Originally Ballard was going to be served by a bridge over the Ship Canal along 14th or 15th Ave NW with a station along on that street. Either way such station would be far from the old town or the current center of Ballard along Market Street. While 3 stations were proposed for West Seattle, now that a tunnel is preferred, Sound Transit should consider another station further west and closer to the center of Ballard. This station may even be a surface or very shallow station. It could be designed as the last station on the line or allow for an extension along 24th Ave NW with the ultimate goal to connect back to the 1 Line further north.
Sound Transit should also consider how an east/west line towards Fremont and UW could connect to the Ballard station. If such connection could be made south of the Ballard station and if it would also include a crossover, then trains coming from UW could either turn around and head back or continue towards downtown.
One possible route would go one block further north parallel to Market Street on NW 56th St. and stop at the Ballard Library. A second station could serve the brewery district on 14th (or 15th) Ave NW. A UW line (thin line) could join from Leary Way.
Another possible route would go closer to the old town along Leary Way NW with a single station close to Market Street. A UW line (thin line) could add another station close to Fred Meyer.
Either way, the line would need dive not only under the Ship Canal, but also avoid the stormwater and sewage tunnel north of the canal which extends up to 120 feet below the surface.
It seems a single station along 15th Ave, or even worse 14th Ave, would not be enough to serve Ballard. In particular, if Sound Transit decides to truncate the Ballard line for now, it should consider a station closer to the heart of Ballard at a later time.
What if we just built the line in the storage tunnel? I’m not saying I endorse it and see it happening, I’m just talking possibilities.
The storage tunnel is to store and move sewage and stormwater, so I’m not sure how well that’d work out. Might end up being a wet ride at certain times of year.
It might be a screw up, though the sites are perfect for station spacing and locations.
As someone who lives in Ballard and saw SoundTransit over and over ignore local desire for a station in the actual town and instead prefer something on the stroad instead, I’m a big fan of this.
I really think a lot of the planners look at certain neighborhoods from an outsider’s perspective. So for instance, you place the station on 14th (in part) because it’s equidistant (roughly) between the urban center and the breweries, neglecting the fact that the breweries aren’t really that important a destination unless you’re a suburbanite who’s trying to brainstorm what Ballard is about.
Ballard does need light rail, but I think a Sounder infill at Ballard adjacent to Shilshole Bay would probably fix this, providing a similar path to Downtown Seattle and a quick one too, I would add infills also at Magnolia, Interbay, Smith Cove, Belltown, Symphony, Pioneer Square, and rename King Street to International District/Chinatown I would cut the segment from Everett to Ballard (as light rail will go to Everett in the future) and give money to CT to upgrade their buses from Edmonds/Mukilteo to light rail. Though this might be an argument with BNSF, I sure hope it won’t be as big of a problem as operating light rail on a floating bridge. This is just a concept and not a proposal. Upgrade the D Line and run the N Line when crowding is bad, and build a new Sounder Maintenance Facility where the stub line OMF will be.
A Ballard in-fill station is too far from the Ballard core and populous. It’d be great for a small subset of riders who live west of 24th and work in Pioneer Sq or CID. But for the rest of Ballard, it’s much easier walking to the 17, 40 or that captures the vast majority of the neighborhood (you can throw in the 28 as well).
That’s the big problem with the North Line. It’s too far from major population centers. Only the few and the rich live on the water. The rest of us are inland.
I think you are confused. Sounder is commuter rail. Commuter rail is basically just regional rail with service focused on commuting. Either way the trains are infrequent. It is just that with commuter rail they run a few more trains during peak (e. g. every 20 minutes) and fewer during the middle of the day (e. g. every couple hours instead of every hour). In contrast a metro is mass transit serving a dense urban area that are close to each other. The demand is different because of the nature of the places. You could run Sounder every five minutes to Auburn and see only a minor increase in ridership. If you ran Link to Capitol Hill as often as South Sounder you would see ridership plummet. These are different places with different needs.
Ballard is a dense, urban area. A commuter rail station would do very little for it, especially given its location. Very few people could walk to the station. But even if you somehow moved the line into the heart of Ballard you still have the same problem: It is commuter rail serving a place better suited for a metro. The trains can’t possibly run like a metro (every 6 minutes during the day). You would only get the commuters willing to time their trip which means the vast majority of riders would just keep taking the bus.
That’s the big problem with the North Line. It’s too far from major population centers.
I would say the one exception is Edmonds. But it just isn’t worth the extreme cost to give Edmonds riders a train to downtown (as good as it is). If we owned the lines then they could run small trains back and forth but we don’t. The cost per rider of North Sounder is extremely high (by my estimates over $100 now). We should replace it with express buses (some of which already exist).
But Ross, at least some infill stations can cover up the subsidy, with the money earned I can suggest to lower the fare to 3 dollars.
“Only the few and the rich live on the water”
Well, with the rich we can make some money, that covers up the low population. I don’t think people would mind taking a bus (probably a revised 44) to Ballard Station from Market Street. It would at least be a better place to wait, with lots of space available compared to the 15th/Market station area Sound Transit has proposed. Use the remaining money from the N Line improvements (and what is saved from Ballard Link) to further upgrade the D, ST’s proposal is to give Metro money to upgrade the line, but it could be further upgraded to meet the standards that light rail has (such as center running lanes, center stations, better buses and stations). Similar to the MLK segment… But with buses.
The main problem is not the BNSF is unwilling to negotiate – that tunnel is literally the only freight rail connection between BC and Portland! By displacing that, there will be thousands more heavy trucks on our roads and freeways, hurting climate goals and destroying the asphalt. Even if freight could continue overnight, many businesses would pay more to receive daytime deliveries by truck and freight rail demand will decrease significantly.
at least some infill stations can cover up the subsidy
Probably not. You would still be spending a fortune running the trains while getting very few additional riders. You also have to pay to add the stations.
Oh, and just for giggles, where exactly would you put the station in Ballard? What cross street?
I don’t think people would mind taking a bus (probably a revised 44) to Ballard Station from Market Street.
They would if it was commuter rail! That is the point. Of course you would get some riders. Maybe a couple hundred at most. Consider ridership on the RapidRide D. As of now, it is the fastest way to get from Ballard to downtown (they aren’t running the 15). It seems quite reasonable that someone would get on the 44 and then transfer at 15th & Market. At the same time, there are bound to be people in the area who walk to the bus stop. So it is no surprise that for a morning commute this is the most popular bus stop. Yet only about 150 riders board there in the morning. This is for a bus that runs somewhere between 7 to 10 minutes towards downtown; a bus that makes a lot of stops downtown. Sounder involves additional waiting and far fewer stations (even after adding one in Belltown). You just wouldn’t get that many riders.
