Ballard Link Extension
The Ballard Link Extension is a planned light rail project to be built by Sound Transit in Seattle, Washington, United States. It would extend the 1 Line of the Link light rail system by from Downtown Seattle to Ballard with intermediate stops in South Lake Union, Lower Queen Anne, and Interbay. The Ballard Link Extension is planned to serve eight new stations and rebuild portions of two existing stations. The project would comprise a new tunnel through Downtown Seattle and South Lake Union as well as elevated sections in other areas. It is planned to open in 2039 at a cost of over $20billion at full buildout.
The Ballard–Downtown Seattle corridor had been served by local streetcars and buses since 1890. Proposals to build rapid transit to Ballard date back to the early 20th century and were included in two unsuccessful ballot measures under the Forward Thrust program in 1968 and 1970. Sound Transit and the city government began a joint study of a potential light rail line on the corridor in 2013 that endorsed a route through Interbay. It was included as part of the Sound Transit 3 program, approved by voters in 2016, alongside an extension to West Seattle.
Environmental assessment for the combined West Seattle–Ballard project began in early 2018 and produced 24 early route options that would be among those studied in an environmental impact statement. The selection of a preferred alternative by Sound Transit was delayed due to opposition to a cut-and-cover station from residents in the Chinatown–International District neighborhood. Several design changes were made prior to the release of the draft environmental impact statement in 2022, which was followed by the selection of a preferred alternative for most sections; a decision for the Chinatown–International District neighborhood was deferred to a later date. A new route, which avoided construction of a station in the neighborhood's core, was selected as the preferred alternative in March 2023 but other options were retained for further studies. Due to delays in the planning process, the Ballard Link Extension was spun off into a standalone project in October 2023.
History
Predecessor routes
The northwestern neighborhood of Ballard was originally incorporated as a city in 1890 and annexed into Seattle in 1906. The area was initially connected through ferries on Puget Sound, which were followed by the construction of the West Street and North End Electric Railway in November 1890. The privately-operated electric streetcar, one of the first in the area, ran for south from Ballard through Interbay and Downtown Seattle on Western Avenue to terminate in Pioneer Square. The operating company was acquired by Stone & Webster during their amalgamation of streetcar lines in Seattle; the first city-owned streetcar line opened in 1914 to connect Ballard and Downtown Seattle via the south side of the new Lake Washington Ship Canal. The more direct Interbay route was acquired by the city government in 1918 and absorbed into the municipal system that expanded with new service on 15th Avenue in 1927.Ballard's streetcars were permanently replaced by trolleybuses on June 30, 1940, after the opening of the new Ballard Bridge. The Seattle Transit System operated two trolleybus routes along 15th Avenue Northwest between Ballard, Interbay, and Downtown Seattle until they were converted into motor coach routes in August 1963. These routes became part of Metro Transit in 1973 until a long-term suspension began in September 2023. They had been replaced as the primary transit route for the Downtown–Ballard corridor by the RapidRide D Line, which began service in September 2012 and incorporates some bus rapid transit features and more frequent service.
Rail proposals
Several unsuccessful proposals to finance the construction of a rapid transit system in Seattle and the surrounding area were made during the 20th century. These included plans that would serve Ballard and connect the neighborhood to Downtown Seattle via Interbay or other routes. Civic planner Virgil Bogue's 1911 comprehensive plan envisioned a subway line from Golden Gardens Park at Northwest 85th Street to Downtown Seattle, with elevated stations in Ballard, Interbay, and Lower Queen Anne. The rapid transit system was rejected by voters in March 1912. A new transit proposal emerged during the 1960s as part of the Forward Thrust ballot measures, a series of civic initiatives that would be funded by several cities around Seattle. The proposed system would serve 32 stations on four corridors, including one from Ballard to Downtown Seattle that would take approximately 15 minutes to traverse. The Ballard–Downtown line would have been tunneled under 15th Avenue Northwest from Crown Hill to the south side of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, elevated through Interbay, and enter a tunnel to serve the Seattle Center and Belltown. The February 1968 ballot measure failed to reach the 60percent threshold required by the state government to issue municipal bonds to finance the local share of the $1.15billion construction cost; Ballard itself had voted by a 6–4 margin against the program. A second attempt in May 1970 received only 46percent approval due to the "Boeing bust", a local economic downturn caused by layoffs at Boeing, a major employer.The Seattle Center Monorail, opened for the Century 21 Exposition in 1962, served a portion of the Ballard–Downtown corridor by providing a transit connection to the Seattle Center campus. Several proposals to expand it into a larger transit system were explored by the city government and other organizations during the late 20th century. A study that proposed a loop through the South Lake Union neighborhood was funded by a group of businesspeople in 1994 as part of the Seattle Commons park plan. The Elevated Transportation Company was formed in 1996 to study a municipal monorail system with planning funds approved by voters the following year. The study would comprise corridors not already part of Sound Transit's planned light rail system—Link—that was scheduled to begin construction sooner. The first corridor, named the Green Line in 2002, was to cover from Ballard to West Seattle with intermediate stops in Downtown Seattle, at the Seattle Center, and in Interbay when completed in 2009. The line would have required a fixed bridge over the Lake Washington Ship Canal with a minimum clearance of to comply with U.S. Coast Guard recommendations. The monorail project was funded by a motor vehicle excise tax that did not meet projected revenues; it was also delayed two years due to design changes and a lack of willing bidders to construct the Green Line. By 2005, the original $1.75billion cost had been revised to $11billion due to more realistic construction projections and a longer debt payment plan. The city's voters rejected a measure to fund a truncated version of the Green Line in November 2005, which led to the formal disbandment of the monorail authority three years later.
