Transportation Projects
Illustration of the City of Everett’s preferred location of the Everett Link Light Rail Station at McDougall Ave and Pacific Ave, by Jennifer Cao, ESDA’s 2020-22 Urban Planning Coordinator through the AmeriCorps VISTA Program.
Projects in Planning and Construction
Everett Link Extension
The Everett Link Extension will extend the region’s light rail system with 16 miles of light rail from Lynnwood to the Everett Station District with six new stations. Sound Transit is currently within the alternatives development phase, in which it is exploring alternative configurations for the guideway alignment and stations locations.
Within the Everett Station District, Sound Transit is currently evaluating three potential locations for the northern terminus station of the light rail line: (A) along Smith Ave at the location of the current Community Transit Swift bus bays — this represents the alignment shown in the ST3 ballot measure ; (C) along McDougall between Pacific & 32nd — this represents the preferred location of the City of Everett as stated in its comprehensive plan; and (D) along Broadway between Hewitt & Pacific, across from the Angel of the Winds Arena & Convention Center.
ESDA has also recommended to Sound Transit that it consider a fourth alternative, “Option X”, which would be located east of the BNSF tracks, under the Pacific Ave Bridge.
Swift Gold Line
Community Transit will build a new Swift bus rapid transit line from Everett Station to Smokey Point in Arlington. The public will be able to review and comment on the planned route from May to June 2023.
Wall Street Connector
The City of Everett is adding and upgrading pedestrian and bicycle connectivity between the Everett Station and the Angel of the Winds Arena. The proposed alignment of the pedestrian/bicycle route is along Wall Street, starting west of McDougall Ave, continuing along Smith Ave to Everett Station.
California Street Active Connection
The “Active Connections: California Street” project will create a bike and pedestrian corridor on California Street between Broadway and US 2. The project will add and/or improve bike facilities and sidewalks to create a multimodal transportation connection that accommodates a wide range of abilities, confidence and comfort levels of cyclists with safety-focused improvements. The project will improve bike and pedestrian safety, comfort and options connecting downtown Everett with the US 2 trail.
Fulton Street Connector
The Fulton Street Pedestrian & Bicycle Corridor project will build bike-only facilities and fill in the missing sidewalk on Fulton Street between Pacific Avenue and California Street, as well as bike signal crossings at Pacific Avenue and Fulton Street, and Hewitt Avenue and Fulton Street.
Broadway Repaving
In 2024, Broadway will be repaved from Hewitt Ave to 41st Street.
See page A-72 of the appendix to the 2023-2026 Regional Transportation Improvement Program.
Revive I-5
From Fall 2022 - Fall 2023, WSDOT is rehabilitating more than 3 miles of pavement, replacing broken panels and grinding the surface to eliminate ruts worn by decades of vehicles. In addition, WSDOT is replacing expansion joints on four bridges.
US 2 Trestle Replacement
In 2021, WSDOT completed its US 2 Westbound Trestle Study. The study found:
(1-3) increasing the capacity of the US 2 westbound trestle would not alleviate congestion during the morning peak hours, but might if the lanes were managed (transit, HOV, express toll, or peak-use shoulder lane);
(4) a long-term solution for improving the US 2 westbound trestle would provide opportunity to create a valuable active transportation corridor between communities east of the Snohomish River and downtown Everett;
(5) the share of HOV and transit (bus) vehicles on the corridor during the morning peak is expected to be less than 9% in 2040 unless additional transit improvements are provided; and
(6) replacing the trestle would not measurably improve environmental conditions beyond the current baseline conditions.
Moving forward, the report recommended focusing on tolling and demand management and improving HOV, transit, and active transportation connections.
Despite WSDOT’s report, Snohomish County and other partners continue to advance the full replacement of the US 2 Trestle. In 2022, the state legislature included $210.5 million in the Move Ahead Washington Package for the construction of improvements to the westbound approach to the trestle. This funding is now currently be used to advance EIS work on the full replacement of the trestle. The project is not listed in the 2023-2026 Regional Transportation Improvement Program.
