2:07 PM: In a presentation prepared for today’s Sound Transit Board System Extension Committee – meeting right now – ST staff says they can get the West Seattle Link Extension light-rail price tag down as low as $4.9 billion. The proposal would include three major components – first, dropping the Avalon station:
Then the Delridge guideway would shift northward, sparing West Seattle Health Club and reducing effects on Longfellow Creek:
And the Junction station would be smaller – sparing Jefferson Square:
We’re monitoring the committee meeting remotely and will update as they discuss this (no votes are planned today, this is a briefing) – if you want to watch live, the link is in the agenda.
2:17 PM: The briefing, led by ST’s Brad Owen, is beginning, starting with a sheaf of background. Owen says “independent cost verification” has validated their projections. ST’s Jason Hampton, WS project director, then takes over. He says some of the smaller cost-cutting measures can just be incorporated into the design process, such as right-sizing Duwamish River guideway components. Those are the first level (“lever”) changes. In the second “lever,” they’d include various technical changes and also “removal of the tail track” so the “crossover” could be in front of the Junction station.
2:26 PM: Hampton gets to the Avalon station cut, which would be a “lever 3” – requiring board approval – decision. That means less impact on the southwest side of Avalon, for example, and a tunnel portal on the east side of Avalon. The reduced effects on Longfellow Creek would mean most significantly, “no over-water” passage of the track. The Junction station would be shallower – 30+ feet rather than 60+ feet down – because of changes including the tail-track elimination…