Sound Transit just launched Lynnwood Link service on Friday, with four new stations now directly serving three more cities in the Puget Sound. The terminus of this extension is now in Lynnwood at Snohomish County’s most connected transit center, which added Community Transit’s brand new Swift Orange Line earlier this year. Seeking to take advantage of the county’s biggest transit node, Lynnwood has been working to transform its City Center neighborhood.

Lynnwood’s station area stands out among the other stations on the extension, which we already reviewed: Shoreline South, Shoreline North, and Mountlake Terrace Station. The City of Lynnwood isn’t working with a single family neighborhood like the other cities have had to grapple with. Instead, light rail arrives at the edge of an older multifamily and suburban retail district. This means that there will be many large parcels for developers to reimagine and existing retail and services for new residents to enjoy.

The prevalence of strip mall parcels ripe for redevelopment and the existing commercial nucleus could smooth the path for an urban retrofit of suburbia, but obstacles remain as well. The large lots make for exciting master planned projects, but also take a big investment of capital to realize. In the meantime, Lynnwood City Center is a hodgepodge of parking craters and the strip malls, drive-thrus, and office parks attached to them.

Huge blocks and supersized roads intermixed with half-hearted sidewalk networks make walking around the City Center hardly a pleasurable affair — many sometimes dangerous, especially for those not ensconced in big metal boxes. Lynnwood opted to widen 196th Street SW to seven lanes ahead of the light rail opening, worsening the pedestrian environment and enlarging the obstacle between the northern section of the City Center and the light rail station. Sound Transit’s 1,670-stall parking garage next to its station attracts car traffic to the area.

Nothing says pedestrian access like a giant integration with 4 minute signal lengths surrounded by gas stations pic.twitter.com/ULsQSnNShw

— Anna Zivarts (@AnnaZivarts) August 30, 2024

Eventually, Lynnwood’s urban transformation will gain momentum. New projects will add sidewalk improvements, and, with luck, mid-block pedestrian paths and crossings to break up the megablocks. Redevelopment will replace drive-thrus with sidewalk cafes and upgrade landscaping and tree canopy. But in its infant stage, the car-first suburban character of the area still often rears its head.

Let’s check in on the conversion of this old commercial district into a vibrant and dense mixed-use community.

Northline Village and The District Waiting Room

City Center’s transformation will be supercharged by two projects, Northline Village and The District. Together these two projects could add over a million square feet in commercial/hotel space and roughly 1,700 housing units. However, both projects are in a sort of limbo, with Northline Village delayed and The District still very early in their planning.

Northline Village was first covered in The Urbanist in our last check in on the city center and not much has changed since our coverage in 2021. Developers Merlone Geier Partners have yet to break ground on the project, clearly waiting for improving economic conditions and lower interest rates. One reason for the delay could be the half a million square feet of office space initially planned in the project. With office buildings still reeling from work-from-home’s slackening of office demand, we’ve seen plans for new office space freeze and even convert to residential.

Other elements of the 19-acre project include over a quarter million square feet of retail space and around 1,369 residential units. Preliminary site plans for the project imagine a series of midrise buildings with parks and other green space interspersed.

The District, formerly known as the Lynnwood Public Facilities District, operates the Lynnwood Events Center and surrounding properties that take the form of parking lots and older strip malls. In February 2023, The District unveiled its mixed-use vision for its 13 acres. This includes nearly tripling the size of the Lynnwood Events Center from its current 64,000 square feet to 182,800 square feet by expanding north and adding a 3rd floor.

The vision also imagines a 300-room hotel and two five-story apartment buildings. Previous iterations of the plan called for a total of 300 apartment homes, but that number may be revised as plans are refined. Local retail space and a parking garage is also featured strongly in the plan. The popular Olympus Spa, a women-only spa and coed Korean restaurant, calls this parcel home, hopefully The District’s commitment to legacy tenants and local businesses keeps them around.

Neither of these projects are set in stone; their housing unit totals could change. Merlone Geier has yet to break ground on the Northline phased development, so they could rethink their plans. Meanwhile, The District is still on the first step of master planning. It’s still early days for that project, and numbers are bound to shift.

What’s been done and left

In the meantime, two projects have already opened in Lynnwood City Center and another two are under construction. In 2021, the seven-story Kinect @ Lynnwood (4200 Alderwood Mall Blvd) completed its 239 units and 286 parking stalls. Then in 2023, the seven-story Ember Apartments (19888 40th Ave W) completed its 361 units, nearly 9,000 square feet of commercial space, and 286 parking stalls.

Under construction are the seven-story KOZ on Alderwood at 4301 Alderwood Mall Blvd and seven-story Kinect II at 4001 198th St SW. Those two projects will feature 199 units and 318 units, respectively. Kinect II will also include around 4,000 square feet of commercial space.

Outside of the two master plans, two other developments are planned for the station area. Sound Transit is working with Housing Hope on 167 affordable housing units directly north of the station. The project would also restore and daylight Thornton Creek, and include a childcare facility, public cafe, job training center, and public walking trails. One last commercial project is being proposed at 4820 196th St SW with 14,430 square feet for office and retail uses.

A large pipeline for Lynnwood’s future

The Lynnwood City Center station area has the biggest pipeline of projects among the four new stations. 1,836 units are being planned in the station area, while only 600 units have completed since 2019 and 517 are under construction. The vast majority of those planned units are between Northline Village and The District. Those two projects are also proposing the vast majority of the over 900,000 square feet of commercial space and 300 hotel rooms being planned for the Lynnwood station area.

The dynamic being weighted toward future development rather than active construction makes the Lynnwood City Center station area comparatively barren. Of the four new stations, it has the least number of units built and under construction. Additionally, instead of single family homes taking up space, vast gray parking lots and low-rise strip malls greet passengers. A few older apartment complexes also dot the landscape, along with the recent midrise additions farther in the distance.

Perhaps, one cause of this slow development is a more attractive market just to the northeast of City Center. The Alderwood Mall area has added over 1,200 housing units since 2019, more than twice as many housing units delivered compared to City Center. Thankfully, the neighborhood is just one Swift bus stop away from the City Center Station. We’re still over a decade away from Alderwood getting its own light rail station with Sound Transit’s next northern expansion.

City Center and Alderwood make up the Lynnwood Regional Growth Center, a designation that obligates Lynnwood to channel much of its growth there and in return better qualifies them for federal transportation dollars. Theoretically, Lynnwood’s 2024 Comprehensive Plan update and following zoning updates will further bolster growth in the City Center Station. Lynnwood was given a growth target by Snohomish County of 14,051 housing units by 2044 in 2021, which would nearly double its existing housing stock. That’s a lot of growth and we’ll see how Lynnwood realizes it.

Adding up the housing numbers for Lynnwood Link

With all the development around the stations area of Lynnwood Link Extension covered, we arrive at a tally of over 9,600 units built since 2019 or somewhere along the pipeline for the whole extension’s station areas. Additionally, we clear over a million square feet of commercial space built since 2019 or planned around the stations. That’s mostly Northline Village’s initial plans, but large commercial development has also happened in Mountlake Terrace.

As a recap, the housing pipeline for the four station areas is as follows:

• 3,087 homes in the works near Shoreline South
• 1,700+ homes near Shoreline North
• 1,800+ homes near Mountlake Station
• Nearly 3,000 homes in Lynnwood City Center

The post Lynnwood City Center’s Growth Aspirations Hinge on Two Slow-Moving Megaprojects first appeared on The Urbanist.

A marathon of speeches prefaced the first trains departing Lynnwood City Center Station. The line of speakers was kicked off and emceed by Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers.

“The story of the day is regionalism,” Somers said. “By connecting all of our separate communities, with safe, reliable rapid mass transit, we are building one sustainable Puget Sound.”

