SDOT Advances Upgrades for SoDo's Fourth Avenue To Handle Busway Closure
The Sound Transit board looks to be moving full speed ahead on West Seattle Link, eager to start construction on the only Sound Transit 3 project in the pipeline that has received the federal go-ahead. With the green light to start work potentially coming as soon as the end of the year, there's a lot of work happening behind the scenes to get ready. One major piece of that work is preparing for the permanent closure of the SoDo busway, a corridor that carries hundreds of buses per day, with the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) getting ready to accommodate all of those buses on Fourth Avenue instead.
The SoDo "E3" bus way between Royal Brougham and Spokane Street is a quiet workhorse of Seattle's transit system, providing a dedicated pathway for local and regional buses through South Downtown, but Sound Transit will be building a light rail guideway in its place, connecting to West Seattle and ultimately a second rail tunnel underneath Downtown to be built as part of Ballard Link.
While at least one alternative in front of Sound Transit board members right now to deal with a $34.5 billion shortfall would see the 4.1-mile light rail line to Alaska Junction indefinitely deferred, Seattle officials have a strong appetite to keep the project moving. Without work on West Seattle Link getting underway, Sound Transit likely wouldn't see another rail line open until 2035.
Shifting all of the riders currently using the busway onto Fourth Avenue, one of Seattle's most dangerous streets, clearly can't happen without some upgrades. The street features very narrow sidewalks, virtually no bus stop infrastructure like shelters or benches, and long stretches without marked crossings.
https://www.theurbanist.org/sdot-advances-upgrades-for-sodos-fourth-avenue-to-handle-busway-closure/
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