The Urbanist - Op-Ed: Reconnect and Automate Ballard to West Seattle Rail to Save ST3

Sound Transit's $34.5 billion shortfall is placing light rail to Ballard and long promised stations like Graham Street on the chopping block, while phasing funded projects long into the future. Worse, these suffocating costs prevent addressing longstanding issues with the system that harm system reliability, efficiency, and equity goals – like separating at grade running in the Rainier Valley.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Sound Transit could save at least $15 billion by adopting international best practices and building automated light rail from Ballard to West Seattle. This reform would allow rail to get to Ballard by 2039, rather than decades later. This isn’t a fantasy technology and it’s not a shift that undoes a decade of planning work. This proposal is concerned solely with rail car design, signaling systems, and the savings achieved by reducing construction cost through more efficient operations.

The Sound Transit Board needs to direct CEO Dow Constantine to issue a Request for Information to railcar makers and systems integrators to gather the best ideas in the world to help deliver ALL lines promised in the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) ballot measure without delay. This recommendation is the product of dozens of interviews with former transit CEOs, project delivery experts, and engineering and design experts locally, nationally, and internationally. Several former U.S. Department of Transportation officials also provided input.

These findings are established in detail in our full report, which we shared with Constantine and Sound Transit staff over two weeks ago. We have heard no reply since.

https://www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-reconnect-and-automate-ballard-to-west-seattle-rail-to-save-st3/

Interesting concept. I should point out per Sound Transit when all of the light rail is completed there is not going to be a direct Ballard to West Seattle line. The final layout will be Ballard to Tacoma, Mariner to Redmond, Everett to West Seattle and a smaller Kirkland to Issaquah line.

Don't know how well the automated transit would work on surface MLK Way. Such is usually used on separate ROW.