Seattle council member offers drastic proposal to save Ballard light rail
To try to salvage light rail service to Ballard, Seattle City Councilmember Dan Strauss has called for a radical and sudden change: Build first from Ballard to Westlake, instead of starting with a new Sound Transit tunnel downtown.
While Strauss advocates for Ballard, fellow transit board members Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and King County Executive Girmay Zahilay issued their own 11th-hour amendments Wednesday, to move the endangered Graham Street Station into the affordable" category, instead of scrapping that train stop in South Seattle.
The community of Renton, which has paid taxes three decades with no prospects for light rail, was on the verge of losing its bus-station garage, but a late proposal Wednesday would shift $100 million toward that project, and other money for parking along I-405, where a rapid freeway-bus corridor could open within three years.
All those maneuvers come in advance of an epic transit board vote scheduled Thursday, to pick winners and losers while Sound Transit tackles a long term $35 billion shortfall.
Future lines to West Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Issaquah and South Kirkland (in that apparent order) are all deemed affordable to build between now and the early 2050s, though Sound Transit has stopped promising specific years.
A few weeks ago, board Chair Dave Somers issued a scenario that would build a second train tunnel from Sodo through downtown, but stop short at Seattle Center, and thus cut off Smith Cove, Interbay and Ballard stations, as unaffordable near term.
"My proposal is to connect one of the densest places in the region to light rail," Strauss said. By contrast, opening that second tunnel before reaching Ballard "creates redundant light rail service downtown where they already have light rail," he said.
Under his proposal, riders coming from Ballard would have to transfer at Westlake, for trains to points south, such as Pioneer Square or Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. An earlier estimate assumed roughly 70,000 riders daily would use new stations between Ballard and Westlake, if Sound Transit were to connect that area to a second downtown tunnel.
A second downtown tunnel, featured in the Sound Transit 3 ballot measure of 2016, is meant to add massive regional transit capacity, distributed among three train lines: West Seattle to Everett, Ballard to Tacoma, and from Redmond to Mariner (near the south Everett city limit) via Lake Washington.
Strauss' Ballard-first idea may get pushback from members outside Seattle, because the second downtown tunnel is supposed to be a regional asset, boosting capacity for people traveling along the north-south "spine, where most trains from a 112-mile system converge.
They might object to designating the ST3 downtown tunnel as a later phase to be funded and built years after Ballard.
Strauss said he's chatted with most board colleagues and so far, they've responded with more questions than commitments to vote yes. More time is needed to study how a Ballard-Westlake project might work, he said.
For instance, how and where could a downtown-to-Sodo tunnel be attached to his starter line's Westlake station? Would the act of burying and raising tunnel boring machines multiple times, if there are two different phases, drive up costs?
Basically, he said some $10 billion in existing and future Sound Transit revenues from Seattle, Shoreline and Lake Forest Park would be dedicated to a six- or seven-station Westlake-Ballard spur. That sum should be near the actual cost, Strauss said.
That leaves downtown to be funded with a projected $7 billion more from other areas, to go along with prospective federal grants, any new taxation, and whatever savings Sound Transit might find through leaner engineering. The full 7.7-mile line, as originally proposed from Sodo to Ballard, is believed to require around $22 billion.
Strauss responds Sound Transit has until early 2029 to pin down logistics, costs and finance for both a Ballard and a downtown segment, before environmental studies are done and federal grant applications come due.
Board chair Somers, who is the Snohomish County executive, did propose to add full funding to engineer the line all the way to Ballard, so Sound Transit can be ready to build when it's affordable.
And Strauss emphasized Wednesday he supports serving the spine beyond Seattle, and is confident a budget for the second downtown tunnel can be hammered out in 1 to 1½ years.
Graham Street Station
Neighbors have gathered, with support from Zahilay and Wilson, to push for their infill station in Rainier Valley, between the Columbia City and Othello stations, and serving a lower-income population. It was promised by 2031, on the ballot measure last decade.
Seattle would contribute up to $30 million if needed, to go with already secured $25 million in federal money, and a plan by mid-2027 to lower the $214 million price, according to an amendment by Wilson, Zahilay and board member Teresa Mosqueda, a Metropolitan King County Council member from West Seattle.
Zahilay, who grew up in the valley, told a town hall May 12 a pending car-rental tax increase - which the board is scheduled to approve Thursday - should be earmarked for Graham Street, and to help a Boeing Access Road park-and-ride station in north Tukwila that's still off the affordable list. That increase, going from 80 cents to $2.17 per $100 of rental fees, would generate roughly $8 million annually, to increase with inflation and growth.
Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.
This story was originally published May 27, 2026 at 11:43 PM.