[BATS] CID lightrail letter- feedback requested

[Katrina Hoch]

Hi Bats committee,

I'm the person was interested in the CID lightrail station. I've had very
limited time to work on this. I did reach out to both Seattle Subway and
the MASS coalition. Both have stepped back from working on this project.

I've also been in touch with Betty Lau and Brien Chow of Transit Equity for
all, who very strongly favor the 4th avenue alternative, and who are
working very hard on this, basically alone. They share our concerns about
the split North/South stations -- they won't provide easy transit
transfers, and thus will discourage people from taking transit. They also
are strongly against the fifth avenue shallow alternative, because the
location would decimate 35% of Chinatown, a community that has suffered
historic injustices from city infrastructure projects.

 Last night I had a zoom call with Betty Lau and Brien Chow. They made a
strong case to me that the existing 5th avenue alternatives would destroy
Chinatown, and that the engineering problems with the 4th avenue station
have been overstated by the city (by burying a report that contradicted
some of that, etc) because the city wanted to tip the scales for the 5th
avenue alternative. I'm not able to assess all of the technical issues. But
I am convinced that there needs to be a solution that preserves Chinatown
as much as possible and co-locates the station next to King Street- Union
station and the other CID lightrail station.

In any case, I just had a bit of time today and I wrote a letter that I
plan to submit online,  as written testimony before the ST Board meeting
tomorrow (
https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/news-events/calendar/system-expansion-committee-meeting-2025-04-10
).

I was planning to submit the letter just as an individual rather than as a
TRU member. I'm not sure what is the process for having something come from
all of TRU, and am not sure if TRU would want to endorse my letter. I
realize the concerns about Chinatown are slightly to the side of what TRU's
main focus is. I also think some transit advocacy groups (such as MASS
coalition and Seattle Subway) like both the 4th avenue shallow and 5th
avenue shallow options for different reasons, and decided not to push for
either. I wonder if TRU membership feels the same way.  I'm fine with
submitting as an individual because i've included some of these more
personal concerns.

If anyone has time to take a peek at my letter, its attached - let me know
your thoughts. If you want to sign together, that's great too. If not,
totally fine.  I just feel like I need to do something.

And, for the future -- what is the process for sending a letter that is
official from all of TRU? Would we need to discuss at our BATS meeting
first? That's still an option for our next meeting - there will be other
opportunities to submit something to future ST board meetings, though time
is getting short.

Katrina


___

Katrina Hoch, PhD, MS, RD
206-939-9406
katrinahoch at gmail.com
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