[BATS] CID lightrail letter- feedback requested

Thu Apr 10 20:59:31 PDT 2025

Good letter Katrina, thanks for sharing. TRU did advocate for the 4th Ave shallow option two years ago (hard to believe it was that long ago). It sounds like that’s more or less off the table at this point, at least from what I’ve heard, but good on Betty and Brian for continuing the fight.

As for how to send a letter officially as TRU, there are two routes. We can discuss and vote on it at a membership meeting, or (particularly if it’s time-sensitive) our General Council (body of elected officers, also legally our board) can make a decision. We try to make significant decisions at membership meetings wherever possible, especially if anything is likely to be controversial. If a recommendation came from BATS as a whole that’s obviously a stronger starting point, but as members we all have the right to propose things like this as individuals as well.

Hope that helps for next time!

Katie

> On Apr 9, 2025, at 6:17 PM, Katrina Hoch <katrinahoch at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Resending with my letter pasted below in case you're not on a mac and can't read the attachment:
> 
> April 9, 2025
> 
> Dear Seattle Board of Directors,
> 
> I am a Seattle resident and transit rider. I live in Greenwood, and I anticipate making use of the planned Ballard to West Seattle Lightrail line, to access various parts of the city, to transfer lines to get to the airport, and to transfer to Amtrak to travel to Portland and other cities.  I am writing to you specifically about the planning for the Chinatown-International District (CID) station on this new line. I wish to express my very strong support for choosing a station location that is co-located with the existing King Street-Union Station and CID-Lightrail stations with easy pedestrian access to transfers, and that takes into account the concerns of Chinatown residents and preserves this vital cultural center and historic district in our city. 
> 
> As more people move to the region, our city is choked with traffic, and this decreases all residents’ quality of life, increases commute times, harms economic vitality, and degrades air quality. The climate impacts of car travel are undeniable. To reduce all these drawbacks of heavy car traffic, we need to build transit that people will actually use for all their needs  If a multi-block walk is required to change lines, many people will opt to drive or take a taxi or Uber/Lyft instead of using transit. We already have the beginnings of a transit hub at King Street-Union Station and I believe we need to build off of this. It seems to me to be ridiculous to build new CID (north and south) stations that require a 10-15 minute walk to access this hub. I sincerely hope that all members of the ST Board are transit riders themselves. If any of you are not, I would recommend spending one week taking transit to work and everywhere else that you go. Try to envision what walking for 10-15 minutes to change stations does to your day. This is worse if you have mobility challenges or small children or are carrying a suitcase. 
> 
> I would also like to voice my strong support for choosing a station location option that preserves the historic district of Chinatown. This is a vital cultural center in the city, serving as a place where Chinese-American residents and residents with limited English feel comfortable. At the same time, it provides a destination for shopping, food, and cultural attractions for residents from all over the city, and tourists from all over the world. It is the last Chinatown in the Pacific Northwest. I hope that Sound Transit will work closely with community members and organizations, to ensure that impact on Chinatown residents, businesses and historic areas is minimal.  This is important for equity for Chinatown and its residents, but will also benefit all of Seattle by preserving this important cultural part of our city.
> 
> Currently I believe that the 4th avenue station option fulfills these criteria best. If another option is considered, such as a variation of the 5th avenue alternative,I believe it must meet these criteria.
> 
> Thanks for your consideration,
> 
> Katrina Hoch
> ___
> 
> Katrina Hoch, PhD, MS, RD
> 206-939-9406
> katrinahoch at gmail.com <mailto:katrinahoch at gmail.com>
> 
> 
> On Wed, Apr 9, 2025 at 5:19 PM Katrina Hoch <katrinahoch at gmail.com <mailto:katrinahoch at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 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 <mailto:katrinahoch at gmail.com>
> _______________________________________________
> Transit mailing list
> Transit at transitriders.org
> http://lists.transitriders.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/transit

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.transitriders.org/pipermail/transit/attachments/20250410/35fb134c/attachment.html>