Seattle City Council Committee on Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities 2/15/22

Good morning.

The February 15, 2022 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will come to order.

The time is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Alex Peterson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Councilmember Morales?

Here.

Councilmember Sawant?

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Mr. Peterson.

Present.

For present.

Thank you.

Approval of the agenda.

If there's no objection, today's proposed agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Chair's report.

Welcome back to the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

Today we'll meet a couple of appointees for the Transit and Bicycle Advisory Boards and vote on the extension of the fee waivers for street cafe permits.

And I'm very excited.

Most of our time is going to be devoted to representatives from Sound Transit who are here to present the draft environmental impact statement for the West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions.

And they have a very extensive PowerPoint presentation that will take a substantial amount of time today.

So let's go ahead and jump into public comments.

At this time, we will open the remote general public comment period for the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

I ask that everyone please be patient as we operate this online system.

We are continuously looking for ways to fine-tune this process of public participation.

It remains the strong intent of the City Council to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, the City Council reserves the right to modify these public comment periods at any point if we deem that the system is being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.

I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

It'll be up to 20 minutes.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I'll call on two speakers at a time and in the order in which they're registered on the council's website.

If you've not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website at Seattle.gov.

The public comment link is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it's their turn to speak and the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Star six.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda or to our committee's oversight responsibilities.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.

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Once you have completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listing options listed on the agenda.

All right, folks, the regular public comment period for this committee meeting is now open.

And we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six before speaking.

We're going to hear first from Robin Briggs, then Joe Riley.

Go ahead, Robin.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Robin Briggs, and I wanted to talk about the second downtown link tunnel.

I'm all in favor of the link, and I think it'll make a tremendous improvement in helping people get around.

But I'm concerned about how deep the tunnel is going to be.

Just getting down to the station is going to take a long time, and no one's going to want to get off at the station, because what if the escalators or the elevators aren't working?

What if there's an emergency?

How will people get out?

I know that a shallower tunnel will cause more disruption during construction, but this rail line will likely be in use for 100 years.

We should mitigate the impact as much as possible, but we can tolerate some short-term disruption instead of accepting an inadequate end result.

It will be better for everyone in the long term, including the local property owners.

A shallower tunnel will also be much cheaper, which could allow for future connections to Aurora and South Park, both neighborhoods that have been overlooked for a long time.

And it seems much simpler, possibly avoiding the problems that plagued the last tunnel when a relatively small error was able to almost derail the whole project.

Our infrastructure needs to be reliable and robust, and I'm afraid this would be neither.

Let's build for the long term.

Please ask Sound Transit to build a cut and cover solution.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Joe Riley, followed by Gordon Peddleford.

Go ahead, Joe.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Joe Riley, Policy Director at Seattle Subway, Seattle's foremost grassroots voice to the people concerning light rail expansion.

We've read hundreds of pages of the DEIS with community groups, and Seattle Subway has some key recommendations today.

74% of Seattleites polled already want to approve a Sound Transit 4 and half of Seattle's densest urban villages are unserved by ST3, so expansion is inevitable.

As such, we ask council to protect major climate justice, income, and racial equity goals by council mandating construction of cost-saving expansion features to future equity rail corridors.

The DEIS fails to equip the new downtown tunnel with relatively small built-in expansion features.

specifically physically big enough station platforms and built-in off ramps to protect the tunnel from year-long shutdowns when Seattle builds ST4.

Seattle City Council must fight for Seattle interests by requesting these built-in features to priority equity rail corridors, including North Seattle's Aurora 99 corridor, South Park and South King County corridor, and King County Metro 8 corridor in Central Seattle.

Failure to do so now risks the viability of ST4 serving these equity areas.

Second, the city must prioritize advancing work on the citywide rail plan as soon as possible in order to codify the equity expansion corridors identified above.

Third, city council must firmly reject all deep four tunnel station options, some designs exceeding 180 feet deep in favor of shallow tunnel designs.

Beyond seemingly inaccurate ridership estimates, Sound Transit inaccurately predicts time to reach the station platform from the street.

risking a faster travel time for riders to walk or bus in their destination instead of using new light rail stations.

As well, elderly and differently abled riders should never be expected to climb a stairwell the height of an underground 18-story building in an emergency situation.

Importantly, Sound Transit never studied twin smaller bore tunnel options that have proven successful for Seattle and avoided bertha-level pitfalls.

Thank you very much.

Next up we have Gordon Padelford, and followed by David Haynes.

Go ahead, Gordon.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

My name is Gordon Padelford.

I'm the Executive Director of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and I want to talk to you today about the Cafe Streets program.

It's been a wildly successful program.

It's been popular and it's been used by 276 small businesses so far.

It's been good for public health, good for the small businesses and workers, and just good for the quality of life in our neighborhood.

Councilmember Strauss' proposal to extend the program, I think, is really wise.

There's no need to rush into something permanent.

We can look around at Edmonds or San Francisco for some cautionary tales of rushing too quickly to try and create a permanent program.

Both of those cities added too much cost and red tape, and now those programs are sort of going up in flames, unfortunately.

So let's take the time to get this right and make sure it works for businesses across the city.

You know, what works in Queen Anne may not work in South Park.

and we need to figure out how to make this program work for small business districts across the city.

And lastly, you know, this can be a really positive thing to come out of the pandemic.

It's been a challenging time, and it can be an important permanent program.

So, yep, thank you.

Thank you, Gordon.

Next, we have David Haynes, followed by Alexander Lomas.

Go ahead, David.

Thank you.

Good morning.

David Haynes, District 7. Before Sound Transit impresses us with their inflated dollar amounts and sophisticated cost-cutting that makes them rich, with cheap, low-quality, rattling, uneven, and loud, annoying, ugly, deep New York City tunnel copycat projects from West Seattle to Ballard, how about simply offering a train on the waterfront that goes directly to Golden Gardens with stops at Expedia, interbay and a number 44 bus waiting at golden gardens like it used to before metro sabotaged most bus routes to make it seem we need billions for outmoded trains as if Seattle always has to cop its hat elsewhere.

Thank you.

Hi.

So my name is Alex and I just wanted to ask the Seattle Council to really consider or deeply consider prioritizing the long term efficacy of this new train system that we're looking to put in over the short term profit motives of interested parties.

You know I oftentimes this type of bureaucratic red tape and just you know slowing of the process is what kind of kills the overall ability or capability of these really important projects.

This train system that we are looking to install throughout Seattle is not only one of the most ambitious projects in America right now, it is also one of the most important as the trains are simply the superior way of transportation and is necessary for us to reach a certain level of climate mitigation.

So, you know, trade, you know, incredibly essential.

And I really hope that the Seattle Council doesn't gimp this plan, especially this expansion in West Seattle for, you know, some simple business interests or, you know, for a slight inconvenience to homeowners in the very short term.

I really hope that we really do prioritize the long-term benefit of this project over any sort of short-term neglect.

So thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes our list of speakers who are present.

I'll confirm that with our IT team.

IT, do you see anybody else who's present?

There are no other public comment registrants waiting to speak.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

So we will...

go ahead and close our public comment period.

Thank you, everybody who did sign up to speak.

I do want to welcome Council Member Sawant who joined during public comment and got to hear folks speaking.

So welcome, Council Member Sawant.

And we can move on to the first legislative item.

Will the clerk please read the title of the first agenda item into the record?

Agenda item one, appointment 2097, appointment of Douglas Migdon as member Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board for a term to August 31st, 2023 for briefing and discussion.

Great.

And we do have our candidate here, Dr. Migdon, and we also have Simon Blenski from SDOT.

Thank you for joining us.

Many people who are spending their Tuesday morning listening to our Transportation Committee probably already know that the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board was created 45 years ago in 1977. by resolution 25534, this particular advisory board was updated 30 years later in 2007 with resolution 30995, which gave the council more authority over the appointment similar to council's authority for other transportation advisory boards where We split appointments with the mayor's office, and we still approved those submitted by the mayor.

Resolution 30995 also said that advisory board members shall be representatives of different geographic locations throughout the city.

And Dr. Douglas Migdon is from District 7, which is important as we currently do not have any representation on the board for that district.

And yet many of our investments are downtown or connect to downtown.

I do have part of Dr. Migdon's resume here.

He's a long-distance cyclist who commutes around the city by bike, which is a small amount of the training he completes for, and we'll want to confirm this, 5,000-kilometer transcontinental bike races that he's been riding since 2010. Dr. Migdon is an active community member on a variety of topics and projects.

Happy that Dr. Migdon was able to join us today.

We'll have him introduce himself.

And Simon Blansky from SDOT, thank you for joining us.

Simon, do you want to give a quick overview of anything here as well?

Council Member Ngo, I think you gave a great overview of the board.

I just want to introduce myself, Simon Blonsky, the SDOT staff liaison for the Bicycle Advisory Board.

Yeah, here just to recommend the appointment of Doug McGinn to your term through August of 2023. But yeah, I can hand it over to Doug now to introduce himself.

Dr. McGinn, you're still on mute and off camera.