With the new extension to Snohomish County and the ribbon-cutting ceremony taking place in the new northern light rail terminus in Lynnwood, South Snohomish County was the focal point of the day.

Representatives of the Tulalip tribe followed the executive, kicking off their remarks with a prayer and song. Tulalip Tribes Director of Treaty Rights and Government Affairs Ryan Miller noted light rail could aid in environmental stewardship and restoring salmon runs, citing the reduction in toxic tire pollution associated with driving.

“The Lynnwood light rail is more than just a transportation project, it’s a symbol of progress and sustainability,” Miller said. “For generations, our people have stewarded the land, understanding the importance of preserving our natural resources. This light rail extension aligns with our values by providing a green alternative to driving, significantly reducing our carbon footprint. And by reducing heavy metals and toxic chemicals from brake dusts and tires that threaten our sacred salmon.”

Washington’s U.S. Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell described their fight to keep federal dollars flowing to the Lynnwood Link project during the Trump Administration. Their victories allowed the extension to secure a $1.17 billion grant from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), keeping the project on schedule open in 2024. The agency also secured $658 million low-interest loan to support the $3.26 billon Lynnwood Link project.

“FTA is proud to help bring Link light rail to Snohomish County, expanding rapid transit access for hundreds of thousands of residents,” said Federal Transit Administration Acting Administrator Veronica Vanterpool. “As the Link system continues to grow, it’s now easier than ever to reach UW, downtown, Sea-Tac, and destinations all over the region.”

The senators also celebrated the roughly 10,000 homes built or planned around the light rail stations, new connections between people and opportunity, and time savings from grade-separated rapid transit. The Urbanist tallied up the housing development happening near each station:

• 3,087 homes near in the works near Shoreline South
• 1,700+ homes near Shoreline North
• 1,800+ homes near Mountlake Station
• 3,000 homes planned in Lynnwood City Center

King County Executive Dow Constantine reminded that crowd that North King County was also getting two new stations. Constantine contextualized the opening’s place in an exciting regional picture for light rail, including crossing Lake Washington to finally connect East Link (the 2 Line) with the 1 Line — a project tentatively tabbed to finish in late 2025.

“We are now well on the way to nearly doubling the light rail system to a 62-mile regional network. By next year, when we add two more major extensions to Federal Way and then across the lake, to the east side in King County,” Constantine said. “The 1 Line will connect to the 2 Line and you’ll be able to not only go north-south, but also you’ll be able to travel across the lake to Bellevue and to Redmond”.

Sound Transit projects that Lynnwood Link will add about 50,000 daily riders to the system by 2026, although that projection was made before the pandemic sapped some regional ridership momentum. On the existing 1 Line, average weekday boardings hit a record high above 90,000 in July 2023. Lynnwood Link’s addition should push the system well above 100,000 daily boardings.

Representing the project’s labor partners, Todd Taylor, executive secretary of Northwest Washington Building and Construction Trades Council, gave numbers to the work it took to complete the project, and the opportunities it had created through apprenticeship programs.

“Contractors selected hired 8,493 total craftworkers, who worked a total of 6,048,083 hours. Out of those, 8,493 craft workers 32.4% of the workforce were workers of color. 44.1% of apprentices were apprentices of color. 7.4% of the workforce were women. And 20% of all apprenticeship hours were performed by female apprentices.”

Local representatives at all levels of government and interim Sound Transit CEO Goran Sparrman closed out the speeches. Congressman Rick Larsen made a cruel joke about Bellingham getting light rail in 2074, a year after Everett. Representative Liias remarked that the opening was the biggest think to happen in Snohomish County since Boeing’s first 747 plane rolled off the line in Everett, where he turned his attention to as the next light rail expansion for the county. The Everett Link extension is slated to open in 2037, barring further delays.

Lynnwood Mayor Christine Frizzell, who is also a member of the Sound Transit Board, noted Lynnwood has long been preparing for this moment.

“It’s hard to quantify my excitement to see the trains pull in and out of the Lynnwood City Center Station, something that felt like a dream for so long,” Frizzell said. “Lynnwood has been preparing for this milestone since the creation of our Legacy Lynnwood plan in 1993. This achievement would not have been possible without our community’s incredible support, and for that, I am grateful.”

Sparrman gave a nod to the challenges his staff overcame, including a lengthy concrete worker strike.

“The opening of Lynnwood Link is a testament to the hard work of the construction teams and Sound Transit staff who have worked for years to make this project a reality,” Sparrman said. “They persevered through the pandemic and a four-month concrete delivery strike to bring us to today’s celebration. Lynnwood Link’s opening also marks a transformative moment in Sound Transit’s history, as we enter Snohomish County. With the openings of the full 2 Line next year and the extension to Federal Way in 2026, we will have more than doubled the size of our system in just a few years, providing the residents of our region great options for easy, efficient travel to even more destinations.”

Night markets extend the celebration

Once the speeches and ribbon-cutting was completed, the first trains left a little before 1pm. Attendees returned to the stations to celebrate the openings at the “night markets” happening at each of the four stations at 4pm. Crowds formed early to engage with vendors, enjoy food trucks, and check out all the other booths. Lucky attendees won or got their hands on the all-important Orca-Card-Mascot Boop plushies.

The night markets made great use of the plazas, open spaces, and parking lots adjacent to the four stations. They were a great reminder of how these outdoor markets can harness and retain activity in otherwise quiet plazas, making for great outdoor markets. The Capitol Hill farmers market takes over the station plaza every Sunday. Sound Transit has been hesitant to offer retail inside its stations, but perhaps it will consider night market on a regular basis, given the success of the launch event.

Some of the attendees even came out The Urbanist’s Lynnwood Link opening celebration at Hemlock State Brewing. For many attendees, it was the first time that had visited an establishment in Mountlake Terrace. Thanks for celebrating the monumental opening with The Urbanist!

Transit riders are sure to discover new destinations along Lynnwood Link in the months to come.

The post Lynnwood Link Opens to Huge Crowds and Night Markets first appeared on The Urbanist.

The greater station area was a hive of preparation, train testing, and construction activity, but the pieces were coming together. The entrance is graced by an attention-grabbing signature sculpture work, dubbed City Hummingbird and Kitchen Window Curtain, which artist Claudia Fitch says “honors the rich history of neon road signs that once lined Highway 99.”

Sound Transit also incorporated two existing sculptures into the station design, repurposing them from their original location at the old transit center entrance. “Claudia Fitch’s Shift originally graced Lynnwood Transit Center’s entrances, intended to promote pedestrian safety by marking key crosswalks,” the agency noted. “In their current location, the two sculptures help guide passengers to the south station entrance.”

With the start of service, Lynnwood will become the northern terminus for Sound Transit’s light rail system until an extension north to Everett opens by 2037. Tri-county voters approved the Lynnwood Link extension as part of the Sound Transit 2 ballot measure in 2008, while the Everett extension was part of the Sound Transit 3 measure approved in 2016.

Lynnwood Link will bring four more 1 Line stations online: South Shoreline, North Shoreline, Mountlake Terrace, and Lynnwood City Center. An additional infill station at N 130th Street in Seattle (eventually to be accompanied by a zoning overhaul to grow a neighborhood around it) will open by 2026.

Station access and bus connections

Sound Transit projects that Lynnwood Link will add about 50,000 daily riders to the system by 2026, although that projection was made before the pandemic sapped some regional ridership momentum. On the existing 1 Line, average weekday boardings hit a record high above 90,000 in July 2023. Lynnwood Link’s addition should push the system well above 100,000 daily boardings.

The opening will also kick off Sound Transit’s $3 flat fare system that will make all light rail trips cost the same amount, as opposed to the distance-based fares that had been in place until now. Plus, Sound Transit is numbering its stations for the first time, so riders will notice an associated station number next to the name on signage, with the old pictograms south of Shoreline all removed. Goodbye, Northgate dragonfly.

