Making progress and keeping you in the loop
Thanks to everyone who rode alongside us in 2019; asking questions, providing input and sharing insights about your neighborhoods and communities.
Looking for a quick summary of where we are in project development and how we got here? Here's an overview we shared at neighborhood forums last November and December. You can also find the latest maps of route and station alternatives moving forward for study in the Draft EIS.
2020 lookahead
Environmental review
This year, we will continue preliminary design and develop the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), which will study potential impacts of the alternatives on the natural and built environment. The DEIS is scheduled to be published in early 2021.
Opportunities to get involved
- Summer 2020: We will host station planning workshops in your community to help inform early station design development. Stay tuned for dates, locations and more details.
- Early 2021: Once the Draft EIS is published, we will host a series of open houses and provide an online opportunity to collect comments from the public and agencies. This will be the next official comment period for the project. The Sound Transit board will then confirm or modify the preferred alternative based on the EIS analysis and public and agency comments. Sound Transit will then prepare the Final EIS for publication in 2022, and the board would select the project to be built.
Visit us at festivals
- Tết in Seattle on Jan. 18 and 19
- Lunar New Year on Feb. 8
2019 recap
In 2019 we worked alongside community members, agency partners and advisory groups to reach several exciting project milestones, bringing us steps closer to expanding light rail from downtown Seattle to West Seattle and Ballard.
After wrapping up work with our Stakeholder Advisory Group and Elected Leadership Group last spring, the Sound Transit Board identified preferred alternatives and other alternatives to study in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). We're now in the environmental review phase of the project.
2019 Highlights and activities
- 5 public meetings in February during the scoping comment period where we collected more than 2,800 public and agency comments on route and station alternatives, topics to study in the Draft EIS and the project purpose and need.
- 4 Stakeholder Advisory Group meetings and 3 Elected Leadership Group meetings to wrap up the alternatives development phase.
- 96 briefings with community organizations, neighborhood groups and social service providers.
- 5 public meetings in November and December to share information about the environmental review process and gather feedback that will help inform station planning.
- 25 fairs, festivals and tabling events where we talked to over 6,800 people, answering questions about light rail and collected your thoughts.
We also received nearly 4,000 comments and questions in 2019. Your thoughts and suggestions will help us deliver a light rail system that will move thousands of riders through the city and region. Thanks for a very productive year!