If you can join us, that'd be great.

I got to see you earlier.

Sorry.

Welcome.

The host has disabled my camera.

OK.

We can hear you if you want to tell us why you want to join the bike board.

Oh, I can.

Hold on a second.

He just, can you, yeah, you can see me now.

Okay, hi, thanks for having me today, and I appreciate the opportunity to serve on the advisory board.

Yes, I've done these long races, 4,000 kilometers across Europe, including Eastern Europe, and one that was 5,500 kilometers across Australia.

They're unsupported.

You're just you and your bike.

They're not some highfalutin fancy thing with a bunch of support.

Anyway, I spent a lot of years commuting to work in downtown Seattle, all hours of the day and night.

I am on the bike a lot, but I'm particularly interested in keeping city streets and making more city streets safe for everybody, including kids.

One particular issue I'm interested in is it seems like a kid on a bicycle in Seattle is a bit of an endangered species.

Early in the pandemic, we saw more kids on bicycles as there was no traffic.

I realized that what's practical might be limited, but it would be nice to make more streets safe for kids and families and safer for everybody.

So I have some different perspective perhaps, and I've seen things from a few different points of view.

Hopefully I can help the advisory board and the city at large.

Thank you, Dr. Migden.

Committee members, any questions for Dr. Migden or me or Simon at ESTA?

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, I might be reaching out to each of you.

going to be abstaining today, but that's not a reflection of anyone's credentials or desires.

I really appreciate you coming forward, Dr. Migdon.

So I'll follow up offline with all of you, any questions that I have.

I'll say, Dr. Migdon, hearing that you do unsupported races, that is a very big difference between doing supported rides.

Having done unsupported races myself by kayak, not by bike, I can tell you that that resonates deeply with me. keep up the great work and excited to have you on the board.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And just to clarify this, these appointments are actually going straight to full council per the introduction referral calendar.

The appointment package packets are here today as informational because our committee was moved to Tuesday morning before full council has kind of put us out of sync with the order.

So it'll, so we have them here with their packets.

online, and then they'll go straight to full council for a vote next Tuesday afternoon.

Any other questions, council members, committee members?

OK, well, thank you, Dr. Migdon.

Good to see you.

Thank you, Simon, for your work on this.

And we'll go ahead and you don't need to show up at the full council meeting next Tuesday afternoon.

Thank you for being here for the committee, though.

Thank you.

And we'll go ahead and move on to the next item on our agenda, which is also related to SDOT.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record?

Agenda item two, appointment 2098, appointment of Xander Barbar as member Seattle Transit Advisory Board for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

Welcome, Xander.

And thank you, Nico from Estat for joining us.

And as I understand, Xander was born and raised in Seattle with a lengthy history of navigating Seattle's transit systems, already engaged in helping to improve access to transit for underserved communities, including volunteering with the Woodland Park Zoo to help improve accessibility options for communities without other means to visit.

And Xander showed a strong interest of the broader systems leading to an inequity within Seattle and a clear sense of how that transit advisory board could be an agent for change and progress in this regard.

He also spoke to how our Seattle Transportation Benefit District specifically can play a role in that effort, demonstrating an understanding of the need for both service investments and fare reduction programs.

I hope I covered a lot of that for Xander and Nico.

welcome both of you.

Nico, did you want to talk about the Transit Board before we turn it over and meet Xander?

Please, thank you, Councilmember.

Yes, just by way of quick background, first of all, my name is Nico Martinucci.

I am the program manager for the Seattle Transit Measure at SDOT and filling in as a substitute Transit Advisory Board liaison this morning.

The Transit Advisory Board was created by the City Council back in 2015. So it's one of the newer advisory boards after passage of the 2014 Seattle Transportation Benefit District Proposition 1. The Transit Advisory Board has two main charges.

First, advising the city and our partners on transit and transit-related issues.

And second, more specifically, providing oversight of funds collected and spent under our voter-approved measure.

Board is made up of 12 members, six mayoral appointees, five council appointees, and one get engaged member.

And we have, as you mentioned, Xander here with us today.

We are recommending him for appointment to the board for a term expiring in August of 2023.

Thank you, Nico.

Welcome, Xander.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your interest in the Transit Advisory Board.

Yeah, thanks Councilmember and thanks Nico for the introduction.

My name is Xander Barbar and it's great to meet you all this morning.

I live currently in the Queen Anne neighborhood but I spent most of my life growing up in North Northeast Seattle in the Northgate Maple Leaf area.

And had just a very interesting experience growing up with public transportation.

Grew up on the 73 bus route, for those of you who are familiar with it, in Northeast Seattle.

And spent most of my childhood commuting all around the city by bus with my family.

And it actually led to me getting involved civilly in the Woodland Park Zoo, as was mentioned earlier.

I ended up volunteering for them when I was in high school.

I'm a pretty active volunteer in that space on both their events and their social service side with community members at the middle and high school level about how we get underserved and underprivileged Seattle public school students to and from the zoo for various outreach programs, which for those of you who know the location of the zoo pretty well, it's not exactly the best location for transit access sometimes.

I ended up writing my actually entry essay to college about public transportation in Seattle, which was a very interesting period of my life.

And got to go to UCLA and do a thesis on transportation and access challenges for the wider community.

And funny enough, I'm now sort of on the corporate side.

I work for Boeing here.

And prior to the pandemic was a pretty avid reverse commuter to Everett.

which is a funny commute for anybody who wants to try it.

Now a little bit easier with the light rail.

But when this opportunity came up and I got in touch with Nico and Cliff and the other folks at SDOT, just such an exciting opportunity to give back a little bit to the community about the buses that I know and love and that many of my colleagues and friends and people that I serve at the zoo and in other communities really rely on to be reliable and safe.

particularly with all the development that's going in in some of our urban development areas, there is just such an overwhelming question for new arrivals if they should have a car or not in the city.

And part of my goal in serving on the board is to try to make transit the number one choice that they have versus having to feel that they have to rely on a car to get around, especially as a new transplant.

to the city from wherever they're coming from.

So just really looking forward to being of service to the community and happy to be here this morning, Council Member.

Thank you very much.

Committee members, any questions for Xander or Nico?

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

So I don't have any questions for these gentlemen.

I do want to say thank you to Mr. Barbar and Dr. Migdon for your interest.

I think we all have a deep appreciation for the people who put their names forward to serve on these boards and commissions because all of these commissions serve really valuable purpose for us as council members.

you know, commission members, board members, provide advocacy, provide research, and are really some of the loudest voices for equity in the city.

So I want to thank both gentlemen for putting your names forward.

I was a human rights commissioner myself, and I know how much work is involved, and I know that you do it for free because you love this city.

I do want to say, you know, these commissions and boards have processes for how they make appointments, they review applications, do interviews, and so it is be frustrating when the folks that they have chosen through a community process are not selected and I understand that there's, you know, why folks might feel demoralized when that happens.

So I just think it's important for us to remember that all of our boards and commissions advise us.

They are all constituents with professional experience, with lived experience that is really important to us as council members and is really an asset to bring.

and I just think that the process itself deserves our respect.

So, with that, I look forward to finding ways that we can all work together to lift up these boards of commissions, pay attention to their recommendations and their voices at council, and look forward to working with all of you.

Thanks very much.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Any other comments or questions?

Councilmember Strauss?

say welcome Xander, excited to have you on the board.

From buses to planes, it sounds like you know how to get people around.

And I too was a frequent rider of the 73, the 72, 71, 65, 75, 48. I mean, just you calling out those bus numbers really brought me back.

So thanks Xander.

Thanks, yeah, I'll definitely connect with you anytime about stories about getting home in the snow on those buses when we've had our snowstorms over the years.

Great to be here, thanks for that.

Thank you.

All right, well, if there are no more comments or questions, thank you, Xander, thank you, Nico.

And as I mentioned, both appointments going straight to full council next Tuesday, February 22nd.

Appreciate your willingness to serve.

There'll be additional openings that are rolling There are always openings on these boards and commissions, and you can apply online at the Seattle Boards and Commissions website or through the individual boards that you're interested in.

Thank you for being here, and we'll move on to the next item.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record?

Agenda Item 3, Council Bill 120256, an ordinance relating to street and sidewalk use, amending Ordinance 126474 in the street use permit fee schedule authorized by Section 1504074 of the Seattle Municipal Code, and amending Section 2 and Section 3 of Ordinance 126339 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you, and Council Member Strauss is the sponsor of this bill, so I'd like to provide him with an opportunity to make some introductory remarks.

Just a reminder, we did have a formal presentation from SDOT and central staff last week.

They are here again to take any outstanding questions before we take a vote today on this proposed extension of the free permits for street cafes.

And we have, yeah, so Council Member Strauss, why don't you go ahead and lead this off?

Thank you, Chair.

I'm very glad to be back before the committee speaking about this.

