Eight years after Sound Transit 3 was approved by voters in 2016, Sound Transit is still trying to figure out where exactly to put a new station near the Chinatown-International District as part of the Ballard Link Extension (BLE). After the agency published the Draft West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions Draft Environmental Impact Statement in 2022, community uproar around the potential impacts of building an expanded International District-Chinatown station under 5th Avenue South drove Sound Transit to consider several alternative station locations. In late 2023, the agency determined that the amount of additional study required splitting the two projects apart, necessitating a complete restart of the environmental impact assessment process for BLE (starting with a request for comments on impact assessment scoping) and forsaking the supposed expediency of planning these projects simultaneously.
At the Board’s System Expansion Committee meeting on Thursday, Sound Transit staff presented a review of another round of “Further Studies” on the Ballard Link Extension, this time focused on three alternatives under serious consideration for the CID: the “Preferred Alternative” of a Dearborn Street location (formerly known as the “CID South” Station), a diagonal station under 5th Avenue South, and a transit hub under 4th Avenue South.
Although there are a few other alternatives under consideration for this station’s location (including the original 5th Avenue location), these three locations appear to be the main contenders for the final project. Sound Transit staff presented an extensive review of the constructability of each station alternative including how long each would likely take to build and methods used to build them. They then reviewed how each alternative impacts local and regional transit connections, including differences in modeled ridership, station access, and transfers.
Construction Duration Drivers
Sound Transit’s presented a slide summarizing construction duration drivers for each alternative (click to enlarge):
You might notice the duration drivers for the current Preferred Alternative (“Dearborn Street”) and the 5th Avenue Shallow Diagonal alternatives are downright demure in comparison to the 4th Avenue Shallow alternative. While Sound Transit estimates construction of either the Dearborn Street or 5th Avenue alternatives would take 6 to 7 years, the agency estimates construction of the 4th Avenue Shallow alternative would take 10 to 12 years. As the saying goes, time is money, and while these studies didn’t present cost differences between these alternatives, in 2023 the 4th Avenue Shallow alternative was estimated to cost over $600 million more than the proposed Dearborn alternative.
Agency staff noted that construction of the 4th Avenue Shallower option, which would build a station practically at-grade with King Street Station (as opposed to the “Shallow” option, which would be somewhat deeper below the street), would require reconstruction of the Yesler Way Bridge and demolition of the King County Administrative Building in order to build the tunnel to Westlake Station and on to South Lake Union.
Staff also considered completed closure of 4th Avenue South as a way to speed up construction but determined that while this would shave 3.5 years off the construction timeline, traffic impacts would be especially severe in the CID as 4th Avenue is a major transit and freight thoroughfare.
Regional Connections
To assess whether or not the construction difficulties are worth the cost, Sound Transit staff modeled ridership and travel times to regional destinations for each alternative.
After acknowledging the “high volume of transit choices in the Seattle core makes modeling results highly sensitive to small changes, such as station access times,” the modeling of these stations (which have fairly significant differences in station access times from the street and other transit connections) resulted in nearly indistinguishable differences in travel patterns, with slight (~1%) differences in predicted weekday boardings between each alternative. Apparently, this is due to many riders simply transferring between stations at more convenient locations.
For the Dearborn and 5th Avenue Diagonal alternatives, Link-to-Link transfers would mostly happen at Westlake Station; for the 4th Avenue Shallow alternative, these transfers would mostly happen at the ID/C Station.
Similarly, Sound Transit determined that no matter the chosen station location, total boardings near new stations in Downtown would be relatively similar, but did admit the Dearborn alternative would have slightly fewer boardings.
While the ridership modeling shows significant differences in where these boardings would occur with the various alternatives, the Midtown station (either at James Street or Madison Street) is expected to garner more boardings if the CID station is at 5th or Dearborn rather than 4th Avenue. This may be to due to additional effort put requested by the Board to refine station access designs for parts of these alternatives, including assessment of two different transfer tunnel alternatives for the “Midtown James Street” alternative (formerly known as CID North):
With all this work, Sound Transit is building a body of evidence which suggests the complexity of the 4th Avenue Shallow station is not worth the supposed benefits. Counter-intuitively, the agency’s modeling work indicates building a new station in the center of our region’s transportation hub would have a largely negligible benefit compared to placing the station blocks away.
Independent Assessment
While we may have to take Sound Transit’s word regarding network benefits of building a station under 4th Avenue South, the agency commissioned an independent report from professional engineer David A. Peters regarding the construction risks there. The engineer independently identified several construction risks, most significantly the adjacency of the BNSF railway to the project site.
While construction at 4th Avenue would encounter typical construction issues like poor soils, hazardous materials, and underground obstructions like poorly-mapped utility lines, Mr. Peters identified a multitude of potential issues regarding construction immediately adjacent to the BNSF Railway passing King Street Station into the Great Northern Railway Tunnel under Downtown.
The greatest risk to construction is BNSF, which has near-sovereign control over its railway due to a long history of railroad rights spanning back to the 1800s. As Peters put it in his presentation, “the railroad-related risks for the CID 4th Ave S alternatives, as opposed to the other alternatives, are substantial, unpredictable, unquantifiable, and cannot be mitigated”.
With little quantifiable benefit to offset the immense risk and associated cost, the 4th Avenue Shallow alternative appears to be dead.
A Worthy Successor
With a station under the 4th Avenue South viaduct all but proven to be impractical, eyes are turning toward Sound Transit’s 5th Avenue Shallow Diagonal Alternative, which is a refinement of the former 5th Avenue Shallow alternative which would have shut down 5th Avenue for several years during construction and kicked off a myriad of community complaints against the proposed station.
This alternative would be have fewer construction impacts to traffic (only closing half a block of King Street) and few business displacements.
Additionally, the station would be closely tied with the existing ID/C Station, albeit at a depth requiring four flights of escalators to transfer between the platforms. Although this conceptual design has room for improvement (particularly in enabling in-station transfers from the 1 Line to the southbound 2 and 3 Lines), the proposed transfers are much better than those assumed for the Dearborn station.
This station alternative has the shortest estimated construction timeline, assumes construction of a proper Midtown station near Madison (which would have easy transfers to RapidRide G) and would have similar connectivity at King Street to the original 5th Avenue alternative.
Of course, this assumes construction of BLE is affordable; as we’ve seen with WSLE’s latest cost estimates, costs may explode well beyond affordability; such cost explosion may threaten the entire Sound Transit 3 program. Advocates have proposed some radical cost-savings measures including scrapping the second transit tunnel altogether, but it may be some time before the Board is faced with seriously considering such measures.
In the meantime, the 5th Avenue Shallow Diagonal alternative seems to be Sound Transit’s only viable option to directly connect the Ballard Link Extension to our existing primary transit hub. Although the Dearborn Station is getting preferential treatment in the draft environmental impact assessment work, there is at least one more chance to convince Sound Transit to seriously consider building a Ballard Link Extension that doesn’t force riders to choose between a long walk in the rain from Dearborn to King Street or a longer detour through Downtown. However, it will be up to transit advocates to work with the CID community to build a coalition of support behind the 5th Avenue Shallow Diagonal alternative, our last option for a truly integrated hub connecting all our transit modes in one place.
