EVERETT — Sound Transit says it’s about 10% through the planning process for the 16 mile extension of the light rail line from Lynnwood to Everett and the remaining 90% is where they want the public to help shape the plan.
Sound Transit engineers, environmental planners and staff hosted the Everett extension’s first in-person open house and public hearing at Mariner High School, urging the public to voice their priorities for selecting the final light rail path into the heart of Snohomish County.
Jaclyn Gault, senior communications engagement specialist for Sound Transit told the crowd gathered in South Everett, “We are here to listen to you” and “your feedback will directly impact the project. So, we need to hear from you. ”
Gault put the estimated $12 billion extension into perspective for the crowd saying, “We’re pretty early in this process. We are in the planning phase of this process. We are in environmental planning, which is about a seven year period of planning, so it’s quite extensive. We’ve been doing it for about five years, and we’ve got only about a year and a half to go.”
The five year stretch has resulted in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Everett light rail extension which was released last month. The 200+ page document provides the general light rail path north from Lynnwood to Everett and at expected station locations offers some options for where stations can be located along the light rail route or alignment.
“We then have about two years of design that we work on,” Gault elaborated, “where we finalize the design. So when we’re done with the planning process, if you think about design as 100% design is when we start construction. We’re at about 10%, so we’re really early in that design process.”
So, we have to do final design for about another two years,” Gault previewed for the audience as she described more of the future timeline for light rail, saying, “The plan to start construction, once we finalize design, would happen no earlier than 2030. So we’re still about four years out from even starting construction. We would open the project in two phases. The first phase would (build) up to Southwest Everett industrial area, which is the Boeing (plant) and Paine Field area that would open in 2037. And then the last two stations, Evergreen (Way at Casino Road) and Everett would open in 2041, so that’s our current schedule.”
Gault advised the crowd that public input now is fundamental to choosing the path of light rail to Everett, saying, “Later in the design process, it gets harder and harder to make changes, so that’s the other reason it’s really great that you’re all here today because this is the time to make your comments before all the decisions are made, so that’s very key.”
Gault asked the crowd, which consisted of primarily South Everett neighbors, rhetorically, “So why give feedback? Why are you here? Why do we want to hear from you? You know, there’s a lot of technical information and a lot of times I hear from people that they don’t feel like they have a lot to say or to offer to us because we’re ‘the experts’. You are the experts in your community.”
The Sound Transit engagement specialist continued the message, “There’s a lot of stuff we don’t know. So, we’re here to hear your expertise. We will balance that with all of the technical information that we know, but you are key to this process,” she summarized, emphasizing its a federally mandated process.”
With that encouragement, and the public comment period now open until it closes on November 2, Gault told the audience, “We will collect all those comments. We will summarize them. We will give them to our Sound Transit Board and the Sound Transit Board will then select a preferred alternative. That will likely happen early next year. Then we will study that preferred alternative, which we refer to as an end-to-end alignment, so we can pick one option for each of those segments,” at Alderwood Mall, Ash Way, Mariner, Airport Road, Evergreen Way and ultimately in downtown Everett or Everett Station.
And we’ll study that into a Final EIS, and not until after that is published will we know exactly where the stations are going to go, where the routes are going to go. That gets approved by the federal government, the Federal Transit Administration. So, again, a lot of process, a lot of checks to go through but (in) early 2028, we should have a Record Of Decision, which the Federal Transit Administration issues.”
The next Sound Transit open house for light rail to Everett will be held Thurs. October 15th from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. at Carl Gipson Center, 3025 Lombard Ave., in Everett. The final in-person open house will be held Oct. 21, 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. at the Lynnwood Neighborhood Center, 19509 64th Ave. W.
The public is invited to comment on the Draft EIS in any of the following ways during the comment period which ends on November 2:
- Online via Sound Transit’s website
- Calling Sound Transit, 425-243-6255
- Email: [email protected]
- Snail Mail: Everett Link Extension
Attn: Galeeb Kachra
Sound Transit, 401 S Jackson St Seattle, WA 98104
Gault’s last measure of advice to the public at Mariner High School and other concerned residents was, “It’s not just going to be what gets the most positive comments. We want to know the why? So, really dig into the ‘why something is important’. Why you like something more than another. It’s really important for us to know what the priority is.”