Sound Transit staff have advanced a set of modest changes intended to improve safety and 1 Line light rail reliability through Seattle’s Rainier Valley, but a number of Sound Transit boardmembers are pushing for consideration of bolder, long-term changes. The 4.5-mile stretch of tracks along MLK Jr Way S runs within the median, creating everyday safety hazards that pose real risks to the public.
Continuing to operate the light rail line in this way increases the potential for travel disruptions to impact thousands more riders as the 1 Line is ultimately extended to Ballard and Tacoma.
The issues stemming from this at-grade section have been apparent for quite some time, with a 2019 report in The Urbanist noting that a collision on MLK involving a train happens roughly every 40 days, on average. Ultimately, the decision to forgo building a light-rail tunnel through the Rainier Valley in the 1990s, a move that saved the agency $400 million at a time when finances were incredibly tight, has carried forward into myriad issues today.
In January 2024, King County Executive Dow Constantine tapped King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay to fill one of three King County vacancies on the 18-member Sound Transit Board. As a Skyway resident whose district spans the Rainier Valley, Zahilay gave the corridor a direct voice on the board.
After increased attention that Zahilay helped raise, a board motion earlier this year officially asked agency staff to create a master plan looking at ways to improve its at-grade crossings. A draft of that plan, presented to the board in late November, includes a laundry list of near and mid-term planned safety projects — most of which are geared toward impacting the behavior of pedestrians around train crossings.
Ideas that had long been proposed for MLK Way like pedestrian gates and improving signal timing are moving forward now, after a long period of the issues being ignored or minimized. But the question of whether Sound Transit can and will continue to run at-grade through the Rainier Valley in its current configuration, long-term, has mostly gone unaddressed in the conversation. Likewise, policymakers have not grappled with the uncomfortable reality that the street’s fundamental design as a car-centric speedway contributes to its high crash rate.
Over the next few years, Sound Transit is set to spend anywhere from $14 to $21 million adding pedestrian gates to spots at stations where sidewalks meet light rail tracks, with the first phase of this pilot set to be implemented by mid-2026 at both Columbia City and Othello Stations. That’s on top of added flashing signage, new markings on the pavement to warn pedestrians about train crossings, and a signal timing pilot currently underway in coordination with the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT).
At the board’s November 21 meeting, which featured an update on the master plan’s progress, most board members weren’t much interested in getting into the weeds on the individual spot improvements. Rather, Zahilay, along with Board Chair Dow Constantine and King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci, pushed Sound Transit staff to explore more long-range strategies that would fundamentally transform MLK Way, up to and including full grade separation.
“I saw completed projects. I saw current projects; what I’m not sure that I saw is future potential projects that are maybe on a larger scale than Sound Transit is ready for at this time,” Zahilay said. “Those types of long-term projects are going to keep coming up when I hold my listening sessions — lane reductions, grade separation, pedestrian overpasses. These are things that I’m not necessarily advocating for, because I don’t know the costs and the tradeoffs associated with each of those things.”
At listening sessions hosted by Zahilay’s office earlier this year, there was clear frustration from attendees that Sound Transit and SDOT were continuing to advocate within their own siloes, with a comprehensive look at MLK Way not being put forward by either agency.
Constantine echoed that sentiment, encouraging staff to take a comprehensive look at the issue, rather than continuing a piecemeal approach.
“Between now and finalization of the master plan next spring, I’d like to see the agency begin planning for long-term options for the community and the board to consider,” Constantine said. “One first step would be to look at the operational system needs to meet future ridership headways and service profiles, including looking at additional north-south alignments. I would like this planning effort to look at operational solutions as well as capital options. It should also include information related to service reliability and the potential need for additional light rail vehicles.”
While not at all highlighted in November’s presentation to the board, the draft plan does note that Sound Transit started to explore these long-term options over a year ago.
“In October 2023, Sound Transit conducted a high-level study to understand the potential risk, utility conflicts, potential impacts, and to develop a rough order of magnitude estimate for three grade-separated options along the Rainier Valley segment: an elevated guideway, tunnel, and open trench,” the draft notes. “The study also evaluated pedestrian grade-separated options at the three existing stations and two non station pedestrian crossings. It reviewed assumptions for construction and service impacts and potential mitigations for each grade-separated option.”
While we don’t yet know the outcomes of that study, it’s clear the Sound Transit is hopeful that the spot interventions being implemented now will have an impact on whether the push for a massive overhaul of MLK Way continues into the future.
“The outcomes from near- and mid-term Program projects will help guide future decisions regarding at-grade crossings systemwide, including whether grade-separated segments or pedestrian structures should be further considered for potential implementation,” the plan continues. Ultimately, that’s likely going to prove to be a Band-Aid on a flesh wound.
The Urbanist has put forward ideas for long-term solutions along MLK before, including the idea of grade-separating Link along Rainier Avenue and converting the existing at-grade segment into a streetcar line. But paying for upgrades like those would fall outside of the scope of the current ST3 program and require a significant new funding source.
Balducci, for her part, made it clear that she’s looking for the board to continue to push for “more systemic things that will make a really bigger difference, that will make the system noticeably safer, not just marginally safer.” As a way to get the two agencies out of their siloes, Balducci pushed for the safety plans created by Sound Transit to be better integrated with citywide safety plans created by jurisdictions like Seattle. The newly passed $1.55 billion Seattle transportation levy does include funding for a safety corridor project along MLK, even as the Harrell Administration has shied away from pursuing broader changes there over his first term.
“We could partner in the true sense of there could be projects that the cities want to engage in, that we also want to engage in, and we could share the planning and the costs and make those areas much safer, because there’s an interest on both sides of that,” Balducci said. “I want to make sure that we frame up a direction point where the board gets to give direction for what the next big steps are, because big steps will be needed, in my view, and I think that’s what we were seeing when we adopted the resolution.”
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell noticeably declined to join his fellow board members in this push for a broader scope of work, instead wanting more details about the planned pedestrian gates, which are still in design. As the board member best positioned to ensure that the City of Seattle and Sound Transit truly collaborate on this work, Harell could ultimately hold a veto regardless of how many other board members are on board, at least in the near term.
Although it initially appeared the current push for improvements along MLK Way would only result in a few spot improvements at most, momentum for looking at long-term solutions could bear fruit down the line. The hard part will come when Sound Transit needs to find a path to actually implementing those changes, but the consensus to study the idea is a major step in its own right.
Ryan Packer lives in the Summit Slope neighborhood of Capitol Hill and has been writing for the The Urbanist since 2015. They report on multimodal transportation issues, #VisionZero, preservation, and local politics. They believe in using Seattle's history to help attain the vibrant, diverse city that we all wish to inhabit. Ryan's writing has appeared in Capitol Hill Seattle Blog, Bike Portland, and Seattle Bike Blog, where they also did a four-month stint as temporary editor.