Curious to know if rider projections consider future growth of Amtrak, Sounder, CCC and the possibility of a HSR Station in the vicinity of ID.
The rider projections primarily consider population growth, jobs growth, land use, and the proposed bus network for the period. Amtrak and HSR aren’t accounted for; CCC may be accounted for since it’s in Seattle’s long term capital plan (but it won’t be for much longer).
Ashame they would cancel something that projects near as much
ridership at 1/14th the cost of WS.
Hard to see how CCC would alter the ridership of Link. It is not that different than what exists now (with the buses). In contrast the routing, frequency and delays of the buses have a bigger impact. If I want to get to Cherry Hill via transit the toughest part of the trip is likely the part from Link to Cherry Hill. If that isn’t good then I’ll drive. The CCC would be a tiny, largely redundant part of the network. Other parts of the network are far more important to Link ridership.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. Says Mr. Know it all.
If you asked a factual question I’d assume you want a factual answer, since the whole point of this blog is about sharing information and ideas. I don’t know who you think Mr Know It All is or why.
ST can only consider definite growth, like upzones that are in place or near approval. It can’t consider things that might theoretically happen if a future government takes them up. Sounder’s growth is by the same agency in the same phase so I assume ST is considering it. Amtrak Cascades’ growth is still in draft and undecided; and the state hasn’t exactly followed through much on its 30-year-old growth plans. I haven’t heard the Cost Starlight or Empire Builder are being considered for any increases, as there’s the hundreds of miles of unimproved freight corridors they travel on. HSR is still speculation too: it’s just a preliminary study now, and the station may or may not be near the CID. It may be in SODO or the Eastside.
I do believe there will be long-term ridership growth beyond ST’s estimates, because of all the future upzoning and multimodal transit improvements that might occur, and public attitudes shifting toward transit, and increasing concerns about car pollution and costs, and climate refugees coming here when parts of Florida and Arizona et al become uninhabitable or washed away. But that will happen gradually and there will be time to ramp up,. Millions of people can’t move all at once, and there’s no place here for them to live. Even the PSRC’s high growth estimates have estimated a million people in one or two decades, not a million people in one year, and Seattle is building around 10,000 units per year.
Imagining what a trip from Bellevue or Mercer Island to SeaTac with luggage is going to be like. However, you slice and dice it, the connection between the two lines looks terrible, and far worse than the 2026 configuration where ST3 isn’t even built.
Why are we spending all this money again to make transit worse?
Seattle Subway and Dow Constantinople.
Seattle Subway isn’t pushing for bad transfers. It’s Constantine and Harrell who are doing that. Seattle Subway is just pushing for maximum rail in whatever arrangement can get the most government/public consensus. A lot of the public doesn’t understand the unnecessary design flaws we’ve identified, or have their own bad ideas.
Seattle Subway has rejected the idea of sharing the tunnel. This is a problem. It perpetuates this false dichotomy (good new station versus bad new station) when the best option is no new station. Use the existing tunnel, with its superior stations.
It is worth noting that Seattle Subway just wants more rail, no matter its effectiveness. They have started a petition to save the South Lake Union Streetcar. There is no petition to improve bus service (that would do a better job for less money). They did not endorse the Seattle Transportation Levy (probably because it didn’t include money for the CCC). While there are people there who care about transit, as an organization they are fixated on trains. They are basically the flip side of Smarter Transit. One group thinks we should only have buses, the other thinks we should only spend money on trains.
I do feel that Seattle Subway folks are sorta simplistic.
Their ideas are built upon creating a subway diagram like NYC, London or Paris. They like to propose new lines with circle dots for stations. It’s a laudable big picture vision. However, those other city diagrams followed the actual system built, not the other way around.
Such diagrams can illustrate unserved areas and corridors (holes in the map) but they are really intended for use by realtime riders rather than be a planning tool. For example, the transfers in their maps are mere circles yet they don’t focus on how awful the transfer will be to actually make. A seamless cross-platform transfer and a long transfer with long corridors, multiple vertical elevation changes are illustrated the exact same way.
Similarly a deep station and a shallow station show up the same way on their maps. They make Seattle appear flat. Many of these new stations will be like UW and will be very deep — adding a few extra minutes to every trip just to get to the train platform. Unless a train is crowded, going from 8 minute service to a 6 minute service does not help a rider (save any time) if just one station takes 2 more minutes to travel though.
Finally, Seattle Subway distorts their vision diagram to make North Seattle seem bigger than South Seattle. Their argument is that it has to be bigger to show all the lines that they want to propose. However, that really just says that they intentionally distort the diagram to favor certain areas. This major distortion to me really undermines their legitimacy.
Part of being a useful transit advocate is basing system expansion off of real-world realities of capital and operating cost, constructibility, demand (high enough to be productive but still not result in overcrowding) and travel time — both inside a train as well as inside a station. It’s a much bigger and costlier concept than a pretty subway diagram can show.
“going from 8 minute service to a 6 minute service does not help a rider (save any time)”
But it makes it less maddening when you Get to the platform if you only have to wait 6 minutes instead of 8. Psychologically 6 minutes feels like just one more minute than 5 minutes, and your actual time will often be 2-3 minutes like the world-class subways. 8 minutes feels like almost 10 minutes. The difference is significant in how satisfied passengers feel about the transit system and how willing they’d be to support more transit service.
Seattle Subway has fought for good transfers, we absolutely do care about station design and how long it takes to go up multiple flights of escalators, why do you think we have pushed for shallower station designs?
Seattle Subway has fought for good transfers
But at the same time Seattle Subway has fought against sharing the tunnel, which would be the best transfer option for a lot of riders (since it wouldn’t require one).
“ Seattle Subway has fought for good transfers, we absolutely do care about station design and how long it takes to go up multiple flights of escalators, ”
The only fight about transfers I’ve seen to date from Seattle Subway is about the CID alternatives. It’s important — but there are many other vertical issues in both existing and proposed stations where Seattle Subway has been silent.
At the very least, Seattle Subway should be vocal in basic things like:
– Both up and down escalators for every station above a certain volume of daily boardings.
– Two elevators off every platform so if one fails, someone can still agent between the street and platform.
The bigger the vertical distance and higher the station use, the more important these features become.
More active advocacy for center platforms generally and cross platform transfers specifically is needed.
ST3 is over-subscribed. There’s not money to build it. Expansion beyond ST3 is not in the cards for the next few years. Instead, ST3 plans will be reduced. For the next few years and possibly more, the advocacy needs to shift to station design rather than adding new extensions. The vision is not a map; it’s a rail transit system.
Consider how dropping the Alaska Junction Station would save enough money to fund a station access improvement program everywhere else that would benefit tens of thousands of riders rather than a mere few thousand. That’s just illustrative of how extensions are not always the wisest investment choice.
