By Carolyn Bick
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
The Chinatown-International District (CID) community is once again fighting for a future where their voices are heard and their needs prioritized. With Sound Transit continuing to study a proposed train station at 5th Avenue, as well as several other locations, the CID is pushing forward with a vision of equity, transparency, and community-led development
The issue was supposedly laid to rest in 2022, following united community disapproval of the 5th Avenue placement option.
The station placement has been hotly contested for years, with all community players concerned about how the placement and construction will impact the CID for good, ill, or a mix of both. The uniting feeling amongst differing factions is love for the historic neighborhood, which continues to face severe fallout from gentrification and the COVID-19 pandemic. Many community members believe that a station placed in the right way could revive the CID and make it into an important transit hub—and a station placed in the wrong way will kill it.
Sound Transit’s Rachelle Cunningham explained that the 5th Avenue alternatives were never removed from the process, and that the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) would contain all the options on the table. Sound Transit has identified the Dearborn Street option as the preferred alternative with community input, Cunningham said.
The Dearborn Street option is also known as the “North and South of CID” option.
Following widespread community disapproval of a station placement at 5th Avenue, Sound Transit introduced the North and South of CID option, looping it into the existing DEIS, due to federal regulations. Therefore, the 5th Avenue option must also remain on the table, alongside all the other options, because all of the original options are in the DEIS.
But any decision is a long, long way off.
“Nothing is set in stone until the [Sound Transit] board does a final vote,” Transit Equity for All (TEA) member Betty Lau explained in an email. “First is the new DEIS coming out—maybe June. Then public comment. A bunch of us have been lobbying for 90 days, like last time for translations (never done for 2022 DEIS) this time so all members of the community can understand.”
TEA—which consists of at least 11,000 supporters and 68 businesses and organizations—opposes both the 5th Avenue option and the so-called “preferred” Dearborn Street (or North and South of CID) option.
Lau disputed the idea that Dearborn is the preferred alternative. After the community widely opposed a 5th Avenue option, Sound Transit proposed the Dearborn option, but, according to Lau, “has never mentioned ‘choice’ since then.”
“ST [Sound Transit] even convened in 2021-2022 Community Advisory Groups (CAGS where meetings are recorded and online) to explore the options and so ST could get input,” Lau said. “[TEA member] Brien [Chow] was a member of the CID CAG. They were discontinued after four or five meetings and public input has never been sought since.”
In late March, Lau and a mid-sized group of other concerned community members presented the Sound Transit board with a letter outlining their concerns and gave public comment, during a board meeting, before marching to Union Station in protest.
The letter presented was also signed by 43 different community organizations, all of whom “collectively and emphatically oppose any and all options to build a station on 5th Avenue.”
“Any station on 5th Avenue is a gross misappropriation of land from people of color and
encroaches on one-third of an already historically marginalized district’s footprint … [a] footprint that has been chipped away by devastating transportation projects,” the letter continued. “The construction of I-5 took away land from hardworking Asian American citizens and disjointed the district. The construction of the bus tunnel further eroded our neighborhood.”
The 5th Avenue option, the letter stated, should not be “used as cover to continue to develop options that would threaten the heart of what Mayor Harrell has called a ‘gem’ of Seattle. The community deserves and demands absolute transparency.”
“Sadly, here we go again,” Connie So, a community member and University of Washington ethnic studies professor, said of the board’s decision to re-table the 5th Avenue option, during the meeting’s comment period.
So said that she understands that the federal upheaval has meant many changes across the board, but that she hoped that Sound Transit’s new CEO, Dow Constantine remember that the CID is an historic treasure, “made up of many hardworking immigrants that persisted and thrived, despite expulsions, explosions, and other hostilities,” and that he and the board listen to the voices of community members, who face much hardship and high crime rates, particularly violent crime.
Until April 1, Constantine served as the King County executive. He was also the Sound Transit board chair, and put his support behind the North & South of CID option. That option would have served Constantine’s civic campus well, though Sound Transit and Constantine’s office denied any link.
Seniors in Action vice-president Tim Lee also spoke, pointing out the many disparities elders in the community face in the decision-making process. In particular, he said, elders are not provided access to translation services.
“In the CID, there are about 1,300 of us who do not speak English. 1,200 speak Chinese and about 100 speak Japanese with some Thai and Khmer,” he said. “We need a 90-day comment period for the new DEIS coming out this spring.”
“Last time,” he continued, “nothing was translated so we had to find relatives and community leaders to tell us what was in the DEIS. A 90-day comment period is critical for us to understand and respond.”
Like others who spoke, Lee urged the board to keep its promise to listen to the community, and to “move forward on 4th,” the slogan adopted by those who favor the 4th Avenue station placement option.
Lau said in an email to the Northwest Asian Weekly that she continues to be disappointed in Sound Transit, which she feels is not keeping its promise to the community of allowing the community to choose both the station placement and the train’s route.
“The argument is about settling for inferior accessibility and connectivity in hopes of getting land for housing,” Lau said. “However, the land will be there regardless, so the question is whether Sound Transit has the will to do what’s right: to ensure equity for the Regional system, including CID, to build the voter and majority community approved 4th Avenue Transit Hub.”
As with all other projects that have historically hurt the CID, Lau warned that “[m]aking the wrong decision, like building I-5 on the surface instead of in a tunnel, will haunt the region for over 100 years.”