We had it in your in the committee just a couple weeks ago, and we've had this bill before us previously, where we've provided this extension to get to May 2022. The extension before us today takes us out to January of 2023. This is the time that we're gonna take And SDOT is working feverishly around the clock to get the policies right-sized for our city so that we can have outdoor dining permanently here in the city of Seattle and that the policies are best fit for both customers, business owners, and the general public.

And being able to do this balance in the right way just does take some time.

And so that's why I'm excited to be back for you today, requesting another extension of the free permit so that we're able to get these policies right sized.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Um, and again, we do have S dot ancestral staff here.

I don't know if you have anything to add.

We did have a thorough presentation last time, and we're ready.

We should be ready to vote today.

Vote this out of committee today.

So I'll just, I guess I'll wait to see if any other committee members have any comments or questions.

I'm not seeing anybody else, but Councilor Strauss, please.

Yeah, I'll add on to that a little bit.

I was going to see if anyone else had comments or questions, and maybe this information would have come out of that process.

Here I am now speaking again.

I think one of the things that is really important to figure out is the permitting and the fees associated with with these permits, because in the past, the fees have been compared to the amount of parking revenue that would be generated from a spot on the curb.

We know that not everywhere in the city has paid parking, so that created a little bit of an uneven playing field for some.

And then when we only take into consideration what parking revenue could be generated, we're not taking into consideration the sales tax revenue that is being generated from the increased commercial activity in that space.

And so I just I know that in the past we've all to take us back one more step.

We've always had these types of permits in Seattle.

And the uptake during the pandemic was because we made them free temporarily and because we were more flexible with how we were permitting these.

So folks remember little parklets or the sidewalk dining.

It was very narrow.

It was very small.

And the cost was very high to the shop owners.

And so by allowing this time for the temporary free cost of the permit and the ability to be more flexible with the policymaking so that we see on Ballard Avenue with the cafe street, the structures can be a little bit wider.

For other places, the structures need to be a little tighter.

We've seen, you know, retail on the sidewalks.

We've seen retail on the curb.

having this time to pilot all of these different options has been really meaningful.

And I know that SDOT is close to being able to get these policies for the right size for our city.

And I just wanted to take that moment to talk about the fees and that we need to be taking into consideration sales tax that is being generated from these spaces.

That's all I got for today, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Committee members, any other comments or questions?

Okay.

Councilor Strauss is a sponsor.

Would you like to move that the committee recommend a passage of Council Bill 120256, item three on our agenda?

Let me pull that number up.

Just a second.

Yes, 120256. Yep, I move.

I move Council Bill 120256 for consideration.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Any final comments?

OK.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that the bill be approved for forwarding to the full city council?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries, and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the February 22nd city council meeting.

Thank you very much, Estad and Calvin Chow for being here.

All right.

Well, the final item will be the longest.

So strap in.

Will the clerk please read the title of the final agenda item into the record?

Agenda item 4 West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions Draft Environmental Impact Statement for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

I'm excited to have with us here today the staff of Sound Transit to provide an overview of the recent draft environmental impact statement for their West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions.

The draft EIS is a massive collection of documents, a 40-page cover letter, 58-page executive summary, six chapters, 30 appendices, and many more tables and figures.

So this overview at our committee will be helpful.

As we know, Sound Transit is ably represented on their board by our own Council President Juarez and Mayor Bruce Harrell.

And in addition to multiple community advisory groups, we plan to make this committee, Transportation and Public Utilities, available as a venue for City Council to learn more about these ambitious light rail extensions by Sound Transit.

Our Council can also serve as a venue for making sure city executive departments are collaborating and to consider Seattle's comments and recommendations regarding this draft EIS and next steps.

This process is aided by the city's appointment of Marshall Foster as designated representative, who is also here today, along with Sarah Maxana of Seattle Department of Transportation.

and Calvin Chow of our own City Council Central staff.

The draft EIS is attached to our online agenda and available on Sound Transit's website.

Public comments are due by April 28, when their 90-day comment period on the draft EIS expires.

Welcome, Sound Transit.

Let's have you introduce yourselves, please.

Hello, this is Cahill Ridge.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

As mentioned, Cahill Ridge, I'm with Sound Transit.

I'm the Executive Corridor Director, which means I'm responsible for the project as it moves through the planning and environmental phase of project development.

I'm also joined by Lita Shaheem, who is our Government Communications Manager, is here to talk about some of our community engagement efforts, as well as Sloan Dawson, who leads our station planning efforts as well.

Great.

And let's just say hello quickly to Marshall Foster and Sarah Maxana.

Marshall, good morning.

Good morning, Chair, Council members.

It's nice to be with you.

Marshall Foster.

I'm the director of the city's Office of the Waterfront and the designated representative to Sound Transit 3.

And I'm Sarah Maxana, the Sound Transit Program Director at SDOT, supporting Marshall in his role and leading the interdepartmental citywide team.

Thank you all for being here.

And I know Sound Transit has an extensive PowerPoint to attempt to summarize the draft EIS for us.

And it's going to be a great resource for the public as well.

Lots of information on their websites.

And this does a good job summarizing that.

So Sound Transit, take it away.

Thank you, Chair Peterson, members of the committee.

As noted, this is an extensive presentation, but I would note that it's still just an overview of a lot of information, as mentioned, that's in the draft EIS.

So I'll be going through a lot of information today, and there may be questions which, indeed, we can follow up on if more detail is needed.

Next slide, please.

So as I said, why we're here today, to share an overview of the draft EIS process.

and then the community engagement and collaboration associated with that, and to provide a snapshot of the draft EIS results and our station planning program.

Next slide, please.

A little bit about a project background, just to bring people up to speed.

The West Seattle and Battle Lake extensions were included in the Sound Transit 3 plan.

They basically comprised two light rail extensions and a new light rail only downtown tunnel.

and they amount to about 12 miles of new light rail service that will serve 14 stations.

Next slide.

This is a look at the system as it will be in 2032, shown on the left here, and then in 2042 when the full system is built out.

And I just wanted to take a moment to explain this to you because there's something to be understood here.

On the left, in 2032, when the West Seattle Extension opens, you see that pink line.

put a number three there, the West Seattle Extension initially will connect into Soto, the main line at Soto.

And so for a period of about five years or so, people who are coming from West Seattle would transfer to the main line at Soto.

Five years later, the Ballard Link Extension will open, and then the map on the right shows the full expansion of the system, which will be complete by 2042. In that time frame, at that time, West Seattle would connect into the existing downtown tunnel, so folks would no longer need to transfer at Soto.

They'd be able to connect right into downtown, and the go all the way up to Everett without making a transfer.

The Ballard Link extension will connect into a new downtown tunnel and connect on down to Tacoma.

So I just wanted to explain the transition, if you like, in the operating system when we move from 2032 to the future state.

Next slide, please.

This is a quick look at our project timeline.

We are over on the left here in the planning phase in the green box.

We started back in 2017 and hopefully concludes next year.

And our objective during the planning phase is to figure out what we're going to carry forward into design and construction.

So we've got a lot of different alternatives as we're moving through this process, but the whole intent of the planning phase is to decide on what we'll ultimately build, take forward into design and construction.

As you noted on the right side of this graphic, our schedule to get to West Seattle is 2032, and Ballard is 2037. That's our target schedule for Ballard.

You can see there, there's an asterisk.

We do have an affordability gap.

If we cannot close that affordability gap by additional funding or cost savings, then the portion of the Ballard extension between Smith Cove and Ballard, the last couple of stations, would not open until 2039. Next slide, please.

As I mentioned, we started this project a few years ago.

We went through an alternatives development phase.

Some folks here I know were very familiar with that phase.

We had elected leadership groups, stakeholder advisory groups, a lot of engagement at the council level in that process.

And we went through that process between late 2017 and early 2019. And at the end of that process, the board identified preferred alternatives and other draft EIS alternatives to carry forward into environmental review.

Next slide.

The whole purpose of the Alternatives Development Screening process was to, as it suggests, screen from a broad range of initial alternatives, find those alternatives, further screen, further evaluate those alternatives, and get down to a subset of alternatives that we could study in detail in the draft EIS.

And so that's what we've been doing for the last couple of years, identifying, studying the alternatives that came out of that initial Alternatives Development process.

Next slide, please.

These on the graphic on the left here highlights the alternatives that were identified through the initial phase and have been studied in detail in the draft EIS and I'll speak about these in more detail as I move to the next slides.

Next slide please.

So as I mentioned, coming out of Alternatives Development, we had a number of alternatives.

We've taken them through environmental review.

We've published a draft EIS document just a couple of weeks ago, and we're now in the public common period.

And as mentioned, this is a 90-day public common period that extends to late April.

After the public common period, based on the technical information in the draft EIS and the public feedback, we will go back to the Sound Transit Board, hopefully in June, and request that they confirm or modify the preferred alternative that was previously identified.

We'll then publish a final EIS next year and return to the board again and ask that they select the project to be built.

And at that point, that'll be the conclusion of the environmental process, the planning process, and we can then move forward into final design and construction.

Next slide, please.

The draft ESCOM period, as already mentioned, extends until April 28th, so a three-month period.