“the transfers in their maps are mere circles yet they don’t focus on how awful the transfer will be to actually make”
I’m not a Seattle Subway member. But I think they’d say they want typical peer-system teansfers. in the ballot measure everybody expected a CID2 station next to the existing one at the same level. ST gave no indication it might be anything different, and people thought of course it was obvious that a typical transfer length was the most critical oare of a multi-line network and ST would surely adhere to that.
Instead we got unprecedentedly bad transfers at the primary transfer point between the three primary lines.
Seattle Subway could have turned against it at that point, or supported one if our alternatives like single-tunnel or an automated Bakkard-West Seattle line. But it’s tradition is to support what the politicians want and gets the biggest regional consensus. And add to it. That’s what it’s doing. It seems to think that bad transfers are better than no 3rd line.
similar to the trip from JFK airport to midtown Manhattan. would you rather drive someone there and drive back during rush hour?
Nope. Kill 5th Ave Diagonal too. Kill DSTT2, send West Seattle through the current tunnel (or add a bus ramp from the Spokane Street Viaduct to the SODO Busway and buy several hundred thousand gallons of red paint) and build Ballard to Westlake as the first section of the Snake Line (extendable south to First Hill, Yesler Terrace, Judkins Park and Mt. Baker, and either north to Crown Hill, Greenwood, Greenlake, Roosevelt and Lake City or west to Fremont, Wallingford, U-District, U-Village, Children’s, and Magnuson).
Agreed.
That’s what we’d like best, but it’s a very long shot to get ST to approve it. Since we’ll probably get this instead, we need to make it as least-bad as possible. Least bad specifically for passengers and transferees; i.e., the purpose of the line.
it’s a very long shot to get ST to approve it.
Sure, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying. Look at Seattle Subway. They have been quite influential. They get mentioned in the paper from time to time. Now look at their vision map: https://www.seattlesubway.org/regional-map/. Talk about a long shot. It is absurd. Oh, and it is worth mentioning that every inch of new rail is supposed to be grade-separated.
The point being that we should push for things and then have fallback positions. Some disagree but I think West Seattle (and the region) would be much better off with West Seattle bus improvements instead of West Seattle Link. But if they build West Seattle Link the train should go in the main tunnel. If they end up building a new tunnel then yes, pick the best lipstick to go with the pig.
But don’t stop calling it a pig. Don’t give up before we have to. I think it is quite likely that there will be times when they will run into financial woes that threaten the project. Being able to push for an alternative — that is well known and realistic — is important. We don’t want to be in a position where it appears we are only advocating against the project (with no good alternative). We want to make it clear that we are advocating for something much better.
“it’s a very long shot to get ST to approve it.”
“Sure, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying.”
No, it shouldn’t stop us from trying, and we are trying. We also need to document for reference what ST could have done but didn’t, or how close we could have gotten to an ideal transit network. At the same time we need to make ST’s preferred alternative the least-bad possible, in case we get that instead. So there’s a need for both kinds of articles: one focused on consolidating everything into DSTT1, and one on the least-bad of ST’s alternatives.
By “we” I mean some of the STB editors and authors and myself. Not all of them.
Totally agree… https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/01/10/focus-on-slu-and-ballard/
The Board thinks it has a mandate to build the second downtown transit tunnel as part of the Ballard Link Extension. The concept was hashed and rehashed publicly leading up to the vote in 2016 (and recently has been hashed and rehashed again on the Blog) and we landed on the grandiose option. I think it’s worth keeping single-tunnel operations in mind, but it’s so far off the table that right now, we’d have better luck demanding the State legalize a local transit-funding income tax than convincing ST to quit the second tunnel.
It will likely come back to the table once cost estimates for BLE come in next year, but in the meantime, I don’t see the point in beating that dead horse.
“ The concept was hashed and rehashed publicly leading up to the vote in 2016 ”
DSTT2 segment was never studied prior to its inclusion in ST3 and was never even hashed a public forum as a project. Your statement is wrong.
The studies prior to DSTT2 put West Seattle Link as an additional line in the DSTT.
The final report for Ballard that stops at Westlake is here:
https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SDOT/About/DocumentLibrary/Reports/B2D_FinalReport%2005-16-14.pdf
A 2014 slide deck with West Seattle showing it feeding into the DSTT is here:
http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1157426/south-king-county-hct-level-2-executive.pdf
It can even be concluded that skipping of the DSTT2 segment study step is the seed from which International District opposition emerged. The neighborhood never was made aware of its construction.
Let’s not revise the history of 2014-15.
Al, if I read those maps correctly, it looks like planners were contemplating in 2014 some other tunnel options as well as elevated options for the WS line. (marked as D1/D2/D3/D4) Am I missing something? Of course, there was hardly any detail besides a line on the street grid…
@martin
There were ideas about building it elevated on 2nd avenue/alaskan way. There might be more details somewhere else
What are some of the top things ST considers when choosing between the station alternatives, and more importantly, how are they weighted or ranked? For example, if ST looks at cost, community impact, transfers, construction duration, etc., how is that list ranked in terms of importance to ST?
If community impact/outcry is still a big consideration, won’t the 5th Ave Diagonal idea meet the same fate as the 5th Ave Shallow?
I think the 5th Ave alternatives all got tossed in the same bucket of “no go” when the 4th Ave and South CD alternatives were brought to the table, but most of the supposed impacts were from the cut and cover from construction of the alternatives directly under 5th Avenue. Now that 4th is revealed to be so much more difficult than the other alternatives, we’re back to 5th Avenue or CID South. With a refined version of the 5th Ave Shallow Diagonal alternative, it will be up to transit advocates to team with the transit-supportive CID community to get this alternative approved.
“won’t the 5th Ave Diagonal idea meet the same fate as the 5th Ave Shallow?”
That was my question too. We’ll have to see what the CID community says about it.
That’s exactly my thought too. I hope there is a way to make this 5th Ave diagonal work that is acceptable to the community but this is even more in the heart of ID and requires demolishing a number of storefronts so I’m skeptical.
I’m thinking now more the best solution is to try to derail ST3 since it’s shaping up to be $55 billion for garbage that makes transit worse. Ballard-Westlake is the only thing of value in it and it too will inevitably be value engineered into crap once they really get into the design.
If the expectation is that the Tacoma line and Bellevue line will each operate at 8 minute headways, 4 minute headways combined, it ought to be possible to run the West Seattle line through the same tunnel. Tokyo subways manage under 2 minute headways. With 2.5 minute headways, each of the three lines could operate every 7.5 minutes. For best operating performance, it would require that the Ballard line branch of under Third Ave just north of Symphony station and dive under the Lynnwood line.
This is something folks here have been pushing for quite a while. I will say though that we have backed off on the idea of branching the line to Ballard. Instead all three southern lines (from Redmond, West Seattle and Federal Way) would head towards Lynnwood. At least one would turn back at Northgate but that is the basic idea. Meanwhile, Ballard Link becomes an independent, automated light metro (with smaller stations and more frequent service). This reduces the cost dramatically. The Ballard Line initially ends at Westlake (which means it can be built much sooner) but eventually goes to First Hill and on to Mount Baker. This is basically this plan: https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/01/10/focus-on-slu-and-ballard/
This is as close as we’ve come to a consensus on this blog in terms of what to do (assuming we build something very similar to what the voters passed).