This spring, Community Transit launched the Swift Orange Line, greatly improving bus connections to Lynnwood City Center. The rest of Snohomish County’s bus restructure will wait for September 14 — two weeks after the launch of the light rail extension — as part of the annual fall service change. Lynnwood Mayor Christine Frizzell noted half of Snohomish County’s buses end up at Lynnwood City Center, making it the premier hub for the area.

“People are going to be able to get from here to where they want to be, whether it’s for entertainment or for work or for family, and it is just going to be a game changer for all of us,” Frizzell said. “The new Lynnwood Transit Center is part of a comprehensive vision for how our city operates. That’s why our city planners have collaborated with affordable housing developers, Community Transit, Snohomish County, service providers, and businesses to ensure that this transit hub is a center of a vibrant new community as well. In Lynnwood, we have a model: All are welcome here. We are the most diverse city in all of Snohomish County.”

Not all of the station access improvements have been entirely transit focused. Lynnwood recently wrapped up a major expansion of its main east-west corridor of 196th Street SW, with the goal of moving more car traffic but also providing more reliable bus trips and adding pedestrian space. And, of course, Sound Transit has built a five-story, 1,670-stall parking garage next to the station.

Additionally, a new Scriber Creek Trail provides a scenic boardwalk through a meadow for people walking, rolling, and biking, providing a cut-through to the south or direct access to Scriber Creek Park. Albeit with a gap at Cedar Valley Road, the trail system follows Scriber Creek westward, eventually hitting the larger Scriber Lake Park to the northwest.

For those checking out Lynnwood anew, Frizzell recommended sampling the diverse cuisine the city has to offer.

“Check out our restaurants,” Frizzell said. “We have such diverse restaurants in Lynnwood. You can get African food, you can get Mideastern food, you can get Russian, Ukrainian, Korean. That is a kind of a microcosm of who we are in Lynnwood, as I said in my comments, we’re the most diverse city in Snohomish County, and we love it. We love that people feel comfortable to bring their families here, to create a home, to create businesses, to create space for them as maybe they’re relocating from another country. They bring their culture to us, which is so exciting.”

Booming station neighborhoods

The new transportation infrastructure serves a growing population. The last state estimate from April put Lynnwood’s population at 41,500, which is up nearly 3,000 residents from its 2020 census figure.

Most of Lynnwood’s housing growth has taken place farther afield than the immediate station area, which continues to be largely parking lots and construction staging. However in the blocks beyond, Lynnwood has more than 3,000 homes in development in its “City Center” neighborhood.

Perceived growing pains had led some of the city council to grow pensive and contemplate pumping the brakes — although a majority ultimately greenlit additional growth, with a faster permitting track for up to 6,000 units. Frizzell pledged that the Lynnwood Comprehensive Plan, which is due for an update by year’s end, would continue to support efforts to add housing near light rail for people at all income levels.

Frizzell said adding housing density at the Lynnwood City Center has been the City’s plan for a very long time, going back to the 1993 Legacy Lynnwood Project.

“I have a document that I keep on my desk that reminds me,” Frizzell told The Urbanist. “It was 200 community members that came together over a long period of time that said: ‘these are our hopes and dreams for our city. This is what we want.’ I have maps. It shows Sound Transit right where it’s at. I have information there about bus routes. I have information about housing. And we are on track. We are doing what our community is asking for.”

Frizzell said nature and green space is core to Lynnwood’s identity and that the city intends to grow in a way to preserve that identity.

“We don’t want to push people together,” Frizzell told The Urbanist. “This was a single family neighborhood for many years, and for many years, single family neighborhoods were more on one side of the city, and we were permitting and allowing multifamily housing on the other so we encourage people to be out towards the mall, to be in our city center. And that has been the plan for a long time.”

Now, Lynnwood City Center is not just a few token apartment buildings, but a true growth center and actually fledgling urban neighborhood.

“Are there going to be some people that are naysayers or or they’re concerned? You betcha, that’s life, and we want to be considerate of all of those views and make sure that people have space to live, work, grow, play here in Lynnwood,” Frizzell said. “And we’re so proud of our parks, and I’m a big proponent of having green spaces, and I love to be out in our parks all the time, on the Interurban Trail. We need that green space to help us thrive in our lives, and I think we have to find that balance of green space and housing.”

Shoreline and Mountlake Terrace are both adding housing at a fairly ambitious clip, as well. More than 1,800 homes were recently built or are in development near Mountlake Terrace Station, according to The Urbanist‘s tally. Meanwhile, the Shoreline South and Shoreline North station areas are together adding more than 4,800 homes.

2 Line inbound to Lynnwood, eventually…

Eventually Lynnwood Link stations will serve both 1 Line and 2 Line trains, with the latter turning toward Bellevue and Redmond after making it through Downtown Seattle. However, for at least the first year of service, the stations will see 1 Line trains only. Lynnwood Link’s opening being relatively on time while East Link has faced significant delays to construction defects along I-90 tracks, has meant it has leapfrogged the full opening of the 2 Line.

This, in turn, has upset Sound Transit’s operational plans. An abbreviated Eastside-only version of East Link opened on April 27, but the agency does not expect the 2 Line to cross Lake Washington to Seattle (and on to Lynnwood) until late 2025 due to the need to address extensive construction defects in the I-90 segment. That leaves Sound Transit’s new maintenance base in Bellevue inaccessible from the 1 Line, forcing Sound Transit to launch Lynnwood Link with fewer trains than it hoped.

Initially, Sound Transit warned this could mean severe crowding on the 1 Line, but the agency was able to adapt its plan to squeeze some additional frequency out of the system. Among the tweaks that made it possible was storing some additional trains (36 vehicles to be exact) at elevated stations, supplementing the capacity of its SoDo train base.

With extra vehicles on hand, Sound Transit is improving scheduled frequencies to every eight minutes during weekday peak hours using four-car trains. Last fall, the agency had forecast service levels closer to every ten minutes during weekday peak hours with some trips only having three-car trains. The three-car trains were expected to contribute to crowding issues, considering the demand being added to the system with the four Lynnwood Link stations.

Once fully provisioned, Sound Transit aims to have trains arriving at Lynnwood Link stations every six minutes or better during peak hours, but the agency may have underestimated how many trains it needs to achieve desired frequencies as the system expands.

For now, riders will be excited to ride the 1 Line to Lynnwood and point between starting at noon Friday, and see the changes the light rail line has already brought to fruition along the way.

The post Sneak Peek Tour of Lynnwood City Center Station first appeared on The Urbanist.

On March 30, Community Transit launched service on its Swift Orange Line, the third bus rapid transit (BRT) line in Snohomish County. At the opening ceremony, State Sen. Marko Liias (D-21, Mukilteo) was in attendance. “I joked at the ribbon cutting that we’re going to keep funding swift until they run out of colors,” Liias said. 

The new 11-mile line will provide one of Snohomish County’s primary connections to Sound Transit’s new Lynnwood Link light rail extension when it opens on August 30. 

The new line and the opening of Lynnwood’s Link station are all part of a major restructuring of Community’s Transit’s entire network, says Chris Simmons, Community Transit’s transit integration manager. “At the end of the day, 50% of our service, in some way, shape, or form is going to be in touch with [Lynnwood] City Center Station,” Simmons said. “So whether you’re trying to transfer across south Snohomish County, or bus to a rail transfer, Lynnwood City Center Station is going to be the epicenter of the Snohomish County universe for at least the next 20 years.”

