed by the city’s unwillingness to link forces with ST to make the R/W purchase of SR 523 (aka NE 145th St ) from Seattle. Only then can 145th be walkable, accessible and a more pleasing southern boundary of Shoreline. Not to mention, if ST simply plops a station there tomorrow a 600 car park garage would go there, yet powerpoles would remain in the center of the “sidewalk” where strollers and wheelchair bound cannot traverse. It is out of place with the neighborhood.
Notice…I also was the one that brought up the point that the existing service from Shoreline via the 358 is slammed by the time the bus reaches Northgate Way, especially on mid-day. I asked the planners how confident they were that people were going to have a positive experience by the time the train reaches UW if the trains are maxed out.
If you were there yesterday, I was the guy on the motorcycle.
Well, since the 4-car trains have 8 times the capacity of any bus, and since they’d still be running more frequently than the 358 even IF Sound Transit did the smart thing by branching the line (which they refuse to consider), and since the Shoreline stations have zero walkshed and grossly-inflated “new rider” estimates…
I wouldn’t worry too much about your hypothetical sardinery.
Why does ST refuse to consider branching the line?
My best guess is because none of the ST Board or self-appointed Seattle transit saviors actually live in or use transit in North Seattle, and therefore have no clue what the area’s transit topography and movement patterns actually look like on the ground.
[Also, stay tuned for a barrage of nonsensical excuses completely unrooted in technical realities and unmoored from worldwide precedents from other blog posters.]
put the station @ 145th and then close down and develop the golf course as a new urban village center with higher height limits oh wait I was dreaming
Where would it branch it? Are you still talking about the Ballard spur or a branch from Northgate to Aurora? Two branches cost a lot more to build than a single line, so it really needs endorsement in a ballot measure to gain any traction. Also remember the fundamental problem with branches: it halves the frequency on each side. That puts people at one station at a severe disadvantage compared to the next station down. One of the main promises of Link is ultra-high frequency: we must not water it down to 20+ minute headways on any branch (and I’m also opposed to 15-minute headways before 10pm).
I was wondering about developing a row on the north and south edges of the golf course. I don’t know whether the city would even consider it. Or maybe it could install some multipurpose park activities around the edges of the course as it has done with Jefferson Park. The Beacon Hill residents all raved about the improvements during the Jane’s Walk. I thought Jefferson Park was only golf and empty grass, but there are several things there including children’s play areas and a huge über-P-patch. I didn’t have time to see most of these so I’ll have to go back later and look.
I’m trying to resist straying further from the original topic (Link having an order of magnitude more capacity than the 358), but you know which one I’m talking about.
Your rebuttals count as part of the expected barrage of ridiculous caveats.
Yes, a branch is expensive; it’s less expensive than a totally separate line. In the rest of the world, you make preparations for logical expansions, rather than hermetically sealing off your projects and then claiming no such preparations can be made (even before a single square inch of dirt is dug).
Yes, branches halve service. This makes perfect sense to do where the alternative is massive overservice on the outer section of one line, and totally nonexistent service (or fucking streetcars) to everywhere else. The peak load, at any time of day, will be UW and south. Nothing prevents branching beyond.
And stop beliving in magically-appearing-from-nothing TOD. No such thing exists.
Transit will help bolster development where there is already demand, and where the bones of a city are already in place. It will help that city grow and cohere and function better, spurring even greater demand and development. That’s TOD.
But as Othello helps prove, where the bones of the city are broken (no through streets, incomplete services, totally non-contiguous with established areas of demand), TOD is a sham.
You won’t get it on a feeling golf course next to a highway in the sprawl, either. And certainty not through crossing your fingers and wishing for it on a blog.
Armchair should-haves after a decision has been made accomplish nothing except salving your emotions. (Which is valuable, and I do it sometimes, but I make a distinction between things that can feasibly be changed and things which can’t.) If you want to know why ST hasn’t/won’t consider a spur or at least a spur junction, ask ST, because I don’t know. It gets into ST’s mandates and cities’ expectations and neighborhoods’ expectations (Ballard’s for a west-of-Lake Union route) and ST’s past promises about Northgate/Shoreline frequency, which are too much to get into here.