Carl, Ross is spot on in his summation of what is (roughly as he says) the consensus here at The Blog. We’re unanimous that BLE should be a stand-alone Light Metro (AKA “Skytrain”) sort of system with smaller and we can hope somewhat shallower stations that ST has designed. But even if they can’t be shallower, at least they can be smaller (and therefore cheaper and quicker to build) with more frequent service to provide the same capacity. That the reason for automation.
While it is at least in enginering theory “possible” to branch north of Symphony, the recently built mid-rise at Fourth and Pike would probably nix such a branch. Southbound is easy-peasy; you just punch through the north wall at the curve west of Westgate Center and connect the track. But ST will never agree to a level crossing of the northbound Ballard line and the southbound Spine trunk. Thus you have to diverge and dive under the existing tunnel, and that means breaking into the pressure rings of the existing tube for at least sixty to seventy yards for the turnout, then getting far enough from the existing tunnel to run a TBM for the new one safely. You’d be in the basement of that new high-rise, for sure.
And it’s no walk-in-the-park to connect to a TBM tunnel. You have to build a “station box” around the existing trackage at the junction, then very carefully remove the upper portions of the pressure rings, and make the track connection. Building that station box would be a half-size version of making a new Symphony Station…..
Yes, Elon has had his TBM’s bore through an existing tunnel, but at norwhere near the long shallow angle required for a turnout. The existing tunnel would collapse if one tried it at even a six-degree separation angle.
The issue is ST doesn’t want more than 20 trains per hour in DSTT1 without capital upgrades. It has given shifting reasons for this over the years: first signal capacity and train bunching, then platform capacity and egress (escalators/elevators) for fire codes, so we don’t know what to believe. The menu of candidate projects for ST3 included one to do the capital upgrades to support 40 trains reliably (1.5 minute frequency), but ST deselected that when it chose DSTT2, We’ve been trying to get ST to go back and reconsider it, but it won’t. In a March 2023 committee meeting the boardmembers were leaning toward, “A previous board rejected it in 2016, so we won’t consider it now, and we won’t study it again.” On the other hand, It also rejected 5th Avenue Diagonal in the Alternatives Analysis but now it’s back. We may just have to wait for the board to change its mind or new boardmembers to get into office.
The plan in ST2 is for the 1 and 2 Lines to each run every 8-10 minutes, or 16 trains per hour. If West Seattle runs at the same frequency (disregarding line renumbering which wouldn’t make a difference), that’s 22 trains per hour, above ST’s preferred limit. If West Seattle ran at half-frequency (16-20 minutes), then it would just fit. But West Seattle might howl at that, and West Seattle is politically privileged so it tends to get its way, and even some transit fans would wonder if 15-20 minutes is really maximizing convenience and ridership and making the most of the capital investment. So what we’re left with is, DSTT1 needs capital improvements, and how can we convince the ST board to do them and run three lines in DSTT1? We’ve never found an effective solution to that.
The ST3 expectation is that all lines operated at 6-minute peak frequencies, if not all day. It’s unclear if this has been compromised fully, or just until the various OMFs are built as part of ST3.
The 6 minute service was put into ST3 as a concept. The DEIS for East Link was prepared before ST3 and it only assumed 8 minute service with 4 minute service in the DSTT.
It’s worth mentioning that the ridership demand forecasts were much higher a decade ago.
ST2 was going to be at 6 minutes but then ST revered to 8 minutes the same as now. I thought that was carried over into ST3. But ST’s plans this year do include running the Tacoma Dome-DSTT2-Ballard line at 6 minutes all day, so that at least would get a lot of service into DSTT2 so it’s not just one train every 10 minutes.
Good article, 5th Shallow does look like the best option presented at this point and the impacts look pretty minimal considering the condition of the few buildings slated to be demolished.
One note: Based on my read of the diagram it’s only 2 escalators to an underground connection to the northbound platform.
It’s hard to parse, but the conceptual design has each level color-coded, and below the teal level of the existing ID/C Station, the levels are purple, orange, brown, and finally grey for the new station platform. In other diagrams, they have depicted two long flights crossing two levels each, so perhaps they’re still deciding how to arrange the vertical circulation.
It’s not the original 5th Avenue Shallow; it’s a slightly different alternative. This “new” alternative seems to have caught everybody by surprise, including us, so at 10:30pm last night I was getting ready to publish the article and there was no time to get more information or add anything, and we wanted to get the rest of the information out right away. Nathan shared with me a map that shows the difference between the alternatives, so I hope he’ll post it here.
5th Avenue Shallow would have been on 5th next to the existing track as the name implies. A subset of CID businesses got into an uproar and said the construction disruption was unacceptable and discriminatory (being an Asian area with lots of poor people) and would relive the trauma of building I-5, DSTT1, and the First Hill Streetcar. No consideration was given to passengers who’d want the shortest walking distance to CID destinations, and are customers and employees and sometimes owners of CID businesses, and that construction would last only a few years but the line and station will be there for decades benefiting many more people. Still, a politically powerful constituency was against it, so ST stopped considering it.
5th Avenue Diagonal seems to have appeared in 2022. It wasn’t carried forward for further study, but now ST is warming to it. On the south end it would start further east, and would go diagonally northwest to a station between 5th and 6th, then straight north. The alignment would be more under existing parking lots rather than existing buildings, so the construction impact on neighbors would arguably be less.
The “5th diagonal” was already included in the WSBLE DEIS, see: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/0-wsble-drafteis-executivesummary-202201.pdf page 27
That’s page “ES-27” in the PDF navigation software, or physical page 39.
As someone who has heard about some of the road infrastructure in the city of Seattle that needs immediate replacement or near term replacement, such as magnolia bridge and the fourth Avenue south next to King Street station, I believe the fourth Avenue Shallower option is the best Still. I believe it can be lowered enough to potentially not impact any buildings or other rodent structures to the north as Sound Transit claims.
I will also say that the fourth Avenue shallower option would be a rebuild of the aging fourth Avenue viaduct. Being adjacent to the BNSF tracks is a problem, but it’s small amount of money spent to potentially build a switch just north of the bulk of the construction area, and working with BNSF to Not utilize the track closest to the construction site should be a good way to alleviate these kinds of concerns. I’ll throw in the other countries do this all the time and somehow managed to minimalize the safety issues very well.
All Sound Transit Wants to do is either save money, Speed up the timeline, and give us something that is inferior to the type of intermodal connectivity we actually need.
