Seattle City Council Transportation & Seattle Public Utilities Committee 4/19/22

Good morning.

The April 19, 2022 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will come to order.

The time is 9.30 AM.

I'm Alex Peterson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Good morning.

Chair Peterson.

Present.

Five present.

Oh, yes, Council Member Herbold is here.

We do have five.

Council Member Herbold, thank you.

I'm here, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, that's five present.

We're all here.

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.

Good morning, welcome back to the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

Today we plan to vote on two council bills.

First is an ordinance authorizing the acceptance by the Seattle Department of Transportation of two grants.

One grant supports the East Marginal Way Corridor Improvement Project, and another grant is for sidewalks on 4th Avenue South in Soto.

Second, we will vote on the final approval of the street vacation near the Othello Light Rail Station.

This street vacation facilitated the low-income housing project called Willow Crossing, which provides 211 apartment units.

We will then have two presentations related to Sound Transit's expansion in Seattle, which is commonly referred to as the West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions, and which also impacts the International District, Soto, South Lake Union, Interbay, and much of downtown.

Coordinated by the city's designated representative, Marshall Foster, as well as SDOT's lead for the Sound Transit expansion, Sarah Maxena, we will receive a summary of the initial comments from city departments regarding the draft environmental impact statement.

Finally, in a related presentation, key Sound Transit staff will discuss their recent concepts to potentially save costs and refine the proposed line extensions.

And I know we'll have lots of comments on those.

So, 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're continuously looking for ways to fine-tune this process of public participation and public transportation.

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.

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

It will be up to 20 minutes, and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

We have about five speakers signed up right now.

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

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

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 in the speaker's queue, that it is their turn to speak.

And the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

That's 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.

Once you hear that chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comments at the time of the allotted time, by the time the allotted time is expiring, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you've 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.

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.

First, we'll hear from David Haynes, followed by Brian Chow.

Go ahead, David Haynes.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council.

David Haynes, District 7. Why is Council President on the Transit Board and not on the Public Transportation Committee?

Public transportation has become an unsafe, depressing misery of inefficiencies led by an abusive bus union.

Remember when the state government sabotaged the operations of the bus, withholding millions of dollars, then using activists to promote idea we need to spend billions of dollars on inefficient, outdated, unsafe, cheap, ugly train tunnel in an earthquake prone area as if copying New York City and Washington, D.C. Metro train is most important?

Sound Transit has failed to build a reliable, efficient system, given all the breakdowns and problems with Sound Transit tunnel operations, acting like they're saving us money while overpricing everything.

Yet we see same Sound Transit board members allowing more of the same lame ideas that purposely overprice and discombobulate the experience.

I'm referring to the outrageously stupefying idea from Sound Transit that they want you to take a bus you pay separately for to a deep tunnel in West Seattle, then pay to take two separate trains to go from West Seattle to downtown, transferring in the industrial commercial no-man's land south of the city.

We wouldn't even need a train from West Seattle if the Metro bus system wasn't purposely undermined by ineffective routes, forcing The number 120 route and rapid ride C and 21 that come from West Seattle that are usually 60 seconds behind each other when they arrive downtown as if racing.

It's like one bus costing three buses where if you miss one bus by 30 seconds, you miss all three and have to wait extra time.

Yet sound transit benefits by demanding you pay the bus to get to one tunnel location in West Seattle.

then take two separate trains before getting to downtown Seattle, as if to justify the overpriced cost of public transportation and make it seem Seattle is a big city.

It's unacceptable that council would simply go along with everything Sound Transit wants, especially when the people making the train system don't even take public transportation.

Acting like it's okay for them, you waste extra time going into a deep tunnel and taking two loud, obnoxious trains.

Yet there is plenty of money for brand-new Sound Transit SUVs used as personal cars by Sound Transit executives.

You don't see that expensive tax payers.

Thank you.

Next, we've got Brian Chow, followed by Frank Uragon.

And please, whoever's working the timer, please, let's keep it to the two minutes.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Brian Chow.

Hi, I'm Brian Chow, Outreach Chair of the John Wall Benevolent Association, speaking on ST3.

I'm on the committee advisory group And I urge you all to move forward on fourth, not fifth, for light rail because it's too devastating to our city communities.

Sound Transit has not been transparent about the impacts.

For example, only because I asked, we recently found out about not one, but two tunnel ventilation facilities that will be built on minority-owned properties on King Street and deep into the Chinatown neighborhood at 6 and Weller.

The whole purpose of these two tunnel ventilation facilities is to pull in good air and pump bad air out.

Bad air from Interstate 5 and surrounding major arterials have given us one of the lowest air qualities in the city.

The CID can't take eight years of extra air pollution.

Sound Transit will not provide the CID any outreach information that there will be two tunnel ventilation facilities spilling bad air from the Fifth Avenue tunnel system for the next 100 years.

It is not acceptable to add tunnel exhaust dust and dirt into an already health compromised neighborhood of over 1,200 senior citizens, low-income residents, and small businesses.

With all my heart, I urge the Transportation Committee and the City Council colleagues to move forward on 4th, not on 5th.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Cowell.

Next, we've got Frank Uragon, followed by Betty Lau.

Go ahead, Frank.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Frank Aragon.

I'm on the board of OPCA, Asian Pacific American Advocates, Greater Seattle Chapter.

Our national office is in Washington, D.C. On behalf of the local chapter, we find the present EIS and the use of the race equity tool as it pertains to the Chinatown International District are lacking.

We agree with the city.

There's a lot more work to be done.

But regardless, the Fifth Avenue line extension is unacceptable.

since it will destroy the Chinatown International District as an ethnic neighborhood with families and small businesses.

And if this were to happen, it can be construed as ethnic cleansing.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Ergon.

Next, we've got Betty Lau, followed by Joe Riley.

Go ahead, Betty.

And you'll press star six to begin speaking.

Star six on your phone.

We are showing Betty Lau is present.

We just need you to press star six on your end.

Am I on now?

Yes.

Good morning.

I'm Betty Lau from Transit Equity for All.

Speaking on Sound Transit three routes.

Sound Transit's goal to minimize harms to communities of color is really laudable.

However, the proposed route on Fifth Avenue South that goes through the CID does the exact opposite.

It's the route that inflicts maximum harm to three communities of color, Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon.

The Fifth Avenue route will devastate economic, social, and cultural cohesion, destroy community institutions weakened by COVID-19, and disproportionately impact immigrant residents and businesses.

Join Transit Equity for all the Seattle Urbanist, Seattle Transit Blog, Seattle Subway, and me to move forward on 4th, not 5th.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Last speaker we have is Joe Riley.

Go ahead, Joe.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Joe Riley, Policy Director for Seattle Subway.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak, Mr. Chair and members of the committee about Sound Transit 3. Regarding the West Seattle Ballard Draft EIS, please remember that Sound Transit has received more revenue than expected four out of the past five years.

And as such, we must not allow concerns about revenue to lead to an unnecessary conversation about consolidating stations.

distracting us from the important work we need to do in the city of Seattle.

Rather with that additional revenue received Sound Transit should pursue the increased staffing needed to make up for lost time during the pandemic.

Next please encourage Sound Transit to add station options to their current studies that are 1. Shallower for faster station access and faster transfers across downtown Seattle.

2. add station options located in the heart of our neighborhoods to bring people where they want to go instead of the proposed station options at peripheries of neighborhoods, like the Ballard station options, or even proposed station options that lie mostly or entirely outside of the neighborhood boundary altogether, like the South Lake Union station options.

And then three, add station options that are designed with enough off-ramps and egress to accommodate future expansion.

so that we can be inclusive of more people and more equity priority areas and not preclude anticipated expansion of the system beyond ST3.

Last and critically, please do not neglect the urgent need for the City of Seattle to create the citywide rail plan.

The City of Seattle can catalyze conversation around our next ballot measure by completing the citywide rail plan and must start the plan immediately so that these Sound Transit 3 stations are designed in time to accommodate future expansion corridors.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, that concludes our list of public speakers.

Now we will move on to the first legislative item on our agenda.

So will the clerk please read the short title of the first agenda item into the record?

Agenda item one, council bill 120303, an ordinance relating to grant funds from the United States Department of Transportation and other non-city sources, authorizing the director of the Seattle Department of Transportation to accept specified grants and execute related agreements for and on behalf of the city for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

As I mentioned earlier, this item would authorize SDOT to accept grants from non-city sources for two projects.

We'll go ahead and jump into it here.

We've got both Calvin Chow from our City Council Central staff, as well as Chris Godwin from our Seattle Department of Transportation, SDOT.

Calvin, from our central staff, is there anything you wanted to comment on?

Are these grants okay to accept in your view?

Councilmember, this is a very straightforward piece of legislation, and the grants were anticipated in last year's budget process.

The executive identified that these were coming.

Thank you.

Well, welcome, Chris.

And if you have a presentation, you can go ahead and display that for us.

Okay, good morning council members.

For the record, Chris Godwin, Seattle Department of Transportation Finance Manager.

We do have a very brief presentation.

Although I am struggling to see how I can share my screen.

Share screen button.

I apologize.

Oh, somebody.

It looks like somebody sharing it already.

Yeah, but I cannot see the presentation though on my screen.

Oh, there it is.

Thanks Bill.

Great.

Okay, Bill.

So, as Calvin mentioned, this is a pretty straightforward ordinance that would allow us to accept grant revenues in excess of $25 million that would support the East Marginal Way, Heavy Hall Corridor, and some sidewalk improvements.

And as a component of that, we just wanted to go real quickly through, as a reminder, what those projects support, and a little bit about the finances with those projects.

The East Marginal Way Corridor Improvement Project, it's a major freight corridor and a designated heavy haul route.

It is, as you can see in the photo here, it is segmented into three components, north, central, and southern.

It's a vital route for oversized trucks and for those that carry flammable cargo.

This also connects the West Seattle Bridge downtown in the Soto neighborhoods and has been an emphasis point for the department for years.

Bill, if you can go on to the next slide, please.

For the legislation before us right now, it would allow SDOT to accept a grant award from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity Grant Program from the U.S.

Department of Transportation in the amount of $20 million.

It would also increase our budget to reflect an additional $5.5 million contribution from the Port of Seattle and would support the capital projects that would reconstruct the roadway to meet heavy haul network standards, construct a two-way protected bike lane, rebuild a portion of the sidewalk, and reconstruct new traffic signals to enhance safety.

The other item is a $247,000 Transportation Improvement Board grant award.

There is a local match of 130,000, and this would help SDOT construct a new sidewalk on 4th Ave near the I-90 off-ramp and close to the Royal Braum to provide a seamless walkway between downtown and the stadium district.

This is an interesting section because people oftentimes walk along this corridor to get to sports games, and they're sort of struck by the lack of a sidewalk in this section.

For both of these grant acceptances, we would also be requesting increased budget appropriation.

And that is the end of the presentation.

Happy to accept any questions.

Thank you very much.

And as Calvin Chow from our city council central staff noted, these items were expected and hoped for through our budget process capital improvement program.

Thank you for that presentation.

And I do see a question or comment from Council Member Herbold, please.

Thanks so much.

As I think many of us know that this particular project will serve a major connection for people who bike between the West Seattle Bridge Trail, downtown, and Soto.

And just want to note that on the project website, a design was posted for the north segment from Spokane to the intersection with Alaska Way.

And I'm wondering, first, what percent of design is this and whether or not this north segment design has been shared with stakeholders and when we might expect the north segment of the project to begin construction.

So I need to unmute myself, council member.

On the first two questions, what percent of design and when is the north segment going to be reaching a significant design threshold?

I will have to get back to you.

I am the finance manager and I am not into the details of the specific project process and I apologize.

On the last part, I can tell you that both projects are anticipated to enter the construction phase later in 2022. Thank you so much.

appreciate that.

And trust somebody from SDOT will get back to me on the questions about the north segment design, what percentage that is of design, and whether or not it's been shared with stakeholders.

