Kenmore City Councilmember David Baker offered a sharp criticism of the City of Seattle’s slow and halting process to rezone the area around 130th Street Station during Thursday’s Sound Transit System Expansion Committee meeting. Baker is one of 18 Sound Transit boardmembers who decide the fate of transit projects across the tri-county area. Transit advocates — The Urbanist included — fought to add the infill light rail station to Sound Transit plans, winning funding via the 2016 Sound Transit (ST3) vote and accelerated the timeline during the 2021 realignment process.
The argument for 130th infill station hinged on the site’s strength both to provide east-west bus connections, strengthening ties to Bitter Lake and Lake City, and to encourage transit-oriented development (TOD) in the low density residential land in the vicinity. In his remarks, Baker argued Seattle was not holding up its end of the bargain on TOD.
“If I’m not mistaken, zoning hasn’t been changed yet. It’s still pretty much residential single-family,” Baker said. “We’re talking about getting something done and built here in a couple of years and it’s not even zoned for it. So I’m really curious why the urgency on getting the project done on the Sound Transit side, but absolutely no urgency on the Seattle side.”
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell declined to respond to his fellow Sound Transit boardmember’s criticism. For his part, Baker said he was focused on outcomes, rather than trying to call anybody out.
“I’m sorry Mayor Harrell, I’m not trying to throw stones, but it’s just reality that they’ve had the opportunity to increase zoning in the area to make it more transit-friendly, but it’s still not done,” Baker said. “They’ve had since 2015 to fix the zoning, and it’s now 2023 and the zoning has still not been fixed. I would love to see a successful station… and the system to be as functional as it can. Everything else seems to be happening except this one.”