Again, that is the difference between regional and local transit. The farther the distance, the more important speed is and the less important frequency and stop placement is. For suburban locations (like Kent) the transit riders are bound to be overwhelmingly interested in commuting (if they are headed to Seattle). In Ballard it is the opposite.
If you want to argue that we should put our money into BRT for Ballard instead of rail, be my guest. But don’t pretend that a commuter rail station in Shilshole is going to attract anywhere near the ridership that a metro station in Ballard would.
@ctishman…Semi-fair observation about the breweries, though there’s tongs of ultra locals who frequent those breweries too.
As a fellow Ballard resident, I could go either way. 15th Ave & Market is the “gateway” to Ballard. It’s still close to dense housing and what’s the biggest win Bus transfers. 15th Ave would be the best station in the entire system to have the easiest transfers (assuming station entrances would be on both side of the street). Imagine getting off a train and a bus is right there as you exit the station (much like Roosevelt 65th St exit or U-Dist 43rd St exit)
A station at 22nd would be great for the obvious reason: proximity to the Ballard core. Most of the eateries and retailers are centralized around Ballard Ave & Market. And it’s closer than the 15th Ave option to alot of the dense housing that sits between 17th Ave and 24th Ave. The only drawback is bus transfers: if you’re coming from 15th Ave, the bus must turn onto/off of Market street and go through several traffic lights to reach the station. But it’d be awesome for daytime shoppers and nighttime crowds.
A station at 15th is much better than a station at 14th because there are a lot more people and attractions around it. (For those who don’t know the neighborhood, it is not a short block between 14th and 15th — it is over 600 feet.) 20th is much better than 15th for the same reason. This is why several people have suggested a station there.
From a bus perspective it is also better. This is less intuitive but only because we think of the routes as they exist now. With Ballard Link, some buses change and some remain the same. The 40 would continue to go to Fremont and downtown. But the RapidRide D would not. There is no reason to send it over the Ballard Bridge. The obvious place to send it is Central Ballard — in other words, 20th & Market*. Thus it will serve Central Ballard whether there is a station there or not. If the station is at 15th or 20th it doesn’t matter that much for the D. If the station is at 14th though it means the bus has to detour to the east and then loop around. Worse yet it could end there. Either way, 14th is really bad for the D. Now consider the 40. If the station is at 20th, the 40 can continue on its current path. This is ideal. If the station is at 15th it has to skip Leary, thus creating a service hole in Old Ballard. If the station is at 14th the hole is even bigger.
So again, the best thing for both the buses and walk-up riders is to put the station at about 20th & Market. A short block or two away (as this essay suggests) would still be a big improvement over either 14th or 15th.
*The D could lay over in Central Ballard or at worst join the 44 and end at the locks.
@Ross..nicely done in the explanation for supporting 20th Ave. I did not consider 40 having to deviate to 15th Ave. In light of this, I now support a 20th/22nd Ave station.
Wouldn’t the station have to be closer to 22nd and Market for the 40?
One benefit of 15th is that it is a little further from the water, meaning more opportunity for redevelopment. It would also mean riders wouldn’t have to cross 15th from either side, since there would be entrances on either side of the street.
14th would be significantly worse in all aspects
I’ve long stated that an east-west station platform under Market Street should be considered. It would allow for two station entrances hundreds of feet apart, a shallower station because it would be further from a Ship Canal tunnel, and a better fit for the east-west orientation of the density in the neighborhood. It also seems like Market Street could be temporarily narrowed for construction without creating too much traffic congestion (and occasionally closed). I would relocate the fire station and re-imagine the site as a station entrance.
Of course, lots depends on specifics like what soils are like, where station entrances can go and other things.
Going with an automated line would shorten the platform length. Maybe one long station could be switched out for two shorter ones? I rather doubt ST would go along with it, but it always seemed to me that Ballard should have had two stations.
Given the massive budget problem, one Ballard station would be a stretch. But at least an east-west oriented station could make it easier to go westward to a second station if/ when enough funding becomes possible.
The big loss is of course that Link going to Greenwood would be much more expensive and challenging. But I think that that neighborhood doesn’t have the size and interest of western Ballard to better earn a subway station for the foreseeable future.
How would residents on 24th, 20th, and 15th get to the Sounder station? I lived at 15th & 65th and walked to work at 22nd & Market. That was about 15 minutes if I remember. Walking to Link would be similar, depending on whether the station is at 15th, 14th, or 20th. The Sounder station would be beyond the walkshed of practically the entire village and even more for where I was. Would you take a 2-seat ride to Sounder (D + 44)?
Second, there’s a huge difference between waiting 6 minutes for a metro vs waiting 30 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, or three days for Sounder. The urban areas in a city need 6-minute frequency: that’s what cities with comprehensive transit have. The BNSF north corridor can never have 6-minute, half-hourly, or hourly Sounder because the region needs it to carry freight too, for national/international circulation of goods, local jobs, and environmental sustainability (vs trucks). You can’t add tracks to increase capacity because of the narrow hillside in north Seattle and the tunnel downtown.
Can someone remind me: why must a tunnel run underneath 22nd Ave instead of 15th Ave?
Correction: why must a tunnel run along 22nd Ave *in Interbay* and not simply along 15th Ave W? If it were along 15th Ave, it would catch 10x more riders than placing a station in the middle of bnsf tracks. I never understood the reasoning behind this.
Because SoundTransit’s priority is getting projects done, rather than making projects good.
In a way, for as much as I kvetch about ST, I can sympathize with this approach to a degree. As an agency, their job is to functionally build and operate the light rail network, and they’re not equipped or funded to fight multi-decade legal battles with every single NIMBY troublemaker along the way. They don’t have the resources, legally-speaking, to bulldoze over say, Salmon Bay Sand And Gravel, which has successfully fought the city to a standstill over a bike path for like twenty years now. And the city is chock-full of companies and individuals who apparently have endless resources to blow on preventing good things from happening.
So like, I know I posted earlier this morning in this very thread complaining about how ST prioritized access to the breweries over actually putting the station in Ballard, but now that I’ve thought on it some more, I understand, and I understand why they’re building it in the middle of the BNSF yard instead of anywhere useful: the state won’t back them up and give them the muscle to force their way into convenient places, so they build where they can.
I don’t think it would go along 22nd in Interbay (if by Interbay you mean Dravus). I’m pretty sure all the plans are to put it somewhere in between 15th and 20th. I think it is only after the train goes north there it could end up going into a tunnel at 22nd. This would seem like a plausible option if the train were to follow the existing tracks (or skirt them).