I do want to emphasize as I've already said, that today I'll be giving a very high-level overview of the information, but I do encourage folks to look at the draft environmental impact statement document itself, which is available in many different venues.

This is an image of the front page of the executive summary.

It's a very good place to start if you want to get a basic orientation to the project, and there's a lot more information in the document as well, and hopefully that will inform your comments if you choose to provide comments on the alternatives in the document.

Next slide, please.

As we've been going through this work effort and in partnership with the city, we've been centering racial equity in our conversations.

And here's a list of the racial equity outcomes that we've developed, which are informed by prior community engagement.

And I'll just take a moment to read through them.

The first one is advanced environmental and economic justice to improve economic and health outcomes for communities of color, enhance mobility and access for communities of color and low-income populations, create opportunities for equitable development that include expanding housing and community assets for communities of color, avoid disproportionate impacts on communities of color and low-income populations, create a sense of belonging for communities of color at all stations, making spaces where everyone sees themselves as belonging, feeling safe and welcome, and meaningfully involving communities of color and low-income populations in the project.

Next slide, please.

Together with the city, we have developed a racial equity toolkit report, which builds on the environmental justice analysis included in the draft EIS.

It's released as a draft.

You can access it on our online open house, and it will be updated based on comments received during the draft EIS comment period.

Next slide, please.

I'm going to hand it over to Lita Shaheem from our government community relations office, who just briefly described some of our community engagement collaboration efforts.

Thank you, Cahill.

I'm glad to be here to talk about our community engagement efforts at a high level today.

So this chart provides a snapshot of the community engagement and collaboration process.

As you can see across the top, you'll see that the chart captures from late 2021 through the first half of 2022. In gray from late January through much of April is the public comment period, that 90-day comment period that Cahill mentioned.

Across the left, you see a snapshot of the engagement process.

I'll acknowledge first, this is just a snapshot to provide meaningful engagement and facilitate broad participation in the comment period.

We are engaging in many other ways, which I'll highlight a little bit more after the slide here.

But turning back to this chart and starting with the draft EIS public meetings, those are occurring in March.

And you can see that there will be four virtual public meetings and one in-person meeting provided that state and local guidelines related to COVID-19 allow for that.

We then have the, in red, the community advisory groups.

And starting here in November, we kicked off the process with a process overview.

And then in January, these groups dug into station planning.

Just in February, these groups met about the draft EIS results overview.

Next month, they'll be doing a draft EIS results deep dive, so digging deeper into those results, and so on.

As each month progresses, these groups are building common ground and understanding, highlighting specific issues and trade-offs, and ultimately their feedback along with all of the public feedback that we receive will be shared with the Sound Transit Board before they confirm or modify the preferred alternative.

The meetings are live streamed and recordings are available on our online open house at WSBLink.participate.online.

Finally, you'll see that the System Expansion Committee of the Sound Transit Board will spend time on the draft EIS and public comments later this spring, leading up to the board in June.

We expect they'll confirm or modify the preferred alternative.

Going a little bit more into our community engagement efforts during the draft EIS comment period, first, again, just like to note our online open house here.

You see the link that I mentioned, wsblink.participate.online.

The website is a great resource for information about the project, the draft EIS, station planning, the advisory group process, how to get involved, and most importantly, provide a public comment.

It has been transcribed into multiple languages and is available, of course, 24-7.

As I mentioned, our community advisory groups are meeting.

There are four groups, and they are meeting monthly during May.

We'll have four virtual Draft EIS meetings, as I mentioned, and one in person in March.

During the virtual meetings, the public can expect a presentation, Q&A, and opportunity to provide oral public comment.

We also sent out a draft EIS mailer to 130,000 addresses, again, to build awareness about the project.

So all along the project corridor and extending further at the terminal stations in Ballard and West Seattle and down the Delridge corridor to capture those that may connect to the station by bus or other modes.

There are many other activities listed here that I just want to note, including community briefings and events, fairs, festivals, and tabling, property owner webinars, office hours where we provide technical assistance to community members, and then community liaison outreach.

which I wanted to spend a little bit more time on.

So we are partnering with the City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods Community Liaison Program.

This is just one highlight of how the City and Sound Transit are working together on community engagement.

We've expanded this partnership and are engaging with 11 community liaisons that are focused on the CID station area as well as the Delridge Corridor in West Seattle.

The expanded effort kicked off last summer with six training sessions, engagement to raise awareness and establish relationships leading up to the public comment period.

These liaisons are now focused on encouraging broad awareness and participation in the comment period, door-to-door business outreach in language where helpful ethnic media and social media connections that they have, tabling at stations, community spaces, fairs and festivals, and interpretation at community meetings and briefings.

They provide so much more value than we can put on this slide, but I just wanted to take a moment to note that as well.

And then finally, we're offering a variety of ways to provide a comment, including online, phone, mail, or email, at DraftEIS public meetings, and of course, folks can comment in any language.

Cahill, back to you.

Thanks, Lisa.

So now I'll provide a brief overview of the DraftEIS results.

Next slide, please.

Before jumping into that, I did want to point out a couple of the Performance metrics, if you like, for the project, just to help you understand some of the larger objectives that we're trying to accomplish with this project, of course.

And this is a look at the overall project corridor and speaks to travel times and reliability.

These are by no means the only benefits of the project, but it does highlight some of the factors.

You can see on the left there, it notes the connection from Westlake to Alaska Junction, which without link in the time period of 2042 would likely be a 30-minute trip by transit.

With link, that would be reduced to a 60-minute trip.

And you can see under there in terms of transit reliability, the box just below that, that would move the trans-reliability rating from a D, E, or F rating to an A rating, so obviously much more reliable.

Similarly, for the connection from Westlake to Ballard and Market Street in Ballard, you'd be changing a trip from the 38 minutes or so that's noted there down to 11 minutes with a link.

And again, the trans-reliability rating would go from E to F to an A rating.

Next slide, please.

As I noted up front, there's a lot of information in the draft EIS.

This is a list of the topics that are typically studied in the EIS, and I will not be going through all of these today.

There's many things that, you know, are described in the EIS, and I can't possibly go through all of it today, but I will be talking about some of the key considerations to help orient you to perhaps some of the tradeoffs between some of the alternatives, differentiators between some of the alternatives along the corridor.

Next slide, please.

So I'll start with the downtown segment and then you can see in the I'll go through other segments along the corridor.

After that, I'll describe the alternatives in each case and I'll talk about some of the key considerations associated with those alternatives.

So again, starting with downtown and the next slide please.

This shows the alternatives that we have in the downtown area.

So you can see we have the, in pink, what we call the 5th and Harrison Alternative, and that's because it goes along 5th Avenue and transitions to West Lake and South Lake Union Area, transitions over to Harrison, and then ultimately lands in Republican in Seattle Center area.

And you can see there, highlighted in the black capitalized text, the station locations and the little rectangles beside them.

So we'd have stations at Midtown, Westlake, Denny, Southlake Union, and Seattle Center.

We also have a blue alternative there called the 6th and Mercer Alternative.

That's shorthand because it goes along 6th Avenue to the Midtown area.

Then it transitions over to Terry Avenue as it goes through Southlake Union and then on to Mercer.

Again, the stations are pretty much very similar locations, Midtown, Westlake, Denny, Southlake Union, and Seattle Center.

Next slide, please.

This is a quick snapshot of some of the key considerations, if you like, between the alternatives.

So it's a table.

You can see the pink 5th and Harrison alternative and the blue 6th and Mercer alternative.

And along the left there, you see some key considerations, including project cost, residential displacements, business displacements, and so on down that list there.

The table is shaded, color-coded if you like.

Darker shading means higher performing.

You can see the legend in the bottom right here.

So darker means higher performing.

A lighter shading means lower performing.

I won't go through this in a lot of detail, but you can see if you just look down at the pink alternative here, that it performs a little bit better in terms of project cost, residential spacements, business spacements, historic properties effects, and park effects, whereas the blue alternative performs better in terms of traffic effects, not as many roadways affected.

You'll also note at the bottom here other considerations.

So we've highlighted a few other things that are notable between these alternatives.

One of those things is construction, ground-borne noise and vibration effects.

It's noting in particular some of the sensitive uses in South Lake Union and Seattle Center that would be affected by the alternatives.

It also notes disruption to streetcar operations during construction, and that would be the case for either alternative at different locations, but either alternative would affect streetcar operations during construction.

And then the last couple of bullets there note the connections to adjacent segments.

So, for example, with the pink alternative, that alternative will connect to any of the alternatives in the Chinatown ID to the south, whereas the blue alternative connects only to the shallow alternatives in the Chinatown ID.

Similarly to the north, these alternatives have some limitations in terms of what they connect to in the adjacent segment.

So that's the downtown segment.

I went through that very quickly, but I'll move forward into the next segment to the north, which is the south inter-bay segment.

Next slide, please.

Again, we have three alternatives in this segment.

The pink is known as, it's named the Gator Street Station Central Interbay Alternative.