Thank you so much.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Yes, we also have SDOT's liaison to City Council here at the meeting, so we'll make sure it gets back to you on that.

Any other comments or questions about the grant acceptance legislation?

And Council Member Herbold, is that something that I was planning to vote this out of committee today since it's a grant acceptance?

Is that, that's okay?

You'll get questions back before full council.

Okay, great.

Super supportive of the project, so thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, council members, I'm gonna go ahead and move that we recommend passage of this bill.

And then if there are any final comments, we can take those.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120303, item one on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

I never know if when somebody says I'm going to move, whether or not they are moving it.

I'm gonna now say that it's been moved and seconded.

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

Are there any final comments or questions?

Okay, thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass council bill 120303. Council member Herbold.

Yes.

Council member Morales.

Yes.

Council member Sawant.

Yes.

Council member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five yes, and no opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the April 26 City Council meeting.

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

Item two.

Council Bill 120304, an ordinance vacating a portion of 39th Avenue South, lying south of South Willow Street and between Tract 2 of Kaufman Garden Tracks in the Othello neighborhood and accepting a property use and development agreement on the petition of Willow Crossing LLLP.

Clerk, file 314422 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, as you may recall, the City Council first granted conditional approval for this street vacation back in November 2019. And this is vacation of a portion of 39th Avenue South.

It was requested originally to facilitate the construction of 211 unit low-income housing project.

And so we're excited about that project next to Othello Link Station.

This is the second and final stage for approval.

So with this council, we're a 12034. We're essentially recognizing that SDOT and the central staff have confirmed the applicant has met and will meet the public benefit and other conditions previously adopted by the city.

And we are fortunate to have with us our own city council central staff, Lish Whitson, as well as Beverly Barnett and Genevieve Hale Case to welcome.

Lish, do you want to open with any remarks?

Really appreciate your memo outlining this project for us.

Yeah, just very briefly, this is one of the first projects that was approved under the council's revised street vacation policies, those revisions allowed for the consideration of.

The uses of the street vacation, including affordable housing.

So the public benefits that you'll see as part of this project reflect that a significant amount of affordable housing are part of the project.

And consequently, there are fewer and smaller public benefits than, for example, you saw with the office development in downtown Seattle that you recently approved.

Thank you.

And to clarify for me, that's because the vacation itself has produced another benefit, which is the affordable housing, the low-income housing.

Exactly.

Without the vacation, the Affordable Housing Project would not have gone forward.

Thank you.

Welcome, Beverly Barnett.

Will you be running a presentation for us?

Bill, the board is going to run it for Genevieve, who's going to go over the project.

I would just like to add a couple things to what Lish has said.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lish.

It's always very fun for us to be back when a project is done and was implemented as directed by council, and this is the very last piece.

We're really happy to be here with this.

I think Lish referenced a couple of things that are really important about this process.

Vacation is so often associated with really large-scale projects.

2 and U was the last one we did at Second and University downtown.

or we always think of the convention center or full block projects for Vulcan or Amazon.

We do occasionally get smaller scale projects and the council's street vacation policies really provide for a balancing test.

So we look at what the developer achieves and what the public gives up when we're assessing the impacts that need to be mitigated.

and what level of public benefit should be provided.

So we would look at a smaller project.

We still want to see meaningful, but everything is on a more modest scale here.

And the policies do provide for that, even though we don't see a lot of smaller projects.

I think the other thing that's really important that Lish referenced is the two-part approval process that the city council has established.

So at the time, and this was approved, in 2019, at the time that it is approved, the council has made the substantive decision.

And then the developer and city staff and me and everyone who reviews this needs to implement as directed by council.

So this final ordinance is an accountability tool that the council has established so that we can come back in and say, Yeah, the public benefit that was proposed is provided, the housing units are provided, all the fees are paid, and everything is done.

And so this, we are, as Lish indicated, at the very last step.

And as I said, this is our favorite part.

We're always happy to be back when everything is done.

I don't think I have any more kind of introductory remarks.

We wanted to kind of set the stage, and then Genevieve is going to go through and show you the maps to orient you and remind you where the project is at and the public benefit features.

So unless there's any questions for me, I'll defer to Genevieve.

And I think Bill Laborde, who always helps us with our council presentations, was going to share his screen and run the PowerPoint.

It's small.

We have about seven slides, I believe.

Thank you.

OK, Genevieve, are you ready?

I am.

Thank you, Beverly and Lish.

Bill, I'm not able to see the PowerPoint yet.

Looks like it's getting on here.

One moment.

Here we go.

Perfect.

Well, thank you.

It's fun to be back here now that we have our completed project to show you.

So this is a Willow Crossing.

completed it at the beginning of the year and started moving folks in then.

It is, if you can go to the next slide, Bill.

The project is located just right in the heart of Othello, just north of the Othello Light Rail Station.

We are right on MLK at the corner of South Willow Street and MLK.

The project acts as a bit of a gateway as you're coming south along MLK to the neighborhood.

and was designed that way.

We acquired the parcel along MLK in addition to an additional parcel along South Willow Street, and those were divided by the vacated portion of 39th Avenue South, which is what we sought the street vacation for.

Go to the next slide.

So this is the project.

We have two retail spaces along MLK in addition to 211 affordable units and 32 underground parking stalls and 172 bike stalls.

So we are vastly outnumbered bikes to cars in this project.

The project also achieves the Evergreen Sustainability Standard.

excited about the sustainability features of the project.

Next slide, please.

The street vacation had a number of conditions that came with it.

We have completed all of those conditions.

There were a number of utility issues outstanding that have all been resolved.

The development activities have all been completed.

codes have been met.

We worked with the Office of Housing on our marketing plan to give preference or to make sure that we were directing our marketing efforts to folks who were already living in the Othello neighborhood.

We installed signage in the public spaces, allowing free speech activities.

We also recorded APUDA outlining the public benefit package and put together a public benefit package that was reviewed by SDOT.

Next slide, please.

So the public benefit package we put together for this project included two public spaces.

One is the sort of plaza entryway right along MLK.

Both retail spaces open up onto this plaza, and it's been a really nice kind of gathering space and entry to the building.

We also added some public space enhancements to our entry along South Willow Street.

In addition to those public space improvements, elected to make a donation of $25,000 to HOSTED, which is a neighborhood environmental design organization.

They've worked very diligently to develop projects in the neighborhood to enhance the public realm in the Othello neighborhood.

And we were really thrilled to give them $25,000 to support their efforts If you go to the next slide.

So this is the MLK Plaza at the entry of the building.

As I mentioned, it opens up or both retail spaces open up onto the plaza.

And you can see a couple of photos here of the finished product.

We're really excited about how it turned out.

If you go to the next slide, you can see the enhancements that we added to the Willow Street entrance.

This area feels really nice as you walk along the building.

Our neighbors to the west is the Seattle Housing Authority, so a really nice neighborhood feel along this side of the building.

Next slide.

Through our support of Hosted, we were able, and also with a matching grant through the Department of Neighborhoods, we were able to fund two crosswalk projects.

These designs are designed by local Othello artists, and they were able to implement these crosswalks last summer, and we are really proud of the way that they are able to enhance the neighborhood and right near our project.

So we were excited to contribute to that.

Next slide.

That is all that we have.

So I'm happy to take any questions anybody has.

Thank you.

Yes, Council Member Morales, please.

Thank you so much, Genevieve.

I'm excited that we have this opportunity, this great amenity for more affordable housing in District 2. I will admit that I don't know what is in the retail space.

Can you tell us what's down there?

We are still working on those tenants.

We're working with a small business, BIPOC-owned business, who we are hoping is I'm going to take one space, and we are in negotiations with another tenant for the second space.

So they're not full yet, but we hope that they will be soon.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions before we vote this item out of committee?

OK.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120304, item two on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of this Council Bill.

Any final comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120304. Council member Herbold.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Peterson.

Yes.

That's five yes and no nos.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the April 26th city council meeting.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, Lish and Beverly and Genevieve.

Thank you.

Thank you, council members.

Thank you.

Okay, I do want to welcome Council Member Andrew Lewis, who is here to attend the two sound transit presentations.

I'd invited all council members to attend since it affects so many, it affects the whole city, the whole region.

So we'll go ahead and jump into these next two items.

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

Item three, city comments on draft environmental impact statement for West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, colleagues.

We'll now have a presentation from the executive summarizing their initial comments on the draft environmental impact statement for the forthcoming West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions, which we know will also impact the International District, Soto, South Lake Union, Interbay, much of downtown.

For the general public, comments on the DEIS are due Thursday, April 28. And directly after this briefing, we'll hear from key staff of Sound Transit who will focus on their recent concepts to potentially save costs and refine the proposed light rail extensions.

As we know, the City of Seattle is ably represented on Sound Transit's 19-member board by our own City Council President Debra Juarez and Mayor Bruce Harrell.

And again, all council members were invited to this meeting.

And there'll be plenty of opportunity to engage directly with our Sound Transit board members, as well as with Marshall Foster's designated representative and Sarah Maxana from SDOT, both of whom are here right now to give a presentation.

So welcome, Marshall and Sarah.

Thank you very much, council member.

It's great to be here with you all.

Thank you.

And Calvin Chow from city council central staff has been tracking sound transit expansion for years.

And so Calvin, if you want to make any introductory remarks, you're welcome.

Council member, there's a lot of presentations to go through, so I'll withhold.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, I know there's a PowerPoint.

There we go.

Bill is just pulling that up.

So again, thank you very much for having us here this morning.

We're happy to be able to share with you our initial kind of summary of our draft comments on the draft, the environmental impact statement for the West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions.

I'm gonna just give you kind of initial kind of overview of where we are with the work.

Next slide.

And then I'm going to hand it over to Sarah McSanna, who has been leading our team in terms of pulling all of our comments together on the draft document.

So today we'll start with just a quick summary of how our team is organized, some of our community engagement work.

We'll then walk through the key elements of our findings on the EIS.

And then we'll preview some of our next steps in terms of some of the pieces that will be coming back to this committee and the city council for considerations in terms of a city preferred alternative on the overall alignment of WSBLE.

Next slide.

So I think everyone is aware, but just quickly, I can't overstate the importance of this program.

It is the largest infrastructure project in the city's history, 12 plus billion dollars.

And with that comes both a huge amount of opportunity in terms of the transformative potential of the transit service it will bring, but also significant construction and related impacts.

And a lot of the work in the environmental document really focuses on making sure we are elevating and making those issues and those impacts visible.

We're fully analyzing those and bringing them forward for people's consideration.

And probably most importantly is we're really looking at all the mitigations that will be required to make those projects successful.

And you can see some of the elements of the system as we go forward, just a huge level of investment in our city.

Next slide.

Um, the overall timeline, I think council members are familiar.

You know, this all really started with the vote on in 2016, which established the public's support for the funding for this program.

We are about.

Right in the final phases of the planning process, which started in 2017, the decision coming up this summer related to the draft EIS and what will advance into the final.

And then the Sound Transit Board will ultimately advance a preferred alternative for consideration in the final EIS.

And the goal is to complete that process next year.

In terms of, no, that's fine, go ahead, Bill.

In terms of the key city roles, we play a lot of different roles on this project.

Obviously, we've been a strong supporter of Wisley from its inception, and we play all of these roles kind of, they're all critical elements of what we're bringing forward today.

Obviously, as was mentioned, Mayor Harrell and Council President Juarez are members of the Sound Transit Board and are part of the decision-making around what will advance into the final EIS.

The city is a cooperating agency on the EIS.

And part of why we are is because we have a whole set of regulatory roles that we play in terms of permitting, code compliance, and ensuring ultimately that the project can advance efficiently through the permitting process.

We also play a very critical role working in community to ensure that the full range of impacts are fully considered and addressed in the environmental process.

One of the key tools that we've brought to that conversation is the city's racial equity toolkit, trying to ensure that we not only avoid disparate impacts, but we're really looking at how we take every opportunity for the system investment to benefit the communities that it serves.