I don’t think you are going to get that many walk-up riders at Interbay Station, no matter where you put it. The railroad tracks take up a lot of space. 15th is pretty wide, especially around Dravus. You have the athletic fields and the tiny stadium. Although there has been quite a bit of development in the area there are still some industrial buildings that will remain industrial. You will get some riders on the side of Queen Anne but it becomes single family fairly quickly. Your best bet is probably around 16th & Dravus but it still wouldn’t get that many riders.
The most important thing about an Interbay stop is that is serve the buses from Magnolia. Those buses will be heading to the UW via Dravus. They shouldn’t have to detour to serve the station nor should riders have to walk a long distance between the bus stop and the train station. This is where the bulk of the riders will come from (and where we’ll get the bulk of the riders between Uptown and Ballard).
@ Ross…I’m looking closer at the preferred route by ST and now realizing the station is much closer to 15th than previously thought. This is more of a relief. https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/ballard-link-extension
First I think that’s pretty close to 15th Ave, secondly I don’t think there is much potential for development east of 15th Ave W, so it’s probably for the best to put station between Balmer Yard and 15th Ave W.
Balmer Yard no longer does any BNSF engine maintenance stuff anymore, chance is they might be open to sell some of the land by the time Ballard Link is under construction.
Sound Transit has made some sensible decisions lately, such as looking at NOT building a second tunnel downtown and letting passengers use the Lynnwood to downtown portion of the 2 line while it’s learning how to navigate the floating bridge. Maybe it’s time to revisit this whole Ballard route as well. That last image, showing a route under Leary Way, would be perfect with one more station added–the University of Washington. The UW-Ballard corridor was identified early on as the one most in need of rapid transit, then was ignored in ST3. Such a line would serve several high density neighborhoods, skip the empty Interbay area, and avoid the high cost of another crossing of the Ship Canal. With twice as many trains running in the Lynnwood-downtown corridor, the addition of passengers from a Ballard-UW spur would not overwhelm the system.
yes, from Leary Way station, automated trains could easily back out and continue towards Fremont, Wallingford, and UW as I indicated on the map.
They’re still building the tunnel.
Don’t Build the Damn Trains…Build the Snake! Ballard to Westlake (with short, two car automated trains) is just the first step of a line from Mt. Baker to UW/Northgate and then on to Lake City that intersects with the rest of the network at four points and still provides some redundant access to downtown. Maybe I’m just high on RossB postings, but as the Mandalorians might say “This is The Way”
Definitely makes sense to try to get the station closer to center of Ballard. If extending north past Ballard toward Holman Rd / 105th / Northgate, would it be preferable to run along 24th or or would you want to swing back to align with 15th?
Switch back to 15th Ave and have stations at 65th and 85th. The walkshed along 15th Ave has higher density, especially in the northern section versus 24th Ave. Plus, I’m not sure how the higher income area of “Loyal Heights” would appreciate years of tunneling and a light rail station at their doorstep.
With the massive shortfall facing this line and the long timeline needed for construction, I view the debate over the location to be a bit academic. I don’t see enough funding currently there to build to Ballard even if West Seattle is fully dropped.
My expectation is that this station cannot receive riders on Link trains for at last 20 years if not 30 or even 40. That’s plenty of time to change the surrounding zoning to shift the activity and density of the area to respond to the station site. The 6-10 years of construction will be a big disruption too , and could really hurt businesses with a block of it.
Even if infill development comes in east of 15th, it’s unlikely to have the range of destinations, walkability, and aesthetics that make Old Ballard such a pedestrian success. New buildings tend to have wide shallow storefronts rather than narrow deep ones, so fewer businesses per block, high-visibility favored by chains, and too big for very small businesses. The buildings tend to be large and boxy, have ugly siding and crude modernist finishes, and they don’t maximize walkability (they’re designed to be awe-inspiring in a photo rather than the shortest walking paths to pedestrian origins).
Compare University Way (pre-WWII) to Roosevelt Way (1990s) in the U-District. Ballard Avenue to 15th. 45th/Market street in Seattle vs The Landing. Etc, etc, etc.
Developers can build new buildings as aesthetic and convenient as pre-WWII buildings, but they only do it during restorations. Some good ones are at Pine & Bellevue, and Pike a couple blocks west and east of Broadway (e.g., Pike Motorworks brewery, Sunset Electric something). They won’t make all new buildings this way due to modernist bias among architects, clients, and governments, and a false perception that it’s too expensive. (You don’t have to make them exactly like the old buildings with their intricate decorations, but at least make them similar and nice-looking, and vertically-oriented looking instead of horizontally-oriented. And narrow deep storefronts! More businesses per block!)
Exactly with new buildings you dont get a new Capitol Hill or Ballard urban form, you get sh*t like the new development around Shoreline 145th station with zero mixed use, zero retail/food&bev, zero third spaces, zero entertainment spaces… just packing as many crappy units in the zoning envelope in a disposable vinyl and Hardie sh*tbox.
I see Old Ballard like Alaska Junction. It has a great small business environment! Ballard has good restaurants and some nightlife too!
Still, the fact remains what many of these businesses are in one-story buildings, and that assembling enough parcels to add a multi-story building to a quaint facade would effectively structurally wipe out the small business entrepreneurship that creates the quaintness in the first place.
The question to me becomes how best to locate a station that’s close enough to walk to them but not so close that it changes the real estate dynamics so much that the quaintness is lost.
I dearly love our quaint neighborhoods. I even feel that several special things that made Capitol Hill quaint and interesting have been lost as a result of its redevelopment driven by the station opening. There are almost no unique restaurants left there that were there 20 years ago, for example. By contrast, Columbia City’s district — being several hundred feet from the station — hasn’t seemed to create much of a change in the character.
the fact remains that many of these businesses [in Old Ballard] are in one-story buildings.. The question to me becomes how best to locate a station that’s close enough to walk to them but not so close that it changes the real estate dynamics so much that the quaintness is lost.
Right. What you want is basically an historic district with all of the old charm but surrounded by high density buildings. That is basically what a station at 20th & Market gives you. You can most certainly walk to Old Ballard from there. You can also walk to the hospital and the surrounding clinics. You can walk to plenty of retail and nightlife in the area. But you can also walk to a lot of 6 to 8 story buildings right in the area. It is all right there. It is basically like the U-District. The Ave. is what gives it charm, the surrounding buildings give it density.
That’s plenty of time to change the surrounding zoning to shift the activity and density of the area to respond to the station site.
Except it doesn’t work that way. The Brewery district is industrial. This won’t change any time soon. A lot of the areas around it consist of brand new townhouses. These are a lot more dense than single family homes but not nearly as dense as the big apartment buildings to the west. Since they are new, they aren’t likely to change for a very long time. More to the point, why the hell should be build in the middle of nowhere, hoping things eventually become really dense instead of building where things are dense already?