Also linking to the existing Blue and Green Swift lines, the new east-west Orange Swift Line connects Edmond College, Lynnwood Transit Center, Alderwood Mall, 164th Street SW, and McCollum Park.  Buses are scheduled to arrive every 10 minutes on weekdays, and every 15 – 20 minutes during early mornings, evenings and weekends. Like the Green and Blue Line, stations have high curbs for easy access, the ability to tap ORCA cards before entry, and digital kiosks with real-time arrival info. The goal is for all Swift line buses to arrive and depart each stop within 10 seconds. Dedicated bus lanes and signal light priority aim to keep things moving.

“Introducing the Swift Orange Line greatly expands the number of bus routes where service is frequent enough that riders don’t need to worry about tracking schedules,” said Community Transit CEO Ric Ilgenfritz.

Christopher Silveira, Community Transit’s bus rapid transit program manager, says that 10-minute headways mean that on average, riders will wait five minutes for a bus. “Or you can also always check your phone using transit apps or Google Maps or our website for getting that next bus information.”

The Swift lines are a big change from when Liias was a teenager living in Snohomish county and attempting to take the bus to get around. “When I was a kid it was half hour or hourly service, so you had to really plan your transit commute,” he said. “My sister back in the day worked at the telephone customer service department and people would call in to CT [Community Transit] to plan their route – how do they get from here to there and make sure the timetables work? That’s a real barrier to a lot of folks adopting transit.”

As Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, Liias has been instrumental in getting state funds dedicated to Snohomish County’s BRT lines. In the 2022 Move Ahead Washington transportation package he shepherded through the legislature, $10 million is dedicated toward a future Swift Gold Line between Everett and Arlington. That line, Silveira said, is still in the early planning stages and is expected to launch in 2030.

The $83 million Orange Line was built with $68 million in federal funds, including a $37.2 million Capital Investment grant and $6.5 million from the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan. The state chipped in $5 million from the 2015 Connecting Washington transportation package, while local sales tax provided about $10 million in matching funds.

Simmons says that while it usually takes about six months to get an accurate sense of ridership trends, he suspects this will soon be one of Community Transit’s most popular routes. “If this doesn’t rival the Blue Line – which is our highest ridership line in our system – my personal guess it’s actually going to be relatively close.”

The advocacy group Snohomish County Transportation Coalition — Snotrac, for short — was less hesitant to tout the ridership bump. “In the first month of Swift Orange Line service, there were 50,355 boardings!” SnoTrac wrote in its May newsletter. “And year-over-year, ridership was up 23% for the month of April.”

Simmons says the agency has been able to meet those 10 minute frequencies consistently with a full cadre of operators. “We revamped our entire recruitment process last year, knowing that not only was this day coming but for our ongoing service needs into the future,” Simmons said. “There was a very collaborative group process across the organization.”

In addition to signing bonuses, Community Transit has improved its training program with a focus on retention, Simmons said. The training period now lasts several weeks longer and includes proving each new recruit with a mentor. In addition, Community Transit’s latest budget includes 43 additional maintenance and operations positions, bringing the total to 641. 

Simmons says that on September 14, two weeks after the Lynnwood Link station opens, Community Transit will have a significantly reworked bus service network. New local routes will get boosts because of elimination of the routes to downtown Seattle and Northgate, he said. “Instead, we are refocusing the bulk of our service hours on local services, with the remainder going into a new series of 900 numbered routes that we’re calling Express.”

Some of the changes are already in place and have been in the works for several years. New local bus routes include the 102 (Edmonds-Lynnwood), 114 (Aurora Village-Lynnwood), and 166 (Edmonds-Silver Firs). Routes 115, 116, and 196 have been replaced by new routes.

It’s all part of a major revamp that will roll out over the next two years, Simmons says. “This is really the first step in our 2024 and Beyond package, where we’re undertaking the largest service restructure that the agency has had, frankly, since it started.”

Some of the new express routes include the 903 linking Lake Stevens and Lynwood City Center; the 904 connecting Marysville to Lynnwood City Center; and the 905, an all-day link between Stanwood and Lynwood City Center. Simmons says Community Transit is also working to better time buses between the Edmonds Ferry Terminal and Mountlake Terrace Transit Center (which will soon include a Link station on the new extension to Lynnwood. In addition, in 2025 or 2026, the 424 line will be converted into the 908, with service from Lynnwood City Center to downtown Bellevue.  

Community Transit will also integrate its Zip Alderwood shuttle, a new on-demand service to the Alderwood Mall area that debuted in 2022, into the new Lynnwood City Center Station for light rail connections. 

In addition, the Swift Blue Line, in time for the August opening of the Lynnwood extension of Sound Transit’s 1 Line, will get an extension along Meridian Avenue and 185th to connect it with the new Shoreline North/185th Link station. Simmons says Community Transit is also looking to extend the Swift Green Line to downtown Bothell and UW Bothell/Cascadia College, as well as a link to Sound Transit’s Stride S3 BRT line. That’s expected sometime late in this decade, as early as 2028.

Service on most of these lines, Simmons said, have been restructured to better accommodate new work patterns and broader demand for service outside of traditional commute times. “Rather than the very peak period-focused, very infrequent service, we’re now creating these all day, bidirectional connections,” Simmons said. “Which means that you’ll be able to get from McCollum Park to Lynnwood downtown and to the University of Washington – and back – without having to do it at the usual commute times.”

For Liias, an avid transit fan, all this is a welcome change from the days when if you missed a bus in Snohomish county, you’d be an hour late to work.

“This is really shifting to that paradigm of service on demand,” Liias said. “You show up, you wait a few minutes, that connection is there and it takes you to light rail, which is on the same model. You don’t have to think about what Link train you’re going to take, you just show up there and wait for the next one… It’s building a culture that transit is there at our convenience, not us being there at the convenience of when the bus is ready for us.”

The post Orange Line Is an Early Hit, Community Transit Plans Further Expansion first appeared on The Urbanist.

Mayor Frizzell issued her veto of the car tab ordinance at a October 31st meeting arguing the streets are a top priority for Lynnwood residents and city needs to invest in them via “$2.3 million of biennial, sustainable funding from license fees.”

“Repeatedly, our residents, business partners, and visitors tell us the most important concern for our city is our streets,” Frizzell said upon issuing the veto. “The roads we drive on, the signals that direct our traffic, the sidewalks and crosswalks we walk on, and the curbs and ramps specifically designed for our limited mobility community members represent over 300 lane miles of transit routes and are our most critical assets. They are also one of our most expensive assets.”

Council President George Hurst, who sponsored the repeal legislation, scheduled the vote this Monday in an attempt to override the veto. Ultimately, he failed to garner enough votes to override the veto. Three of seven councilmembers voted against the override, and Shirley Sutton, who supported the ordinance at an earlier meeting, was absent. Hurst needed five votes to override the veto, but only Councilmembers Jim Smith and Patrick Decker joined him.

Councilmember Shannon Sessions echoed the mayor’s points in the comments, and expressed frustration that the idea continues to eat up their time.

“Our streets budget has been low, and there’s a variety of things this council is doing to make that more of a priority, which I’m really glad about,” Sessions said. “Why would I take away this cost right now right as we are finishing up our infrastructure and planning for the downtown core, Link light rail, all this extra traffic? Our number one complaint in this city is the traffic. Why would I do anything to stop those things from happening finally when we’re at a place where we have some momentum?”

Lynnwood Finance Director Michelle Meyer said the City does not have a plan to grapple with the loss of car tab funding. Projects relying on that funding would likely have to be shelved unless council raised property taxes or somehow found enough cuts in the general fund. In all, Lynnwood’s transportation benefit district has a biennium budget of $10.3 million, Meyer said, but public works staff project the City of Lynnwood needs to spend between $13.5 million and $22.6 million per biennium to fix its roads and bridges. Cutting $2.3 million would blow a significant hole in that budget and take the city farther from its target.