And then lastly, in 2018, the city established a partnering agreement with Sound Transit.

They're really focused on, given the scale of Wisbly, the need for consistent, clear city leadership across the departments.

Intensive staff work, which takes place across all of those departments, is led through SDOT.

And then ultimately, once the environmental process is complete, a commitment to look at how we can streamline the permitting process to help create continuity and predictability for Sound Transit and the community as the project starts to do our final permitting and preparations for construction.

Next slide.

So I will just end with this and then I'll hand it to Sarah.

For the DEIS comment review itself, you know, the city is both a reviewer and a regulator.

You know, our focus obviously is on advancing the city's interests as well as making sure community voice is elevated in that process.

You'll hear in our comments, you know, things which are concerned and critical about some elements of the environmental document.

I just want to emphasize that's very normal.

It's very necessary that we would be calling out certain issues and asking for more analysis, asking for more mitigation from Sound Transit.

Part of why that's so critical is to ensure we're well positioned to be able to facilitate the permitting of the project down the road.

If we don't fully address impacts and understand what mitigations will be required now, it makes it more challenging to be able to streamline the permitting process down the road.

And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Sarah.

Thanks, Marshall.

So I'm going to start out talking about the city team.

We have an interdepartmental team across over 15 departments in the city that are working to support the planning, environmental review, design, engineering, and eventual permitting and delivery of this project.

But I want to start talking about our process to review the document and grounding it in some of the engagement that we've been doing, both in partnership with Sound Transit and city-led and community-led engagement over the last couple of years.

So with a focus on the DEIS, our engagement has had two primary goals.

One is to facilitate community members access to the DEIS analysis and encourage comments.

The DEIS is a really dense information packed document, and we want to help facilitate community members being able to understand the document and understand how it applies to the impacts they might see and opportunities they might see in their neighborhood.

But secondly, we also want to make sure that the city's decision, so an ultimate position on a preferred alternative, as well as the comments that we make in the DEIS, are centered in racial equity and to the greatest extent possible co-created and truth checked with community.

We have listened through and continue to listen through a variety of engagement opportunities, some with Sound Transit, some city-led, some community-led, including briefings, workshops, one-on-one conversations, and through our community liaisons program at the Department of Neighborhoods.

Next slide.

So just to touch on some of the types of activities, the community advisory groups have been convened by Sound Transit.

It is an ongoing, I believe, seven-month process with community advisory groups that are centered geographically around four of the segments of the alternatives or of the alignment, rather.

streamed on YouTube that have focused on station planning and DEIS analysis.

And we've been grateful to have a seat at that table to provide information on how the city is processing the project and considering the DEIS analysis.

Sound Transit has also partnered very closely with the Department of Neighborhoods Community Liaison Corporate Program.

And this has enabled the liaisons to work with Sound Transit at events and going door to door, supporting trans creation of materials and engaging business owners and community organizations, especially in RET priority communities and in language.

We have participated in DEIS briefings.

We attend and participate in those briefings, but we have given some priority to organizations that have been underrepresented or organizations that the city hasn't heard from already.

And then we've also convened or co-convened several stakeholder roundtables where we've been sharing our draft DEIS comments throughout the corridor.

Next slide, please.

Thanks.

We have engaged in some station-specific engagement as well.

At Seattle Center, the City of Seattle is in a unique position as not only an interested party, as we are in all of the stations, but at Seattle Center, we're also the primary property owner.

and the landlord for all of the resident organizations there.

And so we've helped convene resident organizations and community members to discuss the project.

And then in Chinatown International District in Delridge is our two RET priority communities.

We've co-convened workshops in the CID with Sound Transit and with community members to understand the project impacts.

And then in Delridge, we focused on one-on-one briefings, outreach to communities, primarily the identified communities are further south in the South Delridge and Highline corridor areas.

And so we've worked on capacity building and engaging those folks in an evaluation of the alternatives.

Next slide.

So that takes us to the staff process for evaluating this document.

During the 90 day period, we've roughly divided it into three months or three phases of work.

The first month in February, we had nearly 100 subject matter experts across the city from over 15 departments reviewing and commenting on the DEIS.

While SDOT is leading and convening this interdepartmental team, it is a very expansive group, not just planning and construction and department and neighborhoods and some of the folks you might expect, but we've got libraries and the fire department and emergency management and the police department and housing and just, you know, really wanting to evaluate all of the many different impacts that this project will have.

We spent the second month March compiling and reconciling those comments.

So we had about 25 staff leads from across departments and different disciplines.

identified as environmental leads, compiling the comments and resolving any conflict or trying to resolve any outstanding issues or conflict between comments or between departments.

And then this last month, April, share and send.

We've been sharing our draft comments at the community advisory groups meetings this month, at stakeholder roundtables, other community workshops, as we work to finalize our comments and send the comments and cover letter over to Sound Transit by the end of the comment period on the 28th.

Next slide.

So the scope of the DEIS review.

This is a slide that we've used consistently over the last year or so to talk about how the city is approaching reviewing this very, very information-dense document.

As Marshall laid out, we have certain regulatory roles when it comes to evaluating the DEIS, defined by SEPA and NEPA, where the city is really, as a cooperating agency, obligated to have an eye towards the eventual permitting of the project and to flag any issues around compliance or impacts and mitigation that might later cause issues during project permitting.

And so our first three questions very much relate to that regulatory or legal role that we have.

One, does the DEIS demonstrate compliance with city codes and director's rules?

Two, does the DEIS identify and evaluate project impacts and does it include appropriate mitigation?

And three, ultimately, does the DEIS provide the information necessary for the city and for stakeholders and community members to meaningfully compare the alternatives and to help inform a position?

But in addition to those kind of legal questions that we're asking ourselves, we also, the city staff team has had a couple strategic questions to ask as well.

Number four is looking at, does the DEIS adequately analyze impacts to BIPOC communities, proposed mitigation, and further our joint racial equity toolkit outcomes.

While the RET is not a part of the environmental review process directly, it is something that we are still jointly with Sound Transit using to lead and guide our work.

And then finally, five, how does this DEIS information shape a city position on alternatives?

And so we'll use those five questions as a way to talk about the city staff draft review comments.

Next slide.

So number one, does the DEIS demonstrate compliance with city codes and directors rules?

And the summary of our finding is that we would like to see additional analysis to ensure code compliance.

It's really critical in the DEIS or in the ultimately the final EIS that we see evidence that the project is going to comply with codes.

If we don't see that, we aren't able to flag whether or not there might be code compliance issues down the road.

So in many instances, we're looking for additional references to the Seattle Municipal Code and just to ensure that the project will meet minimum code requirements necessary for permitting.

And here are a couple examples from the Shoreline Master Program, environmental critical areas, stormwater, trees, and local development regulations in regards to zoned height limits.

Next question.

Two, does the DEIS adequately identify and evaluate project impacts and include appropriate mitigation?

And this is really the heart of what an EIS does, is looking at impacts and identifying mitigation.

And we knew as a draft document that the draft document was not going to include the full entirety of a mitigation plan yet.

And so it's totally normal for us at this point to be calling out that there are many instances where we want to see additional analysis.

to fully assess and adequately mitigate these impacts.

And so through the following slides, we'll be selecting areas by segment where the city would like to see additional analysis, either analysis to quantify a mitigation plan to appropriately mitigate those impacts.

So next slide, going segment by segment, starting up in Ballard.

This includes the Inner Bay Ballard and South Inner Bay segments of the project.

Here are just a couple of the examples or a few of the examples of the types of impacts that we would like to see or that are the highest concern impacts that we want to see fully either avoided, minimized, or mitigated between that DEIS and the FEIS.

So it includes navigation, tribal, maritime, business impacts from elevated ship canal crossing alternatives.

construction and operational transportation impacts.

This is particularly relevant in the Elliott Way corridor in South Interbay.

Visual aesthetic impacts related to an elevated guideway.

This would be true for any elevated guideway throughout the system.

We're calling out some particular concerns along Elliott Way.

Residential and business displacement throughout both of these segments, but also throughout the entirety of the system.

property acquisition impacts, particularly to a future Seattle City Light substation site in Inner Bay, wanting to make sure that those are either avoided or mitigated impacts to the operations of Fire Station 20 in Inner Bay and impacts to Kinnear Park.

Next slide takes us to downtown.

So some examples from downtown, the downtown segment is in a both alternatives are a tunnel alignment from Chinatown International District through South Interbay.

So some of the impacts and issues that We would like to see fully mitigated in between the DEIS and the FEIS construction and operational impacts to Seattle Center campus and its tenants.

And I'll have a following slide that focuses just on Seattle Center impacts to regional facilities, including access to ramps to I-5.

And then street closures identified with the construction or related to construction impacts of the of the tunnel alternatives, especially Westlake Avenue.

But the types of impacts would include bus transit, reroutes, diversion of traffic off of those closed streets, impacts to streetcar, the I-5 ramps, but then beyond transportation impacts to garbage, recycling and emergency services to those areas during construction.

Next slide, focusing just particularly on Seattle Center again as the primary property owner, the city has an extra responsibility in the case of the Seattle Center station.

And so we'll have a number of comments in our letter that pertains specific to Seattle Center, including impacts to the protected features and historic public assets that are impacted in either of the two alternatives for Seattle Center.

Temporary and permanent noise and vibration impacts, particularly to those sensitive cultural venues, performance halls, recording studios.

Displacements that could affect resident organizations during construction or long-term.

impacts to historic assets, including the Northwest Rooms, International Plaza, and Cornish Playhouse, and then transportation and access impacts that would affect either during construction or in some cases permanently alter access to the campus.

Next slide.

So continuing down, this is the Chinatown International District segment and the SODO segments of the project.

So a couple, a few examples of the impacts that we would like to further develop, either in terms of the analysis of impacts or mitigation.

Construction impacts, again, to traffic and transit, particularly in the Chinatown International District, the impacts of the road closures.

Long-term impacts to east-west mobility in the SODO segment.

Business and residential displacements, particularly temporary and permanent impacts to the Chinatown International District businesses.

Impacts to city structures, including anything that would have closures or replacements, such as the 4th Avenue South Bridge and some alternatives at the Chinatown International District Station.

And then impacts to historic and cultural resources.

Finally, closing it out in the final three segments, the Duwamish Water Crossing segment, Delridge, and West Seattle Junction segments, impacts to businesses, displacement, especially maritime businesses that could be impacted by the Duwamish Water Crossing, construction impacts to traffic and transit, residential displacement in all alternatives, and then numerous impacts to parks and natural areas, including the Duwamish Waterway, West Seattle Golf Course, Longfellow Creek, and West Duwamish Greenway.

And so I think that closes us out with a high level impacts.

And of course, this project is going to be impactful.

So again, just wanting to emphasize the normalcy of talking about these impacts at this point in the process and the critical juncture that we're at right now to identify appropriate mitigation measures.

Next slide.

Thank you.

And then we'll hold our questions to the end.

Thank you.

Keep going.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

So the third question, does the DEIS provide the information necessary to meaningfully compare alternatives?

And in summary, we do believe that there is more information that is needed in a couple of the segments in order to fully understand and compare the alternatives.

The two segments, the first segment we'd like to highlight includes the South Interbay segment and particularly the north portal of the downtown tunnel.

In two of the three alternatives, SIB1 and SIB2, that come out of a portal at Republican and then weave across Elliott Way several times, we would like to see additional mitigation for the transportation and visual impacts from both the construction and the operation of that elevated guideway.

We'd also like to see confirmed compliance with noise regulations.

For SIB2 and SIB3, both would have impacts to the Queen Anne Green Belt and the steep slope, including environmental critical areas.

And so we'd like to see either avoidance or mitigation of those environmentally critical areas, those impacts, as well as compliance with noise regulations.

And we feel in this segment, this information is necessary in order to fully evaluate and understand a comparison of the alternatives.

Next slide, please.

The other place, the other segment where the city would like to see additional information to support a full understanding and comparison of the alternatives is in the Chinatown International District segments.

