7/19/2023 0 Comments Sound transit light rail![]() To their credit, one way that Sound Transit’s board have listened to community feedback is by eliminating the agency’s default option of putting the station at 5th Avenue S in its July 2022 vote. In proposing to expose the CID to more construction upheaval, Sound Transit kicked a hornet’s nest, exacerbated by its opaque indecision and refusal to grapple head on with questions of displacement and construction mitigation. The feisty earlier public comment period is nothing compared to the last few weeks of uproar around alternatives for a Chinatown-International District (CID) station. Even the project website is missing basic information about the station designs and impacts that the board will consider on Thursday. Consistently, when asked the most basic questions of why stations are so deep or how transfers between lines would work or how construction could be phased to minimize impacts, the answers have been incomplete and slow in coming. Unfortunately, Sound Transit has not met these criticisms with clarity. The impacts on surrounding neighborhoods are too severe or ill-considered. Since releasing a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in January 2022, Sound Transit staff have been taking proposed stations and revised alignments on a roadshow through the community. They are not ready to make this decision. They have failed to adequately justify every step of this decision-making process to the public. In our observation, Sound Transit and its executive board of elected officials have been operating without developing or distributing sufficient useful information on future station locations. It’s imperative that Sound Transit pick the best station options and communicate that decision to the public, including plans to mitigate impacts on neighboring communities. (Doug Trumm)Īt a public meeting on Thursday afternoon, the Sound Transit Board of Directors intend to select preferred station locations for the light rail system’s extension to Ballard through a new downtown tunnel. ![]() Sound Transit's headquarters is right next to Chinatown-International District Station, but that hasn't help smooth its expansion decision in the neighborhood.
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