Sound Transit That if they use an option that is not the 4th Ave. shallower A lot of people will transfer at Westlake station, but everyone coming from the north would it transfer at Westlake Station all those coming from the south with in the international district and those coming off of Sounder commuter rail Would also transfer south both stations would be good transfer It would be great for those mobility issues because having access at end means that the station that is easier for them to navigate they can go to and they could then station that is easier for them to access their destination, especially if they are in a wheelchair and cannot easily traverse the hills in downtown Seattle.
I am still in the Fourth Avenue shallower station is the best because it rebuilt aging infrastructure and put the station in the heart of one of the regions biggest intermodal transfer points.
I agree that in a SimCity environment, the 4th Ave location is ideal. However, the 4th Ave South Viaduct is apparently in good condition and not slated for reconstruction in the near future, likely at least partially due to the inherent conflicts and complications associated with the BNSF railway. The 4th Avenue Shallower alternative would apparently require reconstruction of the Yesler Way Bridge which was just rehabilitated in 2017. Unfortunately, we don’t have infinite money and if a shorter construction timeline is more affordable, then we should seriously consider less-risky, less-expensive, and similarly-useful options.
https://herbold.seattle.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/LOC_BridgeSeismicMemo_November2020.pdf
4th was included in the 2015 levy and then removed due to cost, so…
“other countries do this all the time”
Other countries have different political structures, don’t let nimby groups or cities get effective veto power, and have publicly-owned railroad tracks that they can decide how to use.
“All Sound Transit Wants to do is either save money, Speed up the timeline, and give us something that is inferior to the type of intermodal connectivity we actually need.”
You can’t be serious. It was ST who added West Seattle and Ballard tunnels, and a late CID/N station, and is dithering in SLU.
Exactly my question. Assuming the 4th Ave viaduct WILL need to be rebuilt at some point, the same construct-ability (and traffic congestion) issues WILL come up at some point? Perhaps not something ST could tackle on its own, but more of an inter agency effort. The area really is a critical point for all modes of transport.
Dearborn is an abysmal option with a ridiculously bad current and future walkshed. I have no idea where they got their numbers suggesting it would have comparable ridership to the more northerly stations. Utter BS.
Also, 6-12 years to build one of these stations is insane.
I attended one of the station-area workshops. It’s bad but not quite as bad as it might appear. It’s just south of the Uwajimaya parking lot so you can walk to Uwajimaya and the southern CID businesses. The former immigration building next to it is now a community center of some sort and draws people from all around. There’s room for infill growth around it. SDOT is even thinking about closing the western end of Dearborn Street to cars, or at most just having one lane to access parking lots. I timed the walk from the Dearborn station to the CID1 station but I don’t remember it now.
Dearborn may be terrible as a stand alone station, but it won’t work well as a hub/transfer station. Guess we have to decide whether to have a central transfer station or to spread out where the transfers happen. Geography/geology is a beast!
Dearborn Station is a misnomer. It’s only an entrance under the current plan. The platform is at 6th and Royal Brougham (HNTB, 1/24/23). Sound Transit has yet to explain why it has to be so far away from the entrance. The HNTB document also highlights out of direction travel & trip times with the N&S of CID options. The CID community rejected all 5th Avenue options because of a long history of permanent damage from prior infrastructure projects. Sound Transit should come up with new route alternatives that perhaps, damage and take property from the wealthier members of society who can recover quickly and easily.
This seems like it’s getting more and more complicated. So much so that it’s hard for me to picture what I should prefer except ti kil dstt2.
Remember that the staff can’t officially change the preferred alignment unilaterally, even if they’re now promoting it as the best. (And why would they have added it if they didn’t think it was promising.) Changing the preferred alignment would require a board vote, and the board would require information about it, so this staff report is one of those pieces of information.
Correct. Staff are working on the Draft EIS right now, the results of which will be presented to the Sound Transit board next year. At that point, there will be the official opportunity to change the preferred alternative for the Final EIS. The Preferred alternative will get preliminary engineering and advance to 30% design as part of the Final EIS process, at which point the alignment is practically decided. As we’ve seen with WSLE, cost explosion will likely force some hard choices, but that’s up to the Board to face.
I found the Link to Link transfer slide important in this post:
https://i0.wp.com/seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Presentation-BLE-CID-Additional-Studies-11-14-24_Page_64.jpg?ssl=1
I’ve pointed out many times how SODO station needs cross platform transfers. And because the tracks are not in a subway it’s the easiest place to have a cross platform transfer built.
And this assumes the full build period if BLE opens. Transfers are going to be higher during the West Seattle stub period.
Thanks for adding this slide into the post! ST seems to avoid discussing this important topic.
******
I don’t think we should ignore that the SODO transfer design is just as important as the ones further north — and should be much cheaper to make more seamless.
Taken together, the transfer estimates appear to be a total fiction.
Why does adding 1/2 – 1 short blocks to the overall transfer environment completely crater transfer demand for CID station?
“Why does adding 1/2 – 1 short blocks to the overall transfer environment completely crater transfer demand for CID station?”
Because it’s the central transfer point in a multi-like subway along with Westlake. Over half the destination stations will require transferring here. E.g., Eastside to airport, southeast Seattle to northeast Seattle. It’s not just transferring to a secondary branch or shuttle. People expect to walk a little longer at the ends of their trip, or when transferring to a minor secondary area. They don’t expect it between the primary lines in the network: that makes the overall network feel lower quality and makes people less inclined to use it.
It’s not just the distance. It’s all the vertical maneuvers too.
If a rider has to use 4 escalators to make a transfer, that’s 8 total in just one station for a round trip. That’s a 34 percent chance of having one not working (using the 95% standard per device that ST set as as a goal (0.95 ^ 8). And just one failed device can add a few minutes to making a transfer.
This is easy for an able bodied adult. But there are those with luggage, strollers, shopping bags, children, bicycles and wheelchairs. 1/2 of seniors and 1/4 of all adult women have arthritis and find stairs daunting — up or down.
There is SODO just sitting there out in the open. Some adjacent property is slated for station use purchase anyway. It’s so easy and cost effective to build a cross platform transfer there than any of these other underground stations. .
Even 4th shallow is a transfer trek — at $750M extra. Surely a cross platform transfer at sIDO would cost much less — well under $100M. maybe under $30M. It just takes a structure to put the southbound tracks to Beacon Hill over the West Seattkectracks (beacon Hill trains outside and West Seattle trains inside). It’s done all over the world this way.
It’s just so obvious to me. Why can’t most other people see this?
“It’s just so obvious to me. Why can’t most other people see this?”
I think the issue is a SODO transfer misses the 2 Line, whereas downtown transfers have all three lines. So SODO looks like it’s good for some situations but then doesn’t work in others, and we may not realize until after it opens what all of those are and how common they are.
Mike, yes, SODO misses the 2 Line, but it will be important short term and long term. Until the WS trains will continue downtown, most riders will need to transfer here. Once the 2 Line gets diverted to the new downtown tunnel and Ballard, anybody coming from Tacoma/Seatac/RV better transfers at SODO if they want to go downtown to Simphony/Pioneer Sq or go further north to CapHill or UW while avoiding Westlake escalators. For West Seattle it will continue to be important transfer going south.