We also have in blue a Prospect Street Station Central Interbay Alternative and a Prospect Street Station 15th Avenue Alternative.

You can see call-outs to where those alternatives are on this graphic.

They all have a station somewhere in the Smith Cove area.

In the case of the blue alternatives, that station is right adjacent to Prospect Street, whereas with the pink alternative, It's a little bit further north, spanning Gaylor Street and just south of the Magnolia Bridge.

Next slide, please.

Again, this summary table highlighting some of the key considerations for each alternative.

I won't go through all the numbers here, obviously.

I'll just focus on some of the darker shaded, higher performing areas.

And you can see for the pink alternative, for example, on the left, It performs higher in terms of project cost.

It also performs higher in terms of biodiversity effects down there in yellow.

If you move to the right here with the blue alternative on the right.

And you can see that the Prospect Street Station Central Interbay Alternative performs better in terms of residential displacements.

It would have the fewest residential displacements.

It also performs better in terms of roadway effects.

And in terms of other considerations at the bottom, I would note both the alternatives on the right would be running adjacent to the Queen Anne Hillside steep slopes.

So there are some engineering constructability challenges associated with those alternatives.

Next slide, please.

Moving to the interbay Ballard segment of the project.

Next slide.

We have a number of alternatives in this area.

The pink alternative is the preferred alternative, the elevated 14th Avenue alternative.

So it'd be a high fixed bridge over the ship canal with a station in Ballard spanning Market Street on 14th.

We also in Brown have a couple of tunnel alternatives on 14th and on 15th.

The stations would either be on 14th or 15th in Ballard.

And then to the west of the existing Badar Bridge, we also have a moveable bridge alternative, which is labeled Elevated 15th Avenue Alternative.

Next slide, please.

Excuse me.

Council Member Morales, I believe, has a comment or question.

Oh, sure.

Sorry, didn't see that.

Thank you.

Well, I appreciate the previous slide where you're showing the different considerations that you have and how things rank based on those considerations.

But can you talk a little bit about whether local businesses are part of those considerations and how that is included in the consideration?

Yeah, let me see, perhaps go to an example.

This doesn't, perhaps, yeah, if you go back to, yeah.

So for example, in the downtown area, We do have, we have noted here in the third row, the difference in business displacements associated with these two alternatives.

Again, this is just a quantitative measure, pure just number of businesses that would be potentially displaced by one alternative versus the other.

And you can see in the downtown segment, not a huge difference between the alternatives in terms of business displacements.

There is a lot more information in the draft EIS on what specific businesses are affected and what the effects would be to them in particular.

So I would encourage anyone who's interested in that to refer to the draft EIS.

I don't always, we don't always highlight business displacements in the other segments because sometimes it's not, it's not big differentiator isn't perhaps business aren't affected or there isn't a significant difference between the businesses.

And that's why sometimes it's not always mentioned in these, in these summary slides.

So speaking to intimate balance segments, I think I went through the alternatives here.

Next slide, please.

So again, a snapshot of how these alternatives compare to each other.

Again, I'll just focus on the darker shaded areas for the sake of time.

You can see there in the middle, the tunnel 14th alternative, generally performs favorably in terms of project cost, as well as residential displacements, historic property effects, employee displacements, and in-water effects.

This would be a tunnel, so it wouldn't have any in-water effects.

You can see some of the other alternatives.

The Tunnel 15 alternative to the right of that also performs well in terms of many measures apart from project cost.

And then over on the right there, you see the elevated 15th alternative forms quite well in terms of cost and residential displacements.

There are a number of other considerations that are noted at the bottom here.

I think they're important to call out.

Generally, with the elevated alternatives, whether it's the pink one on the left or the blue ones on the right, they will potentially have maritime business displacements associated with them, as well as other effects, for example, boat ramps or stormwater hotfalls that would be, you know, worth noting as well in those areas.

I think I'll leave it at that for now and move on to the next segment.

So moving to Chinatown ID.

Next slide, please.

We have a number of alternatives in Chinatown ID.

And this is one area of the project where the board did not previously identify a preferred alternative.

So all of these were studied in detail in the draft EIS.

And you can see by the rectangles there that we have a station potentially on 4th Avenue.

And if you look at the call-outs, that station could be either, we label it either fourth shallow or fourth deep, referring to the depth of the station.

Similarly, we have a station that could be located on Fifth Avenue.

Again, we have a fifth shallow and a fifth deep alternative, and those labels are referring to the depth of the station at those locations.

We also, in response to feedback during phase one, developed a new alternative, which is called a fifth shallow diagonal station configuration, And this was born out of a desire to try and reduce the construction effects and traffic detours and so on in this area.

And so it's a slightly different alignment, but the station location, the head house for the station would be basically the same location as the fifth shallow alternative.

Next slide, please.

This is a very detailed table, and a lot of it is to do with construction effects in orange.

And that's really because construction effects was a key driver, a key concern in this area with all of the alternatives.

So again, I won't go through the table in full, but I will focus on some of the darker shaded areas.

So you can see moving from the top again, in terms of project cost, the fifth shallow and fifth shallow diagonal alternative, those third and fourth alternatives there towards the right, middle and right of the table, perform better in terms of cost.

Moving down, not a lot of distinctions in terms of residential spacements apart from the fourth shallow alternative having a number of displacements associated with it.

Business displacements, you can see fourth shallow and fourth deep would have fewer business displacements.

So those are higher performing alternatives.

We've talked about platform access.

Again, the deep stations would be elevator only.

That's a consideration.

And then construction effects.

There are many, many different things that are highlighted here to try and give you an understanding some of the considerations associated with construction.

I think moving towards the right of this graphic, you see more darker shading and better performance in terms of this duration of the construction period being shorter, the number of detours of traffic, the effect on streetcar operations and the effect on utilities and so on.

There are notes at the bottom, again, referencing how these alternatives can connect to other alternatives in adjacent segments.

I won't go through all of those permutations here for the sake of time.

I would note with the two alternatives on the left, the Ford shallow and Ford deep, they do have effects to Ryerson base.

In the case of Ford shallow, it would have some effect to Ryerson base.

In the case of Ford deep, it would displace the Ryerson bus base.

Next slide, please.

Moving south to the solo segment.

Next slide.

We have four alternatives in this section.

So on the top left, you have an at-grade alternative.

You've got an at-grade staggered configuration, an at-grade south station option, and a mixed profile option.

So as implied by the name, the at-grade alternative is essentially at-grade within the existing solar busway, the station would be at grade adjacent to the existing station at that location.

And this would include overpasses, which are noted here at Lander and at Holgate.

So right now today, there are not overpasses at those locations.

The idea of installing these overpasses is that vehicle operations and rail operations will be separated from each other.

So there would be no conflict between those two modes after the project is built.

That's the same for the accurate staggered configuration.

The only difference here is that the station, the new station is staggered a little bit to the north, still possible to transfer between lines, essentially the same in terms of access.

But the reason we stagger it there is that this alternative would avoid impacts to a USPS facility in that location, which would be a difficult facility to relocate.

And the top right here, we have an alternative, it's called the at grade south station option.

The difference here is that both the new platform, the new station and the existing station, we've moved south closer to Lander Street.

And then finally, the mixed profile alternative.

This alternative is a bit different in the sense that the station would be elevated, it would not be at grade.

So there'd be an elevated station adjacent to the existing ag-grade station.

And also, this alternative would not have an overpass at Lander because the guideway would be elevated at that location.

It would not be possible to have an over-crossing of the light rail at that location.

So the existing grade crossing at that location would still remain.

There would still be an overpass at Holgate Street.

Next slide, please.

Again, a summary table.

and just focusing on the higher performing, the accurate staggered configuration performs higher in terms of project cost.

Not a lot of distinction between the alternatives in terms of business displacements.

In terms of transportation effects, if you look to the right there, you see the mixed profile alternative would result in a temporary closure of the Soto busway.

And by temporary, I mean for about 10 years.

But the other alternatives would result in permanent closure of the existing Soto busway.

Similarly, construction effects, the mixed profile alternative on the right, would result in night and weekend closures of Lander Street, whereas the other alternatives, which require the construction of overpass, would result in a longer-term closure of Lander Street.

Some of the other considerations, again, it's noting the difference between the alternatives in terms of grade-separated crossings.

It also notes the connections to the alternatives in the adjacent CID segment, and then notably, in the middle of the accurate stagger configuration, as I mentioned, would avoid relocation of the existing USPS facility in that area.

Next slide.

Moving to Duwamish.

Next slide, please.

We have three alternatives in this area.

In the middle of this graphic, you can see the existing West Seattle Bridge, east-west crossing Harbor Island.

Preferred alternative from phase one is just the pink line just to the south of that.

labeled south crossing alternative.

And then we also have below that a blue line, which is called a south edge crossing alignment option.

It's similar, it would just cross Harbor Island a bit further south.

And then we have a north crossing alternative that'll be on the north side of the existing West Seattle Bridge.

These are all elevated bridges over some similar height to the existing West Seattle Bridge, but this one would be on the north side, crossing over port property.

