Four ST3 Letters We Missed

Angle Lake Station in December 2015 (SounderBruce - Flickr)

In our summary series of Sound Transit 3 community feedback letters, four letters fell through the cracks, as they were not included in our original request for letters from Sound Transit and were not published by Sound Transit's website until last week. But without further ado, here they are!

Sierra Club

The Sierra Club's comments are detailed and exhaustive, with a 12-page letter that comments on nearly every Candidate Project. Unbeholden to regional consensus or political considerations, it's also a wonderfully consistent application of urbanist values. Go read the whole thing, but in summary, the letter supports:

• Reduced reliance on Park and Rides through better multimodal access
• Priced parking
• Non-freeway alignments
• Project phasing explicitly focused on maximizing ridership
• Redirecting 522 BRT to Lake City and 130th St Station
• Lynnwood-Everett via SR 99, with Paine Field served at a later date either via rail spur or BRT
• Mode-neutral electrified service on the Eastside Rail Corridor
• Selecting alignments that maximize TOD potential
• Canceling the Edmonds Permanent Station project "as long as Sounder North [generates] anemic ridership".
• Canceling all parking expansions, especially at Mountlake Terrace and Tukwila International Boulevard
• Ballard-UW, interlined with the Downtown-Ballard line as "one of the main proposals, not relegated to a second tier"
• Downtown-Burien via Alaska Junction, with RapidRide+ on Delridge
• Building Graham Street Station by scaling back Northgate parking
• Letting SDOT and the feds fund Madison BRT instead of Sound Transit
• Higher-capital I-405 BRT to maximize stations and access
• Totem Lake-Issaquah Link, but interlined between Wilburton-South Bellevue
• Interim BRT on the Eastside Rail Corridor between Totem Lake-Bellevue
• All-day and weekend Sounder service, explicitly prioritized ahead of completing the spine
• Revising Link to serve SR99 between Angle Lake and Tacoma
• Building Tacome Dome-Tacoma Mall Link before completing the spine, seeing it as primarily a Tacoma project
• Exploring DMU options for mid-day Sounder, with the possibility of DMU service between DuPont and Tacoma with locomotive service from Tacoma-Seattle

Seattle Subway

Seattle Subway's priorities shouldn't be a surprise to regular readers, as we regularly feature their guest posts on the blog. Beyond the joint letter they signed with a dozen other organizations (including TCC, Feet First, etc), they submitted a separate letter with their own recommendations. Their letter is true to Seattle Subway's form, pushing the envelope and asking for maximum investment now, a prioritized contingency list of projects beyond the ST3 System Plan, and planning funds for additional projects. In short, they support:

• Splitting the spine, with a new Downtown Transit Tunnel
• West Seattle Junction-Downtown, Downtown to Ballard, and Ballard-UW as the minimum investment for North King, with full grade separation
• Tunneling under the Ship Canal for Interbay-Ballard both to make the line more reliable and to set up for an underground junction for a Ballard-UW line.
• Serving Belltown in ST3, and creating better connections between the new Downtown tunnel and the Aurora corridor
• Totem-Lake Issaquah Link, but interlined with East Link between Wilburton and South Bellevue
• Contingency lines including Ballard-Lake City, Alaska Junction-White Center, Burien-Renton, and Tacoma Dome-Tacoma Mall
• Expedited study funds for Ballard-Lake City
• Building all lines so that future expansions or infill stations do not impact operations
• Studying the "Metro 8" subway

South County Area Transportation Board (SCATB)

Kent Councilmember and SCATB Board Chair Dana Ralph

Kent Councilmember and SCATB Chair Dana Ralph's letter is short, positive, and direct. Stating her "confidence that the South King County Subarea"can generate revenue to accomplish the proposed investments", the letter asks first and foremost for expediting furloughed ST2 projects (Link to Star Lake and 8-car Sounder trains) so that they "can be completed closer to the time frame voters intended." For ST3 projects, SCATB asks for most of the Candidate Projects in South King to be built, including:

• Link from Star Lake to Tacoma Mall
• Additional Sounder Service
• South Sounder Access Program
• Boeing Access Road Infill Station (both for Link and Sounder)
• Structured parking at Tukwila International Blvd Station
• Link from West Seattle-Burien
• The low-capital version of I-405 BRT, with a Burien terminus rather than Angle Lake
• Study funds for Link from Burien to SeaTac Airport and Burien-Renton
• Funding the System Access Program

Travel Tacoma

Travel Tacoma is a marketing consortium of Pierce County tourism and business interests, whose board includes representatives from industries as varied as mountaineering, brewing, hotels, and tour operators. Its ST3 letter is signed by Chair Jeremy Foust, a local businessman known for his mountaineering business and spats with Pierce County over his raw goat milk sales. Travel Tacoma makes the case for Link to Tacoma and hourly Sounder service largely on business competitiveness grounds, arguing that attracting convention and visitor traffic is dependent on a robust connection to SeaTac that Tacoma currently lacks:

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Travel Tacoma"I am communicating our support of Pierce County projects in Sound Transit 3, especially expanding"Link light rail"to Tacoma and running Sounder trains every hour throughout the day"

Expanding the transit system will take people farther and move them faster throughout the region. This not only opens up Tacoma and Pierce County to locals living in the greater Seattle area, but also to visitors traveling from [SeaTac Airport]"

Critical transportation issues, including costs to get from the airport to Tacoma, sharply decrease our ability to book events requiring 600 room-nights or more. Sound Transit Link light rail to Tacoma and increased Sounder trains will result in a higher volume of meetings and events in the region thanks to the east of travel, less congestion, lower costs for convention attendees, and attractive alternatives for those who wish to avoid driving in an unfamiliar region"