Next Tuesday morning, the City Council’s Transportation and Utilities Committee will get a look at what West Seattle/Ballard light-rail routing and station-location alternatives the city is proposing supporting, before the Sound Transit Board settles on its “preferred alternative” recommendation next month. You don’t have to wait until the meeting for a look – the slide deck is already published along with the agenda (which explains how to comment at the meeting).
To come up with these recommendations, the city presentation notes, “Nearly 100 subject matter experts from 15+ City departments reviewed and commented on the 8000+ pages of (Draft Environmental Impact Statement) analysis.” They submitted more than 1,500 “technical comments” before the deadline a month ago; now, the biggest comments of all – which routing/station options the city wants to officially support. First, for The Junction:
The slide deck goes into more detail about why the city’s behind each option in the draft recommendations. Next, for Delridge:
And for the new bridge to get light rail across the Duwamish River, here’s the city’s choice:
The city support doesn’t carry an official weight – the final decisions on routing and station locations are in the hands of the Sound Transit Board, whose members include City Council President Debora Juarez and Mayor Bruce Harrell. They’re expected to settle on a “preferred alternative” at their July 28th meeting, though the absolute final word isn’t due until next year.
P.S. The board has made a big decision in the meantime – they’ve settled on a potential new CEO, Julie Timm from Richmond, Virginia – here’s the announcement made today.
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