The city government revived the Seattle Streetcar system with the opening of the South Lake Union Streetcar in 2007 and planned to expand the new network to several neighborhoods, including Ballard. Under one proposal, an extension of the South Lake Union line would continue on Westlake Avenue to Fremont and turn northwest on Leary Way to reach Ballard. The Seattle City Council adopted plans for streetcar routes in December 2008 but did not allocate funding to construct the four-line system. The Ballard–Fremont–Downtown corridor was included in the city's 2011 transit master plan update and funding for the project was included in a city transportation levy that was rejected by voters.
Light rail study and approval
The Regional Transit Authority included two Ballard corridors in its initial long-range plan, adopted in May 1996 ahead of a successful ballot measure to finance the first phase of the light rail system. The Ballard–Downtown and Ballard–University District corridors were both listed as potential rail extensions with an unspecified technology. A joint study with the Seattle city government for the two corridors was funded with $800,000 in federal grants, city revenues, and $2million allocated in the Sound Transit 2 ballot measure that was approved by voters in 2008. Seattle mayor Mike McGinn had proposed an accelerated study of light rail extensions to Ballard and West Seattle during his 2009 campaign as an alternative to the state government's plans to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a highway tunnel. The Ballard study began in early 2013 with plans to select a project in time for a potential regional transit ballot measure in 2016. The early corridor options included a rapid streetcar on Westlake Avenue, a bored tunnel under Queen Anne Hill, and a new bridge over the Lake Washington Ship Canal dedicated to transit uses.Sound Transit and the Seattle Department of Transportation completed their study of the Ballard–Downtown transit corridor in June 2014 and produced five route options: two that used elevated guideways in Interbay and connected to a downtown tunnel; one that ran at-grade through Interbay and Belltown; one that was fully tunneled and had stations in Queen Anne and Fremont; and a rapid streetcar that extended from South Lake Union to Fremont and Ballard. Several of the route options were further divided between a tunnel under the Ship Canal or a movable bridge with a clearance. The Ballard–Downtown corridor options through Interbay and on Westlake Avenue were selected in August 2015 as candidate projects for potential inclusion in Sound Transit 3, an expansion package that would be presented as a ballot measure. The preliminary concepts ranged in estimated cost from $1.73billion for an at-grade route on Westlake Avenue to $5.31billion for a grade-separated route with a new Downtown Seattle tunnel. The new downtown tunnel would be built in conjunction with a West Seattle project and allow for trains on the Tacoma–Seattle line to continue to Ballard instead of using the existing Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.
The draft plan for Sound Transit 3 was released in March 2016 and proposed a Ballard–Downtown light rail line that would open in 2038 if approved by voters during the 2016 general election. The preliminary plan was a line with nine stations that would use a movable bridge over the Ship Canal and mostly follow 15th Avenue Northwest through Interbay to the Lower Queen Anne area with a mix of elevated and at-grade sections. The line would then continue into a new tunnel that serves South Lake Union, Downtown Seattle, and the Chinatown–International District neighborhood. It was estimated to cost up to $4.76billion to construct and would carry 114,000 to 145,000 daily passengers with trains at a frequency of every sixminutes. Sound Transit later modified the planned route to use a fully elevated guideway through Interbay, but rejected a request from community organizations in the Ballard area to replace the movable Ship Canal crossing with a tunnel due to its $450million cost. The final plan, adopted in June 2016, moved the completion date for the Ballard line to 2035 and included funding from suburban areas in the Sound Transit district for the $1.7billion downtown tunnel, which was described as a regional facility. Sound Transit 3 was passed by voters on November 8, 2016, and appropriated $4.2billion to construct light rail to Ballard via a new downtown tunnel.