It’s not a “should-have” one not a single shovel’s worth of dirt has yet been moved, and when we’re still two years away from ST cheaping out and trying to shove some crappy streetcar down out throats.
There were past promises about a quality connection to First Hill. There were past and present promises about a study of genuine (not sham) rapid transit to northwest Seattle. There were promises about a useful station in downtown Bellevue and a well-located transfer point at Husky stadium.
But somehow “3-minute service to empty downtown Lynnwood” is the promise that’s totally sacrosanct? Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?
Put the service where demand justifies. South of UW, that might easily be 5-minute headways well into the evening. At Northgate, 10-minute all-day service is a perfectly usable, spontaneous-level frequency.
Read what I said about the ST Board (and Ben’s) fundamental ignorance. The only people who find it a “truism” that direct downtown running must be paramount are people who don’t fucking live here and never use the transit up here.
Meanwhile, everyone who actually lives and moves between the areas north of the ship canal and the rest of the city thinks the east-west spur, with it’s expedited access to Capitol Hill and points east and northeast as well as downtown, is the freaking obvious choice.
As I’ve said before, ST loves to cite political and practical “truisms” that aren’t remotely true!!
Oh, I forgot to mention that the catchment area of the Ballard Spur that would be about 20 times larger than any north-south spine would be able to be — especially one with but a single station north of the canal, as most Interbay-based proposals suggest.
Again, obvious to residents and transit users from the Lock Vista to Green Lake, but confusing to those obsessed with “node-based” regional thinking and sub-par urban service.
Transit fans are a minority. If the bulk of Ballard’s population had been convinced that a Ballard-UW-downtown line (or shuttle) was a sufficient substitute for a Ballard-downtown line, the city would have proposed it and ST would have supported it with flying colors, because it would have solved both the Ballard-downtown problem and the Ballard-UW problem with one investment. But people have been so jaded by Metro’s slowness that they don’t trust anything that’s not direct, and they won’t believe the numbers even if they show that Ballard-UW-downtown is almost as fast as the 15X. They’re afraid of wasting the money and never getting a good Ballard-downtown route… exactly the same thing you fear about a Westlake streetcar but in a different way. That’s the corrosive effect of allowing transit to be so substandard and so deprioritized for decades: people won’t accept a sensible solution like a Ballard-UW-downtown spur or Ballard-UW shuttle. It’s the same reason First Hill got the streetcar instead of a better and cheaper trolley-BRT: they didn’t believe it would be true BRT and were afraid it would be watered down like the existing trolley routes, so they insisted on a streetcar. The cause of Seattle’s flawed transit improvements is deeper than you acknowledge, and it won’t change until a greater percentage of the voting public changes their demands. Until then, I welcome any subway lines or RapidRide lines we can get, because it’s such a relief after decades of riding slow/infrequent/delayed/overcrowded buses.
Except that “people” have never said this. Not even close. What they’ve said is that they no longer trust overreaching package proposals that claim to do something extraordinary but wind up spending lots and accomplishing little.
I have discussed the Spur concept with plenty of transit-frustrated lay people. Without exception, the reaction has been “That’s brilliant!” or “That makes such perfect sense!”
Indeed, the “transit fans” and the (jaded, non-transit-using, false-“truism”-spouting) politicians are the much larger problems. The transit fans honestly and daffily believe that we’re going to get four new subway lines and lots of linear extensions and new multi-billion-dollar lake crossings and a whole bunch of streetcars to boot. The politicians honestly believe that it doesn’t matter how slow it is or how poor the connections are as long as it is relatively straight and embeds two parallel steel rails in the pavement.
The “people” just want it to work, or else they’re going to stop voting for it and keep driving.
Meanwhile, have you bothered to think about the “people” who don’t live within shouting distance of 15th & Market? Those people know an Interbay-Ballard subway is going to be useless to them, given that access and connections to that intersection are awful. The Spur concept is not only 50x more useful to anyone in Wallingford, Fremont, Phinney, Green Lake, and Greenwood; it’s frankly better for most of Ballard as well.
