Politics & Government

Sound Transit Could Make Final Decision on East Link Route by July 28

The Final Environmental Impact Statement was released to the Sound Transit Executive Committee Wednesday - continuing the preferred alternative of a route along Bellevue Way and 112th Ave. SE.

Sound Transit appears to have ruled out putting light rail in Bellevue along a proposed BNSF rail way line that the city of Bellevue spent $670,000 to study, according to the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) presented to the Sound Transit Executive Committee on Thursday.

The statement noted city's data compiled by Arup on behalf of the city of Bellevue, the new data were not factored into the final comparison of routes, said Sound Transit spokesman Geoff Patrick.

And the city, in a letter sent to Sound Transit earlier this week, "acknowledges that costs remain a concern" for the route it studied, and said the city wanted to work on decreasing the impacts of Sound Transit's preferred route and on finding money to pay for a transit tunnel through downtown Bellevue.

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Sound Transit's preferred East Link route between Interstate 90 and downtown continues to be along Bellevue Way and 112th Avenue Southeast, which will connect to downtown, according to the FEIS. The decisions on the routes will be made considering primarily which routes would cost the least and which routes would have the most ridership, Patrick said.

However, the majority of the Bellevue council wanted Sound Transit to take another look at a route that largely followed Interstate 90 and the BNSF rail way corridor along Interstate 405, and four of the seven members -- council members Jennifer Robertson and Kevin Wallace, Deputy Mayor Conrad Lee and Mayor Don Davidson  -- supported a $670,000 study that tried to find ways to increase ridership and lower costs.

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The preference over the route has split the council, with council members Claudia Balducci, John Chelminiak and Grant Degginer not in support of extra study of the rail way corridor.

Community members were also split on the issue. Many said that light rail along Bellevue Way Southeast would be loud for neighbors in the Enatai and Surrey Downs neighborhoods in particular, and would damage the historic Winters House, and would be disruptive to traffic along Bellevue Way Southeast during the length of the construction.

However, other neighbors testified that Sound Transit's preferred route offered the best chance of success for light rail because of the lower costs and the level of ridership and the length of time required to build it. The Bellevue portion of East Link is only part of the system -- Sound Transit plans to build light rail from Seattle through Mercer Island to Redmond and Kirkland.

But city council members indicated this week that they wanted to show a united front in discussions with Sound Transit, advocating for the best way to mitigate the impact of light rail to Bellevue -- including trying to find funding for a downtown tunnel.

"We've been in discussions with Sound Transit," Chelminiak announced at the council meeting Tuesday, according to a city press release. "Those (discussions) have focused in particular on the B Segment, and really looking at the question of -- how do we mitigate?"

"I believe that now is the time to engage with Sound Transit in an in-depth and cooperative discussion," Robertson said, according to the press release, "as we have continued to do, to ensure that we have a route that meets Bellevue's high standards and stays true to our best practices."

The documents with the Final Environmental Impact Statement are available on Sound Transit's website by clicking here.


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