Public comment period and open houses for Ballard Light Rail

Meghan Walker Ballard

For the next month, Sound Transit will be collecting public feedback on West Seattle and Ballard light rail extension options.

Sound Transit will host three upcoming information sessions, one of which is in Ballard on Feb. 28 from 6 to 8:30pm at the Ballard High School (1418 NW 65th St). Other sessions will be held in West Seattle on Feb. 27, and in downtown Seattle on March 7 — click here for details.

The open houses will allow attendees to provide feedback on various light rail alternatives. The feedback from open houses will be shared with the Stakeholder Advisory Group and Elected Leadership Group. In May, the Sound Transit Board of Directors will identify a preferred alternative plus additional alternatives to study for the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

If you can’t make it to an open house, you’ll still be able to comment online, via email, regular mail, or voicemail. Sound Transit says they’ll use also use submitted comments to help inform which alternatives should be studied in the EIS, which is the next phase of the project.

Comments can be emailed to wsbscopingcomments@soundtransit.org, or mailed to Sound Transit, Lauren Swift, Central Corridor Environmental Manager, 401 S. Jackson Street, Seattle, WA 98104. To phone in a comment, call (833) 972-2666.

24 thoughts to “Public comment period and open houses for Ballard Light Rail”

  1. I emailed them to suggest that it is important for the Ballard station to allow people to easily exit onto the west side of 15th without having to cross 15th above ground since the vast majority of the business district of Ballard is west of 15th. Ideally the station would be situated to allow easy transfers to bus routes as well.

    1. Funny, I too e-mailed them, telling them to stop with the stealing. I urged them though to take your money and to leave me and mine alone. CHOO CHOO CHOO

      1. What’s actually funny is that they’ve been “stealing”, or what the rest of us call paying taxes, for years, and you have only now woken up to that fact. Stop paying taxes, it’s that simple Einstein.

          1. Me or Mr. Complain-about-Taxes-on-an-Article-about-Light-Rail-Alignments above?

          2. The taxes he/she is referring to is in reference to sound transit, which is the subject of the story. You brought up national politics which I’m not sure would ever be relevant to this site.

          3. Paintking said:

            Funny, I too e-mailed them, telling them to stop with the stealing. I urged them though to take your money and to leave me and mine alone. CHOO CHOO CHOO

            Oh you’re absolutely right. He was definitely on topic for an article on an open house for a light rail line. Why did I ever doubt you, the expert of staying on topic?

          4. This is about an email he/she sent to Sound Transit, which is the subject of this story. Not that difficult to understand.

          5. Again, whether or not he (you?) actually sent that email doesn’t change the fact that his (your?) alleged email has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with an open house on light rail alignments.

            So you’ll excuse me if I’m still having difficulty understanding.

          7. The comments had nothing to do with the light rail alignment. Get it?

          1. 1-800-273-TALK. I’m sorry to see your fantasies have become so warped you have a hard time gripping reality. If you are willing to reach out for help, there are good resources available.

  3. It really looks like using 15th would cause the least disruption to the neighborhood and be the most convenient to riders. I look forward to learning more about the options being considered.

    1. Unfortunately the city seems to be leaning toward 14th, with a station straddling market. (Right next to Mcdonalds and AVA). Agreed this puts the station too far from downtown Ballard.

      Their reasons are that they could fit in the station between the lanes of traffic on 14th (Think gemanskap park style) and it lines up with 14th to make way for a humongous fixed bridge over Salmon Bay. It’d be 4~5 times taller than the 15th movable bridge. The elevated overhead tracks would take out a decent swath of land especially on the port side and make developing nearby less desirable. Think like how the ballard blocks are in the shadow of elevated 15th. Finally, expanding the ballard line eventually to connect to crown hill etc. would be difficult with an elevated station on 14th.

      Ballard Alliance is really advocating for a tunnel under salmon bay and a 15th street station. (Even a fixed humungous bridge that became a 15th street station would be acceptable). It is +$300M, but the bridge idea is +$100M, we’re saving $200M with a cut and cover in the international district, and we aren’t going with the overkill +$600M options which have already been ruled out (eg. the between 15th and 17th street tunnel station in dark blue above).

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