Car tabs have been a perennial issue in Lynnwood, with several past attempts to zero them out from within the city. Pile on top the statewide ballot measures from Tim Eyman, mostly recently with Initiative 976 — which passed narrowly statewide in 2019, but was struck down by the courts as unconstitutional shortly thereafter. Hurst said I-976 passed in Lynnwood and he took that as an endorsement of his repeal legislation.

Last year, car tab repeal failed after then-Mayor Nicola Smith vetoed a similar ordinance and a 4-3 vote failed to overturn the veto. Councilmember Julieta Altamirano-Crosby supported the repeal last year, citing pandemic impacts, but flipped this year to oppose the repeal. She said she evolved as she saw that support for funding streets was strong as she canvassed residents along with Public Works Director Bill Franz.

“I invite all of the city council to do their homework: to go outside and drive our streets,” Altamirano-Crosby said.

As Altamirano-Crosby’s “drive” comment alluded, Lynnwood has taken a windshield perspective prioritizing cars in its transportation spending. While Lynnwood did pass a Complete Streets ordinance earlier this year, The Urbanist’s Ryan Packer noted it was fairly toothless, leaving pedestrian and bike safety as a secondary concern to the primacy of cars in practice. Packer noted that Lynnwood received a $25 million federal RAISE grant funding a new Poplar overpass of I-5 with six car lanes, narrow sidewalks, and paint-only gutter bike lanes. Lynnwood is also in the process of widening SW 196th Street to seven lanes right near its new light rail station set to open in late 2024.

Repeal backers Smith and Decker each said they’d “roll up their sleeves” to find budget savings to fund transportation, which they agree is a priority. They declined to offer any specific cuts they’d make to replace the millions in car tab funding they supported cutting. While making an argument about helping low-income residents, the pair also seem to support using the sales tax (a regressive tax that falls hardest on the poor) to fund transportation projects.

The City has designated the area around its light rail station “Lynnwood City Center” and sought to funnel much of the city’s growth to this area. Construction has taken off in the Lynnwood City Center. Earlier this year, the Lynnwood City Council flirted with pumping the brakes on growth, but averted that outcome. Smith and Decker were the two votes that held firm for slowing City Center housing development and stressed traffic concerns in their comments at the time.

“The only people that would benefit on this are the developers that would come in, they would make millions of dollars, they would leave, after they build these apartments, and then we’re stuck with the additional traffic,” Smith said. “We need to be looking at the livability of the citizens of Lynnwood,” Smith said.

Decker argued Lynnwood should center cars in its transportation planning even after light rail reaches the city.

“I’m not buying that because of its proximity to the transit center that nobody’s going to buy a car,” Decker said. “I’m not buying that nobody’s going to jump in their car to drive to the [Alderwood] mall. This is Washington, it rains — a lot. It’s a huge deterrent to people walking distances to get where they’re going.”

Cars continue to be a priority in Lynnwood, which has created a dilemma for councilmembers seeking to both lower car tab fees and increase spending on roads. The transition to a transit-oriented multimodal city may be a slow one, but Lynnwood has kept one more tool to fund that work — should they embrace it.

The post Lynnwood Avoids Defunding Transportation Department with Mayoral Veto and Failed Override first appeared on The Urbanist.

In 2012, the City of Lynnwood approved an action ordinance that streamlined approval up to 3,000 units of housing and 4 million square feet of office space. Residential and office developments within the neighborhood boundaries weren’t required to conduct their own individual environmental review that was subject to appeal. A decade later, the neighborhood is actually exceeding those housing units by a few hundred — any new residential building permits are now falling outside the coverage of the ordinance and slowing them down. The 2012 ordinance also imposed a total cap on development in City Center at 9.1 million square feet, a cap that the current Lynnwood city attorney’s office doesn’t believe is on solid legal footing given the zoning in place in the neighborhood, the council was told.

By a 5-2 vote, the city council increased that to 6,000 residential units, bumped up the amount of office space included to 4.25 million square feet, added a new category for hotel space, and removed the overall cap on development. This paves the way for the 250 acre area to continue to densify in advance of light rail’s arrival in the city, now postponed to late 2024.

When this proposal first came before the council back in April, it was not at all clear that the proposal had the support of a majority of the body. But it also wasn’t clear that all councilmembers understood what was being proposed. It looks like the information provided by city staff in the intervening months, as evidenced through memos sent to them, was enough to convince enough members. That communication frames a “yes” vote as consistent with past planning work the city has been doing for decades.

“With development in this area, Lynnwood Link light rail opening in 2024, and Everett Link Extension being planned, the transformational development first envisioned 30 years ago is occurring as the community envisioned,” a July 27 memo to council noted. “It takes time to develop an attractive downtown and build the infrastructure to support it,” it states, targeting councilmembers who have been complaining that City Center doesn’t feel enough like a complete neighborhood yet.

Two councilmembers were unconvinced. Councilmember Jim Smith, who is in his second stint on the council after serving in the role in the 90’s and who is currently facing allegations of discrimination, said that approving the ordinance would be “disastrous for the city of Lynnwood.”

“The only people that would benefit on this are the developers that would come in, they would make millions of dollars, they would leave, after they build these apartments, and then we’re stuck with the additional traffic,” he said. “We need to be looking at the livability of the citizens of Lynnwood,” Smith said.

Councilmember Patrick Decker, joining Smith, focused on the potential impact of traffic from new residents as a reason to vote no. “I’m not buying that because of its proximity to the transit center that nobody’s going to buy a car. I’m not buying that nobody’s going to jump in their car to drive to the [Alderwood] mall. This is Washington, it rains — a lot. It’s a huge deterrent to people walking distances to get where they’re going,” he said.

On the side of additional growth in City Center was Councilmember Josh Binda, one of a number of councilmembers first elected in 2021. “With the growth that we expect to happen in the city of Lynnwood, with the light rail and everything coming here in our city, I think that’s going to be very expected to have that many people wanting to come to the city of Lynnwood. It’s going to be very vibrant, it’s going to be an exciting city,” Binda said. “And I think this is just preparing for what we expect to come to the city of Lynnwood, which is going to be a lot of growth.”

Council President George Hurst, meanwhile, has been connecting the ordinance the city council approved this week back to planning work dating to the late 1990s. “This is something that has been in planning for over 30 years,” Hurst said. “I know we talk about perhaps some of the challenges that will occur if we increase our population, but you know what…I’m excited for the new residents that are going to come into Lynnwood.”

Hurst, along with Councilmember Shannon Sessions, framed the purpose of the ordinance as also leading to the “preservation” of Lynnwood’s single family neighborhood, a majority of the city by land area. “By designating this area for density, like it has been planned for up to 30 years, will help protect our other neighborhoods, and I truly believe that,” Sessions said.

Traffic in Lynnwood may continue to be a problem, with or without this approved ordinance, as the Lynnwood City Council continues to focus on expanding road capacity in the city rather than on making the area around the planned light rail station more inviting to people on foot or bike. The newly adopted Lynnwood Complete Streets ordinance includes limited plans for improving multimodal access within the city, and the city’s resources are focused on projects like the widening of 196th, one of the major east-west streets, and a new overpass for vehicles over I-5 at Poplar Way where walking and biking space are an afterthought. Rather than utilize American Rescue Plan Act funds for curb ramps or safe routes to school projects, as they had considered, the council instead voted to focus the funds on repaving streets far from light rail.

Of course, saying no to development close to a Sound Transit light rail station wouldn’t have improved access for anyone. The reasons that the majority of the Lynnwood City Council decided to approve the update to the City Center action ordinance were clearly varied, but there was broad agreement that continuing to add housing here is in the broad interest of the city and the region.