In claiming “straight to downtown is politically paramount”, you just to the same conclusion as the Streetcar McGinn and “I occasionally visit family in Ballard” Joni Earl. I am telling you, from first-hand experience, that your “truism” is false.
d.p. I’m not familiar with your particular UW –> Ballard spur alignment. What do you propose? Would it reach Wallingford and downtown Fremont on the way to Ballard?
Please transfer spur discussions to the next open thread. The spur would branch after U-District with stations at Latona, Wallingford, Aurora, and two or three in Ballard. One variation also swoops down to Fremont without losing any 45th/Market stations.
Fair enough. I didn’t mean to get sucked into a tangent. My original point was simply that North Link has such an excess of available capacity that CharlotteRoyal need in no way worry about getting squeezed on his luxurious future suburban express commute.
I appreciate your gracious handling of the digression.
(For the record, though, my original highly cost-conscious proposal had only four stations on its route from 17th Ave NW to Brooklyn, for an average stop spacing of 3/4 mile and a maximum gap of just under 1 mile.)
Ditto the easy touch on the censors knife. Let’s have a full discussion why Seattle is so reluctant to have alternatives like the spur vetted. I usually just get labeled as anti-transit and get the ‘Whack-a-Troll’ treatment when pointing out how we are short changing ourselves on system outcomes.
Is it Seattle that owns 145th or the state? Seattle has done (and is doing) some pretty decent pedestrian work in recent years. If it’s the state, well… yeah.
The Shoreline coordinator explained the complicated situation. Shoreline actually starts at the north edge of the sidewalk. Seattle owns the eastbound lanes and south sidewalk; King County owns the westbound lanes and north sidewalk; and it’s also a state highway which gives the state an interest.
I don’t see why the ownership is a hinderance. Seattle and King County both want the Link station to succeed, and aren’t likely to say no if Shoreline comes up with a great idea. The state’s interest is ensuring that the automobile thoroughput is not diminished. What plausable developments are being hindered by this situation? The more pressing issue is that somebody should out the state’s interest and convert it to a “complete street”, but it’s not clear to me why the owner has to be Shoreline rather than Seattle or the county or a combination of them.
At least Shoreline is significantly more welcoming of Link than Bellevue.
The comment about the need to improve 145th is absolutely right. What might not have been clear from the presentation is that the City of Shoreline is already working with ST, Seattle, and other partners on the potential acquisition and improvements to 145th that will be needed to get people safely to and from a station there. Even though ST has not yet decided where the station will go, we (I’m on the Shoreline City Council) have been moving forward to study potential solutions for that corridor, to negotiate potential annexation with our partners, and to develop funding strategies. Thank you for your comments last night and for helping us push forward on this.
Has the Shoreline City Council actually thought about trying to foster TOD in the better (I say that with reservations) walkshed around Aurora vs. what amounts to only one side of the Interstate since few people will probably walk to the other side? Still focusing on Aurora would be a good idea from a development perspective, but you might have to get a LID going that funds a shuttle to the stations at first. I-5 is terrible for TOD and the walkshed.
Shoreline has rezoned the areas around the RapidRide stations. I don’t know the new limits but I’m going to look them up.
Here is the link to the City’s project page for the Town Center along Aurora. . The plan was unanimously passed by the Council in 2011.
On the Council, we (I am a member of the Council) believe that 145th has a good potential to create a walkable, TOD community. I see 145th as an opportunity, not a challenge, based on what we were able to accomplish on Aurora.
I am pleased with the turnout at last night’s meeting and the work of Futurewise and the citizens committees that are working to educate the public about the benefits of light rail in the City.
For reference: here is a .pdf of both station areas:
Here is Shoreline’s project page for Light Rail Station Area Planning:
I pleasantly surprised that the Lynnwood emerging CBD doesn’t need a tunnel too.
HA.
The biggest component of the “Lynnwood emerging CBD” consists of people speeding down I-5 doing business on their phones while steering with their knees. So by building the Lynnwood station right along I-5 they’re putting it right in the middle of the action, with, as you say, no tunnel needed.