I don’t see enough funding currently there to build to Ballard even if West Seattle is fully dropped.
If we drop West Seattle then we also drop the second tunnel. The new line (Westlake to Ballard) would be automated and thus have smaller stations. This would drop the cost of the WSBL by a huge amount and make up for the cost overruns.
“why the hell should be build in the middle of nowhere, hoping things eventually become really dense instead of building where things are dense already?”
That was the problem with the RapidRide D alignment in the first place. The city ignored the existing high-pedestian, highly-successful area in favor of a future-growth area, which is not as good.
Al S.
I agree with this sentiment. New development in the core of old Ballard would not be all that compatible with the existing small businesses and general urban fabric of the area. Having the station offset to 15th allows for a much more intense development regime to take place, without disturbing the older area. I personally think that this is a much healthier way to do such development. I walk to the old part of Columbia City fairly regularly from the link station, and it’s not really bad at all.
On Poncho’s point about lack of mixed use, I would kindly point out that the area around Roosevelt has developed nearly entirely as mixed use, and is a much more likely basis for how future Ballard station development would occur.
Al S. Is absolutely correct about the likelihood of Ballard being built.. There’s no money left and getting across the ship canal is going to cost SO MUCH. Unfortunately it won’t be happening in our lifetime(s) no matter how old or young the commenters are.
“Originally Ballard was going to be served by a bridge over the Ship Canal along 14th or 15th Ave NW”
15th, not 14th. The original plan was for a 15th station. That was in ST’s long-range plan from 2008 if not earlier all the way through the ballot measure in 2016.
14th emerged afterward when the Port objected to taking a corner of the Fisherman’s Wharf land, and residents in recent apartments on 15th Ave NW objected to trains in front of them. (15th was a decaying one-story 1960s area in the 2000s but was expected to get 7-story apartments: some of them were built in the intervening years.)
14th has nothing to do with the breweries. It’s a way to yield to the Port’s preferences and lower construction costs. The low house/townhouse density east of 14th is not a reason for it either: it’s just a parochial city unwilling to have a full medium-density walkshed around all Link stations or expand the urban village that much.
Let’s not forget SDOT head Kubly not putting his two tunnel idea up for public comment before submitting to ST. Always remember Ballard to UW was the most popular ST public comment choice
Yes it’s important to remember that the DSTT2 alignment in particular was not studied or aired in the public before it was dropped into ST3. For that matter, the measure’s Ballard to Downtown alignment was also created by Kubly (and Murray) as a hybrid idea upon completion of a prior study that did not have the alignment identified in the referendum.
Because so many other ST3 Link extensions were studied beforehand, it’s easy to forget that these were not.
And let’s remember the push to look at pushing the downtown portion eastward back in 2017-18 was deemed as “inconsistent with the ST3 measure” even though the current preferred alignment is more inconsistent than that concept was — and the distance between 15th and 14th is more than half of what the Board was asked to consider by transit advocates at the time.
An important thing for a rider is the ultimate path a Link rider would have to walk. It’s one thing to place the station platforms in a particular place and that does affect walk distance and effort. It’s another to place the station entrances and connecting walkways and stairways to get to it.
Finally, the path for a transferring bus rider is an important consideration too. We’ve seen how big of a deal this is for existing stations — in both transit travel time and crosswalk safety. Since ST doesn’t run buses, they seem less concerned about bus transfers than they should be.
Are there station layouts to respond to? I’ll be curious what the station layouts will be in the EIS.
So how about we agree to ways to quantify the rider experience now, in anticipation of commenting on the EIS? Distance can be described in several ways like using feet or number of steps or walking time horizontally or vertically. Responding to the EIS can be more impactful if many comments are responding to designs using specific, similar quantifiable metrics.
Saying something is just “too far” won’t be very powerful in my eyes. I see the need to use terms that can be quantified to be more convincing.
Well said, the bus-rail transfers are so critical and so often neglected in the station location and design. The location needs to heavily focused on minimizing the distance and street crossings between the station and the connecting buses. A Ballard station need to strattle Market St for transfers to the major 44 crosstown line where you can pop out of the station and be right at the stop for either direction of the 44 and without having to cross streets.
I realize the N linechas a post of issues butvit seems like a shame thecold great northern station is sitting as a private home now. I’d rhat would be a retively easynfill add tob5henorth line. Doesn’t it already cross the railroad bridge and just go right by there? You’d need platform s and orca readers and maybe some utility infrastructure. You’d also have 5o buy the old station from whoever currently owns it. I’d see a lot more issues trying to repurpose it for link but it seems tempting for sounder.
Would love a Fremont stop. Has always seemed like such a huge omission from the existing plans.
On a slightly different topic, what do you think about the idea of moving the second transit tunnel east to run through the central district roughly between 23rd and 28th instead of through downtown. Hear me out.
Basically the alignment would be, line 3 from West Seattle to Everett running through the new tunnel, connecting with the 1 line at beacon Hill and potentially mt baker, before heading underground again and connecting with the 2 line at judkins, and then running north through the cd stopping at major centers perhaps between jackson / Garfield, union and madison, and then north cap hill / south montlake perhaps. And then reconnect with the 2 line at UW montlake stop. The 1 line would branch off at Westlake (or perhaps before that tight turn) to head towards slu / Seattle center and on to ballard. The 2 line would follow the planned alignment serving cap hill and Westlake and heading north from downtown.
There are 3 main advantages I see to this idea.
1. Provides basically an express line that gets from north cap hill and north of the cut to south Seattle and connects to the 2 line without having to take the detour through the slower downtown stops. I believe this could cut close to 10 mins off some regional trips.
2. Widens the network in central seattle and provides service to areas that already have some density but still a lot of potential for upzoning and which have been historically underinvested in such as the cd, rather than building a somewhat redundant second tunnel just blocks away from the existing one through downtown.
3. Potential savings and expedited timeline for the second tunnel by building and tunneling though the relatively less developed (especially underground) conditions in the cd rather than the heavily developed and crowded tunneling conditions through downtown.
Sorry for the off-topic novel novel but this idea has been stuck in my head with the conversations around cost ballooning for the second tunnel and wanted to jot it down somewhere. 😅
Unfortunately there’s no real way to branch off existing underground stations without major disruptions to operations. Like, years-long closure(s). Completely untenable, even if the long-term benefits could be amazing. The only realistic way to connect to an existing underground station with walking transfers.