The post Lynnwood Votes to Streamline Additional Housing in City Center, Avoiding Reactionary Backslide first appeared on The Urbanist.

One city that currently doesn’t have a complete streets ordinance is Lynnwood. In part to be able to take advantage of those grants, the Lynnwood City Council is poised to adopt one, and toward that goal it held a public hearing on the proposed ordinance last week. Briefing the City Council in July, project manager Amie Hanson told councilmembers that the ordinance would be “updating our vision for how we want our streets to be used.”

But will adopting a complete streets ordinance prompt Lynnwood to add separated bike lanes and improved pedestrian facilities to every road project in the city? The answer appears to be no.

Lynnwood’s proposed complete streets ordinance includes a long list of exceptions — holes so large you could drive a truck through them. It says facilities can be left out in the case of a “documented absence” of current or future need. They can also be left out if “implementation requires more space than is physically available,” if their cost is “disproportionate” to current need or “probable future uses.” Finally it allows the Public Works Director to determine that added walking and biking facilities aren’t justified because of “impracticality or infeasibility.”

Lynnwood’s existing bike network is pretty sparse. With the Interurban Trail as a fairly well-developed spine, bike users trying to get around Lynnwood will find a few paint-only bike lanes, some signage, but no other separated bike facilities. The Complete Streets ordinance should be an opportunity to radically improve the network, but it will only produce results if the city is actually serious about setting aside space on its streets for people who aren’t in cars.

“This can be a network approach. Not every street is going to need every amenity,” Hanson told the council. “The city’s definition of a complete street isn’t the same for every street,” she said ahead of last week’s public hearing.

The most dangerous streets in Lynnwood, according to the City, unsurprisingly, are some of the most heavily used corridors including SR 99, and 196th Street SW. Yet the city’s plans largely avoid making changes to those streets that would make them safer and more accessible to people outside cars.

15 and 30 Year Plans

The complete streets ordinances in many cities also have broad language similar to what is proposed in Lynnwood, in order to give city staff wide latitude to make decisions about individual cases. So to have a better understanding of whether or not Lynnwood is serious about making space on city streets for people to safely bike, we can look to the Connect Lynnwood Active & Accessible Transportation Plan that the city council will be adopting along with this ordinance.

Connect Lynnwood includes a 15 year action plan outlining the top priorities for added bike infrastructure over that full decade and a half, and it only includes facilities on eight disconnected streets around the city. A large portion of this proposed network expansion is an extension of the existing short Scriber Creek Trail running north-south through Lynnwood. Trails can provide great connections, but they aren’t really a substitute for on-street facilities that connect to businesses and services, and they frequently don’t have lighting, making them inaccessible during large parts of the day.

The map also doesn’t include any new east-west connections through the heart of the city, forcing people trying to access the coming light rail station to make do with existing streets for the foreseeable future.

The 30 year action plan gets closer to achieving a fully connected bike network through the city by envisioning all-ages-and-abilities facilities on many more streets across Lynnwood. But a proposed 30 year timeframe may as well be 100 years for a plan being adopted right now, with the current fundamental need to make walking, biking, and transit trips more accessible. And even after the 30 year vision is achieved, 196th and SR 99 will still not be a part of the city’s bike network: those streets will still primarily be oriented around cars in even the most ambitious plan.

196th St SW: A Complete Street?

Right now, the City of Lynnwood is in the middle of a massive revamp of 196th Street SW, which is also known as State Route 524. The project is taking what was a five lane road up to seven lanes where there are turn lanes. The new curbside lane will be reserved for buses as well as vehicles turning right into the driveways along the street. The effective side of the sidewalks will increase with new buffers between walking space and traffic, but the sidewalks will be just seven feet wide, still relatively narrow for a major commercial corridor.

No space for people to safely bike along 196th is being created, nor is the street envisioned as being part of the citywide bike network over the next three decades. Hanson noted that parallel bike facilities are planned on 198th and 200th Street, but it’s not clear if those streets will see fully separated bike facilities any time soon.

Creating a brand new incomplete street

Puget Sound cities rarely get an opportunity to illustrate their priorities for street right-of-way in the manner that Lynnwood is set to do with 42nd Avenue W. This is a street that doesn’t currently exist on the grid: between 40th Avenue W and 44th Avenue W is currently unimproved. The city is moving forward with creating this brand new street to provide a new connection.

Lynnwood is set to skip an incredible opportunity to show how street space can be allocated to people outside of vehicles, by using most of the new street for back-angle parking, with no proposed bike facilities on the street. Back angle parking has known safety issues when it comes to people who are walking and biking, but the need to add more parking apparently took precedent. At the public hearing, Amie Hanson stated that 42nd Avenue W will be “focused on being a pedestrian environment.” A pedestrian environment where the lion’s share of the space is being created for motor vehicles.

Funding Prospects Unstable

During a discussion of the active transportation plan, Lynnwood councilmembers sought and received assurances from staff that they weren’t being asked to fund any specific projects right now. The plan actually lists a number of sources where future funding could come from. On the list is the city’s Transportation Benefit District. Last year, the City Council actually voted to remove that funding source in the name of reducing taxes, but that vote was vetoed by the mayor at the time. This year, with a new mayor and some new councilmembers, the issue was brought up again but a discussion was postponed to budget season this fall.

The Lynnwood City Council has been using federal dollars via the American Rescue Plan Act to bolster city programs, and in the area of transportation it chose to invest in street repaving over improving access for people who aren’t in cars, in one case deciding to move ahead with repaving one of the last unpaved roads in a far corner of the city ahead of utilizing the funds to improve walking and biking routes to schools or adding more ADA compliant curb ramps around the city.

The complete streets ordinance that the council is poised to adopt on August 8th could be the basis for some systemic changes to Lynnwood’s streets under future, more ambitious leadership but the current trajectory doesn’t appear to be about to change with this complete streets ordinance.

In voicing a concern about the ordinance as written, Councilmember Patrick Decker raised the issue of a Public Works Director 10 years from now using the authority of the complete streets ordinance to dramatically expand the amount of safe bike facilities on Lynnwood’s city streets. His concern was that the Public Works Director has too much authority to grant exceptions, but walking and biking advocates in Lynnwood can only hope that Decker is right and that the opportunity comes sooner rather than later.

The post Lynnwood Considers Toothless Complete Streets Ordinance first appeared on The Urbanist.

The northern terminus of both the Link 1 Line to Federal Way and the 2 Line to Redmond will be Lynnwood City Center Station — Line 1 will then extend to Everett around 2037. Lynnwood will also be the northern terminus of Sound Transit’s I-405 Stride “S2” bus rapid transit line to Bellevue, currently scheduled to open in 2027, as well as the forthcoming Community Transit Swift Orange line connecting Edmonds and Mill Creek in 2024. Lynnwood is heading toward being one of the most transit-connected cities in the entire region, a position many cities would clamor to be in.

But after the turnover of three city council seats in 2021 potentially bolstering a bloc of growth skeptics already on council, there are signs that the new Lynnwood City Council is not as interested in accommodating new residents to the city near frequent transit. A shift in an approach to housing at such a key transit node could have broader implications and lead the entire central Puget Sound away from accommodating planned growth.

At the center of this fight is the City Center neighborhood, directly next to the soon-to-open light rail station, where development has been very robust, in part because of prior actions by the City of Lynnwood to intentionally focus growth in the area. In 2012, Lynnwood adopted an ordinance that adopted a streamlined process for new residential and office development within the city center neighborhood: individual projects did not need to conduct their own separate full environmental review under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), which also reduces opportunities for housing appeals that delay projects. But that ordinance topped out at 3,000 new residential units — which the neighborhood has now exceeded, with 3,224 units already created or in the development pipeline, according to city staff.