Next slide, please.

Again, quick summary of how these compare to each other.

South Crossing Alternative would perform better in terms of project cost.

And if you scan down that column, you also see it would have fewer maritime business displacements than the other alternatives.

And then I think I would note perhaps the alternative on the right, the North Crossing Alternative would perform better in terms of residential displacements and park effects.

In the bottom of this graphic under other considerations, You'll note some of the things that we need to deal with.

Pigeon Point constructability with those two alternatives on the left, those constructability challenges in that area.

And then on the right, I would note the North Crossing alternative would impact Port of Seattle facilities.

And T5.

I have a question or comment from Council Member Quimble.

Thank you.

Thanks.

A quick question.

Do all three of these Duwamish Crossing alternatives work with all of the different alternatives in Delridge?

Yes.

Thank you.

Next slide, please.

So finally, I'll deal with the Delridge and West Seattle Junction alternatives.

Next slide.

There are a lot of alternatives in West Seattle and Delridge.

Didn't really screen down too many during the initial phase and indeed added some.

So I deal with both together because they really do interact with each other.

What you decide to do in Delridge really affects what you can do in the Alaska Junction and vice versa.

So that's why I'm going through both together here.

So starting on the left with the alternatives in the Alaska Junction area and starting with the pink lines, the elevated alternatives, you can see we have a pink line there labeled elevated Fauntleroy.

So it'd be spanning Southwest Alaska Street on Fauntleroy, essentially.

And then to the left of that, we have another pink alternative elevated 41st, 42nd, again, in the vicinity of Alaska Street, but in the 41st, 42nd Street area.

Then we got the brown alternatives, which are the tunnel alternatives that we studied in phase one, and they involve stations at either 41st or 42nd.

And then in blue are a couple of additional tunnel alternatives that we studied during the draft EIS phase.

And this was in response to board direction to look for alternatives that would be more effective from a cost perspective and reduce effects.

And so those are labeled short tunnel 41st and medium tunnel 41st.

I'm referring to the length of those tunnels.

In both cases, the stations themselves would be on 41st.

So those are the alternatives in West Seattle Junction.

Moving to the right in the Delridge Corridor, you'll see in pink is a preferred alternative on Dakota Street.

So the alignment would be elevated, cross over there, and in the vicinity of Dakota Street, you'd have the station, and then it would continue along Genesee Street into, to connect one of the pink lines in the junction area.

We also have the possibility of going into a tunnel, connecting with tunnel options in the junction, and you can see there just a brown, yeah, brown call-out, Dakota Street, lower height alternative, The station would be in the same location in Delridge, but the guideway height would be lower, and they would connect to tunnel options in the junction.

To the right of that, you see Delridge Way.

It's a blue alternative.

So in that case, the station would be on Delridge Way, spanning the street in that location.

And again, connecting to Genesee Street to connect into alternatives in the junction area.

And then the third station location in the Delridge area is up in the Andover Street area.

And you can see that that would connect along Andover Street, and then could either go along Avalon Way or go along adjacent to the West Seattle Bridge on-ramp area there.

And those are labeled Andover Street and Andover Street Lower Hythal Turnpike.

Next slide, please.

So briefly here, there's a lot of alternatives in the junction.

And indeed, this doesn't represent all of the different combinations that you could have, but it does give you a sense of how these alternatives compare to each other.

So again, focusing on just the darker shaded areas for purposes of this conversation.

In terms of project costs, you can see that on the left here, the pink elevated Fauntleroy Dakota Street alternative does perform well in terms of project costs.

And then over on the right there, you see a second from the right, the medium tunnel 41st and over street lower height alternative also is comparable in terms of cost.

And then to the right of that, Elevated Fauntleroy and over street.

So, you know, a few alternatives there that compare to each other.

in terms of the cost measure.

Residential displacements, I think the one to focus on perhaps is to the right here.

Medium tunnel 41st performs higher in terms of residential displacements.

Business displacements, a number of alternatives are comparable to each other there as well, sort of in the mid-30 range for business displacements.

And then park effects, the higher performing alternatives are the ones on the right there as well.

You can see that both the Medium Tunnel 41st and Elevated Font Roy would not impact parks.

Other considerations, and this is important, something I should highlight, you can see what the elevated alternatives, the pink alternatives on the right and, you know, there's one more to the right, to the pink alternatives on the left, rather, and some of the alternatives on the right are elevated.

And if you're elevated in the junction, you would result, generally speaking, you result in a taller guideway in Delridge area.

So that's something to be aware of.

If you pick an elevated alternative in the junction, it does mean that you will have a higher guideway in the Delridge area as a result.

Whereas if you pick a tunnel alternative in the junction, it will generally result in a lower guideway in the Delridge area as well.

There's some other things to note there.

I won't go through these in detail, but you can look at those as well, some of the considerations to note.

So next slide, please.

Council Member Herbold has a question.

Oh, sorry.

Thanks, this is about the content of the EIS.

One of the things I've been hearing from constituents is that in evaluating impacts of the options, that not all of them have clear visual representations in the draft EIS.

I'm wondering, are there plans to provide additional visuals?

At our next community advisory, we did have our initial draft ES results overview with the West Seattle Duwamish Community Advisory Group just last week, I think it was.

And there was an interest in doing a deeper dive on visual.

So at our next community advisory group meeting in March, we'll be spending some time going through visual representations of the alternatives.

So for folks who are interested in that topic, I would encourage them to tune into that next meeting.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

I think we can move to the next section.

And I'm going to hand it over to Sloan Dawson, who is our station planning lead.

Thank you, Cahill.

Can everyone hear me OK?

Great.

Well, it's an honor to be here with you today, council members and Chair Peterson.

I'm going to give a brief overview of our approach to station planning on this project.

But I'm not going to get into all the detail because there's a lot out there and it's summarized in a report that is now available online.

But we, to start with, are taking a different approach in the Sound Transit 3 program and really thinking very early on from the start of developing our light rail and high-capacity transit projects.

to think about how the stations knit into the communities that they serve.

And this slide is sort of an aspirational vision of what station planning can achieve when done in a timely way.

Really thinking about the location of the station and the positioning of entries in the urban fabric so they're highly accessible and visible.

Thinking about those walking and biking connections, making sure that they're convenient and safe to access the station.

Of course, working with our partners at King County Metro and cities on seamless integration between modes of transit at the stations, since that's a big part of the transit strategy here, to provide feeding and connecting service into the light rail network.

And then at the site level, really thinking about the design of the immediate environment of the station.

So the public spaces around the stations, having great transit plazas, as well as opportunities to integrate with adjacent development.

So that's really what we're trying to achieve with station planning.

And to do that requires partnership and also acknowledgement that there are many actors with distinctive responsibilities within these larger station service areas.

So this slide helps orient us to sort of that nesting geography of responsibility, if you will, and also the focus of our station planning program at Sound Transit.

And that's really focused on the station context, about one to three blocks surrounding the station, which will see the most direct physical change from station construction and operations.

As I noted, it's an area of shared responsibility.

So it's a geography that encompasses investments that Sound Transit is making, as well as investments made by others.

In this case, the City of Seattle, as well as Metro, and of course, third-party developers and property owners.

And ultimately, by engaging in this early planning around the station context, we hope to co-create a vision that we can align existing and planned investments, both within Sound Transit as well as with our partners, in service of community priorities and needs in the station areas.

So to that end, we've created a co-planning partnership.

We've been working regularly with city staff from multiple departments, SDOT, OPCD, Seattle City Light, and the list goes on, to engage and evaluate these early design concepts for the station alternatives that Cahill mentioned.

Let's go to the next slide, please.

It's a little bit of a background as to how we got here and where we're going next.

This is that earlier overall project timeline slide that Cahill was speaking to.

And the image at the bottom of this is really speaking to the steps that we're going through now in this early station context planning.

We began with alternatives development in 2017 through 2019, where we did studies as well as charrettes and neighborhood forums throughout the corridor to identify station sites and alignment alternatives that were now informing conceptual station locations that we've studied and advanced design on for the draft EIS.

In parallel, we've been working to develop draft station context, urban design concepts.

And those are summarized in a draft report, which I'll have a slide on right after this, that we've released alongside the draft EIS to help inform community conversations and decision-making around which station alternatives perform well with respect to urban integration and development potential accessibility.

But ultimately, as we move from the draft EIS into the final EIS, we'll be working with communities, with our agency partners to refine the design concepts and produce a final station context framework that we can really all work to design to and ensure is performing well and successfully going forward.

We go to the next slide.

So this work is all summarized in a progress report, station planning progress report that's available on our online open house and on our website.

It summarizes ideas, recommendations, as well as presents the station concepts for all of the alternatives studied in the draft EIS.

And it's really representing the ideas, feedback, and recommendations that Sound Transit staff, as well as our great agency partner staff at City of Seattle, King County Metro and the Port have come up with, as we've evaluated the station concepts, and really focuses on those key dimensions of station planning.

with respect to access, so how people are getting to the station on transit, as well as active modes, biking and walking, as well as potential transit-oriented development concepts and opportunities for public space and streets around the stations.

