WEDNESDAY: Sound Transit’s next West Seattle meeting

Reminder if you’re interested in Sound Transit‘s West Seattle light-rail plan, tomorrow night (Wednesday, October 25th), ST is hosting a “station planning forum.” It’s scheduled for 5:30-7:30 pm – with a “short presentation at 6 pm” – at Alki Masonic Center (40th/Edmunds) and will cover the stations in West Seattle and SODO. Recently, ST officially separated planning for the West Seattle and Ballard extensions, since the latter has fallen further behind and needs a new draft Environmental Impact Statement. Next key date in the West Seattle plan is the release of the final Environmental Impact Statement, which ST now says is due out in “mid-2024.” That would be followed by a final board vote on routing (“alignment”) for the extension. At the Wednesday meeting, ST says it will show “updated designs” for the stations – West Seattle has three proposed, Delridge, Avalon, and The Junction, though the possibility of dropping the Avalon station has not yet been formally ruled out. Current estimated date for West Seattle light rail to start service is late 2032.

Greg October 25, 2023 (10:30 am)

Is there a way to attend the meeting remotely?

WSB October 25, 2023 (10:45 am)

I’ll double check, but I believe that since this is largely an open-house-format meeting, there’s not much to stream.

Paula Goode October 26, 2023 (8:10 am)

The comment period for the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) is the most critical time for citizens to weigh in on how these plans will affect the community. Very hard to change directions after this time. This is a good time to see what existing structures and roads will be impacted and how the ST plan will actually look and work, and if the community is ok with the result.Recently, Sound Transit has been heavy handed with plans that do not meet up with budgets or ridership expectations. Someone needs to dive in to the data of the EIS to see inconsistencies… I know that’s a ton of work. As a co-founder if CORE (lfpcore.org) we have been trying to lighten Impact of work going through our city, and I hope sharing this can help concerned citizens.

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