For CID 1A and 1B, these are the 4th Avenue South shallow and deep alternatives would like to see avoidance or mitigation of construction, transportation impacts associated with the road closures and the replacement of the 4th Avenue South Viaduct bridge structure.

For CID 2A and 2B, these are the Fifth Avenue, shallow and deep alternatives.

We'd like to see avoidance and mitigation for the community and business impacts associated with those alternative options.

And then for all of the alternatives, we'd like to see a community process and analysis needed on how to avoid and minimize the impacts overall, how to fully advance threat outcomes and address historic harm.

Next slide, please.

So then, moving from those three kind of technical questions that we were approaching when reviewing the DEIS and moving to strategic questions leading with the city's values, the first is, does the DEIS adequately analyze impacts to BIPOC communities, propose mitigation, further the joint racial equity toolkit outcomes?

And our summary is that we would like to see some additional analysis.

There are several instances where we find the evaluation to be insufficient or inadequate, and here are a few examples.

And just want to emphasize, there is a whole lot of analysis in this document, but we would like to see some additional work on the methodology, some additional analysis of the displacements in affordable housing, particularly in Delridge.

We'd like to see an additional analysis of the small business displacements, cumulative impacts.

And really, this in the Chinatown International District, recognizing that the impacts are felt not just locally, but this is a regional hub, and so wanting to more fully flesh that out.

And then, of course, ultimately, the mitigation proposed.

Want to see an update to the racial equity toolkit report.

A draft was issued with the DEIS that will be updated later this year.

Would like to continue that partnership with Sound Transit on that rep report.

in coordination with the city to identify tools, reduce residential and economic displacement, particularly small businesses during construction.

Finally, wrapping around to ultimately this DEIS information feeds into a city position and community and stakeholder positions as well on the alternatives that will inform the board action later this year.

And we find that for many of the segments, the DEIS does provide a whole lot of necessary information to inform a city position on a locally preferred alternative for study in the final EIS.

In some segments, however, we do seek additional analysis and processes or processes.

In South Interbay, as we mentioned, additional analysis on compliance, impacts and mitigation.

In Delridge, we would like to see a little bit more truth checking with community on how best to advance those outcomes.

In downtown, as mentioned at Seattle Center, we're seeking refinements to avoid or minimize impacts to the protected uses and cultural assets.

In Denny South Lake Union area, we're seeking some mix and match refinements between the alternatives.

or additional mitigation either to avoid some of the impacts associated with DT1 Denny Westlake or to find a way to ensure that optimal transit integration at South Lake Union Harrison in the ultimate system.

And then Chinatown International District, we have a next slide on that.

For the Chinatown International District, we seek additional analysis, as we mentioned earlier, on the impacts and mitigation, but also really an additional process to address broader community benefits, threat outcomes, and historic harm.

We're suggesting that this would be a three-step process as a draft concept to put out there.

One, providing time for community by removing the pressure to identify a preferred alternative now.

Second, to really explore mitigation more fully for the alternatives that are on the table and to press for stronger refinements where possible to avoid or minimize those impacts to community.

And then three, a longer term partnership to tackle those impacts and address historic harm through a broader conversation and process.

Next, so You know, closing this out, what do all of these comments mean?

The comments on the on the surface are critical of the DEIS analysis.

Again, that is normal for the point in the process that we're in.

The city remains a strong supporter of the project.

We intend to support the eventual permitting and construction, but between the DEIS and the FEIS, The city is committed to working with Sound Transit and community to ensure that the project complies with codes and avoids, minimizes, mitigates those impacts, either through modifications to the project or through the full development of a mitigation plan.

We appreciate our ongoing partnership with Sound Transit and look forward to working together on the additional analysis and mitigation flagged here and in our detailed comments.

Next slide.

And so we are, as we are wrapping up our comments and getting them ready to send over later this month, staff is also working on informing a position on a preferred alternative.

During this time, we'll continue to work with community and stakeholder to inform that position, include or continue as the staff analysis of alternatives and proposed refinements, and intend to transmit a resolution on the WSLE alternatives in May or June.

Of course, ultimately, Mayor Harrell and Council President Juarez will engage in the Sound Transit Board process in June.

Next slide.

And in forming that position on a preferred alternative, the city staff team are using a set of core values to identify alternatives that would more greatly further these values for the city.

First, racial equity, promoting equitable benefits, avoiding disparate impacts.

Second, safety and user experience, really looking to locate and design stations for safe access, particularly across arterials, safe circulation that minimizes pedestrian risk.

Third, community looking to minimize residential and business displacement, looking to minimize impacts to existing neighborhood assets, while also maximizing opportunities to further equitable transit-oriented development, other community-identified priorities.

Fourth, environmental protection, looking to minimize impacts to sensitive environmental areas.

And then finally, fiscal stewardship, looking to facilitate responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars by seeking the highest benefit for dollars spent and helping keep the project on time and under budget.

Next slide.

And so closing out the presentation and segueing to Sound Transit, want to acknowledge that Sound Transit this month is discussing potential refinements to the DEIS alternatives.

that strive to reduce costs, avoid impacts, reduce risk, or achieve other benefits to the system.

And Sound Transit will go into greater detail on these.

Just want to emphasize that the city's comments are on the alternatives that are in the DEIS, but we do appreciate the value in studying refinements and the need to find ways to control costs moving forward.

However, the city does discourage scope reductions that would not bring commensurate benefit to the system, to its riders, or that are not consistent with what was committed to the voters when we approved ST three in 2016. And we look forward to being a part of a broader discussion on the benefits and trade offs associated with these refinements and will continue to work with sound transit and communities as they advance in the coming months.

I think that closes us out.

Thank you very much.

This is such an ambitious and important mega project.

And I feel like we are in smart and capable hands with Marshall Foster and Sarah Maxena on the executive side and with Calvin Chow, our city council central staff.

I know we've got some comments and questions coming up.

in just a second here from colleagues, and we'll also hear from Sound Transit staff shortly.

I do want to thank all the city staff and those 15 city departments that have been working countless hours to renew the draft EIS and track this on behalf of their departments and the people of Seattle.

I'm hopeful Sound Transit will respond to this important input from you over the next few weeks.

Sounds like they definitely need to flesh out their proposed mitigation to long-term construction impacts.

And the more information we have, the better the city departments can provide input on preferred alternatives and streamline the construction permitting process so we can economize both time and money and get this important project done successfully.

Really appreciate you calling out the Chinatown International District.

We heard from three callers today.

We'll probably talk a little bit more about that.

And I do, before we take comments and questions from colleagues, just want to talk a little bit about the timeline.

So we are going to have Marshall and Sarah back in committee on May 17th.

And as I understand it, there's a consensus it could be useful for the city council to put together, to cobble together a resolution on any sort of consensus items that we as a council have at some point.

So that'll be talked about at May 17th as well.

And so with that, colleagues, any comments or questions for our team here?

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Well, Sarah and Marshall, I just want to, and Calvin, want to thank you.

We've had lots of conversations about this, and I really appreciate all the time you've taken to help answer my questions.

And I do want to thank you for calling out specifically on slide 23, the need for more time for folks in the CID to really understand what Sound Transit would be willing to commit to in terms of mitigation for either the fourth or fifth.

As you said, you know, There's really huge trade-offs for either one of those options.

Tremendous impacts around road closure, rerouting, access, displacement of businesses.

Either option has some really significant impacts for the community.

And so without a clear understanding about what Sound Transit's willing to commit to in terms of mitigation for either of those options, I do think that the community needs more time to have a much clearer understanding of what's in front of them so that we can move forward protecting folks as much as possible.

So I just want to thank you all for the work that you've done and for your willingness to meet with me and my staff to understand it all better.

Thank you.

And I know we'll have more questions and comments for Sound Transit on the next item.

And Council Member Lewis, thanks for joining our committee today.

And then we'll hear from Council Member Herbold.

Go ahead, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much for the invitation, Council Member Peterson, given the implications as we just went through the maps for the district.

I don't know if my comments are better for this item or the next agenda item.

I guess I had just a clarifying question about the implication of submitting the questions to Sound Transit for the panel.

Does submitting questions before the April 28th deadline lock the city in to essentially supporting the preferred alternative for the alignment if we're not more emphatic about some of our issues.

I understand asking questions about how the alignment impacts certain areas, but there's parts of this where I would want the council to be more emphatic before the common period ends on the 28th about, you know, clearly stating what we do or don't want.

And I guess my question would be, if we phrase it in questions, does that kind of mean like, oh, we're talking about sort of changing the boundaries on the preferred alternative, but not necessarily explicitly endorsing some of the alternative alignments?

I just want to answer that as just a threshold question in terms of that resolution that Councilmember Peterson was animating it, because I would like that document to be very unambiguous in some of the things we want.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

That's an excellent question.

My team and I had the same question because we've got the formal official EIS comment period, but then we're also waiting to hear what all the comments are.

And then we want to express what our consensus is.

So I know we've got Calvin and Marshall both ready with an answer here.

So whichever, just jump in.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I think it's, Councilmember Lewis, it's probably useful to think about this as a bit of a two-step process.

The draft EIS comments is really sort of the formal environmental review process.

It's a lot of our experts highlighting very specific issues with the analysis, and it does not necessarily, it doesn't establish the city's formal policy position.

Our intention is to put forth a resolution to gather the information from, you know, try to find the common policy position for the city from the elected officials and have a joint council mayor resolution to establish that position as recommendations to the Sound Transit Board that, you know, would be helpful to council president and to the mayor as they represent the city's interests in the Sound Transit Board discussion.

So I do think we have an opportunity with the resolution to be as specific as the body can get.

But the policy decision really should be left to that resolution and separate from the more technical comments that are gonna be coming through as the draft EIS comments.

Sound Transit will have to respond to all the comments that they get as part of their logging of comments that come through the EIS.

So they will have to explain how they're responding to the comments.

And we'll be very interested to be tracking sort of how that stuff works in the final EIS.

Thank you.

Marshall may want to add to that.

Just briefly, completely agree with Cal, your points on this.

It really is a two-step process.

Just want to emphasize the environmental, the comments on the DEIS are about the completeness and the adequacy of that document.

And obviously mitigation is a huge part of that.

From the executive side, we would very much like to be specific with that second step, which is the mayor council joint resolution to call out specific references for stations and alignments in that.

Thank you.

Okay, that sufficiently answers my question.

Totally understood.

Thank you for asking that Council Member Lewis.

And I know we'll have more comments and questions at the next item.

Council Member Herbold.

Thanks so much.

Just a couple of comments and a couple of questions.

On the comment side, I just want to thank SDOT for couple of statements in the presentation.

First, I really appreciate the note that there's additional analysis needed of BIPOC displacement.

and affordable housing in Delridge.

We know that small businesses have struggled during the construction of the H line.

And I think we need to know how we can do more to support small businesses during construction of Sound Transit 3. Also wanna appreciate the fact that on slide 26, where the city stated its position on the preferred alternative, that you've lifted up how important it is to emphasize transit connectivity.

And in the context of the Southern portions of Delridge where riders from lower income and BIPOC communities to the South will access rail by bus.

And then lastly, really appreciate that the city is saying loud and clearly that we discourage scope reductions that do not bring commensurate benefit to system and riders and that are not consistent with what was committed to voters when we approved Sound Transit 3 in 2016. position I think is shared by a lot of folks who are giving comment in West Seattle that any potential scope reduction must bring a comparable benefit to the community.

And then my two questions are back on slide 17 you reference on the this is the CID station and the SOTA station slide.

You referenced impacts to the Fourth Avenue South Bridge.

I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about that.

And then I'm interested just to hear from you how the city is weighing residential and business displacements, given that the Duwamish Crossing and the West Seattle Alternatives have varying impacts as relates to both residential and business displacements.

Thank you.

I can just jump in and Sarah, please, please follow right on.

Just council member to speak to the 4th Avenue question you had.

I think what we're referencing there in terms of the bridge structure is the 4th Avenue shallow option.