In the ST2-era long-range plan there was a Jackson-23rd-Denny corridor m presumably connecting to West Seattle and Ballard. In the 2014 update when the board asked a staff rep who wanted it and who would ride it, the rep said one person had suggested it in an open house. The board didn’t see a use for it and nobody stepped up to defend it, so it deleted it. In retrospect many transit fans realized it would have helped a lot with transit in downtown-adjacent neighborhoods and the Central District. But the prevailing belief at the time was that the most people in West Seattle and Ballard want to go to the downtown core, not on this big detour.
STB authors asked ST to move Midtown station east to serve 8th & Madison between Westlake and CID. Sometimes ST said that’s out of scope of the voter mandate (it’s supposed to serve downtown), or that there would be time to argue for it in a later phase, but then the later phase came and ST said it’s too late, you should have argued for it earlier. So that’s the kind of reception you’d get from ST if you tried to get it moved further east to 23rd.
Thanks for the out-of-the-box idea. We need those to make sure we’re not missing anything in figuring out what’s best.
Soren, did you review our earlier proposal?
https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/01/10/focus-on-slu-and-ballard/
Hey Martin, I had not seen that proposal before but I like it! The idea of automated trains and smaller platforms would have some major benefits and potentially allow for faster development. Also I really like the proposed route widening the service network through the central parts of the city. Hugely important imo.
I hear what Nathan is saying about major disruptions with underground branching and I’d be curious to know more about that. I of course understand that there would be some major disruptions but years seems too long.
It still just seems like it would be such a huge regional upgrade to allow people to avoid the downtown slowdown for cross regional trips or for connecting with the 2 line at judkins. It currently takes almost as long to go from Mountlake Terrace to UW station (~10miles) as it does to go from UW station to MT Baker (~5miles). Depending on headways and time of day it can be faster to just hop the 48 which is crazy imo. Would be great to do something about that.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. Bummer the STB seems so unresponsive to these kinds of ideas.
If you thought the West Seattle part was going to have cost overruns, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Keep in mind that ST hasn’t even begun acquiring land or below surface rights. This whole area is one that the city has marked for higher density, meaning real estate will get more expensive in real dollars.
No doubt ST will repeat the genius they did on the Federal Way segment where they bypassed High line college, the single biggest generator of passengers between Sea-Tac and Tacoma, in order to save money.
“If you thought the West Seattle part was going to have cost overruns, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Yes I agree. Supposedly the DSTT + Ballard Extension is as far along as West Seattle was in design last year. But there certainly looks like there are design and cost minefields ahead. West Seattle is planned with one bored station; this has as many as seven.
Subways with deep stations are not like building the 99 tunnel. It’s much more that dropping a TBM into a hole and hitting a button. Each station will need a deep vault. Every building owner along the way will obsess about whether the construction hurts them.
The Ontario Line project has gone from $11B CAD If you thought the West Seattle part was going to have cost overruns to almost $30B CAD for comparison.
I commented years ago that WSBLE planning focused too much on the ends and not the middle between 2017-2020. It’s still hard to find the station diagrams for the several planned subway stations.
The Federal Way segment didn’t bypass Highline College. The college added a highly-visible entrance across the street from the station.
What it bypassed was potential stations on 99 at 216th, 240th, Dash Point Road, and 272nd.
Remember the X-shaped monorail. It would have been done by now had the city not murdered it in its bed because the whole thing was outside the city and county power structure.
A lot of these comments take as a given that an alignment closer to downtown Ballard is better, and the only thing preventing it is how much more difficult it would be to construct. As a longtime Ballard resident (who would be equidistant to either alignment), though, I think that baseline assumption is misguided.
Who are we trying to optimize for here? Obviously it would be nice for a visitor to the neighborhood to hop off a train and be standing at Mox or Majestic Bay or whatever, but putting a station at 15th doesn’t move any part of the historic core out of extremely convenient walking distance (and in fact the SW corner of 15th and Market is probably faster to either of those points than it is to walk between the two).
On the flipside, putting a station in downtown Ballard does absolutely wreck the walkshed by centering it around a historic street with strict building restrictions, and including a huge section of industrial zoned area and water. 15th & Market is an easy walk for people visiting Ballard Ave, for people visiting the brewery district, for people who live in the previously upzoned and densified corridor between 15th & 24th, and for the places primed for the newest density (along Market out to 8th, and up 15th). It also lends itself well to future density Northeast of 15th and Market, which thus far has stayed single-family. 15th street is also the obvious choice for any future extension, both due to what exists there (Ballard High, Crown Hill) and for the connection back to the existing line (by way of Holman -> 105th -> Northgate, although if we could make 85th work somehow instead that would be great for Greenwood).
Finally, it seems glaringly obvious to me that the station should be sited under what is currently Safeway’s parking lot. That lot is absolutely primed for the same sort of thing we’ve seen from big grocery stores in other parts of the city – tear down, rebuild with housing over commercial, put the grocery store back in as the anchor tenant below the new housing (although I’d argue that Ballard has way too many grocery stores at the moment, maybe something else could anchor there). Some sort of pairing with Sound Transit and the city around affordable housing could make it a win-win-win situation.
The two clear, but very minor, downsides of an alignment further East are that it pulls even further away from the Locks and Shilshole for visitors, and that the brewery district has a bunch of its own industrial that doesn’t need to be served by transit (although it’s not nearly as bad as what gets picked up due to the waterfront in a core alignment).
If we want to build it for people to come visit Ballard twice a year, then sure, put it on Leary or 22nd. If we want to build it for current and future people who live here, we can serve far more of those on 15th.
Since there’s only going to be one Ballard station, I think the most important thing for residents is convenient transit access as that’s how most people will get to the station regardless of its location. 15th/Market, 24th/Market, or 15th/Leary are really the only options there, and you could reasonably argue for any of them.
From a redevelopment perspective, there’s the biggest upside for 15th/Market because of the walksheds closer to the water. But I think part of the appeal of Ballard Link for non Ballardites (like me) is that we like downtown Ballard, but it takes forever to get to. It makes sense to be biased towards a station that serves the core of what makes Ballard Ballard.
All of this to say that I’m fine with 15th/Market, but I would have slightly preferred 24th/Market since I think a 40 – Link transfer is more valuable for residents than a D – Link transfer since the 40 is so much slower to downtown than the D. But I consider myself fairly agnostic about all of this.
The 40 will most likely reroute to Market-15th-Leary to serve the station. It’s a little further but not unreasonable; the stops on Leary/Vernon are close to the ones on 20th/Market, and the ones at Leary/Dock could maybe get moved to the new crossing at 15th/51st?
This is one comment that is saying a lot of the things I’ve been thinking about too. Having the station at 15th and not farther into the Ballard historic district is maximizing the future potential of the station catchment area without getting into the quagmire that is adding density to a very historic area.