So I encourage you to visit that report.

There's a lot more information and detail on those station concepts.

And thank you.

Back to you, Lita.

I can take this, Lita, if you want.

This is a slide Lita showed earlier, so it's just a reminder again of where we are in the process.

Just to highlight that we're going through the public comment period leading to the public hearings in March, leading to ultimately going to the System Expansion Committee in the spring, and then the board hopefully in June.

So just a refresher, a reminder about the process that we described earlier.

And I did want to emphasize, and noted earlier in response to a question, the upcoming community advisory group meetings where we'll be doing a deeper dive on the draft EIS results.

If you missed the February community advisory group meetings or the January-February advisory group meetings, they're all recorded.

They're all available on the online open house.

I would recommend you look at them.

In January, Sloan went into a great deal of detail on the station planning concepts and all of that information is available.

in a recorded version of those presentations.

And then as mentioned earlier in February, we did an overview of the draft EIS results.

So went into a good bit more detail than I went into today for each of the segments of the corridor.

And then as noted here, in March, we will be doing these deeper dive.

When we presented the results to the community advisory group in February, they had questions, things they'd want to know more about.

And the intent of the next round of these community advisory group meetings is to try and circle back and provide more information to address some of those concerns.

So you can see there the dates, Interbay Banner Community Advisory Group on Tuesday, March 1st, 5 p.m.

to 7 p.m.

Downtown Community Advisory Group, Thursday, March 3rd.

Again, 5 p.m.

to 7 p.m.

They're all 5 p.m.

to 7 p.m.

West Seattle Duwamish Community Advisory Group, Tuesday, March 8th.

And then the CID Soto Community Advisory Group meeting on Tuesday, March 10th, all live streamed.

And if you can't make the live stream, then you can check out the recording And you can access all of these at again the online open house link WSB link.participate.online.

Next slide.

And a final slide on the online open house.

Lida spoke to it a little bit earlier.

This just kind of lays out, if you like, the various bits of information that are available.

If you go to this site, again, it's translated into many different languages.

You can see tabs in the gray band along the top there, and those are the same tabs that are noted in the bullets on the left side of this graphic, so you can get a project overview.

You can get access to the draft EIS.

You can comment on the draft EIS.

You can go through all of the station information that Sloan kind of gave a brief introduction to.

You can check out the advisory groups, and the recordings of those, and there's information for property owners if you're potentially affected by any of the alternatives.

And finally, and most importantly, get involved section featuring all the different ways that we are engaging in various forms beyond the regular Draft EIS meetings.

There are many other briefings that we're doing and many other ways to engage with the information in the Draft EIS.

That concludes our presentation for the day and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much for this excellent, thorough, clear presentation.

It is available on our council agenda, Sound Transit's, if you visit Sound Transit's website, you can get more information.

We are gonna hear from Marshall Foster and Sarah Maxson briefly, but let's pause here for some questions and comments from council members.

First, I saw Council Member Strauss, followed by Council Member Morales.

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Cahill, Lita, so great to see you.

It's been so long.

So nice to meet you virtually here.

Um, man, I'm great.

I'm so excited to be back here talking about our favorite topic.

Um, if we could actually pull up the slide and move back to slide 30, I noticed we just did it in a little.

We didn't do it in a straight line.

So, um, I want to come back up to slide 30, and I just had some questions about here and Inner Bay, so the Ballard.

The first question here is, have we been able to do, and I know you spoke a little bit to this, but just kind of bringing this more clearly into focus, what is the current status of the cost comparison between a high-level tunnel or a high-level bridge and a tunnel?

Yes, certainly, and the next slide answers that directly in the first row.

So you can see what the preferred alternative, which is a high level bridge on the left there, cost range would be in the $1.5 to $1.6 billion range in this particular area of the project.

And you can see what the elevated alternatives on the right here as well, the blue alternatives, they would also be in that same range, $1.6 to $1.5 billion.

The tunnel alternatives are in the middle of the graphic here.

And the tunnel 14th alternative would also be about $1.5 billion, so comparable, if you like, to the elevated alternatives.

The tunnel 15th option in the middle of the graphic there would be a couple of hundred million dollars more expensive for that particular tunnel station.

So those are all updated estimates from the prior estimates a couple of years ago.

And I really appreciate you in this slide calling out the other factors that we need to consider when landing the station.

As far as the engineering of the tunnel is, when we look at this, what cost drivers are there for the difference between 14th and 17th?

Or we'll get to my next questions about 20th.

When we're looking at that range between 20th Avenue and 14th Avenue, Separate and aside for the historic properties, residential displacement, when I'm just looking at building the tunnel, constructing the tunnel, what are the cost drivers I need to be thinking about when I look at the difference between 20th and 14th as the range?

Yeah, well, in this graphic, we just speak to 14th and 15th.

Those are the two alternatives that are examined in the draft EIS.

And there is, as noted here, there is a difference between the cost of those two tunnel alternatives.

And it's driven really by the depth of the tunnel and the need to mine the tail track in the 15th area.

There's a few particular constraints associated with that that drive the tunnel deeper, the station deeper, and also require the tail tracks to be mined, which means the cost of that alternative is greater overall.

We have not looked at a 20th alignment in the draft EIS.

That was something that was considered you may recall in phase one, I know you were involved at that time, and was not moved forward at that time for a number of reasons, a lot to do with the length of the tunnel, which drove the cost of that tunnel, as well as the impacts of the station location and the challenges of constructing it to the west.

So right now, those alternatives further west were screened out.

They were not looked at in the draft EIS.

The two tunnel alternatives that are looked at in detail in draft AS are shown here in the middle of this graphic.

Thank you, Cahill.

Let me take what I heard you just say and answer my own question, because I think it was really helpful, which is, and please add on to this list if I've missed any cost drivers.

What I'm hearing is length of tunnel, depth of tunnel, and soil condition.

Are there other factors that I need to be thinking about when looking at constructing this tunnel here?

Length of tunnel, depth of tunnel, two big cost drivers, and then how you construct the tunnel, or elements of the tunnel, if you like.

And the particular issue in the 15th area, which drives the cost, is that that area is built up, as you know.

There's some recent development in that area.

So it drives down.

the depth of the tunnel because you have to avoid building foundations and so on in that area.

And you can only mine.

You can't do cut and cover construction in those cases.

That's a big cost driver.

So maybe one of the unknowns that we have right now is what future development will be taking place at 14th that might increase some of these costs and make it a more level comparison.

Would that be a fair assumption to make at this time?

That's true.

The difference with the 14th tunnel as it's designed right now is that it would be within the street right of way.

So there's a certain amount of, I would just say, lessens the risk, if you like, compared to the 15-ton alternative, which is not in the street right away and clearly can be developed.

And that's a risk for there.

But you're right.

I mean, development is always a risk throughout the corridor, and the impacts of building foundations and so on can drive up costs.

And that has been a factor as we've moved through project development.

Or I might even offer the 20th Street station might have other factors of publicly owned spaces that could be utilized.

I think you might be sensing a theme here that I really would love us to be able to study the 20th Street just so that we have apples to apples comparison between 20th and 14th, where the highest levels of density in the neighborhood are.

It would be helpful for me to understand those comparisons as we move forward.

We don't have to do it now, clearly.

But my next question is, when we're looking at station placement and construction here in Ballard, what factors do we need to take into consideration at this time to ensure that it operates well for the expansion?

Because I know at some point in the future, the train line will continue.

I look at University of Washington, when I ride the train over there, the stadium is called University of Washington Station.

And that was at the end of the line when it was created.

And it was, yes, of course, that's the only station that goes to University of Washington.

But now here we are a number of years later where the U district is, it's unclear which one is actually closer to the University of Washington.

So, you know, from a naming standpoint, from that kind of bureaucratic standpoint, there's considerations.

But what I focus on here is, What do I need to be thinking about?

Do we need to have the station north-south?

Do we need to have it east-west?

Does it need to be at a certain depth or not a certain depth to be able to continue that tunnel in the future?

What do I need to be thinking about?

Our long-range plan does identify the potential extensions to north, so we've anticipated that that could be something that would happen in the future and designed it as such, but it is something that we need to keep designing for and anticipating as well as we go through this process.

But yes, there is not an ST4, and so we don't know if that will ever transpire, as you know, but we do – we try not to preclude that opportunity.

I think that's the correct response from Sound Transit.

But as not working for Sound Transit, I will say I'm going to be pushing for ST4 hard and fast.

So maybe when we meet the next time, I'll ask some of these questions again just to get a better understanding of, especially, does that tunnel need to be north-south for extension and expansion?

And some of those other questions about placement.

But I'll leave that now.

Just want to thank you all.

It's so great to see you.

I'll follow up offline with more questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Morales.

Good morning, everyone.

Thanks very much for this presentation and for the 60-page executive summary.

Still working my way through that, I'll be honest.

