Crucial Ballard Link Deadline Pushed Back Yet Again by Feds
One of Sound Transit's biggest planned light rail projects continues to suffer delays as the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) hems and haws over approval of a key environmental document, reflecting a nationwide hostility to transit projects coming from the Trump administration. The delays are adding costs and keeping communities across multiple Seattle neighborhoods in limbo.
The Ballard Link Extension's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) is currently months overdue, and last week Sound Transit confirmed that they will again miss the most recent deadline of publication at the end of May thanks to delays at FTA. With this document unpublished, Sound Transit can't confirm a preferred alternative and move the project forward into final design.
Those delays are happening against a backdrop of major decisions at the Sound Transit Board of Directors, with the Ballard Line potentially set to be truncated into phases, stopping at either Seattle Center or Smith Cove until the agency can either find additional revenue or shave off costs. The idea of giving up on a firm timeline to get to 15th Avenue NW and NW Market Street in Ballard a full decade after it was approved by voters has drawn considerable pushback from Seattle residents.
At a Sound Transit board System Expansion Committee meeting earlier this month, Brad Owen, executive director of the delivery team handling the Ballard and West Seattle Link Extensions, told committee members the timeline for DEIS remained up in the air – a fact that has been made official in the days since.
https://www.theurbanist.org/crucial-ballard-link-deadline-pushed-back-yet-again-by-feds/
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