Having the station north of Market on 12th or 10th aves would be good to serve a lot of the new development happening in that area, but the most potential for really high densities is in the single story, industrial(ish) area to the east of 15th. There are large parcels that are relatively cheap compared to more residential areas to the north, that would be perfect for Vancouver style TOD to occur, similar to how the U District has gone crazy with densification. One thing that I think a lot of people don’t realize is how much easier it is to build decent density (and cohesive planned developments) on large, formerly industrial parcels rather than in established neighborhoods like the residential areas of Ballard. The redevelopments that are occurring right now are mostly on commercial properties or former parking lots.
Being far from the locks and shilshole is unfortunate, but not a deal breaker with frequent 44 and 40 service to the area. Having the alignment on 15th also provides future provisions to extend the line further northward to Greenwood or even Northgate/Lake City Way for another transfer station. If, in the far flung future, it becomes necessary to build a station that serves the western side of Ballard, the now studied east west line is in a prime position to take that on. Bus transfers are what is going to make this extension really shine.
Having the station at 15th and not farther into the Ballard historic district is maximizing the future potential of the station catchment area without getting into the quagmire that is adding density to a very historic area.
Nonsense. Look at the maps. Historic Ballard is only a tiny sliver in Ballard. In contrast, look at how much land is industrial. The only way that 14th or 15th could come close to reaching the development of 20th would be to get into the quaqmire that is rezoning an industrial area.
Oh, and do you really think they will tear down those brand new townhouses and row houses just because they increased the height limit? Please. In terms of development it doesn’t matter where you put the station — there will be more population density to the west. Meanwhile, you also have a hospital and surrounding clinics to the west. The west is also the cultural heart of the neighborhood — people want to go there because it is interesting there. With all due respect to West Woodland, it isn’t. There is really no reason to visit there and even with a station I don’t see that changing.
Ross, I have looked at the maps. I even have looked at the walkshed of the station using GIS network data, and how it relates to parcels and the historic overlay. A station on 15th is much more developable, both because the median lot size (not including parcels that are parks, in historic overlays or over the water, not that it makes a huge difference but to be consistent) is 2,360 square feet, vs 3,114 square feet. The parcels around 15th especially are prime for redevelopment, being decently large, and with commercial uses present already aren’t as difficult to redevelop as a waterfront industrial site. Eventually, as Ballard grows more, a lot of industrial sites will likely be redeveloped, but for the initial push with light rail I think that 15th will be much easier.
The historic overlay for downtown ballard is small, maybe, but there are quite a few historic buildings that would raise hell if they were attempted to be redeveloped. There are several buildings outside of the historic overlay which are historically protected, and any major changes to the core area of the district would incur the wrath of nimbys. Situating the station on 15th is fine, imo, and the 400-600 meter walk isn’t really that bad when considering that traffic is horrific to get to things like the farmers market or the seafood fest, and the distance you would be walking is the same as walking from Pike to University st. Not that far, all things considered, and with frequent bus connections is rather trivial.
Oh and as an addendum, HB 1491 forces an average FAR of at least 3.5 within a 1/2 mile walking distance of light rail station entrances, so any parcel within that area not zoned for industrial would be upzoned. To get to that average 3.5, it would necessitate a much higher level of development (think u district towers), that would be much easier to develop in large lot commercial than small lot residential. U district was relatively easy to develop because the area was essentially a student housing district with slumlords and university property. I think that trying to emulate the same in the residential part of ballard would be extremely difficult.
“HB 1491 forces an average FAR of at least 3.5 within a 1/2 mile walking distance of light rail station entrances, so any parcel within that area not zoned for industrial would be upzoned.”
If ST goes ahead with Alaska Junction and Avalon stations, there’s going to be several blocks of single family homes where homeowners will not be able to lobby City Hall to protect their streets.
And then there’s Surrey Downs ….
The Westside MAX line has been in service for almost 30 years. The area around the main Beaverton station has remained pretty much unchanged since the line went in, including a vast vacant lot right next to the station.
Downtown Beaverton is crisscrossed by a bunch of busy roads similar to 15th, rendering it unpleasant and difficult to access. It’s difficult to get to by driving because of all the traffic, and it’s difficult to get there by transit because to get there from MAX you have to cross all that on foot.
No matter how much zoning you do, you can’t zone away the anti-transit nature of 15th.
Old commercial areas such as *actual* Ballard are far more ideal for transit. Sure, there’s a bit of traffic, but it’s not difficult to get to places from a transit stop there.
as Ballard grows more, a lot of industrial sites will likely be redeveloped
No they won’t! They can’t. They are zoned industrial. Look, let me make it clear, the historical area of Old Ballard will not be rezoned. So enough with the strawman argument. It doesn’t matter. Likewise, they won’t tear down the hospital and put up apartment buildings there, either. Nor will they suddenly get rid of the area zoned for industry. It just won’t happen. The city actually tried to do that in the area close to the stadiums and yet it didn’t happen. Such a minor change and they couldn’t make it happen. The could try again but the woman who spearheaded the efforts got destroyed at the last election. That project has way more merit than changing the industrialized land in Ballard (given its location, so close to downtown). Keep in mind, this is during a major housing crisis at a time when the council has prevented any meaningful increase in density on the vast majority of land (and approach that has repeatedly failed). Desperate times brought on by stupid policies and they still couldn’t convert the industrial land. Holy cow, the law you cited about upzoning had a specific clause about industrial land! In other words, if it is zoned industrial, the city doesn’t need to do anything. It is just tough to change industrial land, nor should they.
You are also missing the big picture here. Ballard has grown! Look at that map of development again. It is full of little symbols showing development — and this is just the last few years. This will continue no matter where they decide to put the station. Basically the area fills in. But there will be a difference in how it fills in. To the west it will mostly be six to eight story buildings. To the west it will be a lot of town houses. Then what? Unless the city allows residential towers (over ten stories high) in Ballard that will be it. Developers don’t replace townhouses with six story apartments — it just isn’t worth it.
Speaking of which, of course the zoning will change. My guess is within the next few years you will see a lot more apartments everywhere. The “urban village” concept where we only allow apartments in tiny circles was clearly a failure. That idea has been dismissed by progressives and the progressives are winning. Instead you will see missing middle housing allowed everywhere (as in Spokane). This is precisely what the city needs. It will finally make a dent in the housing crisis (in ways the urban village concept couldn’t). But it also means that areas to the east will not see many big apartment buildings, even if they allow them.