Now Lynnwood’s planning commission has unanimously recommended that the city council adopt a new ordinance that increases the number of residential units that would be pre-cleared from 3,000 to 6,000, as well as modestly increasing the amount of square footage of office space and adding new hotels into the mix. “The proposed update will support the continued momentum of the City Center Vision as a gathering place for future employment and housing. This includes private investment continuing to be a catalyst for placemaking within the emerging neighborhood,” the staff report to council noted.

It’s important to note that no major zoning changes are being proposed here, and without adopting this change new housing would continue to be built in City Center, it will just happen more slowly, and other areas of the region (including ones with fewer transit options) may become more attractive to housing developers. But at a public hearing on the proposal on Monday, a sizable bloc of the Lynnwood City Council expressed their concerns about approving such an ordinance, several doing so in ways that suggested they might not be fully aware of what the process entails. Just last year, Lynnwood adopted a Housing Action Plan that included among its top strategies a proposal to continue to promote housing in the Regional Growth Centers (which include both the Alderwood mall area and City Center) and along major transportation corridors.

Video from April 25 Lynnwood City Council meeting. (City of Lynnwood)

During the meeting, city staff presented a visualization of what the City Center neighborhood could look like if all of the development capacity was utilized over the next two decades — not intended to be an exact prediction but rather just to provide a sense of how built-out the neighborhood could be. The illustration doesn’t depict a skyscraper village but rather a broad array of midrise mixed use buildings. Several councilmembers were very concerned about what the proposal could do to Lynnwood.

“Too much housing” is how Councilmember Shannon Sessions described the proposal to allow streamlined development within the existing zoning in City Center.

“Adding another 3,000 units [under current law] is going to be plenty, and it’s even more than I want to have there, but 6,000… I can’t go along with that at all,” added Councilmember Jim Smith, who lost an election to become Lynnwood’s mayor last year. Smith suggested that new residents in City Center were somehow separate from a majority of Lynnwood residents. “Going from 3,000 to 6,000 does nothing — absolutely nothing — for the people of Lynnwood,” he said. “This will increase traffic, this will increase crime — and I know I’m not an expert in those areas, but it’s kind of common sense that we know this stuff.”

Smith and Sessions were joined by Councilmember Patrick Decker, who was elected last year and serves as the liaison to the Lynnwood Planning Commission. Decker noted that he thought 3,000 residential units in City Center was enough.

“There’s no mandate that Lynnwood has to accommodate every person that wants to move to the Pacific Northwest. There are a lot of cities in the area, there’s a lot of other areas for growth… there’s a lot of area up north where people can live. It’s our job to protect the residents of this city and ensure they’re properly cared for,” Decker said. “I’m in favor of planned growth, I’m not in favor of forced growth. To me, they are two completely separate things,” he said, suggesting that the city could withstand having grants withheld if the city fell out of compliance with its housing production goals in compliance with the Growth Management Act.

Pushing back on those voices on the council was Councilmember Josh Binda. “I feel like this kind of growth in Lynnwood is inevitable,” Binda said, asking his colleagues if they’d prefer to have to be reactive to increases in housing production or get out ahead of that development as this proposed ordinance attempts to do. Elected in 2021 as a 21-year-old, Binda is Lynnwood youngest councilmember, and he’s also one of its two Black members, along with Sutton.

Council President George Hurst, who seemed to support the proposed ordinance as well, emphasized the long-term nature of the change, which is intended to extend to 2044. “The overriding thing for me is that the city of Lynnwood residents, that keep being referenced to, have long asked for a city center, something that can be focused, that people can come to.”

Hurst also warned blocking change and growth would be impossible.

“We may not like this change… but it is a changing city, and I think we have forward-enough thinking councilmembers that we can address these changes,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to stop the growth, we’re really not.”

Other councilmembers didn’t share their thoughts on the issue of building additional units in the City Center, with Mayor Christine Frizzell included on that list. Also quiet was Councilmember Shirley Sutton, another new councilmember who took office this year. During the 2021 campaign she told Lynnwood Today that “[Lynnwood] should be open to high rises and rezoning for multiple family dwellings. With enough outdoor space, parks and ample public transit, a higher density city is livable and even desirable.”

Sutton won her seat by just 101 votes to Nick Coelho, who tweeted following this week’s council meeting that “[w]e needed real housing advocates who understand density, development, and design, and could meaningfully lead on these issues within the Council.” A 34-year-old renter, Coelho ran on allowing triplexes and corner stores in single family zones and promoting affordability and walkability, particularly in the city center.

The city council is set to vote on the proposed ordinance on May 9, but whether it has the votes to pass is unclear at this point, given the sharp criticism from three members and cageyness from others. Rejecting the path for City Center that Lynnwood has been working on for a few decades would be a clear illustration that the current city council is heading in a reactionary direction on the issue of housing.

The post Is Lynnwood Headed for a Housing Backlash? first appeared on The Urbanist.

A visit to current-day Lynnwood reveals a suburban mix-tape of wide roads, strip malls with oversized parking lots, tracts of single family housing ranging from modest to McMansion in proportions, neighborhood parks, clusters of apartment buildings, and even a few trailer parks. However, with the Lynnwood Link light rail station slated to open in 2024, the city is being reshaped again by a major transportation project. This time around, city leaders and planners hope to harness the opportunity to create walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods located near transit and the regional Interurban multi-use trail.

Doing so will be a heavy lift, but with 500 homes already built or under construction, 1,400 more homes approved, and over 500,000 square feet of office and 200,000 square feet of retail planned, Lynnwood’s City Center stands a chance of becoming a thriving, transit-connected downtown in the coming years.

The City of Lynnwood first began its efforts to develop a city center back in the 2000s. However, the Great Recession put those plans on hold — something the City planning staff now view a blessing in disguise as the delay provided for the opportunity to upgrade plans to better accommodate the arrival of Link light rail, approved by voters in the Sound Transit 2 ballot initiative in 2008. News that light rail would be coming to Lynnwood prompted the City to shift away from plans for promoting office space in the City Center and toward mixed-use development.

Since then, the City of Lynnwood has identified two areas for future dense development: the City Center, which will be adjacent to the Lynnwood Station, and the Alderwood Mall, which will be connected to light rail by buses and the Interurban Trail. A future extension will also add a light rail station at the Alderwood Mall.

This article will take a close look at the City Center, where private development projects are already in the works, most notably Northline Village, a 19 acre mixed-use private development. Additionally, a two-acre site owned by Sound Transit, directly adjacent to light rail, has been identified for development, creating opportunity for affordable housing. The agency recently opened up a survey calling for public feedback on the site, which I will dive into later.

New residential development shifts Lynnwood away from sprawl

Despite the construction surrounding the future Lynnwood City Center Station, it can be difficult to spot evidence of big impending changes afoot. Kinect @ Lynnwood, however, represents a clear shift toward residential density. Located next to the Interurban trail, which extends (haltingly at times) from North Seattle all the way to Everett, residents will one day be able to use the trail to walk or roll to the light rail station or Alderwood Mall. Already leasing out apartments, the development includes 239 homes, 48 of which are restricted as affordable through the Multi-Family Tax Exemption (MFTE) program. There is no commercial space in the development, and approximately 114,000 square feet of structured parking were integrated into the structure. Prior to the development of Kinect @ Lynnwood, the site was the location of a single story commercial structure and drive-thru coffee stand.

As part of an agreement with the City, developers were obligated designate 20% of the homes as affordable through the MFTE, which will slated to last for 12 years. Rents are intended to be affordable to low and moderate income households, although an area media income (AMI) was not specified in the development agreement. Additionally required public benefits included a LEED Silver Standard certification for the building, contributions to both park and transportation impact fees, and sidewalk improvements on Alderwood Mall Boulevard.