The only situation I see a SODO transfer as being uniquely advantageous is going from southeast Seattle to West Seattle or vice-versa, and I don’t see that as a major trip pattern. South Seattle is cut into narrow north-south islands by all the hill and waterway and highway barriers. and that means the neighborhoods haven’t developed as much or have as much interaction as elsewhere. Each one is more oriented toward downtown than toward each other, and that affects travel patterns. In central and north Seattle there’s more opportunity for a four-way grid and travel in all directions to destinations everywhere, so there’s more of that travel. Metro has tried for decades to bridge the gaps between the south Seattle islands: the 50 and 60 are the current incarnations but there have been earlier ones. The 60 gets good ridership although I don’t know how much of that is east-west. The 50 never developed the strong east-west ridership base that was hoped. I don’t know if anything can solve that, not even Link. People just don’t find as many reasons to travel between Rainier Valley, Beacon Hill, SODO, 16th, Delridge, 35th, and California like they do elsewhere. If ST can make a good SODO transfer and good downtown transfers, great. If it makes a good SODO transfer but then there’s nothing for the 2 Line, that’s a problem.
“The only situation I see a SODO transfer as being uniquely advantageous is going from southeast Seattle to West Seattle or vice-versa, and I don’t see that as a major trip pattern. ”
I disagree.
You do realize that everyone headed to SeaTac (now the second busiest station) from UW, North Seattle and Snohomish has a terrible multi-escalator or elevator transfer at Westlake, Pioneer Square or CID, right? With luggage!
The optimum transfer point is clearly SODO with a cross-platform transfer. It’s the only place to offer this design.
Mike, not sure you saw my response which I posted at the same time you did…
If I want to travel from Seatac to Pioneer Sq or Symphony or further north to CapHill or UW, you may want to transfer at SODO rather than walk from Midtown or transfer at Westlake as the 1 Line will go through then new tunnel to Ballard. That’s why both Al and I have been advocating for interlining at SODO with cross-platform transfers as it would make transfers much easier.
Then you’re transferring in the middle of nowhere with concrete and asphalt all around. Not a place I’d want to stand waiting in.
“Then you’re transferring in the middle of nowhere with concrete and asphalt all around. ”
Is it really that different than transferring in a deep subway station way below the surface surrounded by a concrete vault? Oh wait. You get fresh air and sunlight!
“Is it really that different than transferring in a deep subway station”
Yes, you’re in a pedestrian-oriented area, not a car sewer with just industrial buildings around. And if you’re going to anywhere north of Westlake, it’s best to go to where the 2 and 3 Lines overlap so you’ll only wait half the time.
I would rather do a cross-platform transfer in an industrial district than traverse underground tunnels and several escalators which may be broken.
“Yes, you’re in a pedestrian-oriented area, not a car sewer with just industrial buildings around. ”
There are plenty of businesses close to SODO Station. Lander street Vintage is quite large. Starbucks has an amazing Roastery less than 1/4 miles away. There’s even a 24 hour Denny’s!
And one story industrial buildings are much easier to redevelop than established residential districts like around Pinehurst Station.
And 4th Ave has traffic volumes similar to MLK where Link runs.
“There are plenty of businesses close to SODO Station.”
You can’t readily see them from the station. What’s right around you in all directions is concrete and asphalt. Transferring to/from the 50 is unpleasant. You can’t redevelop this without losing the infrastructure. Maybe you could paint the concrete different colors.
From a personal safety standpoint, Westlake is hands-down the superior transfer option, especially after dark. Safety in numbers, plus the presence of security guards.
I have a feeling that people might try transferring at SODO once, but after one time of standing around for 10 minutes in the dark with only 1-2 people on the platform, they will change their mind and transfer at Westlake the next time.
SODO is unsafe? I’ve never seen it even slightly menacing. One positive thing about being in the middle of nowhere is sketchy people don’t hang out there either. And every day has a large period of daylight where you don’t have to transfer in the dark. Off-peak I usually see 1-3 people on my platform, and I don’t remember any being unkempt, or even less remaining on a seat while a train boarded.
It would make more sense to worry about safety at Westlake or Pioneer Square due to conditions outside the station, or Capitol Hill where a stabbing did occur. In SODO on Industrial Way there is (or was) a row of trailers, but that’s a mile from the station and they keep to themselves.
Of course, people can believe something is unsafe even when it isn’t. There’s only so much we can do about that. If all open-air stations are unsafe in the dark, that throws out almost all of the 2 Line Starter Line.
Assuming they build it as planned there are three possible transfer stations. Putting aside the distance from platform to platform, there are several considerations:
1) CID and Westlake are served by all three lines. SoDo is not.
2) It is unlikely people will make a same-direction transfer for trips within downtown.
3) For other same-direction transfers there is little difference between stations.
4) Reverse direction transfers can happen at any of the three stations. The most popular reverse-direction transfer stations will be (in order): Westlake, CID, West Seattle.
Given all that, I think the priority for transfers should be the same (Westlake, CID, SoDo). I would even go so far as to say the other transfers can be really bad as long as Westlake is “World Class”.
This is another reason why I support making the Ballard Line stand-alone. I don’t think the other two transfers will be outstanding. We can focus our energies on Westlake. Smaller trains coming from Ballard help in two ways. First, trains on both lines will run more frequently. Second, with smaller platforms (for Ballard) there is a better chance that we can a station with easy transfers without breaking the bank.
Worth noting: there is also Amtrak/Sounder to Link. This is a different thing and is complicated because of the two lines and the different stations on each. For example the transfer from Amtrak to a light rail train heading to the UW will be the same as it is today. But Amtrak to Uptown or Ballard could be better.
SODO is unsafe?
I think it is more perception than anything. It is an industrial area, and industrial areas are often the roughest part of town. I don’t think it is the case with SoDo, but it is understandable that people assume it is.
“Given all that, I think the priority for transfers should be the same.”
Did you look at the transfer numbers in the graphic? The graphic clearly shows that just as many people will transfer at SODO as will happen at the other stations. And that forecast doesn’t include the added time savings and convenience of a cross platform transfer. It’s your opinion about importance but the demand numbers refute that.
I’m not saying that any transfers should be eliminated. I’m only saying that one should be a level cross-platform transfer.
And other systems like BART have TIMED cross- platform transfers in several locations. It’s really amazing how well it works when two trains pull into a station on opposite sides of a platform and people quickly walk about 25 feet from one train to the other. It’s so fast that it barely adds time to the run.
With all the planned level changes, timed transfers don’t really work. It takes too much time to wait for a full transfer between two trains in both directions.
And with a timed cross platform transfer, there is not a increased safety concern nor is there a need to leave the station for retail. It just happens very quickly. BART even has one in Pittsburg in the middle of SR4 freeway with no station access.
Imagine that trains are held at West Seattle until the northbound 1 Line train is leaving Columbia City. Both trains arrive at SODO at the same time. Every rider can stay in their train or take 10-15 seconds to get to the other train. It’s very useful and simple — but only if a station has been designed with a cross-platform transfer.
