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The East Link project will extend Seattle’s Sound Transit Link light rail system to provide service across Lake Washington, connecting Seattle with the cities of Bellevue and Redmond. Sound Transit developed the B7/C9T alignment as part of its Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the project. The City of Bellevue hired Arup to lead the effort to optimise the B7/C9T alternative by adding one rail station in south Bellevue and improving the alignment, with a goal of reducing costs and impacts while maintaining operating speed and reliability.
The B7-Revised alternative is approximately 3mi long with at-grade, elevated, and open-cut sections. Transit agency staff and Arup worked together to develop the alignment to avoid property impacts and devised foundation solutions for a crossing of the Mercer Slough wetlands, proposing innovative cost-saving techniques to protect this environmentally sensitive area. We also planned a new LRT station, a multi-modal transit centre, and a 1450-stall park-and-ride structure at the junction of I-90 leading into Bellevue’s business district. As part of this effort, Arup developed the station programme for transit and park-and-ride vehicles, and analysed traffic impacts around the station.
The concept design was subject to an early environmental screening to determine how it compared to the original B7 and C9T alternatives in areas including cost, right-of-way, and property impacts, transportation impacts, noise, visual impacts, and environmental/ecology impacts.
Arup proactively engaged agency stakeholders including Sound Transit, the Washington State Department of Transportation, and King County to obtain base information about the corridor and garner relevant input on the development of the alternative. They also organised and led a public involvement program that included three public open houses, each attended by hundreds of interested citizens.