To be clear, if you are developer, you definitely want them to put the station as far east as possible. Screw 14th, you want it at least one block over, on 11th. That way you develop the west (which is happening regardless of Link) and the east (which if you go far enough is still zoned for single family). But if the goal is population density then you are much better off to the west, for the reasons mentioned.
But it isn’t the only reason to put the station there. To the west there is a hospital. This won’t suddenly move to the east. To the west there is a cultural district that lots of people visit. It is highly unlikely the area to the east becomes one. Again, I point to Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill has not seen the kind of new development that other areas have. Partly it is (like Ballard) there are some historic buildings. (Although it should be mentioned, that hasn’t stopped some developers from building anyway — so yeah, it is possible they could build in Old Ballard after all.) But mostly it was already dense! It has managed to fill in, but a lot of the places were already there. Not only that, but it was damn attractive. When Northgate Link opened, one of the first things my wife said was “That will make getting to Capitol Hill so much easier”. There is a college nearby, plenty of bars, clubs, art — you name it. It is also just a nice place to walk around. Does that describe 15th & Market? Hell no! Just the other day Charles Mudede pointed out how ugly the Urbana building is. But in the mix of his architectural criticism was a scathing attack on the intersection itself. He visits Brooklyn more than visits Ballard because of that intersection (apparently he is arriving via the D and never heard of the 40). I get it. the intersection really is bad (for pedestrians).
It really isn’t that hard to figure how this would effect ridership. Remember, Capitol Hill doesn’t have that problem. The Capitol Hill Station was never built to maximize future development. It was built literally right next to a park. No one ever claimed they were going to build there. But it was definitely close to the cultural center of the area (and close to the college). As a result, Capitol Hill is one of the highest stations by ridership in the system.
Could that happen if the station is at 20th? Absolutely. You don’t have a college but you have a hospital (and associated clinics). You also have a thriving cultural center. It is simply a nice place to visit. But as you move the station further east you lose all that. Crossing 15th sucks. Walking along that part of Market sucks as well. Now consider what that means for potential visitors. For example, someone from Magnolia. When Link opens, all the buses in Magnolia will connect to the station. Thus riders will be able to quickly get to the station, take the train to Ballard and visit the area. But they can also just stay on the bus as it goes to Fremont. If the trip to Ballard includes crappy walking just to get there, they lose interest. The second you get off the bus, Fremont is just more pedestrian friendly. This is for a place that is pretty close by. For someone like Mudede (making a longer trip) is not that attractive. Now consider someone heading to a medical appointment. Depending on where you are going, this can be quite a schlep. I’m not saying people won’t make that walk but it also quite possible a fair number of them will just say “screw it” and drive.
If you want to maximize future TOD, then by all means, avoid where there is already a lot of development. Hell, skip Ballard and just put a station in West Magnolia. But if you want to maximize ridership put the station in the heart of Ballard.
Ross
15th does suck as a street, that’s unequivocal. Yes, 20th would be a good location for the station as Ballard currently stands. That wasn’t the point of my comment. The point of my comment is that 15th is the place where growth is most likely to occur next. Putting the station there makes sense for being able to serve the core Ballard area AND future growth that will occur.
Zoning isn’t something that is set in stone. It can (and likely will) change in the future. We have no idea what the economic situation will look like by the time BLE is complete. This is an issue that comes with how damn long it has taken to get the project to the construction phase, but I don’t think making absolute statements about what can and cannot happen is productive. Clearly there is desire to change it to a different use, and what people see as necessary for the area will change as the city grows and evolves.
The industrial land in SODO was not rezoned partially because of the fact that it is a liquefaction zone. There is a liquefaction zone in the ballard area, but it is mostly to the south of Leary ave, and just outside of a 15th ave walkshed area. https://seattlecitygis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=f822b2c6498c4163b0cf908e2241e9c2
SODO industrial land is also much more important due to its proximity to the port of seattle, the UP and BNSF intermodal yards, and SR99 and I5. The Ballard industrial area is important for maritime, but it doesn’t have nearly the same degree of access to rail or road infrastructure to facilitate large scale industrial applications. The thing is, north of 50th, there are already many non conforming single family homes on land that is zoned industrial! There are people living there already, and given the cost of housing their parcels are unlikely to be developed into industrial sites even with the zoning in place. Zoning can be changed, the historical area overlay is basically set in stone (or brick, in this case).
The land near 15th is *easier* to develop wholesale due to the larger average parcel size. Since development will be occurring in Ballard regardless, you are able to create a more dense area at a faster rate with the larger parcel size (see SLU/Denny/Cascade, for an extreme example). A light rail station would need to be on Market; it would be too much of a miss to have it located away from an east west arterial for transfers. 20th and market has good opportunity to the north, but the southern area is eaten up by the historic district, waterfront industrial and the hospital. Putting the station a few blocks north can mitigate the waterfront industrial but does not solve the issue of parcel size and harms transfer times to get further west or east.
My point in citing HB 1491 is that the average overall FAR of the area must be 3.5. Therefore, if industrially zoned parcels aren’t applicable, the other parcels in the area must accept higher levels of density. It would allow for higher buildings to be required. I specifically said in my comment that any parcel NOT ZONED for industrial would be upzoned. The wording of the law is specific that cannot be displacement upzoning for those uses, not that they change the overall FAR ratio of the area.
putting a station in downtown Ballard does absolutely wreck the walkshed by centering it around a historic street with strict building restrictions
That is nonsense. That is like saying the U-District is a terrible place to put a station because the buildings on The Ave are short and won’t be torn down. So what? It is one of the many things that make the neighborhood attractive which means the riders are not all residential (or headed to campus). The same is true if you put a station in the middle of Ballard. Look at the map (from the post I linked to previously). There is only a tiny sliver that is historical. Now look at a zoning map. So much of the lane east of 15th is industrial. This explains why there are so many breweries. While I very much appreciate breweries (my son is a brewer and used to co-own a brewery) they aren’t a very high density use. The employment density is not very high (it doesn’t take that many people to make beer). It attracts people but not huge numbers. In contrast there is a hospital surrounded by clinics to the west. These do have both high visitation and employment density. Of course it isn’t just breweries in the industrial areas. There are more traditional industries, like Bardahl. This is a large, heavy industrial use area. Even if were to change hands it is highly likely it would remain industrial. Even if they changed the zoning and it changed hands it would be a long time before you could put up a tall building. It has had oil products for decades. The soil is bound to be contaminated and require years of work before they can build there.