So I first want to thank you for your explanation of the Community Liaison Program and how you're using that program in our department neighborhoods, especially to do outreach in the CID and to make sure that folks are getting as much of this information as possible in language.

This is a really technical document.

that we have, you know, fit for a government audience.

And I'm wondering if you could talk just a little bit first about how you kind of turned this into digestible information for folks.

You know, I think for the most part, people are really less interested in the technical side and more interested in like how am I going to get my stroller off the platform if the elevator is broken, or you know will I be able to get a coffee when I get off the train on the platform.

So can you talk just a little bit first about how you're translating this not just into other languages but into you know something that is easier for folks to understand the implications of.

Yeah, thank you.

It's definitely something that's very top of mind for us, especially for the communities that we will serve with the project and to really facilitate meaningful engagement in the process.

One thing we're doing in terms of our materials, of course, just translating and transcreating as much as possible by engaging with the community liaisons and our community based organization partners.

early in the process, we've been able to hear from them.

What are those kinds of questions that are really meaningful for community members?

Like, what are the ones that will really matter to them?

We heard a lot about, of course, the construction effects and trying to understand those questions around access.

The other theme that we've also reflected in terms of our racial equity toolkit report draft It's sort of a consolidated place where there's a lot of information.

I think that we have heard might be most helpful to community members, but it's really about how do we limit those harmful impacts?

How do we look at opportunities to identify even building sort of in partnership with our agency partners?

How do we repair past harms, identify opportunities with the project to do that?

Those are things we've heard as common themes as well.

maximizing those connections and supporting the community driven long term vision.

So with those kinds of questions with us and with many different ways and tables that we're setting for engagement, providing additional technical resources and community resources in terms of translation.

We're hoping that we can help folks really zero in on what matters most to them and get those kind of answers that will help them with the comments.

But it's definitely something very top of mind for us that we've been talking with the city quite a bit about in terms of how to make sure folks can engage meaningfully.

Well, I appreciate that.

And part of why I ask is because my office is starting to hear from folks in the CID about their preferred alternative.

And after seeing the presentation, preferred alternative I'm hearing about is not one of the ones that performs best.

And so I'd probably be asking to have a conversation with all of you about how we address that.

Chair Peterson, if it's okay, I've got a couple more questions.

So thank you for that answer.

I also wanted to talk about, you know, as we're moving through these decisions, there are diversity of concerns and opinions and really diversity of needs in the different neighborhoods.

You know, Ballard and the CID and the Junction are all very different.

So I'm wondering, and I'm particularly thinking about the transition through SOTO and that industrial area where we are having a lot of conversations.

There's another separate EIS process going on about our maritime industrial lands.

And so I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how future light rail stations will interact with surrounding industrial lands.

I'm thinking about walk sheds, about the need for supporting pedestrian safety, bike infrastructure, especially as we contemplate the projections that you have for ridership and the sort of growth in ridership that you would like to see if we're talking about the industrial area where there's freight and other uses going on there.

I would just like to hear a little bit about how you're balancing those seemingly competing demands and projections for how that will be used, that space will be used.

Sloan, I might call on you to speak because a lot of the topics you touched on there is something that we have, you know, really speaks to our station planning effort in that area.

And Sloan, perhaps you could speak to some of those details if you don't mind.

Sure, absolutely.

So thanks for the question, Council Member Morales.

And it's something that we have been really thinking about for the station planning material I was just presenting.

The report contains chapters focused on all of the stations, looking at all the alternatives, and engages those themes directly of what are those approaches for folks who are walking, rolling, biking to the station?

Um, and how might we, uh, together with the city and with Metro, um, uh, look at opportunities to make investments, uh, to make that, um, more approachable, uh, safer, better experience.

Um, you know, obviously with so many alternatives to study, we, we haven't been able to develop very detailed sort of ground level renderings and perspectives that illustrate those potential opportunities, but we've at least been able to really, in that report, capture the idea and highlight the opportunity for those improvements.

And of course, in the industrial lands areas with Soto, Interbay, Ballard Smith Cove, there's that additional layer of how do we ensure that whatever land use decisions and transportation system investments the city makes complements the urban design and the potential of those stations to serve those areas.

So we've highlighted opportunities for integrated joint development and adjacent transit oriented development.

And of course, you know, with whatever in the future we hear from city related policy decisions that will influence the direction, the character, et cetera, of those development opportunities.

I see Marshall has his hand raised.

It's appropriate because this is really getting to our interface zone between some transit decisions in the cities.

Yes.

Marshall, please go ahead if it adds to the answer for Councilor Morales.

I'm glad that you're here as our designated representative representing all the departments because this really gets into the access and integration of the built environment.

So please go ahead, Marshall.

Yeah, thank you very much, chair and council members.

It's great to be with you.

And also just want to recognize Sarah McSanna, who's with me, who's our Sound Transit program lead at SDOT.

I'm really glad you asked this question, council member.

I wanted to just take the opportunity to to just, you know, emphasize how much in addition to the conversations that we'll be having through this committee and obviously the critical work we're doing in community to help lift up voices and also to frankly interpret and help make this document digestible.

The city team is in the middle of a very extensive review and analysis of the document and one of the the major questions or aspects that we're working on is the land use you know implications of some of the station locations and how to best you know, think about the implications, for example, of, you know, the station enhancements in SOTA with our maritime industrial strategy and environmental work there.

There's a very complicated kind of crosswalk between those issues.

I do just want to give a shout out, though, the team with Sloan and others at Sound Transit has been extremely collaborative with OPCD in doing the station context framework work.

And I think there's a pretty good I think it is important to have a foundation of understanding that is shared in terms of how to think about those decisions in the best way.

And frankly, as Councilmember Peterson laid out in an e-mail to us as departments last week.

You know, share some of that analysis with you and start to our hope is we can come to really a shared picture as a city for what our feedback to sound transit should be on the environmental document.

And we're glad to have a chance.

I think we're expecting it.

in earnest in April to really be able to look at those issues in depth.

So really key issues, more work underway, but I'm excited that we have, I think we have a pretty solid city team and city effort underway to start framing up those decisions.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I'll finish up.

I just want to say I do think it's important, as we've got these two separate processes happening, we have projections for population growth, for job growth across the city, and we need to keep in mind what that means for people's ability to get around to and from these stations safely.

And I really appreciate the conversation about the station area context.

And from Sound Transit's perspective, that means, you know, one to three blocks away.

So, you know, and the shared responsibility that we will all have to make sure that people can get where they need to go.

you know, as I am observing the Judkins Park Station going in and all of the thousands of units of housing going in up and down Rainier Avenue, I'm really mindful of what that means for pedestrian safety getting to the station and the need for us to be very thoughtful about not just building housing, although we all know how important that is in the city, but really making safe, healthy neighborhoods and making sure that everything else that we're doing gets us to the goal of having vibrant communities.

And so I appreciate knowing that you're thinking about that too and knowing about the projections that we have as a city.

Threading all of those together so that we're really building healthy neighborhoods is going to be, I think, our task for the next 20 years.

Thank you.

Appreciate your time.

Thank you, Council Member.

We have our own City Council Central staff, Senior Analyst Calvin Chow.

Calvin, please.

Thank you, Council Members.

I guess I just wanted to sort of emphasize for everyone that this is a A long process of screening the environmental review.

Council was engaged in this a couple years ago as part of the elected leadership group, and it continues after this.

This is really about trying to get the major themes of our review of the environmental work.

Sound Transit will have to respond to all those comments.

They are also doing additional cost savings and refinements work that will be brought forward to make a recommendation ultimately to the board.

at least for the environmental process, to get that bought off by the FTA in a record decision that sort of defines what the mandatory requirements of the project are.

So, you know, I think it's just really important for us to be focused on what the city's main themes and concerns are, and that'll inform sort of the city's comments on it, but to also recognize that You know, decision making process will go on into into the summer and into next year is the environmental process completes.

I think it's important for us to kind of remember that we're, we're still in this narrowing process.

Thank you, Cal and we will be bringing sound transit back to our committee in April and.

everybody, all the council members have a direct line of communication to Sound Transit and really just want to emphasize the district city council members know their districts best and should be viewed as leaders and resources in their district as decisions are being made and community input is being provided.

We're really fortunate also to have Marshall Foster and Sarah Maxana sort of bringing together the executive department so that we can make sure we're providing adequate access and integration into the built environment and having the city speak as a unified voice to the extent we can and big picture all being supportive of implementing this successfully.

So with that, if there are no more comments, we will again invite Sound Transit back.

I want to thank Sound Transit for putting together this presentation.

It's a real resource to the community to have this PowerPoint presentation and all those links to know how to engage with Sound Transit, with their district council members, and with the city executive, and also our board members, Deborah Juarez and Bruce Harrell.

So thank you, everybody.

Appreciate it.

It was a very efficient presentation and very thorough.

And we will be contacting you later with additional input.

And we'll see you back in April as well.

All right.

Well, thank you.

This concludes the February 15, 2022 meeting of the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

We anticipate our next meeting will be on Tuesday, March 1. We are adjourned.

Thank you.