A stone’s throw away, Ember, a larger mixed-use development of 361 apartment homes and 9,000 square feet of retail/commercial has been approved and is on track to open at the same time as the light rail station in 2024. MFTE requirements also apply and 72 homes will be restricted as affordable for low and moderate income households. Ember is the first project on a planned promenade street on 198th Street SW that will feature enhanced pedestrian improvements.

Parking for 265 vehicles will be located onsite at Ember in a partially underground structure. The building will feature a green roof and courtyard. Developers will also be required to construct frontage improvements, new sidewalks, and other pedestrian amenities on both 198th Street SW and 40th Avenue W.

Northline Village, a “game changer”

No planned development will have as much of an impact on Lynnwood’s future City Center as the 19-acre Northline Village, by private developer Merlone Geier Partners. Currently an expanse of surface-level park lots and single story commercial structures, the future Northline Village become a new neighborhood of 1,370 apartment homes, 522,000 square feet office space, 207,000 square feet of retail space, a movie theater, two parks, and new connections for existing grid streets. While current renderings show two areas of surface level parking, the intention is for all parking to eventually be integrated into buildings.

The development agreement for Northline Village was approved by the Lynnwood City Council in 2019. Unlike in the case of Kinect @ Lynnwood and Ember, no affordable housing requirements were put in place for Northline Village, leading to criticism from some Lynnwood residents. Councilmember George Hurst cast the lone dissenting vote against the project as a result of the lack of affordable housing requirements.

“It’s great that everyone here wants to talk about affordable housing, but we need to take action,” Hurst said as reported by Lynnwood Times in 2019. “What we’re suffering from is, yes, we don’t have a housing policy, and shame on us. Two years ago, I introduced examples of housing policy that never was brought up by council leadership until recently… We are approving development agreements with no affordable housing; we can sit here and try to sympathize with people, but our actions speak louder than our words.”

Developers Merlone Geier Partners pushed back against the notion that their project could result in displacement, noting that the current site does not contain housing. They have also rejected the notion that Northline Village will worsen traffic conditions in Lynnwood, another criticism the development has faced.

Leasing for homes at Northline Village is advertised to begin in 2024, hopefully timed with the beginning of light rail service at the adjacent station.

The documents included in the Northline Village development agreement and conceptual framework outline detailed plans for the creation of the new neighborhood, covering everything from how the development will advance broader City Center planning goals, to the finer details, such as stormwater management for the site. But as dense and walkable as Northline Village will be, it still runs the risk of emerging as an island in a sea of suburban sprawl.

To the north, 196th Avenue SW, which already sees about 50,000 vehicle trips daily by the City’s count, is being widened to accommodate higher volumes of traffic anticipated in the future as the city grows. The street widening project is also connected utility work and sidewalk improvements; still a trip on foot or by bike to the Fred Meyer located on the north side of 196th Avenue SW will entail crossing six lanes of vehicle traffic, which may be intimidating for some residents even after improvements are made.

The future of Lynnwood City Center depends heavily on how many new developments follow in the example of Northline Village. The City’s zoning map shows that the City Center’s most ambitious zoning for density, marked by yellow, extends beyond the Northline Village site, which opens the door for expansion of the new neighborhood. Creating the level of change envisioned by current Lynnwood city leaders, including Mayor Nicola Smith, an enthusiastic supporter of the city’s efforts to become denser and greener, will likely take at least a decade, if not more, as more private developers acquire property and create plans.

Sound Transit seeks feedback on transit oriented development

In regard to public development, Sound Transit owns two acres of land located directly next to the future Lynnwood City Center Station, and the agency is seeking feedback on how to develop the site. Since no plans have been made yet, the questions are fairly general, and ask for input on whether or not the site should prioritized for housing, what kinds of nonresidential development people would like to see at the site (small size commercial, retail, community center, medical, etc.), and whether the site should feature a few large buildings or a distribution of smaller buildings.

Because Sound Transit has been prioritizing land its owns for the development of affordable housing, retail, and other community uses, it seems likely that the two-acre site near Lynnwood City Center Station will follow a similar model, especially since affordable housing will be absent from nearby Northline Village. However, receiving community feedback expressing a desire for affordable housing on the site will help the agency strengthen its resolve to engage in such planning. The survey is open until December 21st and is available in English, Korean, Spanish and Vietnamese.

The post Lynnwood’s City Center: Transforming Strip Malls into a Dense Urban Neighborhood first appeared on The Urbanist.

The City of Lynnwood hired urban planner Dustin Akers to be the City Center Program Manager, and he and I met up to talk about Lynnwood’s plan and what was being done to make 196th St SW. Akers was hired a year ago and set about putting the 196th St SW project already well under way into triage mode. He pushed the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to re-consider the road’s design and succeeded in downsizing some car-centric elements.

“Each of the lanes are now one foot shorter,” Akers said. “The BRT/BAT lanes are down to 12 feet, which is the minimum Community Transit requires for their BRT routes. The drive lanes are all at 11 feet instead of 12. That five additional feet of right-of-way allowed us to go ahead and complete the full section of sidewalk that they had limited down to ten feet as a cost saving measure for right-of-way acquisition.”

That means the sidewalks are 12 feet wide with tree wells spaced every 30 feet, as per WSDOT standard. Akers said the grates in the tree wells will be flush with sidewalk to allow more usable pedestrian space.

Skeptics might still contend that it’s a stroad, but the redesigned road will have more space for pedestrians, five feet shorter crossing distances, and hopefully less speeding due to the narrower lanes. It’s an improvement over the former plans at the very least.

Akers explained how WSDOT believes the road needed a seven-lane design because it’s one of the primary arterials to and from the city of Edmonds. It can carry upwards of 60,000 vehicles in daily traffic. 196th St SW goes by SR-524 in the state department’s eyes, with all the attending baggage.

The Lynnwood City Center plan could partially alleviate the mid-block crossing I highlighted since the plan calls for adding a new street, 42nd Ave W, to the street grid where we identify the four-block pedestrian crossing gap. 46th Ave W could also be extended south of 196th St SW.

The Seattle Times covered Lynnwood’s ambitious plans the other week and included comments from a real estate economist skeptical Lynnwood would see development beyond five over one construction either though Lynnwood is zoned for 30-story towers.

Matthew Gardner, chief economist for Windermere Real Estate, doubts office towers will reach Lynnwood before the 2030s or 2040s. A 300-foot steel high-rise, at perhaps $600 a square foot, is far costlier than a six-story apartment building of wood and concrete, and Lynnwood currently lacks high property values to give developers a strong return on investment, he said.

Akers admitted initial projects might come in as five-over-one type construction, but also pushed back against the idea that Lynnwood wouldn’t see high-rise towers down the road and hinted there has already been some interest in building 13-story towers. Lynnwood secured a federal grant on transit-oriented development technical assistance and experts like Urban Land Institute predicted only five-over-one until the light rail station opens.

Lynnwood is doing what it can to kick start urban building. The City has expedited the permitting process by pre-approving SEPA review which can save years and could make the city more attractive for development. Much will depend when the first large market-rate project comes in to set rents for the area. Lynnwood has begun seeing large midrise projects but so far they have not been market-rate with a 308-unit senior housing project and another affordable housing project going in.

Of course that demand has everything to do with light rail. Lynnwood Transit Center will see light rail service by 2023 and now, with the passage of ST3, Lynnwood will get a second station at West Alderwood Mall and a third just outside its borders at Ash Way. Sound Transit is just beginning to gather feedback on its latest station designs for the Lynnwood Link extension. Akers suggested more could be done to beautify the station and integrate it with the rest of the future city center. You can share your feedback here on the website.

A Stroad Grows in Lynnwood: 196th St SW

The post Planting Seeds for a City Center in Lynnwood first appeared on The Urbanist.