@Al
I understand your point it’s aka between lynnwood and to rainier valley/seatac having cross platforms would be the best. The transfer times of westlake and cid will be 2~ 3 minutes while a cross platform transfer is down to like seconds. Perhaps we could write an article on the top. Though i dont think its likely they will implement it
> And with a timed cross platform transfer
They do it because the Bart trains used to run like every 20 minutes on that line (it’s better now at 15) for a more frequent train its kinda hard to have the light rail wait for the other train
Al, are you proposing a four-track at-grade station at SoDo? WHY would you do that unless you honestly believe that a “bypass” will be built some day and it will come off the West Seattle tracks somewhere around the curve to parallel Spokane.
West Seattle itself will never, never, never need more than six trains per hour, even at the peakiest of peaks. Six trains per hour is twenty-four LRV’s in each direction, or (about) 4,800 passengers per hour in the peak direction. How would the West Seattle line ever exceed that with just three pretty underwhelming stations beyond SoDo?
The Rainier Valley will never have more than ten trains per hour (per direction) because of the traffic effects of its at-grade operation. A shared station can easily handle sixteen trains per hour.
Let them run on the same tracks with a center platform occupying the position of the current southbound track at SoDo and the southbound track occupying the current southbound platform.
Yes, West Seattle might have to have slightly unequal departure headways during the peaks in order to tuck between the RV trains, but when Line 1 is running policy headways (i.e. “most of the time”), you’d have consistent five minute service from SoDo north.
You already made the observation that the Outer Loop at Forest Street could provide the “flying” junction necessary to connect Line 3 trains into the Spine trunk.
“Al, are you proposing a four-track at-grade station at SoDo?”
I’m not proposing four surface tracks; ST is. I’m also assuming that timed transfers would take four tracks.
I’m just saying that they are in the wrong order. ST proposes (west to east) side platform, SB to West Seattle, NB from West Seattle, double sided platform, SB to Beacon Hill, NB from Beacon Hill, side platform. I’m proposing SB to Beacon Hill (with new flyover south of Lander), double sided platform, SB to West Seattle, NB from West Seattle, double sided platform, NB from Beacon Hill.
By having the trains in the same direction next to each other, it’s also easier to put in scissor tracks and send a train in another direction should a track be blocked. Trains in my proposal wouldn’t have to switch across tracks coming the other way unlike what ST has proposed.
Two sets of escalators and elevators would be needed instead of three.
Sure SODO could work with two tracks. It’s just the transferring riders would have to wait for the next train there. It wouldn’t be bad though; they may wait 4 or 5 minutes for the next train right where the stepped off their first train. It’s still better than walking over to the escalator or elevator, climbing up a level and back down again.
SODO Station transfers will have 10K riders making this transfer according to ST. It’s not much lower than Westlake. It’s more station activity in just transfers than most current or planned Link stations. Why cheap out on this transfer while we build low ridership Link stations?
Al, all true, but unnecessary!!!!!!!!! Six trains per hour per direction does not justify destroying the busway, not to mention adding the costs of two miles of rail and another station, even at-grade. There is PLENTY of capacity for Lines 1 and 3 on the surface. Yes, Lander would need to be overpasses; ST has already recognized that. Holgate would also need to be overpassed, but if there are to be four tracks, it will have to be overpassed in the ST plan, too. Lower Royal Brougham would need to be closed to crossing traffic; from the Sixth Avenue side traffic could go to the Greyhound station and from the Fourth Avenue side to the busway. Lower Brougham Way between the busway and Fourth Avenue would become part of the busway.
You apparently don’t believe my claim that by using the bikeway and trimming the backs of two buildings along it northbound Line 3 trains can approach Lander at-grade for a trailing point merge turnout just south of SoDo Station. They can, for probably a total property acquisition cost of less than $5 million. Yes, a bit of excavation at the end of Forest for the northbound track to dip a few feet in order to underpass the Line 1 overhead would be necessary, but c’mon, that’s another $10-15 million, tops.
I know you don’t believe that a turnout can be put in the southbound track headed up the Line 1 structure, and I’ll give you that ST is unlikely to want to put one there, regardless of the feasibility. So, yes, the busway would have to be single-laned south of its Lander stops to just south of Forrest. But given the relatively infrequent buses, holding southbounds at the stop wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
We both agree that if ST were completely resistent to the bikeway plan that the outer loop at the Maintenance Facility could provide a no-level-crossing path for West Seattle trains to join and depart from The Spine. It would add a minute or two to travel times, but would certainly be no extra cost, since the link has to be made if West Seattle is built at all.
So why do you persist in trying to “fix” ST’s plan? It isn’t necessary that it be fixed. The existing plant is entirely adequate for even sixteen trains per hour per direction. Swap the southbound track and the platform at SoDo and add a diverging turnout to the southbound track under the new Lander bridge with the West Seattle southbound track taking the northbound lane of the busway, and run the northbound West Seattle track over the busway to a similar merging turnout under the Lander Street bridge and that. is. good. enough. Then you have the best-of-all-possible transfer worlds at SoDo. In-direction is get off one train and get on the follower, though most people headed north would stay on the train they’re on until after UW to get the best seating availability. Out-of-direction is get off one train, walk across the platform and wait for the correct one.
It does not and cannot get better than that.
Whoops, “run the northbound West Seattle track over the bikeway to a similar merging turnout under the Lander Street bridge…”. Not “the busway. My fingers got ahead of my brain…..
Sorry in advance, I couldn’t find a contact link. There’s a small typo in the following: “This alternative would be have fewer construction impacts to traffic (only closing half a block of King Street) and few business displacements.”
Great article, it was very informative.
Some of these construction duration drivers are absurd. The “Historic Chinatown Gate” was built in 2008, right? That’s the year after I graduated from high school, and I do not consider myself historic. And the Union State garage access that Shall Not Be Impacted is solely used by Sound Transit. Surely they can find another place for ST Security to park?
There is only a small part of the union station garage that is Sound Transit. The rest is paid parking not owned by the agency.
Parking is easily the lowest item of importance so idgaf about it but there is impact that isn’t just agency parking.
Am I seeing correctly that Fifth Diagonal and Fourth Shallow still include “Midtown”??? Either ST is stacking the deck to make any alternative other than Dearborn super expensive, or they no longer care that people can see that the “Train Plan” is being railroaded.
All alternatives appear to include three stations downtown. In the Dearborn alternative, the Midtown station is shifted south to CID/N. In the other two alternatives, it’s at its original location at Madison. Eliminating Midtown station in the latter two would probably be an independent issue, as it has been until now, and as are similar concerns about 35th or Junction station in West Seattle. In the Dearborn alternative you can’t really have no station between Westlake and Dearborn; that would turn the Link rapid transit service into the Link freeway. The CID/N location, while it had originally been assumed to be deleting Midtown station, is now refashioned as a relocated Midtown station. That’s partly for federal grants: shifting both Midtown and CID stations south can be seen as consistent with the ballot measure compared to deleting one of them.