(I usually try not to hate on Lynnwood because I think they’re like halfway trying, but I can’t help but hate on the freeway train.)
I do not have faith in Lynnwood’s ability to develop their new downtown.
The lot next to the SWIFT stop at 196th Street, instead of urban, pedestrian and transit friendly multi-use development, they have approved a development that puts a large parking lot next to the stop.
What did the TOD consultant have to say?
They showed some slides from their past work all along the west coast. It was a variety of densities and sizes. They also showed a slide from a Portland group called Eco-something, which had MAX across the street from a store with outdoor produce bins, a bicycle path, etc; it was probably a montage rather than a real intersection.
So they didn’t address the challenges of building TOD around potentially two stations built between a freeway and a golf course? To me that would be the whole point of listening to them…
The process is only starting. They may have been just hired and not even done an assessment yet. This is standard practice with any consultant: the waterfront team’s first public meeting was the same, and so was the U-District station’s artists’. The benefit of this presentation is it showed what kinds of questions they’re asking and what they’re considering, and it also shows they can execute TOD at a variety of sizes and environments. Not all of the examples may be acceptable to you or me, and their environments may be too different from Shoreline to be applicable, but we can evaluate their specific recommendations when they make some.
We also don’t know what level of density Shoreline is ready to accept, and how much it will stand up to NIMBY protests. It could go anywhere from great to mediocre to terrible. It is a suburb, and Roosevelt/Crossroads density may be too much to expect. But if it brings at least some more housing and businesses to the station areas, and makes it somewhat easier to get to the surrounding neighborhoods without a car, it will have accomplished something.
What “Roosevelt density”!?
That process ended with them shoving as many of the (already pathetically few) added units as possible up against the loud, ugly freeway, while ensuring that the overbuilt and exorbitant subway station abuts single-family houses and a football field on a raised embankment.
If that’s the gold standard of upzoning, then the alleged “TOD” further up the line isn’t even worth discussing.
Is there any chance the line won’t run along I-5?
Not at this point.
Ya, that ship sailed last year.
More unfortunate cost cutting, while Bellevue gets a tunnel to nowhere.
Does anyone know the reason for the three Lynnwood alternatives and what the merits of each are?
This is not off topic; it directly relates to the title of the post. I love you people and I learn a lot from the articles and amazing level of discourse in the comments section on this site. It is due to my great admiration, in fact, that I feel I need to point something out, something about which you may be unaware: when you casually refer to a meeting as a “powwow”, it is as culturally insensitive as referring to money as “wampum.” It is your choice how to deal with this fact, but to me knowing the usage is offensive to many natives was impetus enough to get me to stop. I can see the OT redaction coming a mile away; please just take this into consideration.
I meant no disrespect to native tribes or their customs. But it’s unreasonable to expect the word to remain confined to those. Even Webster’s recognizes it as a general term for meeting. Everyone understands that Indian powwows have a whole set of cultural characteristics that don’t apply to the generic variation of the word.
My problem with the city’s approach is that it isn’t objective and it isn’t even-handed. It is, however, a “full court press.”
Last fall, ST’s committee meeting saw several legislators from Shoreline reading, for the most part, off the same script. They all said “stations at 145th Street and 185th Street,” or similar, and pooh-poohed any suggestion of alternate locations. Of 175th, there was too much traffic and a nearby bog. However, 145th, with the same 2+2 lane configuration, has more traffic than 175th, and Thornton Creek that runs under/near it. Of 155th, they said it was a “quiet neighborhood street,” yet 185th has the exact same 1+1+TWLTL configuration and way more street trees and a similar neighborhood.
King County Councilmember Phillips was absolutely right in questioning that the school district, that owns the land to the NW, hasn’t said whether it is willing to sell that parcel or not. In other words, unanswered questions.
