As someone who usually light rails around the city, driving from Capitol Hill to Ballard was like enduring Dante’s nine levels of hell. Red-line traffic up I-5, east to west surface street chaos, Apple Maps ETA climbing. By the time I reached the Ballard Community Center for Councilmember Dan Strauss’ town hall last night, another 12 minutes had been added to my 35-minute commute.
The situation was too on-the-nose. It was Strauss’ first town hall since Sound Transit announced it’s considering delaying the long-promised and voter-approved Ballard Light Rail Extension. At a board retreat last week, Sound Transit presented members three options to address its $34.5 billion shortfall over the next 20 years, none of which included a Ballard stop. “Ballard Dan” Strauss, who represents the neighborhood, issued a news release expressing his disappointment.
“The Ballard Link Extension is projected to serve the most riders of any project in Sound Transit history,” he wrote. “Sound Transit needs to sharpen their pencils, do the analysis, and bring us a plan that gets to Ballard.”
On Tuesday, Strauss shot an email out to constituents, informing them of the Sound Transit developments and reminding them to RSVP for the town hall and send in their questions. Only four people talked about the light rail. The 19 other speakers wanted to talk about homeless people living in RVs, road hazards, and yes, public safety. After the meeting, Strauss said he expected that. It is Ballard after all.
One person asked if everything had been done to minimize the cost of the Ballard link, considering Sound Transit tacked on the cost of the planned second light rail tunnel through downtown Seattle, which would expand the line’s capacity and allow more trains to run.
That’s one of Strauss’ gripes. In 2021, when Sound Transit updated cost estimates and reworked the Sound Transit 3 plan, it separated the West Seattle–Ballard project into two different ones. The second tunnel—a major, expensive piece of infrastructure—stayed tied to the Ballard segment, which is why Ballard’s extension seems so costly on paper.
“We have to look at cost sharing for that downtown tunnel because the region benefits from it,” Strauss said.
Miss Kimball, an eight-year Ballardite in her 80s, can’t drive. Getting anywhere—to the hospital in First Hill after a recent stroke, or to the theater—meant waiting for transfers in the rain and snow. We need better service “to take part in all of the arts and culture that we have in the city,” she told Strauss. He agreed.
King County Metro should have provided that service, he said, after the Seattle Transit Measure was passed by voters in 2020 to fund more metro hours.
“We have less service today than we did in the pandemic,” Strauss said. “Metro is overlooking Ballard. They’re not spending our money.”
Kirk Robbins, who served alongside Strauss on the Ballard District Council, asked Strauss how they could get Sound Transit to come up with an option that includes a Ballard link.
Strauss said he told the board that they’ve zoned Ballard specifically for light rail and that they need to revisit the drawing board. “I’m not gonna give up on it,” he told Robbins.
Green Lake resident Thomas Powers, a volunteer with Seattle Subway, asked if Strauss considered new revenue sources, like a special tax district.
“We’re looking at all of it,” Strauss said. “But for a special district where we can tax ourselves more, we don’t have enough people to fund everything.”
While the Ballard light rail fans didn’t turn out in force to Strauss’ town hall, they appeared to pack the room at Thursday’s Sound Transit board meeting. Seattle Subway has organized a letter writing campaign and a call to action. “Solutions to ST3 problems absolutely exist, Sound Transit just needs to hear that we, the public, demand they use them,” reads the rallying cry on their site. Those upcoming board meetings should be interesting.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated there wasn’t a direct bus service from Ballard to downtown.