What is the latest?
Since the start of the year, our team has been busy delivering our online open house and virtual city public meetings. Below you will find an update on our recent and upcoming activities.
- The project team completed the environmental review process this spring. The public comment period is now closed (it ran from March 25 to April 8, 2021). More information about the environmental review is available online.
- Later in 2021, we anticipate the Sound Transit Board of Directors to consider action to identify the project to be built, which may enable the project to advance into the design and construction phases. This means that we also now anticipate starting the property acquisition process later this year. The project schedule is subject to change due to impacts from the COVID-19 recession and the ongoing Sound Transit Board realignment process.
- In the upcoming design phase, the project team will:
- Finalize the design of roadway and sidewalks.
- Finalize station design and public art.
- Advance the Park-and-Ride garages to a more detailed level of design.
- Obtain land use, environmental and construction permits.
- Begin the property acquisition process.
- Continue engaging with and providing feedback opportunities for the public, community groups, businesses, elected officials and partner agencies to comment on and inform the design.
- COVID-19 impacts to Sound Transit projects: Revenue reductions caused by the COVID-19 recession combined with rising cost estimates will affect plans and timelines for Sound Transit expansion projects. Learn more about realignment.
Thank you for participating in our online open house and online public meetings
Thank you to those who visited our online open house and participated in our online public meetings between Feb. 12 and March 11, 2021. Over 3,500 people visited our English, Spanish and Simplified Chinese online open houses, and a total of 159 people attended the four online public meetings. We also received several emails from people with questions or comments related to information shared in the online open house and public meetings.
We prepared a summary of our outreach with key takeaways of what we heard from you. Need a refresher on what was included in the online open house? Take a look at a PDF copy of the online open house content. You can also watch our recorded presentation from the online public meetings and download detailed roll plots of the preliminary design in Seattle/Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Kenmore and Bothell.
What we heard from you:
We received a total of 177 questions or comments from participants at the online public meetings, including questions submitted in advance and questions asked live during the meetings. The project team addressed as many questions as possible during the public meetings, but some questions were left unanswered. In an effort to address all questions received, we compiled a list of frequently asked questions based on what we heard.
You can check out our responses to those frequently asked questions online. If you have any additional questions, please reach out to us by email at brt@soundtransit.org, or by phone at 206-553-3412.
Here are a few corridor-wide key takeaways we heard at the online public meetings:
- Interest in designs for the Stride S3 Line stations and Stride bus amenities, including accessibility features. (“Stride S3 Line” is the name for the future SR 522/NE 145th Bus Rapid Transit service.)
- Interest in future opportunities to provide input on the project and questions about how to stay engaged.
- Questions about how the project team determined the Stride S3 Line station locations.
- Interest in how Sound Transit is projecting and planning for recent and future changes to ridership.
- Questions about the future Stride S3 Line service hours and frequency.
- Questions about plans for the current ST Express 522 service.
- Support for easy transfers between future Stride services, Link light rail, King County Metro and Community Transit.
- Questions about the impacts of the realignment process on Sound Transit projects and timelines.
- Questions about property owner impacts and the property acquisition process.
- Questions about utility impacts, tree removal and other environmental impacts.
- Questions about pedestrian and cycling connections and support for improved access for people walking, biking and rolling to stations.
Take a closer look at what we heard in each city along the corridor in the summary. (23 MB PDF file).