Thank you to everyone who engaged with the Ballard Link Extension (BLE) project in 2025. 

Here's a summary of our engagement activities in 2025:

• We attended nine community events to share project information and collect feedback, engaging with over 5,800 community members. 

• We facilitated more than 50 briefings and meetings (in-person and virtually) with property owners, tenants, and community organizations.  

• We responded to over 90 questions via our project email and hotline.  

• We emailed six project updates to 12,000+ subscribers.  

• We went door-to-door, sent emails, and made phone calls to neighbors and businesses about 60 geotechnical borings that help us better understand soil and groundwater conditions.  

In partnership and collaboration with the City of Seattle and King County, we engaged with community members to share updates and gather feedback on the South Downtown Hub Planning effort.

We coordinated a range of public events to provide people the chance to learn about and provide input on the planning effort, including: 

This year, we will continue to advance the environmental review process and publish the BLE Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for public comment. The Draft EIS will evaluate project alternatives, potential benefits and impacts of each alternative, and proposed actions to minimize potential impacts.  

As a reminder, we published a Draft EIS for the West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions in 2022. The upcoming BLE Draft EIS will build upon that document, carrying forward the analysis of the alternatives included in the 2022 Draft EIS and providing analysis of new and refined alternatives identified by the Sound Transit Board in March and July 2023. 

You can view maps of the alternatives at the online open house.

We look forward to continuing to engage with you this year! Stay tuned for updates about the upcoming Draft EIS comment period via this newsletter and on our website.

Like many transit agencies managing major infrastructure programs across the country, Sound Transit is facing a series of financial challenges, including rising construction costs, increased operations and maintenance expenses, and lower than projected revenue forecasts. Without taking action to reduce costs, the ST3 Plan will become unaffordable.  

The Enterprise Initiative is what we’re calling Sound Transit’s effort to ensure we can deliver the greatest benefits of ST3 within available financial capacity. It is a comprehensive approach — spanning planning and policy, capital project delivery, transit operations, and finance — to ensure we are meeting both current and future regional mobility needs. 

Given the scale of the cost pressures on Sound Transit’s system expansion plan, staff and Board members will also need to look at scope changes and project phasing. This work includes project-level strategies, such as optimizing Link station designs to reduce cost and complexity while maintaining great rider experience. 

You can also expect to hear more from Sound Transit as Enterprise Initiative work ramps up in 2026.