The station construction requires the reconstruction of the 4th Avenue viaduct.

It's basically a bridge structure that 4th Avenue is on in this segment right as it passes Union Station to Jackson.

We need, that's part of what I think Sarah was describing with the need to have a more in-depth assessment of how to advance Fourth Avenue shallow and others as well, is to do a deeper dive and really understanding what is that impact, what's the most efficient way to address the needs around that bridge structure as part of advancing that alternative.

Sarah, do you want to speak to Delridge?

Yeah, I can speak to Delridge and I would say, you know, more broadly, the question of how is the city staff team looking at residential displacement or business displacement and all of the alternatives.

I would say there's, we do not have a single threshold that we're trying to stay beneath.

Rather, we're trying to take a station-by-station or community-by-community look at and comparison within the alternatives.

So in Chinatown International District, for example, the alternatives for business displacements vary from five to about 19. 19 business displacements.

When you look at another station area, there might be hundreds of business displacements or certainly many, many dozens, but it's more trying to look at what do these particular displacements mean in this community?

And so a dozen displacements in the heart of the Chinatown International District business displacements is very impactful when this is a regional hub.

So trying to take that more kind of nuanced look.

In Delridge, there are vast, There are a couple of different things that are influencing how the city staff team is approaching Delridge.

There's a red identified priorities for a red identified outcomes for the Delridge community, and those include the opportunity to create equitable transit oriented development and really creating that seamless and best as possible transit integration.

council members you mentioned for those communities that are coming from further south.

So those two red outcomes are our leading, kind of the leading differentiators that we're trying to use when we're thinking about Delridge.

But we're also looking at, as you mentioned, the displacements associated particularly with the Dakota and the Delridge Way alternatives.

Those are the two alternative options that are further south in Delridge that would bring a lot more, a number of more, I don't have the numbers in front of me, impacts to the businesses along Delridge Way, as well as in the case of the Dakota alternatives, a considerable amount of residential displacement to a couple square blocks.

So we are acknowledging and weighing, I guess, those against each other, as opposed to the Andover alternatives that would have fewer residential displacements.

I'm not sure if that fully answers your question.

I guess it's not a cut and dry because the types of displacement vary so much from one segment to another.

We're really trying to take a kind of tailored approach within each segment and with each community.

Thank you, Sarah.

It's not an easy question to approach.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Calvin, please.

I just wanted to add to Sarah's answer a little bit.

From my perspective, I think the city's comments on displacements right now is in the draft EIS is really about trying to make sure that the information there is contextualized and is developed enough so that readers and decision makers have a full, you know, have the full picture in front of them when they make their policy positions known, which for us will be in our resolution and ultimately when the Sound Transit Board will take action in the FEIS and then finally to, for the record decision and select the actual project.

So I think it is going to be up to the policymakers to ultimately do that weighing.

And I think the job right now is to make sure they have the best information available.

Thank you very much.

Again, thank you, Marshall and Sarah and Calvin.

Really appreciate this thorough analysis of the draft EIS and then the bigger context of what we're all trying to achieve and the tool that we can use to have a city council resolution to synthesize our consensus.

be very specific if we want to be.

And again, you'll be back on May 17. And colleagues, please continue to connect directly with Marshall and Sarah, as well as to use Kalanchoe as a resource.

And of course, we've got Council President Juarez here as our president and as Sound Transit board member.

So with that, I think we'll go ahead and move into the next item.

We do have Sound Transit staff here.

and Marshall and Sarah are welcome to stick around, but shouldn't feel any pressure to do that.

All right, so I'd like to, well, let's have the clerk first please read the short title of the next agenda item into the record.

Agenda item four, Sound Transit West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions, Cost Savings and Refinement Concepts for Briefing and Discussion.

Thank you.

I want to welcome back Sound Transit.

Thank you for being here.

Really appreciate it.

As folks may recall, we received an extensive presentation from Sound Transit at our February 15 committee meeting.

And we also heard from Sound Transit last June.

They do have, while the PowerPoint presentation looks very long, as I understand it is more of a reference document and that Sound Transit will just be touching on the most relevant important slides.

And of course, council members can refer back to whichever slides they'd like to refer to.

And so that we can enable Sound Transit to finish their presentation, we'll hold the questions to the end, just like we did for the last one.

So do make a note of the slides you'd like to go back to, council members.

We want to give everybody plenty of time I know we all want to be mindful of what we just heard.

our designated representative and SDOT and some council members about not trimming the scope prematurely on the Sound Transit 3 project so that we can deliver what voters were expecting.

Nevertheless, it's very useful to hear what Sound Transit staff is thinking about right now.

So let's jump into your presentation.

If you could go ahead and display that.

I want to welcome Cahill Ridge and Lita Chams from Sound Transit.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson and members of the committee.

And as you mentioned, I am joined by Lela Sheen from our Government and Community Relations Department.

If the slideshow were to appear on the screen, I could get going.

I would just say, and this is just a repeat of what you just stated, There's a lot of information here.

Much of it you have seen, the upfront sections you have seen before, so I'll just glide over those briefly to provide some context and then spend most of my time describing the cost savings and refinement ideas that we have been sharing with our community advisory groups and other forums over the last few weeks.

I'm still not seeing the slideshow on the screen.

Cahill, if you're having problems, I can probably run it from here if you like.

Oh, I thought you were going to show them for us.

Oh, well, I will do so then.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

All right, next slide, please.

As I mentioned, I'll go over the first couple of items very quickly, project overview and draft the IAS alternatives recap, and then spend most of my time on the third item, cost savings and refinement concepts.

And next slide, please.

Next slide.

As everyone knows, we've been working on this project now for four or five years.

We went through an alternative development process and now we're in the environmental review phase and currently we're in the public comment period.

Next slide, please.

The graphic on the left shows a snapshot of all the alternatives.

that are studied in the draft EIS.

Back in 2019, the board did identify preferred alternatives and also looked at, included a number of other alternatives in the draft EIS.

They are all studied equally in the draft EIS.

And essentially the action for the board this summer is to confirm or modify the preferred alternative action that they took back in 2019. Next slide, please.

This is just a snapshot of the process we've been going through over the last few months.

The shaded area in the middle here is our public comment period, which began in late January, extends to late April.

We had at the top there, you can see in orange, we had our public meetings on the draft EIS.

And we've been working with our community advisory groups across the corridor, and we've been meeting with them since November on a monthly basis.

And we'll be working with our Sound Transit System Expansion Committee over the next few months, leading to a board action to confirm or modify the preferred alternative in June.

And as noted in the red oval in the middle here, the focus of our communications this month are really on the draft EIS and on the cost savings and refinement ideas that we've been studying.

Next slide, please.

We've been doing a lot of engagement.

This is a snapshot of our engagement from January 28 to April 8. It's a little bit, a week or two out of date, but it does give you a sense of the breadth of engagement that has been going on through the common period.

We've had, as of April 8, about 820 comments on the draft EIS.

We had our five draft EIS public meetings.

We've had over 10,000 visits to our online open house, 48 community briefings and workshops, 38 webinars, and 10 community advisory group meetings.

And you can see on the right there a lot of statistics on social media engagement and so on.

Next slide, please.

So quickly to just recap information that we shared in our previous visit here back in February, and I'll go through this very quickly.

Next slide, please.

Just a reminder of why we're doing, part of the reason why we're doing this project is to address congestion.

And on the top of this graphic, you can see that in 2042, when this project is in operation, the trip time from Westlake to Alaska Junction by light rail will be about 16 minutes as compared to what the trip would be if we did not have light rail, which would be 30 minutes.

And similarly, on the other side here, without link to go from Westlake to Market Street and Ballard would take 11 minutes with light rail.

It would take 38 minutes without light rail.

So that gives you an idea of the ultimate situation here when the project is built out.

Next slide, please.

This is just a reminder of the topics that are studied in the EIS.

Obviously, not going to get into all this information today, but this does inform, hopefully, the comments that we will be receiving from the public through this comment period.

Next slide.

Again, I'll just fly through this to remind you of the alternatives throughout the corridor.

It does provide some of the context for the information I'll be presenting on cost savings and refinements later on in the presentation.

So in the integrated Ballard segment, next slide.

And we have, as you may know, in pink and in blue here, elevated alternatives that could land with the station on 14th or 15th and Ballard.

and tunnel alternatives, again, that could result in stations at 14th or 15th and Ballard.

And in the Interbay area, on the left of this graphic, we've got station options on 15th or on 17th.

Next slide.

In the south Interbay section, again, you have station options here in the Smith Cove area, essentially in the Prospect Street area, where you see that riding Smith Cove, or just a little bit north of there at Gator Street.

And as you can see, there are various alignment configurations here along Elliot Avenue, along the BNSF tracks, along 15th Avenue, are potentially transitioning from 15th over to the BNSF tracks area along Armory Way.

Next slide.

In the downtown area, we have essentially two alternatives.

In pink, the preferred alternative on 5th and on Harrison.

And then the other old draft, you guys will turn it, that would be on 6th and Mercer.

And you can see station locations in the Midtown, Westlake, Denny, Southlake Union, and Seattle Center area.

And all of these are tunnel stations.

Next slide, please.

The Chinatown ID segments, essentially we've got alternatives on 4th and in the vicinity of 5th.

We have 4th deep alternative and a 4th shallow alternative.

We have a 5th deep and a 5th shallow alternative and a 5th shallow diagonal station configuration.

It would have same station entrance location on 5th, but a slightly different configuration for getting to that station.

Next slide, please.

In the SOTO segment, we have, as shown on the left here, we have an AGGRADE alignment with a station immediately adjacent to the existing SOTO station.

An AGGRADE staggered configuration, very similar, but the station will be staggered slightly to the north.

We have an AGGRADE south station option where both the new and existing station would be pushed a little bit further south towards Lander.

And then a mixed profile alternative where the new station and guideway would be elevated rather than AGGRADE.

And as you can see with these alternatives, they assume in the first three cases, overpasses at Lander and Holgate.

In the case of the mixed profile alternative, you would only have an overpass at Holgate.

Next slide, please.

In the Duwamish area, we have basically three alternatives.

We have the preferred alternative, which is the south crossing alternative immediately south of the existing West Seattle Bridge.

Below that, we have a south edge crossing alignment option, very similar, but crosses Harbor Island a little bit further south.

And then we have a north crossing alternative on the north side of the existing bridge.

Next slide, please.

Finally, West Seattle and Delridge segments.

I'll start on the left here.

In the junction, we have in pink, elevated alternatives, elevated Fauntleroy and elevated 41st versus 42nd.

We also have in brown, tunnel 41st and 42nd options.

And then also in blue, we have a short tunnel 41st option and a medium tunnel 41st option.

And then to the right of this graphic in the Delridge area, we have three potential station locations at Andover, the Dakota and on Delridge Way.

And as you can see, the alignment options would go along Andover or potentially go along Delridge Way and Genesee.

Next slide, please.

So that was just all background.

It's all information that you've seen before.

I'm going to kind of switch gears now and talk about information that is not in the draft EIS, but is something that we have been sharing publicly through this comment period more recently.

The context for this is in response to the steep rise in real estate and construction costs.

And as you know, In response to that, the board adopted the realignment plan in August of last year, and this was looking at the full ST3 program, including the West Seattle Battle Project, but more extensively, the full program, looking at the rise in costs across the board.

Next slide, please.

As part of that realignment plan, the board identified an affordable program schedule, as well as affordability gaps to target schedules, again, for the entire program.

In the case of the West Sea Island Ballard project, it has an estimated project level affordability gap of $1.8 billion, based on current financial protections and cost estimates.

And what that means is that the Smith Cove to Ballard portion of the project has a target delivery of 2037, but only an affordable delivery date of 2039. In other words, in order to meet the target delivery date of 2037, we would need to close that affordability gap of $1.8 billion.

If we do not close that affordability gap, then we would not be able to meet that target date, and we'd be on the affordable date of 2039. As part of the realignment plan resolution, the board also gave direction to intensively pursue additional financial capacity and identify opportunities to reduce cost again to try and meet those target delivery dates.

