University of Washington, Puget Sound Sage
Capstone Project
Instructors: Nancy Rottle, Brian Gerich
Collaborators: Aaron Parker, Sujing Sun
Year: 2017 - 2018
A new light rail station at South Graham Street, which was part of the Seattletransportation levy passed by voters in fall of 2015, became part of the “SoundTransit 3” expansion planned for completion by 2031. The infill South GrahamStreet station is an excellent opportunity for the South Graham St. neighborhoodto not only economically benefit from the new development, but also to provide anavenue for climate justice within the South Seattle neighborhood.
South Seattle communities are highly vulnerable to displacement. It has been rec-ognized as one of the most diverse and dynamic neighborhoods, not only in thePacific Northwest but also across the entire United States. For decades, it hasbeen classified as “truly disadvantaged” and “stable low income.” In this part ofSeattle there is also a lack of support for climate resilience development, housingsecurity, and economic development.
A local non-profit organization - Puget Sound Sage - has been working with com-munity members to workshop ideal visions for the light rail development throughcommunity-led equitable TOD planning. Puget Sound Sage facilitated this commu-nity participation process, supporting community members in defining the prob-lem, gathering information, and interpreting results, which creates a collaborativepartnership in which partners engage equitably, share decision-making power, andshare resources.
The purpose of this activity is both to educate the communi-ty members about trade-offs of right-of-way design, and toprovide the designers information about the preferences andpriorities for street scape design. The activity is posted on thewall and the community is encouraged to stand and gatheraround the board with the cut out images laid out before them.The facilitator will describe that the street and sidewalk is onlyso wide, so some trade-offs must be made between allowingvehicle traffic, light rail, people, and infrastructure. From there,participants consider what aspects of the design are the mostimportant and begin realistically prioritizing elements.