Similarly, 145th has unanswered questions, namely multiple owners of the street: King County, Seattle, WSDOT, Shoreline. Shoreline has said they intend to buy it, but while they had a meeting discussing it about a year ago, I haven’t heard that they have. Even so, their preliminary idea for the most-congested segment, a bottleneck for decades (>30K vehicles/day), that immediately east of I-5, is a 2+2+TWLTL, the latter for what? Ironically, TWLTLs were called “suicide lines” when they were abolished on Shoreline’s part of Aurora (99), so why would we want them on 145th? Metro long-ago redirected its southbound buses to going east on 145th, against peak traffic. They’d be better served with 3 westbound lanes, one an HOV lane.
While not opposed to 185th, I think that, in addition to land acquisition, the city has a lot of improvements to do there, namely putting in sidewalks on 5th NE, both sides of I-5, and even 1st NE, to connect to the trail and N 195th, perhaps connecting 1st and 5th and running a bicycle lane on one or the other. East of I-5, 8th NE and 10th NE could use several blocks worth of sidewalks. Meanwhile, WSDOT needs to put a traffic signal at 205th and 5th NE, something I suggested to them years ago, as the Nile Golf Course is directly across, and 5th NE would become a major approach to this station.
North 145th is another issue. It was argued people would exit I-5 from the north to get to this station. Poppycock, I say, as it takes at least 10 minutes to get across I-5 on a weekend! East of the freeway, due to excessive traffic, motorists will certainly use the neighborhoods or the combination of 15th NE and 155th to get there. That’s one reason why 155th is a superior choice for a station location. The other reasons are that it’s a straight shot to Shoreline Community College and Shoreline’s mall-in-waiting at Westminster Square to the west, to the east Fircrest – which last I heard was getting some multifamily redevelopment in the near future. Meanwhile, 145th has no development planned. Zero. There’s also an existing small parking lot to the west of I-5/155th that could be expanded for light rail, and a station located near there would provide the best spacing between stations.
The sensible solution to this voter is stations at 130th, 155th, and 185th.
I doubt people will come from I-5 to these stations. If they live far enough north or south that getting on the freeway is a reasonable option, they would go to another station closer to them. Therefore, ST needs to calculate the P&R spaces based on local demand from east and west. The only non-local demand might be from Kenmore and Bothell, but they would probably find it easier to go to Mountlake Terrace station.
Hmm… If the Shoreline legislators are talking like that, should we be worried that ST might give in to them and axe the 130th station?
I’m not clear WHERE on the East side of 185th there is room for a transit station with that much parking? how much space will this take up? Are they planning to buy up and tear down houses?
I’m also not clear how this will affect housing prices in the area (we live just on the quarter mile from this site). Are there any good studies of how adding in transit centers like this one affects the are around it? I assume it starts to have more shops/retail/apartments and fewer single family dwellings eventually?
Thanks for the summary and for the discussion!
To date, the City of Shoreline hasn’t gone past the meeting they had over a year ago about acquiring 145th Street from their co-owners of it (King County, Seattle, WSDOT). Thus, another year for which them to start improvement on it – as well as to show “good faith” as to why that should be the station location – has been frittered away.
Being a “regional destination” has been the mantra for LRT stations. Mayors from as far away as Woodinville have said that folks will drive to the station (if) at 145th. This sounds far-fetched to me, as they’re saying someone will choose to drive down Bothell Way, where traffic volume has surged with the tolling of SR-520, go west on 145th, where – today – there are 30,000+ vehicles/day – to get a chance to get one of the 500-650 parking spots in the garage planned there? That’s opposed to the express bus that leaves from Woodinville, Bothell, Kenmore, wherever, to downtown.
The 185th station is not considered a regional destination, has difficult access from more than 10 blocks to the east, and yet is seemingly a certainty. However, automobile traffic from even the east may have smoother sailing from the north, using 5th NE, which hopefully will see some improvements as well as a traffic light at NE 205th/244th SW.
The 155th station that’s in the mix is on a street that’s identical in its cross-section to 185th, yet offers a straight shot to Shoreline’s only mall (with plans to upgrade) and Shoreline Community College to the west, a planned multi-family community to the east (at Fircrest), and the way Metro chooses to run its buses from Lake City/Lake Forest Park to Shoreline Community College, which avoids the worst-congested part of 145th (between 15th NE and 5th NE).