Next slide, please.

The work I'll describe now, I should note, is an initial assessment of feasibility and potential cost savings.

It's based on limited engineering.

This information is not in the draft EIS, as I've stated before.

It's information that has been developed more recently in response to board direction to look at cost savings.

All of these ideas would require further study of the environmental passenger experience and other implications if they were to move forward.

Next slide, please.

So there's two categories of the concepts that I'll describe.

First ideas that result in cost savings that potentially help address the affordability gap.

And then a second category, which we've labeled other refinements that could potentially address other risks or opportunities.

Next slide, please.

In terms of feedback, we are going to the board and we'll be seeking direction on whether to study any of these ideas further.

We are not seeking the board's direction to adopt these ideas now.

As I mentioned, these ideas are not in the draft EIS They're based on limited work and would need further assessments before being adopted as part of the project, as well as additional public feedback.

Next slide, please.

So focusing on the first category.

Next slide, please.

So these are the five ideas across the corridor for looking at cost savings.

Starting on the left, item number one is to shift the elevated Fauntleroy Station, which could result in a cost savings of about $200 million.

I'll describe these in a bit more detail in the subsequent slides.

Item number two is to eliminate the Avalon Station.

And if you were to do that and shift the elevated Fauntleroy Station, the first idea, you could achieve a cost savings of about $325 million.

Number three is to consolidate the Denny and Southlake Union stations, which could result in a cost savings of about $575 million.

Number four, our potential station entrance refinements in the downtown area, which could achieve a cost savings of about $265 million.

Again, I'll explain these in detail in the subsequent slides.

And then number five here is to shift the tunnel 14th Avenue alignment slightly, which could result in a savings of about $140 million.

Next slide, please.

So starting in the junction with the first idea, shifting the elevator to Fauntleroy Station.

Next slide, please.

So the line in red here shows what's in the draft EIS.

The line in green shows the potential refinement, which would shift that station and the alignment associated with it a little bit to the east.

And by doing so, it would avoid a multifamily development that has approximately 300 fewer displacements.

And as noted in the top right here, could result in a cost savings of about $200 million.

Next slide, please.

The second idea is eliminating the Avalon station.

Next slide.

Again, you can see here the red line shows what's in the draft DIS.

This idea would eliminate the Avalon station.

This would also allow our lower height guideway and Delridge station.

It avoids, again, if you combine it with the previous idea, it would avoid that multifamily development in the junction.

It would have similar overall ridership.

And the ridership is shown on the right here in the purple bar chart, very similar ridership associated with this.

If you were to do both of these ideas together, as I mentioned, you would have a cost savings of about $325 million.

Next slide, please.

This shows eliminating the Avalon Station both with the medium tunnel 41st alternative, which is a tunnel alternative that has been studied in the draft EIS.

And if you were to do that, eliminate the Avalon Station associated with this alternative, you could reduce property effects and displacements, you would have similar overall ridership, and it could result in a cost savings of about $60 million compared to what's in the financial plan.

Next slide, please.

In the downtown segment, the third idea, as I mentioned, is to consolidate the Denny and South Lake Union stations.

Next slide, please.

In red shows the preferred alternative that's included in the draft EIS.

As you can see there, the yellow rectangles represent the station locations at Denny and South Lake Union that are included in the draft EIS.

The green line here represents a consolidated station location that would be in the vicinity of Dexter and Denny.

It would have lower overall ridership.

It would avoid impacts to the streetcar it could connect to either of the Seattle Center station options.

And on the right there, as I noted, it would reduce the ridership on the project by approximately 10,000.

It would result in a cost savings of about $575 million.

Next slide, please.

This is just a closeup of that particular station location.

As you can see, it would be the gray rectangle in the middle here shows the platform location underneath Dexter Avenue.

It also shows how it can preserve North, South, and East, West transit integration opportunities and how it might integrate with the bike network.

Next slide, please.

The fourth idea is potential station entrance refinements, and there are several.

The first is at the Midtown Station.

You can see here that the idea here is that we would shift the entrance from private property into the sidewalk.

Right now, many of our station entrances are assumed to be on private property, property in the downtown area.

As you know, as you can imagine, it's very expensive.

In some cases, if it's possible to avoid that property acquisition, move the entrances into the existing public right away, then we could yield some cost savings.

And in this particular location, which is at the corner of 4th and Madison, associated with the North Midtown Station entrance, it could result in a cost savings of about $20 million.

Next slide, please.

Another station entrance refinements is in the case of the Westlake station.

At Westlake right now in the draft EIS, we've assumed three station entrances to the new station in addition to the entrances to the existing station.

If we were to eliminate two of those entrances and consolidate them into a larger single entrance with a single head house with multiple entry points, then we could eliminate some of that property acquisition cost and potentially have a cost savings of about $190 million.

Next slide, please.

The third idea in the downtown area is in the Denny Station area, where again, if we could avoid some property acquisition and instead move the entrance into Lenora Street, then we could have a cost savings of about $55 million.

This would require the permanent full closure of Lenora Street in this area to accommodate that station entrance.

Next slide, please.

The last segment is an intermediate section.

Next slide.

And this idea is to shift the tunnel 14th Avenue alignment.

Next slide.

Here you see in red again the alternative alignment that's in the draft GIS, the tunnel alternative on 14th.

If we were to shift that alignment a little bit out of the roadway, we could have cost savings of about $140 million.

And the next slide shows that in a little closer detail.

You can see the alternative in the middle of the public right-of-way.

If we were to shift that out of the roadway and also eliminate the station entrance on the west side of 14th, the total cost savings would be about $140 million.

Next slide, please.

So those are the cost savings ideas.

We've also looked at other refinements that could address other risks or opportunities.

Next slide.

There are six ideas starting on the left here.

First, providing access north and south of Andover Street.

I'll go through a couple of ideas for helping improve that access to Andover Street, which helps improve transit integration at that location.

Item B here is another entrance refinement in the Midtown Station area.

Item C looks at shifting the Seattle Center Republican Station a bit west.

Item D involves connecting the South Lake Union Harrison alternative, the pink line, to the Seattle Center Mercer alternative, the blue line.

So mixing and matching the two alignments in this location.

Item E is shifting the tunnel portal a little bit further south to avoid some impacts in that area.

And item F is consolidating the Smith Cove and Interbay stations.

So I'll go through these one by one, starting in Delridge.

Next slide.

So this idea looks at providing better access on the north and south side of Andover Street associated with the Andover Street station location.

Next slide.

A couple of ideas for doing this.

One idea is to provide a pedestrian bridge across Andover Street so people don't have to cross the street in that location if it's a busy location, truck access to New Core and vehicle traffic in that area.

If we could have a pedestrian bridge at that location, it would improve the experience of getting to the station platform.

Next slide, please.

Another idea is to shift the station itself slightly to the south.

And you can see the two yellow rectangles at the top right of this graphic, the new station location would overlap the existing proposed station location.

But by doing that, it would also facilitate access on the south side of Andover Street and would also facilitate a lower height of station and guideway.

It would potentially, though, require the closure or reroute of 32nd Avenue Southwest, as noted in the bottom left of this graphic.

Next slide, please.

In the downtown segments, the item B here is a Midtown Station entrance refinement.

Next slide.

Again, this is trying to reduce property acquisition risk.

This is at the Midtown Station, the south entrance at the corner of 5th and Columbia.

And that's a complicated property acquisition, a complicated entrance to build.

If we could shift that entrance out of the private property onto the street right-of-way and put the entrance in the sidewalk there, it could reduce some risk.

Next slide, please.

Item C is shifting the Seattle Center Republican Station a little bit to the west.

And this is associated with the preferred alternative.

Next slide, please.

Oh yeah, thank you.

As you can see here in green, it represents the shifted station location.

So basically moving that station a block or two to the west to avoid concerns with the impacts in the proximity to Seattle Center.

Next slide.

The item D here is connecting the South Lake Union Station, the pink South Lake Union Station with the blue Mercer Station location.

Next slide.

So essentially what's represented here in green is a mix and match between the alignments in this station location, again, to address some of the concerns, what impacts in that area.

Next slide.

South Interbay, again, this idea involves looking at the tunnel portal and shifting that tunnel portal a bit further south You can see the black brackets there.

So that portal location is currently in the draft EIS is assumed to be right adjacent to the station on Prospect Street.

We'd be moving that portal just a little bit further south.

And the benefit of this is that it would help reduce some slope stability concerns that we have in that area.

You can see that this would require that the station location be moved north of the Magnolia Bridge as represented by the green rectangle.

Currently, the station options are to the south and it's in the Gator Street and Prospect Street.

Next slide, please.

By shifting that tunnel portal south, you can see that it would lessen steep slope effects and concerns that we have in that area.

But as represented by the yellow rectangle here, it does require shifting the station a bit further north.

Next slide.

The final idea here is to consolidate the Smith Cove and Interbay stations.

You can see where the text is for Smith Cove, where the currently proposed Smith Cove station would be.

And to the right in the center of the graphic, the Interbay station location.

This would be looking at consolidating both those locations into a midpoint location you hear represented by the green line.

And you can see the green rectangle, which would essentially be just north of the Magnolia Bridge.

adjacent to the Seattle Armory property.

The alignment here would be essentially in tunnel until you get to the green station location.

That would be a retained cut station, and then it would continue in tunnel.

to Ballard and this could connect to either the 14th or 15th tunnel locations in Ballard.

Next slide please.

This shows a little bit more detail on that and the blue call-outs here identify some of the benefits or opportunities associated with this alternative.

It would avoid impacts to the parks and green belts along that section of Elliott Avenue, Queen Anne Hillside.

It would avoid steep slope concerns in that area.

It would avoid traffic effects on Elliott because we essentially be in tunnel until we get north of Magnolia Bridge.

There would be a minor reduction in the overall ridership, and that's represented by the green bar chart on the right here.

It would reduce overall ridership on the project by about 2,000.

It does avoid a former landfill.

The Interbay Golf Center, as you may know, is on a landfill, and so it would avoid impacting that area.

And it also avoids railroad and inter-bay properties in the vicinity of the inter-bay station, the tunnel portal at that location.

Those properties would be complicated to acquire.

Next slide, please.

This is just a little bit of a closer look at this consolidated station idea.

As noted here, it identifies potential and existing connections to Expedia, represented by the green dotted lines in this area.

It shows the potential connections to the Queen Anne via Howe Street and the Greenbelt trails.

It would directly serve the armory site and areas that have, as you can imagine, development potential.

It would have potential connections to the trail network in Interbay.

It would be compatible with some of the key recommendations from the bridge studies and birth study, and it connects, as I mentioned earlier, to either of the Ballard Tunnel Station locations on 14th or on 15th.

Next slide, please.

So that essentially concludes my presentation.

Just a reminder again of the process over the next few months, we will be going to the Sound Transit System Expansion Committee.

That date in April is not yet confirmed.

We're still working on that.

We also hope to go to the System Expansion Committee in May and ultimately in June to request their recommendation to confirm or modify the preferred alternative, and then ultimately to the full board later in June.

Next slide, please.

And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

I think you get a record for going through a 73-slide PowerPoint in a very efficient way.

So thank you for, again, being here, for presenting these concepts to us relatively early, though they are new to a lot of us.

I think I want to also thank my colleagues for their patience.

I know a lot of them have questions and comments.

And I think we'll see in this process the benefits of the city council district system of representation because nobody knows their district better than their council member.

And so We'll have a lot of very nuanced and thoughtful comments that impact different parts of the city.

And I know you may have to get back to us with answers to some of these, but this is just another reason why a resolution from the council will be helpful if we will get to starting on May 17th.

But for now, let's ask some questions and comments.

colleagues, anything now?

Yep, we'll go, we'll start with Council Member Herbold.

I know Council Member Strauss has some questions, so, and again, really appreciate Council Member Lewis joining us as well, even though he's not a member of the committee, really helpful to have him here for this.