Then there is the housing that does exist or will exist very soon. For this I suggest another map. There is a filter towards the top of the map (which may be difficult to see). You can also select particular projects. There are plenty of them all over greater Ballard. But they vary quite a bit in size. From a potential station at 20th & Market you can see several 8-story buildings. In contrast, most of the construction around 14th (and further east) is row houses and town houses. These increase density but they aren’t nearly as dense as the bigger buildings found to the west. Not only that, but they are likely to remain as is, even if they increase the zoning. Development tends to leapfrog. A house gets replaced by a bit apartment. But once you build a bunch of town houses it is much more difficult (economically) to build a six-story apartment. In short, regardless of where you put the station, there will be more employment and residential density to the west.
Then there is the culture. We can see how popular Capitol Hill Station is and how relatively unpopular Rainier Beach Station is. That is because the station isn’t anywhere near the cultural, employment and residential center of the area. It has been decades since they added the station and yet it doesn’t have nearly as much development as the area farther away from the station. Or consider Columbia City. Like Capitol Hill and Ballard it has clubs and some nightlife (although not as much). Yet it is not really close to the station. If you want to go to the Royal Room you’ve got a long walk. If the station was right on Rainier you would have a much shorter walk. If you believe that a Link station will influence development then it stands to reason it will influence cultural development as well. Capitol Hill is more popular as a nightlife destination in part because of Link. But Link has had less influence on Columbia City because it isn’t close to the existing clubs and a new cultural district hasn’t just sprouted out of thin air because they added a station there. The same thing is true with Ballard. Someone in Magnolia may decide to take a bus to Dravus (since all Magnolia buses would go there) and then take the train to Ballard. But if the walk from the station to the club is terrible they just skip the whole thing next time. It’s not like the clubs would go away but they wouldn’t grow the way that Capitol Hill has grown. Not only that, but you would also see more development. There are plenty of people who choose to live in Ballard because they can walk to restaurants, clubs and the year-round farmer’s market. You can’t easily replicate that somewhere else (as we’ve learned the hard way with Link in Rainier Valley).
If you want to maximize ridership (and we do) it is much better to put a station in the cultural, employment and residential center of the area, which is to the west.
“We can see how popular Capitol Hill Station is and how relatively unpopular Rainier Beach Station is. ”
In fairness to the Rainier Beach area, it should be noted that high voltage wires with undevelopable land underneath (except the trail) cross just north and east of the station. Everything west of the station is at the base of a hill, which turns into a narrow mini ravine south of the station. (Was MLK or previously Empire Way created by busting through that ridge?) The station area has significant physical constraints to it that limit it no matter how much activity could occur there. Even if the underutilized sites around the station were redeveloped, it still would not have the advantages that other station areas do.
Just one station north at Othello, those physical constraints are gone, and there must be at least a dozen apartment buildings over 7 stories nearby now.
Even if the underutilized sites around the station were redeveloped, it still would not have the advantages that other station areas do.
So what? That misses the point. Yes, there is a limit to how much you can develop the land around the station. But the point is, it hasn’t developed even within that limitation. Where it has developed is to the east. It has far less potential than the area to the east and yet it hasn’t even come close to its potential.
The same thing could very easily happen in Ballard. Years from now people will be saying “To be fair, much of the area around the station is industrial, so they couldn’t build there. But yes, it is a shame that none of those town houses have been converted to apartments unlike the area to the west. Oh well. Maybe in another fifty years they will convert them.”
You can’t just assume that you can put down a station anywhere and it will eventually lead to a huge number of walk-up riders. Station placement matters.
Hear me out: Water taxis and train service! Go through Elliot Bay around magnolia (maybe a stop there too?). Add a stop from the commuter train line just after the train bridge in Ballard, or near Golden gardens.
PSRC did a study on potential water taxi lines, but operation is very costly per rider and not quick. While it would be a great experience (unless it’s windy), probably not competitive.
Vaporettos along the Ship Canal and Lake Union.
24th Ave Public Dock
Fisherman’s Terminal
14th Avenue Public Dock
SPU Public Dock
Fremont Canal Park
MOHAI/Center for Wooden Boats
Fritz Hedges
UW
Arboretum
Magnuson
Seward Park
Ballard would be much better served with a bridge over the Ballard canal than a tunnel under. The tall, thin light rail vehicles and catenary setup that ST uses does not fit in tunnels well. Tunnels are much more expensive as a rule and tunnels need to be well oversized for tall Sound Transit LRVs to fit. Tunneling adds an extra $2+ billion to the Ballard extension price tag over and above elevated tracks and stations. If we want to see the Ballard route built then the first thing needed is to jettison the flagrantly wasteful tunnel underneath the canal and commit to bridging it and using overhead structures and stations.
Years ago, SDOT discussed replacing the Ballard bridge and making the new bridge able to carry light rail as well upgrade for foot and bike traffic. SDOT held multiple sessions asking what the public wanted from the replacement Ballard Bridge and provided initial conceptual drawings. It was hoped this combined rail-road-path approach would lead to cost savings. My recollection is this effort was shut down because Sound Transit planned for a timeline faster than the city timeline to replace the Ballard Bridge. With the delays to Sound Transit’s schedule and the massive cost increases since it seems this cost saving should again be explored. But first we need to remind people this is a tall light rail system that does not play the part of a Subway well.
We should probably accept the reality that light rail will not arrive in Ballard for at least a quarter century, and most likely longer.
In the interim could ST start running express buses down 15th to Alaskan Way Via Western and Elliot Way? Limited to 5 stops.
Start at 15th and 85th.
Stops at
15th and Market
Elliott Ave and Prospect
Western and Bell
Alaskan and Marion or Columbia (Providing a much needed connection to WSF, KCMWater Taxi, and Kitsap Fast Ferries).
From Columbia it could the head over to West Seattle.
Or get Metro to reroute the D down Western and Elliott Way so it doesn’t have to deal with Key Arena traffic in Queen Anne.
After that it could possibly continue to West Seattle
It seems almost criminal to me that we aren’t discussing on making sure that Bergen Place on Market/Leary/22nd Ave NW is the center of the Ballard Light Rail station descent.
It’s in the heart of the new apartment growth, bars/retail/restaurants, adjacent to Majestic Bay Theater, and effectively the entrance to the very popular Sunday farmer’s market.
As much as I love the idea of taking a line from there to downtown, it seems like it makes more sense to work the line in reverse, first connecting it to the UW Station and the N/S mainline, which would eliminate the immediate need for a costly bridge or deep tunnel. And it could connect the rapidly growing Greenwood, Phinney Ridge, Woodland Park Zoo, Fremont, and Wallingford to UW. I think that line would see more use than one connecting Ballard to QA and Interbay.
Bonus points if the city could get a joint use agreement for the existing easement and surface tracks for the Ballard Railway to be used for a daytime/evening trio of street cars to take people out to the Ballard Locks, Shilshole and Golden Gardens from the heart of Ballard Blocks area.