We want a say in our future!

Three citizen coalitions, rethinkthelink.org, smartertransit.org, and Amplify Avalon, have tried and failed to get Sound Transit to talk with us.  Our members have studied local transit and national and international systems.  Some members have spent years on regional environmental issues, including West Seattle’s many unique ecosystems.  We are ALL transit riders.  Some of us are car-free.  Our mission is to help bring smart, equitable, fiscally responsible solutions to our transportation needs.  

We urged the Systems Expansion Board not to advance Resolution R2024-07 on March 14, 2024.  They did, unanimously.

Resolution No. R2024-07 was anticipating a Build Decision.  However, based on the evidence in the Draft EIS, it's easy to see that building a three-station light rail stub line is the wrong decision for West Seattle.  

 The redeployment of Sound Transit light rail funds to enhance the existing bus service to and around the West Seattle Peninsula is more sustainable—environmentally, economically, and with regard to social equity. Taking this different, less expensive, more sustainable approach to High-Capacity Transit to West Seattle is well within Sound Transit's existing authority.

Our concerns for West Seattle will impact the entire region:

1.    70 businesses will be claimed by eminent domain.

2.    500 people will lose their jobs when these businesses close.

3.    Our families will lose Alki Beach Academy – local daycare for +-150 children ages 5 months to 6 years.

4.    Our community will lose one of the few swimming pools in West Seattle where our children learn to swim.

5.    Bulldozing the Deli in Delridge will create a “food desert,” which will create a particularly inequitable situation for the poorer Delridge neighbors.

6.    Jefferson Square businesses  (39, including Safeway and Bartell) and apartments will be demolished. 

7.    West Seattle traffic will be disrupted for 6-8 years.  Fauntleroy Way SW, 35th Avenue SW, and SW Avalon Way will all be impacted.  It will be much worse than when the WS bridge broke.

8.     Sound Transit plans to bulldoze 3 acres of Pigeon Point disturbing the federally protected Heron rookery that houses 24 nests.

9.    WSLE light rail will travel over Longfellow Creek, threatening the extinction of our newly recovering native salmon and three beaver dams.   

10.    West Seattle provides up to one-third of the region’s urban canopy.  The resulting heat zones will cause poorer neighborhoods to suffer disproportionately than the leafier areas, Delridge and Admiral.  (Seattle has lost more than 255 acres of forest canopy since 2016.  Sound Transit already cut 14,000 trees for the Everett-Tacoma spine.)

11. ST WSLE will be built on a known earthquake fault line. Their solution, we are told, is to drive the stanchions to a 100’ depth. Does this guarantee more stability?

What needs to be considered before the final EIS:

 1.The federally required NO BUILD OPTION that has not been studied.  

 2. Mitigation plans are vague or non-existent for the “damage” Sound Transit admits they will do to many ecosystems.   They used the words “permanent” and “irreparable” in the DEIS.  Who oversees this mitigation?  Is there an agency we can appeal to BEFORE the damage happens?

3. Why are we spending $4 billion, creating 614,000 tons of carbon emissions for 4 miles of track that will take us only to SODO? 

4. Ridership numbers need to be reviewed, considering the number of people working from home.

5. A Town Hall. West Seattle has repeatedly asked for—and not received—a voice in our future. Sound Transit’s meager outreach to our community is at the Sunday Market and station design events. We deserve to be given clear details about your project, which will greatly inform our lives.  

West Seattle has many “components that require further study” – until these are addressed, we deserve to be kept in the Draft EIS process.  The Ballard community was successful in its attempt not to be pushed into the final EIS.

We heard at the Board of Directors meeting on March 28, 2024, that instead of the mid-2024 projected final EIS date for West Seattle, it will now be “late spring” 2024.  We have still not been told what the exact route is!  Sound Transit has been surveying, drilling, and mapping utilities and the trees they plan to cut in the neighborhoods they plan to destroy.  They have gone door-to-door, asking people to sign two-year Right of Entry Agreements.  They have also canvassed homes and businesses along their, yet to be determined, route urging people to sign Early Property Acquisition Agreements.  We believe this to be illegal.  Bruce Dammeier pointed out at the B of D meeting that this is unprecedented.  But the board passed the measure.  They did not call the roll.  Many members had been on their cell phones during much of the meeting; one even left during the public comments, but they managed to croak out a “yea” to pass Resolution No R2024-07.   This needless destruction, deforestation, displacement, and disruption is action will cause will impact the entire region. But we have no recourse, no voice.  Once we are declared to be in the final EIS we are doomed.  We urgently need help.  We have thoughtful solutions.  Our only hope is to be kept in the DEIS process until our concerns are addressed and we are allowed a seat at the table.