Council Member Herbold, please.

Oh, and you're on mute.

Thank you so much.

Again, a couple questions and a couple comments.

I'll start with the comments.

Just want to highlight the fact that I've heard a lot of different perspectives about the Avalon station.

I appreciate that some emphasize that the development on and around Avalon means it's important to keep the station.

Others are OK with removing it.

But I do hear from those who are OK with removing it some unified belief that we should only do so if it's provide some benefit to the West Seattle community such as a longer tunnel.

I also want to highlight that as it relates to accessing the line via Delridge The High Point community and others would be most likely to access the line via 35th and the Avalon Station.

So if there was a consideration to remove the Avalon Station, we would need to have a really clear plan for providing access from High Point and the adjacent communities.

And then just an old point that I've made before in A scoping comment letter I submitted.

Just want to take the opportunity to state for the record that an elevated alignment through the heart of the West Seattle Junction Urban Village and through a built neighborhood in the Youngstown area of North Elridge would be not only unique to this line, but it would be unprecedented for light rail in Seattle.

And that is why So many people have concerns with that proposal.

As far as the questions go, I did have a question about the guideway height for the option in Delridge with the elevated Fauntleroy Station and lower guideway for the Delridge Station.

Would be interested to know at the highest point how high that guideway would be.

Also, I'm just I'm trying to understand the assumptions around removing the Avalon station.

The presentation says that there will be the same number of riders whether or not there's an Avalon station or not.

But yet it also says that there are 1,200 riders that would be using the Avalon station.

And just generally, it would be helpful to understand how you determine the number of riders There are an awful lot of multifamily buildings on Avalon.

Just how do you make that determination of likely ridership?

I know we've covered this before, but it would help to refresh my memory, particularly as thinking how you approach that question in light of a particular community that even though there is the golf course there, this is a very built up, dense, part of the line and not sure what the assumptions are.

Perhaps there are assumptions that people will continue using RapidRide that serves that community, but just would like to hear a little bit more about that.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you for the comments and the questions.

In regards to the first question, the guideway height, With regard to the elevated Fauntleroy alternative, which assumes, as you know, an alignment along Genesee through Delridge.

And at its highest point, which as you can imagine is the lowest point in Delridge as it goes through across Long Hollow Creek area, in the case of the preferred alternative, the guideway height at that area is about 150 feet.

It's less at the station locations, of course, but at its highest point where it's crossing the lowest point in the valley there.

the guideway is about 150 feet high, and it needs to be that high to get up to the height of the Avalon Station, as you can imagine.

If you do not have the Avalon Station, you don't necessarily have to have as high a guideway.

You could use the height of that guideway of about 30 feet approximately through the Delridge area.

So that would be the implication, as I kind of noted briefly in the presentation.

Regards to the Avalon station and removing it and the ridership implications, that is one of the lower ridership stations on the line.

It has, as you noted, ridership of about 1,200 according to our projections.

If we were to ultimately to remove the Avalon station from consideration, right now the assumption is that the bus routes that would be integrating with that station would instead integrate with the Alaska Junction station.

About half the ridership at Avalon is bus transfers.

And so it's about those buses instead of transferring, those riders instead of transferring at Avalon, it would be assumed that they just transfer as Alaska Junction or Delridge, but primarily Alaska Junction.

So that's a big part of why the ridership doesn't change because the bus ridership would just be going to another station instead.

The other part of the equation is the walk shed, those, the Avalon station is quite close as you know, to the junction station location the walk shed is is quite similar.

It's about a third of a mile or so of separation between the stations.

So that also is part of the reason people would basically walk to the other station location instead.

And that's based on our ridership projections.

It's a ridership model which looks at these considerations.

Hopefully that helps explain a little bit about where we got to with our numbers.

Thank you.

That'll do it for now.

I might have some follow-up questions.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any other questions for Sound Transit staff?

Council Member Strauss, please.

Thank you, Chair Cahill.

Always great to see you.

Lita, really great to see you as always.

I just have to first state my compliments to you for getting through so much detailed information so quickly.

I've seen presentations with far less detail go much longer.

So just want to take that moment.

And I feel like by the end of this process, Cahill, Lita, you could write a book.

And that's a book that I would read.

I mean, this presentation in and of itself would be an appendix, I would say.

And if you could bring up some of these slides, I'm going to be referring to slide 70, slide 49, slide 12. I'll start with 70, then 49, and then 12. And so with slide, and I know that I might be speaking a little out of my district, out of term, you get the benefit of having me stack district seven previous to my elected role in district six.

And so just wanting to look at this, and I'll end with my question, but having an inter-bay station, this consolidation, it seems like it's being placed on 15th.

And if that's correct, I just have to raise that this ignores the community concerns about placing a station in Guideway on 15th.

And all of these comments are going to be coming to you from The time that we had the elected leadership group that we had the da is framework kind of narrowed in so that you could be able to do this work and something that I just have to highlight and elevate is that you're trying to do this work.

in advance to get consensus, so that the process is more streamlined so that we can deliver the project faster and that's something that I want to help you with.

I'm just seeing at this moment that this is a change from when this information was presented to the elected leadership group, the ELG, because There was a very strong push to say west of 15th is best.

And now I'm a bit concerned that this is now putting it back on 15th.

I know that we've had a fair amount of work with the Ballard Interbate Regional Corridor and that we even had a letter presented to PSRC about getting federal funding for this corridor to make sure that we're not We have a very narrow right of way with a lot of increased use.

And I know that Sound Transit declined to sign the letter to PSRC, but we were successful in getting that amendment through anyways.

I'd love to have your participation in the Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor work group moving forward.

So I just highlight that it feels like this is ignoring concerns about placing the station on 15th.

It also is making some assumptions about development decisions not yet made about the armory.

And it makes some assumptions about how we will be using the industrial lands and the industrial lands conversation as land use chair.

Right now, I can tell you that we're at this time looking at strengthening industrial protections.

And I think that for you to be able to meet your ridership level, we would have to make a whole a whole cloth change to how our industrial areas are utilized.

So with that, I guess my question here is, because this was not specifically contained within your DEIS, how are you able to make this change without a supplemental DEIS?

Yes, thank you for the question.

And I can better explain this particular alternative that I think will address your concerns.

This alternative, as you noted, is adjacent to 15th.

It is not on 15th.

It would be to the west of 15th.

And I would also note that the alignment is primarily underground.

So it would not have traffic effects on 15th.

The alignment, if you look at the graphic here, you can see where that yellow rectangle is. and that's where the station could potentially be.

It would not be within the 15th right-of-way.

It would be on the property to the west of that.

The brackets to the left and to the right of it show the area where it would be in retained cut, so below grade, but open to the top with potential opportunities to cross over it on crossings at those locations.

And then everything to the north and south of those black brackets would be in tunnel below grade.

So again, there would be no direct effects to the 15th Avenue right away.

As you noted there from phase one, the elected leadership group process that will end the community process during phase one, there was a lot of concerns about impacts to traffic.

And again, as noted in my slides, I think, hopefully I noted in my slides, that this station location or this alignment could connect to either the 14th or 15th tunnel locations in Ballard.

It could go either direction in that.

So that's, I think, one of the concerns.

In terms of the concerns about industrial lands.

Yes, I recognize that this is just, you know, it notes the potential for development on the armory property that could potentially serve the station location, but it does not assume that in the ridership estimates that no change in land use is assumed as part of this alternative.

So that daily trips on the project noted on the right here is based on existing land use assumptions, not assuming any development of the property necessarily.

To your last question about a supplemental EIS, yes, you're right.

This alternative was not looked at in phase one, and indeed, it was not looked at in the draft EIS in phase two.

This is a new idea.

It is in response or based on following from the board direction to look at opportunities to find cost savings.

Although in this particular case, it's not so much a cost savings that would result from this alternative necessarily, but it avoids a lot of potential risk areas as noted on this graphic.

There are impacts to parks and the green belt associated with the draft EIS alternatives that this would potentially avoid.

It addresses concerns about steep slopes in this area, which could have cost or schedule implications.

It does avoid traffic effects on Elliott that are noted in the draft EIS.

It would not have those traffic effects, construction traffic effects.

And furthermore, as known on the right here, avoids concerns about the landfill and about some properties in this area.

So it's very much a response to things, risks, and opportunities that we've identified through the draft EIS process.

But as you know, it has not been studied in the draft EIS.

If there was an interest in looking at this further, additional supplemental environmental work would be required.

I don't know.

what the nature of that environmental work would be right now, whether it requires supplemental EIS or some lesser document.

But that's something that would first be a factor of whether there's interest in even looking at this idea and direction from the board to do so.

And then we would have to consult with our federal partners on what the environmental process implications would be.

And if there was additional environmental work and additional study, we would need to bring this alternative up to the level of analysis of the current draft EIS alternatives.

And we would need additional public feedback before we could go to the board to seek their direction of whether to actually implement this alternative.

So it's a very new idea.

A lot more work would be needed to vet it out and welcome your feedback on it.

That answer is exactly why I love working with you so much.

Detailed, spot on, responsive.

I just, so thank you for that.

With the bracketed, and so you answered the question about the supplemental EIS, about the impacts to 15th, you've answered the long term questions about impacts to the right of way, and I think that you're spot on again with that a tunnel will limit the impacts to our limited amount of right-of-way there.

My concern though is, did I hear you say correctly that the bracketed area here would be a cut and cover or in the street, in 50?

It would not be in the street.

It would be on the property to the west of the right-of-way and it would be a retained cut in that area.

So in the station itself would be open.

to the outside, much like the Chinatown ID station, the existing Chinatown ID station.

There would be opportunities to have roadway overpasses of that cut to provide access to the properties to the west.

You know, there's a couple of locations right there right now where you can access those properties.

So that would still be a possibility.

Okay, and maybe I'm just, maybe we're having a nomenclature, issue here.

When I'm looking at this, I'm seeing the brackets starting at Interbay Golf Center on the right and just above the letter C in Consolidated Smith Cove, Interbay.

That is the area that would be open.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Retained cut in that area.

Okay.

And just noting that there's not just one parcel there that's I mean, I trust you, Cahill, you're the engineer.

If you can get that done, and it's not in the right of way, I trust you there, but I'm just gonna, I'm raising my concerns, and this isn't even my district, and I see Council Member Lewis has his hand up next, so let me move us back to Ballard, District 6. If we could move to slide 49. Thank you, Cahill.

That was really helpful.

And so I'm just going to start with sharing with the Sound Transit team, and this is directed at no one in particular, just that due to the pedestrian safety and connectivity to the downtown commercial and residential core, I do not see an option east of 15th as being acceptable.

And I think that the question that I need to have answered here is how do we access the core of Ballard safely?

I'll share with you, Ballard was annexed 125 years ago this coming May 29th.

And for the record to show, this was Ballard.

And so this right here is 15th, the edge of Ballard.

And while it's been 125 years and a lot has changed, and I'm sure a lot will change between now and when this infrastructure is built, I highlight the fact right now that the core residential area of Ballard is to the west of 15th.

And there is residential north of Market Street.

However, there's not residential south of Market Street.

And if we're looking about moving people, because that's what Sound Transit's all about and we commend you for it, I just have very grave concerns that either people would have to cross Market Street for any number of reasons, and more assuredly, that they would have to cross 15th.

And again, we bring up the industrial conversation here, because with 15th and market are the two borders of the industrial area here that are, again, we're having the industrial conversation, again, I'm the land use chair, and I'm not seeing a proposal right now to change this area.

Sure, it could happen in the next 15 to 16 years, but I see us having more needs for our industrial area and not fewer.

And I think that your graphic here really demonstrates the industrial nature of this area When you look at Northwest 45th Street, there are two crescent-shaped lines on your diagram here.

And these are former railroad lines that are either partially or not in use at this time.

And those rail lines continued all the way up to Market Street and all the way up 14th, because 14th was the former rail bridge.

It was the former bridge street.

And so I see a desire there to use that right of way in this way.

