About Transit Equity for All (TEA)
Our Cause
Another major project is harming the Seattle Chinatown International District (Chinatown, Japantown, Little Saigon): Sound Transit wants to take 3 blocks from the National Register Chinatown Historic District again. Transit Equity for All aims to protect the historic Chinatown International District neighborhood while improving access and quality of public transit for all residents, visitors, business owners, and community members.
RIGHT NOW: Our concerns with North/South options and our reasoning for continuing to Move Foward on 4th include:
- For CID residents, it’s a farther walk to N of CID Station on 3rd and James to get to other parts of the region
- The extra distance to get to transit from CID is difficult for frail seniors and those with mobility or neurological challenges, considering the numerous up and downhill slopes just between Pioneer Square and the CID.
- Loss of accessibility to transit for those using walkers, canes, and wheelchairs.
- In by-passing the CID, it isolates CID businesses from economic opportunities that was introduces during 4th and 5th Ave options in the first place.
- N & S of CID do not spare CID from construction impacts, considering the immediate proximity to historic Pioneer Square, Japantown, and the former Immigration and Naturalization Services building.
- Choosing 4th means the city can coordinate with Sound Transit on other major infrastructure projects at the same time: re-builds of 4th Ave. Viaduct, 2nd Ave. Extension South, Jackson St bridges, and Main Street Bridge.
- Denny Transmission line instead of serially tying up the CID with one major project after another.
- Equity issue in that other neighborhoods benefit while CID does not
4th is the only station that connects to the 2 Line and 3 Line and is closest to other transit modes (trains, busses, ferries, streetcar) - 4th Avenue has been studied the most and is in the DEIS; the others are not and will require up to a year to do a supplemental draft EIS and public comment period
- ST studies of 4th Avenue have already reduced business and resident impacts and shortened construction time by a year
In 2022: Sound Transit says it has the choice of building on 4th or 5th Avenue and has yet to decide. However, their actions show they prefer 5th Avenue:
· Emphasizing 5th Avenue is a better route than 4th Avenue in presentations through selective criteria, e.g. resident displacement: 120 for 4th Avenue, 0 for 5th Avenue.
· Blocking community members from being in the CID Community Advisory Group.
· Not explaining what “full closure of King Street or Weller Street” means to the CID.
· Not explaining how businesses on King Street, Weller Street will be permanently moved, disrupting community life, residents; 1200 elderly and 300 businesses.
· Sending agents to 5th Avenue and King Street business owners, offering moving money to begin 5+ year construction plan.
· Incomplete plans presented for 4th Avenue options.
· Concluding that demolition and construction “will not impact neighborhood cohesion,” AKA community life.
In 2023: Sound Transit introduces North and South of Chinatown International District alignments, in addition to 4th and 5th Ave options still on the table. While being proposed as more "hands-off" options away from the CID, they pose new concerns:
· Introduced no more than 3 months ahead of the announcement of a Preferred Alternative (March 2023), there simply have not been enough studies and analysis of North/South options impacts compared to the years-long review and community education about 4th and 5th Ave options.
· North/South options will include the removal of stops and potential connections from the existing Link station, which extends travel time and complicates transfers that "will mystify and anger riders of all incomes, backgrounds, and home counties for decades."
· The "hands-off" assumption about North/South's placement dismisses their potential disruption to historic Pioneer Square, which includes portions of the former Chinatown prior to early 20th Century displacement, as well as the northern edge of current Japantown, the National Register of Historic Places listed/eligible King County Administration building to the north and the former Immigration and Naturalization Services building to the south.