Thanks, Mike. I agree with all those factual statements completely. I had understood that they were at one time considering just skipping Midtown because of the cost, or perhaps “deferring” it, if they did Fifth South or even moreso because of the cost, Fourth Avenue, any depth.
So I was surprised to see Midtown on the Fourth South Shallow option.
It’s probably a placeholder because deleting Midtown station hasn’t been decided yet. None of these alignment options have been decided. “Preferred alternative” just means it’s the zero point in the EIS that other alternatives are compared to. It’s a kind of preference, but it’s not a commitment to construct that alignment. That would come after the final EIS is adopted. At that time ST can choose to mix and match any pieces disclosed in the EIS. That will be months or longer away, and years until construction starts. By that time some boardmembers may have convinced each other to change their minds, or politicians’ or public pressure might, or there may be different people on the board making the decisions.
I would really really prefer the Midtown station near the library be kept. It would bring a light rail station within a short walk of First Hill, and be a good connection to rapid ride G (and the 2). Though as someone who lives near the 2 I’m certainly biased, but First Hill deserves better transit access.
Ada, I strongly agree. Midtown would be the third best station in the system because of the huge cluster of jobsites around it. Premium jobsites which will remain filled after all the others are emptied by the march of AI.
I forgot to say, “but we can’t afford DSTT2 in any configuration, so it’s kind of a sadly moot point.”
I thought that The Padishah Emperor already had his guns trained on the King County Admin Building. It doesn’t sound like those costs are germane.
The 4 flights of escalators down the platform hurts to see; that’s going to be a lot of time/space wasted going up and down. Is there some way we can put that space to good use, like allowing vendors to set up shop there? Though I’m not hopeful, given that Westlake also has ample space for vendors that is left empty.
Dearborn Station is a misnomer. It’s only an entrance under the current plan. The platform is at 6th and Royal Brougham (HNTB, 1/24/23). Sound Transit has yet to explain why it has to be so far away from the entrance. The HNTB document also highlights out of direction travel & trip times with the N&S of CID options. The CID community rejected all 5th Avenue options because of a long history of permanent damage from prior infrastructure projects. Sound Transit should come up with new route alternatives that perhaps, damage and take property from the wealthier members of society who can recover quickly and easily.
Which “wealthier members of society” would that be, Ms. Lau? The winos in Occidental Park, maybe? There’s probably enough room between the Deep Bore Tunnel and the Pioneer Square station box to squeeze another station in there. It would be much more convenient to King Street Station for regional transfers.
Or maybe the line can swing east of the International District and have a station at Twelfth and Jackson. That would inconvenience the tweakers.
Darn, it’s getting pretty hard to find those wealthier members of society….
And just for the record, the bright red bar in the diagram above is the “Dearborn Station” platform. It looks to be high double digits yards south of the intersection of Seattle Way and Dearborn. That’s NOT “Sixth and Royal Brougham Way”, though you’re right that it is way too far from existing CID station.
Station names shouldn’t be taken literally. East Main’s platform isn’t on Main St, it’s on SE 2nd St. Also, there is no such place as East Main. Main St. in Bellevue isn’t called East Main, it’s just Main. It doesn’t have a direction prefix. The Main St. in Seattle, however, does, and is called South Main St. Sound Transit made up a nonsensical East Main name for the station because they didn’t want to name it after Surrey Downs out of spite.
I imagine they put the Dearborn Station platform closer to Royal Brougham out of thoughtfulness. If it was next to Dearborn, the CID would probably experience more noise during construction.
“Sound Transit should come up with new route alternatives that perhaps, damage and take property from the wealthier members of society who can recover quickly and easily.”
“Which “wealthier members of society” would that be””
I think she’s talking about rerouting Link to areas similar to North Seattle or the Eastside or Broadmoor or western West Seattle (west of 35th). The closest such area for this line would be down Broadway and Rainier, so it wouldn’t be downtown. That would actually resemble our proposal for an automated light metro from Ballard to Westlake, First Hill, and Mt Baker station. Only this one could swing west to West Seattle; e.g., following Boren, Rainier, and Dearborn, and I-90 to get to SODO. It would have to be careful with 12th & Jackson since it has the same low-income/minority issue as 5th. But if it goes on Rainier and Dearborn it would avoid that area. There might be concerns about not taking out Goodwill. But the warehouse is a bit inland; what’s at the corner is a small office building, so it could be relocated.
Extending the Ballard Skytrain idea onward to West Seattle eventually would be fine assuming that the neighborhood undergoes radical change in the future, Mike. As you point out, the geometry near the I-90/Link curve is pretty sketchy as is threading another rail line through the I-5 interchange. But do you really think that Ms. Lau was implying that?
I think she was just “owning the Libs”.
Yes, the “Dearborn Street” name is disingenuous; the platform is mostly around South Plummer Street under 6th Avenue South.
I appreciate Transit Equity for All’s efforts to advocate for the 4th Avenue South alternative, and from a transit rider and community impacts perspective, it is by far the superior option. However, it’s fairly clear now that even if Sound Transit could come up with the extra $1B (or whatever it might be, now) to build there, it would be immensely risky and take literally twice as long to build as the other alternatives, at a minimum, unless the CID community agrees with the full closure of 4th Avenue South for 3-4 years, which would have similar traffic impacts to the CID as a full closer of 5th Avenue South (if not greater impacts).
On the other hand, the 5th Avenue Shallow Diagonal alternative features much reduced traffic impacts (only closing King Street to through traffic) at the cost of somewhat increased property impacts, but the Diagonal orientation threads between the Chinatown Gate and the American Hotel at the cost of 3-4 single-story masonry buildings. What if Sound Transit’s Further Studies have achieved significant reductions in impacts with the Diagonal alternative? Would the impacts described in Thursday’s presentation be amenable to the CID?
Regarding running the train through richer backyards: Sound Transit is assessing alternatives with far greater business and residential impacts in West Seattle, as well as in South Lake Union, LQA, and most especially many businesses on both sides of Elliott Ave W. The elevated alternative for the Ballard terminus also expects to knock down several residence and businesses along 15th Avenue (although a bridge over the Ship Canal has been determined to have significant construction and permitting risks as well).
I don’t know how the conversations between Sound Transit and the CID community have gone regarding mitigations for impacted businesses, either with financial assistance or relocation support, but if there’s space for transit advocates like the Seattle Transit Blog to advocate in coalition with the CID community, then that should happen. However, it’s pretty obvious at if neither 4th Ave nor 5th Avenue are viable locations due to constructability and community impacts, respectively, then we’ll end up with a terribly-located “South of CID” station which really serves no one.
I gotta say: I hate all three options.
Four flights of escalators to transfer? Unreal. The transfers between the BMT, IND, and IRT in New York are terrible, but they were competing systems. Sound Transit is doing it within the same system!
I hope that the gigantic cost kills this project outright. But Seattle is a wealthy city, and we can throw an incredible amount of money at this. Just don’t ask us to put up with a temporary street closure…
This!