Now we're talking about moving it even further east away from the core.

So my questions are, how do pedestrians, bicyclists, people of all ages and abilities access the core of Ballard safely?

Let's start there, and then I've got a couple more.

Yes, we could speak to probably this in a lot more detail, maybe perhaps should to describe some of our station planning work in this area.

But the concern you expressed about access across 15th Avenue is a commonly expressed concern.

and the concerns about just the freight traffic, the volume of traffic on that street.

And so we would need to be looking at that 15th Avenue crossing.

In the context of the 14th Avenue station alternative, we would need to be looking at that 15th Avenue crossing and looking at ways to make it a safer crossing for pedestrians if the station were at 14th.

As you know, in the case of the 15th Avenue station, alternative, the tunnel alternative and the elevated alternatives, they do envision entrance on the west side of 15th.

So you wouldn't have that crossing concern with those particular alternatives.

That's right.

And, you know, I think that we all know that the people will use or choose not to use transit infrastructure, bike infrastructure, walking infrastructure, of low-stress levels, if they are a low-stress level user, they will not use two separate pieces of low-stress infrastructure if it is crossed and divided by a high-stress environment, and that is what 15th is, it is what Market Street is. to be able to have a station placement that is divided from the core of Ballard by 15th, it won't just be station area improvements that are needed.

It will need to be a way that everyone feels very safe about crossing the street.

And again, my concerns that I raised in the last slide that we've discussed and the concerns that I raise here is that 15th Avenue is the third most used north-south corridor in the city after SR 99 and I-5.

And with the armory still being placed where it is, it's also the area that is responsible for all of our disaster mitigation from the National Guard.

And so I share this with you because there's a need to create that pedestrian connectivity and There's a need to ensure that the goods of freight and truck movement are able to move freely through this area.

So I'm getting a number of great concerns here.

And we need to be making the best policy and station decisions to serve our city, our riders, and our entire region.

So my last question in this slide is, have you evaluated government-owned properties in the core of Ballard for potential use?

I cannot speak directly to that.

We did, as you know, as you recall, in the phase one in the elected leadership stakeholder advisory group process, did look at station locations to the west of 15th.

The representative project in the SDG plan had identified a station location at 15th and Park, as you know.

But as part of that initial phase of project development, we did look at options to the west of 15th And as you will recall, a lot of those alternatives, all those alternatives went through the screening process that included review and recommendations by the stakeholder advisory group and elected leadership group.

Those ideas were not carried forward based on that screening process.

at the time due to concerns about cost and technical feasibility and residential effects.

But I do not know specifically which properties were affected in those configurations.

I would have to go back and look at the details, whether there were any publicly owned properties that were affected.

So I apologize, I don't know the specific answer to your question.

top of my head.

You are so good.

I love working with you.

Can we switch to slide 12 because you just made the transition so beautifully.

And when I say evaluated government owned parcels in the core of Ballard, I'm speaking about how can we best leverage assistance to you.

and not a negative impact to government owned parcels or places, but how can we leverage city, county, state, I don't want to speak for the port because I'll get in trouble there but you know like how, how can we leverage what the greater community owns through government to benefit this hundred-year infrastructure.

And so you mentioned, and then I'll bring up again, my community did give you four options during the ELG in phase one, 20th, 17th, 15th, and 14th.

And I would even venture to say that there was murmurs but not strong stake in the ground about 22nd as well.

And this was presented to the elected leadership group and community members were quite loud.

And I know this because I was staffing and I was there and I heard both elected leaders and community advocates asking for this.

And one of the screening criteria that it was my recollection was used was that you wanted to go forward with four options.

to be able to base cost and feasibility.

And two of those options, it's basically 15th and 14th with elevated versus tunnel.

And at that point, you didn't know if the tunnel would be more expensive than the elevated structure.

We now know that the elevated structure is more expensive, which is why we're only left with two options.

But my concern here is that one of the reasons that 20th, 17th, and even 22nd were screened out was because of the cost, because the tunnel was assumed to be more expensive than the bridge.

And absolutely, a bridge, an above ground structure landing in the core of Ballard would be highly disruptive and it would be highly costly.

And so now that I see you are leaning and leading us towards having a tunnel in this area.

The last time you came to the committee, I asked about what determines the cost of a tunnel and geology direction.

These are the things that have been brought up.

So we don't need to answer it now, but I raised this because we were told that we couldn't have The community brought to you four options.

We were told that two options were not going to work because of cost, because we were basing our decisions off of the bridge.

The bridge is now not the premier option for us.

And so when we do apples to apples comparisons of connectivity to the core of Ballard, across 15th on the surface level as compared to the cost of turning a drill, you know, the boring machine ever so slightly, just a few millimeters to hit a different angle.

What I guess, what's going on here?

I mean, I, I want to, I, and the question here is how are we using the baseline or the base cost analysis to drive our decision-making here when we're making decisions about 100-year infrastructure and the need to connect the core residential and commercial area to this infrastructure.

Well, I'd offer a few thoughts, but it probably would require a deeper conversation, too, with you.

But just in terms of the alternatives that were looked at in the previous phase, back in the 2017-2019 timeframe, you're correct, we did look at options further west.

And you're correct as well that our you know, expectations about tunnel costs have changed compared to elevated costs in the time since then, as has been noted, due to increases in real estate costs and in construction costs and our needs that we've identified as part of project development.

I think it's important to note that it wasn't just cost that was a determining factor in screening out those alternatives further west.

There were also technical feasibility concerns in terms of getting there to do with infrastructure that we needed to avoid the Emerson interchange and some other underground utilities in the major underground utilities in that area.

So that also was a factor in assessing or screening out, if you like, those alternatives Some of those alternatives further west.

And there was also concerns with residential effects, some of the street right away further west is narrower, as, as you know, and much more built up, and therefore fitting in a station within that more dense urban area.

would have required large residential displacements.

Not that that can't be done, but that was a factor in ruling out those alternatives.

It's true to say that the costs, I would leave you with this just to explain your other, I guess, concern.

It's true to say that the costs of elevated and tunnel alternatives have gotten closer in this case.

In this particular area, the tunnel 14th alternative is very similar to the elevated alternative in this area.

So there has been a convergence between tunnel and elevated costs, but the relative costs of tunnels to each other, you know, would still hold.

And those tunnel alternatives further west were seen to be more expensive at that time because they were longer tunnels.

And again, would involve tunnel stations in more built up areas.

So that was part of the cost element.

Cost wasn't the only factor.

As I said, technical feasibility and residential effects were important factors at that time.

But cost, in terms of just cost, the length of the tunnels and the location of the stations would have factored into those cost differentials as well.

But again, this is probably a much deeper conversation, which if you'd like to discuss further, I'd be happy to.

Okay, Hill, that's why I'm gonna read your book.

And that's why I love working with you.

And so I just highlight that you said at the time there would be longer tunnels required.

And I know that the tunnel portal on port property was a grave concern to the port.

And what I'm talking about is to get to 17th or 20th.

I just highlight the slide, where were we, slide 70, where we were talking about a whole, you don't have to move there.

I just highlight that when we were just talking about Inner Bay, we were talking about moving the tunnel portals completely.

And with that new information, it seems like there might be more information to be investigated in this area as well.

And that might, again, relieve the cost of longer tunnels.

It might also relieve the technical barrier of other underground utilities and infrastructure there.

And I'll say this, and I know that there's no easy way of saying this, But to, on one hand, say that we cannot have a station in west of 15th because of residential displacement, and then request to build a station where there is not land use code allowing residential buildings.

It gives me a lot of pause, and it gives me a lot of concern.

And so, again, I have grave concerns regarding any station placement east of 15th.

I have a strong desire to deliver infrastructure consistent with what voters approved, and I just really appreciate you, Cahill, really appreciate you, Lita, and just incredibly impressed with this presentation.

No further questions, Chair.

That's all I got.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

And Council Member Lewis, please.

Thank you so much, Council Member Peterson.

And again, thank you for inviting me here today so we could give some direct feedback to Sound Transit on these alignments.

I mostly wanna make comments, but I'm happy to get direct feedback and clarify some things.

So I first wanna start by saying that I've gotten very strong community feedback universally for SIB1 alignment in South Interbay.

I just want to go on the record in expressing that that location and alignment would serve the residents of South Magnolia, West Queen Anne, the needs of the Port of Seattle and the Expedia campus, and of course service the cruise ship terminal.

It's a very big added benefit that it protects the city asset of the Kenyir green belt and reduces the amount of loss that alternative alignments don't accommodate.

So I just want to express that as far as that preferred alignment, that is a strong preference from community stakeholders we have talked to about it.

For similar reasons, there has been consternation expressed about the consolidated station in Inner Bay.

While it seems to have equal access to a lot of other assets, it seems to be quite far away from those assets and not necessarily the best position to capitalize on transportation connections, particularly for folks who are making Magnolia connection commutes.

That consolidated station has met with a lot of opposition from stakeholders in Queen Anne and Magnolia who I believe are going to be weighing in throughout the comment period on the environmental impact statement and just wanted to raise up those concerns.

And that there's been concerns that the rider reduction estimate might be low or underestimating the potential impacts of the consolidated station on on disproportionately impacting Magnolia Connection rides.

So that's some feedback that some folks I've been talking to wanted me to express, and I'm sure we'll also be mentioning in the comment period.

Going back to talk about the uptown alignment decisions i do have kind of some clarifying questions that the concept about moving the station further west down republican to the spot that i believe is currently occupied by uh...

uh...

the dicks fast food restaurant Can you comment now, or maybe I can go check in with KEXP and some of those folks, does that mitigate some of their concerns about the potential impacts to do that station movement further down Republican?

Or does it only partially mitigate or not mitigate the potential impacts to the arts cluster in that corridor in Republican?

My understanding is, That the Mercer Street alignment is far preferable to avoid potential impacts to have to mitigate in the relocation or long term closure of some of those arts institutions like the Seattle Rep, like the KEXP station.

And, you know, I appreciate that we did have that discussion in the city submitting questions is, you know, really looking into what that impact is and what the cost of mitigation would be in before the end of the comment period.

But in terms of going forward with the alignments presented, my understanding is that the Mercer Street one.

I am not up to speed on whether moving the station two blocks would similarly do that.

if that's something you could share here.

And at the very least, it's good for expanding the scope of the EIS.

But those are my big questions right now, given the time.

Really appreciate the presentation and the detail here.

This was a really fantastic committee meeting to deep dive into this very complicated alignment process that has a lot of implications for the future of our community.

you know, really appreciate Sound Transit and the city and Chair Peterson putting together a good forum to air these concerns and look forward to hopefully getting invited back again as we continue to talk about city policy that relates to these projects.

So, thank you.

Thank you, council member Lewis.

Yes, all council members will be invited back to the May 17th committee meeting where we'll discuss potentially a draft resolution expressing our preferences and really appreciate the council members, speaking up for their district, sharing the intimate knowledge they have of their districts block by block, that really has a major impact.

I appreciate, for example, Council Member Morales talking about the Chinatown International District I recently met with.

community leaders who were really interested in the Fourth Avenue shallow option, for example, to minimize impacts.

I understand that would have an impact on the Fourth Avenue South Bridge, although fixing that bridge would be a good thing potentially.

So council members, any other comments while we have Sound Transit staff here?

I know that they're available.

to you on an ongoing basis as are Marsha Foster, Sarah Maxana, and Calvin Chow and our own central staff, as well as Council President Debra Juarez and the mayor.

So lots of points of input, and then we'll try to synthesize what we can in a resolution a month from now.

All right, well, thanks, everybody, for your endurance, for making it through the long meeting here.

Really appreciate our guests and all the staff work that went into this, these materials.

So with that, We'll go ahead and conclude the April 19, 2022 meeting of the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

Due to the progress of legislation coming through our committee thus far, we are considering canceling the May 3rd meeting.

So if we do, our next meeting will be on Tuesday, May 17 at 9.30 in the morning.

All right.

Thank you, everybody.

We are adjourned.

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