Sound Transit Board rejects alternatives to House-backed SLU stations

Today, the Sound Transit board chose to reject late alternatives to the South Lake Union station for the planned Ballard Link light rail line. The Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce lobbied for late additions to be “shifted west,” arguing that the construction impacts of the existing project were too severe, particularly on Westlake Avenue. Prominent chamber members like Amazon amplified those calls, and real estate giant Vulcan even funded its own study of the resort, but that wasn’t enough to sway board members.

A staff recommendation against late additions to the plan proved too difficult to overcome, with critics pointing to at least 10 months of delay resulting in at least $500 million in additional costs for those alternatives. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell had expressed support for the House-backed alternatives, but in his comments at the meeting he acknowledged that he did not have the votes necessary to successfully introduce a motion or solution due to additional costs and risk of delay.

“I’m not going to put forward a motion to support a new preferred alternative just because, one, I could read the tea leaves, but two, a 10-month delay and a $500 million-plus amount north of that price. I think I would be putting my colleagues at a disadvantage when the City of Seattle hopefully demonstrates its continued commitment to the entire Link system as adopted in 2016,” Harrell said. “I agree with a lot of the support people have put forward for 5th and Harrison, it makes a lot of sense, but I don’t think there’s any escaping the price and the delay.”

The westward-shifted proposal places the “South Lake Union” station on 5th Avenue N, next to Memorial Stadium and the Museum of Pop Music (MoPop). This has sparked its own group of detractors, including many Seattle Center organizations raising their own concerns about the impact of construction. Transit advocacy groups, meanwhile, have questioned the site’s ability to offer high-quality bus transfers. The agency’s preferred location at 7th Avenue and Harrison Street would provide convenient connections to Aurora Avenue buses.

Systems Expansion Chair Claudia Balducci said the additional time staff spent studying options improved the preferred alternative, particularly regarding the construction mitigation plan.

“When you’re building a century-old system in an already highly developed area, sometimes you have to thread the needle in a way that is difficult, and I add my thanks to the staff for already making a very significant improvement in the impacts on Westlake that were anticipated — that were causing a lot of the concern in this area,” Balducci said. “I encourage this work to see if we can reduce the impacts even further. This is a key artery in the City of Seattle that we should all work to minimize impacts to as much as possible.

Last fall, the board voted to make a “move north” alternative the preferred option for the station below Westlake Avenue at Denny Way. Sound Transit projects this will add $170 million in costs to Ballard Link, but it will reduce the severity of construction impacts on Westlake Avenue, allowing it to gain favor.

In December 2023, the Sound Transit Board of Directors unanimously approved the $851,000 study to evaluate the “Shifted West” station location for the planned South Lake Union Station. That preliminary analysis was completed this spring, but a more in-depth study would have resulted in much higher costs and required adding the option to the project’s second draft environmental impact study, which was triggered when the council moved preferred station locations away from Midtown into Chinatown in March 2023.

Approved in the 2016 Sound Transit 3 vote, the Ballard Link project will hopefully eventually move on to its final environmental impact study and finally its construction phase. The project is already four years behind schedule, with a revised opening date set for 2039.

Note: The Sound Transit board was scheduled to vote on its policy improvements Thursday, but pushed deliberations to a later meeting. Check out our introduction to this political reform.