Open house ahead for Lander Street Overpass, now ‘Lander Street Bridge’


First thing we found out at last night’s West Seattle Transportation Coalition meeting: SDOT has an open house coming up for what it’s now calling the South Lander Street Bridge project. While the project is in SODO, the former “Lander Street Overpass” proposal has long been of interest to West Seattleites traveling on surface streets to/from there, and has been on the WSTC’s priority list for almost two years; it was shelved almost a decade ago, then revived with partial funding in last year’s voter-approved Move Seattle levy. It will go over the railroad tracks on Lander between 1st and 4th (see the map above; click it for a full-size PDF).

The city’s current timeline is for completing design next year (saying the design from a decade ago is outdated), then building the overpass from “early 2018-early 2020.” As the city infopage notes, funding is not finalized – while local and state dollars are available, they’re awaiting word on a federal grant.

The open house is set for 4-6 pm Wednesday, June 8th, at Metropolist in SODO, 2931 1st Ave. South. An “online open house” goes live two days before that.

P.S. Our second report from the WSTC meeting is coming up later today, covering last night’s Q&A with a port executive re: the Terminal 5 Improvements Project Draft Environmental Impact Report (open for your comments until June 21st).

14 Replies to "Open house ahead for Lander Street Overpass, now 'Lander Street Bridge'"

  • AT125 May 27, 2016 (11:39 am)

    By not approving the vacation of Occidental St.  The city stands to lose a $40million deposit by ArenaCo and Chris Hansen into “The SODO Transportation Infrastructure Fund” which would go into building the Lander street overpass/bridge.


    Well done Seattle City Council.

    • sleepernw May 27, 2016 (1:21 pm)

      Port of Seattle can now step up – a show of good faith to the city to make up the difference.  The Port of Seattle will benefit most from this – since there’s no arena.

    • chemist May 27, 2016 (4:49 pm)

      While true, that money wasn’t designed to come from Hansen’s pockets and was, instead, to come largely from city/county tax collections while Hansen’s non-existent NBA team used the KeyArena, the arena was being constructed, etc. It even offered additional up to $25million bond financing to spread payments out if it it was NBA-only and didn’t total $40 million by the transfer date. It wasn’t going to have any money to do anything until there was a team, and even then it was just a special allocation of the tax that was obligated anyways.

      • Tucker May 30, 2016 (11:33 pm)

        Not entirely true, Chemist.  Part of the bonding was set up to start the transpo infrastructure fund, based partly on how much the city would’ve ended up paying for the land out of the bonding process (up to $100M).  Hansen’s group was required to essentially “top up” the fund with private money to make sure it reached $40M.  As part of the public benefits for the street vacation, they amended that contribution to specifically be a pro rata investment in the Lander project.

  • Curtis May 27, 2016 (12:40 pm)

    Stop it with all the facts – you’re hurting my head.

  • dsa May 27, 2016 (1:44 pm)

    Do Horton too.

  • Neighbor May 27, 2016 (2:13 pm)

    Great, but not soon enough. Now this will give the SODO arena supporters more fodder to fuss over while they complain about all their shattered dreams due to the lack of another sports franchise to be viewed by a small elite subset of the population. I just hope Hansen finds a way to build thousands of housing units on his land so that we can get the Urbanists to shut up about the need to upzone the whole city and put DADUs in 18,500 backyards, and condos adjacent to all the single family homes. 

    • Curtis May 27, 2016 (2:42 pm)

      The Port was extorting Hansen – They are counting on him paying for their overpass. When the arena folks head back to the council for a second try, you’ll see more funding for the overpass as part of the bargain.

    • sleepernw May 27, 2016 (3:02 pm)

      You realize there’s no arena now.  This is the Port’s neighborhood,  nothing to do with Hansen now.   The Port can now put up the difference. 

      • Tucker May 30, 2016 (11:27 pm)

        You twice mention the Port putting up the difference, yet every time they’ve been asked to come to the table over contributing to these kinds of projects, they’ve been curiously absent.  They sure make enough noise about needing improvements yet are never there to offer any substantive money to the projects.

  • old timer May 27, 2016 (6:34 pm)

    I do not understand how a 10 year old design can become so “outdated” that it takes a year to make the seemingly important changes.  This isn’t a smart phone or an electric car, it’s a bridge for traffic moving at 30 mph., on a good day.

    • chemist May 27, 2016 (10:29 pm)

      This has more pretty pictures of the design they were proposing in 2007 for completion by 2011. You’ll notice 12 ft wide traffic lanes and unprotected/barrier-less bike lanes. I’d bet $5 that the new design includes bike lane buffers by shrinking the general purpose lanes.

      http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/sLanderStOpenHouse1.pdf

  • AJW May 28, 2016 (6:19 pm)

    I believe the old design was wider, but required purchasing real estate. The new design will be narrower and thus more economical. Tradeoffs!

  • Don Brubeck May 30, 2016 (11:02 pm)

    Chemist,  The old design that you cite shows four 11 and 12 foot wide general purpose lanes for 46 feet total width.  The example design that SDOT submitted for the federal grant showed four 11 foot wide general purpose lanes plus a 2 foot buffer one side for 46 feet total width for vehicle traffic.  The old design shows bike lanes and sidewalk each side for 26 feet total width. The new proposed design shows that reduced to a 14 foot wide mixed use bike/pedestrian sidewalk on only one side.  This is not final, but I’ll take you up on the bet.

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