I5/US2 Interchange Planning Study
When WSDOT began studying options for replacing the westbound US 2 trestle, they identified the I-5 and US 2 interchange as needing similar improvements to achieve the full benefit of the westbound trestle. In 2020, the City of Everett and Snohomish County received a grant from the Puget Sound Regional Council to continue the preliminary work identified in WSDOT’s study. This year, the City launched the I-5/US 2 Interchange Planning Study to identify improvements to the interchange and city streets that connect to it.
ESDA Concepts
ESDA has presented concepts of several transportation and mobility improvements in the neighborhood through our advocacy regarding the Everett Link Extension and in our 2020 Future Concepts Report and 2021 Convergence Study Report. This is a summary of those projects.
Light Rail Station Location: Option X
In addition to the three alternative locations of the northern terminus station to the Everett Link Light Rail line, ESDA has also presented a fourth alternative that we term, “Option X.”
This option would would run the guideway at-grade east of the BNSF rail tracks, and place the station under the Pacific Ave Bridge.
Train passengers would be able to get up and down from the station platform to the Pacific Avenue Bridge via stairs and elevators, from where they could walk west toward Downtown, South toward Everett Station, and east toward the Cedar Street Campus, Kaiser Permanente, and the Delta Hotel.
The outside lanes on Pacific Avenue would become bus-only lanes, with train-to-bus transfers. The Everett Transit bus lines would be reoriented from their current hub-and-spoke model centered on Everett Station to a grid network, to which Pacific Avenue is the major east-west route for several bus lines through Downtown and the Everett Station District neighborhood.
To improve walking and biking between the west and east sides of the BNSF tracks, a parking garage with a park on top would be constructed, flush with Pacific Avenue and the Smith Avenue ramp.
Neighborhood Town Square / Public Plaza
ESDA and the Convergence Collaborative advocate for the conversion of 32nd Street from Smith Ave to Broadway to be converted into a public plaza as the neighborhood’s central gathering place.
The neighborhood currently has no parks or other public space beyond a small sculpture garden in front of Everett Station. The public plaza would be a flexible space that could support farmers markets, community events, children’s play, and more.
Located directly in front of Everett Station, the space is currently used for the summer Wednesday Farmers Market and for the Bike Everywhere Day Celebration in May. If the light rail station is built at the city’s stated preferred location along McDougall between Pacific & 32nd, the public plaza would provide an ideal walking experience between the two transit stations.
The Metro Everett Plan, which is incorporated into the city’s comprehensive plan, call for 32nd Street to be designed to prioritize pedestrians.
ESDA’s Future Concepts Report published in 2020 illustrated several versions of what the public plaza could look like. In addition, the Convergence Study Report illustrated a phased-in approach to how the public plaza could be developed.
ESDA will continue to explore ways to activate 32nd Street to showcase how it can become a future public plaza.
Grid the Bus Network
In ESDA’s Future Concepts Report published in 2020, we presented a concept for rerouting Everett Transit’s bus lines into a grid rather than the current hub-and-spoke model centered on Everett Station’s bus bays. The benefits of this proposal include:
Eliminating circuitous routing through the Everett Station bus bays and Downtown Everett that significantly impact travel.
Integrating transfers on Pacific Ave with our proposed “Option X” location of the future Everett Link light rail station.
Potentially using bus time savings to increase bus frequency.
Improving the rider comprehension of where bus routes go, especially for routes through downtown.
Freeing-up current bus bays for transit-oriented development.
Freight & Delivery Streets
In ESDA’s Future Concepts Report published in 2020 and in the Convergence Study Report published in 2021, we recommended that the City of Everett establish a freight priority street network.
On these streets, the movement of trucks would be of high-priority when considering any design modification.
Connection to Riverside Development
In ESDA’s Future Concepts Report published in 2020, we recommended a pedestrian-bicycle trail connection from the southern-most point of Cedar Street to the Riverfront Development. The route would run along the north-edge of the BNSF tracks and then run under the tracks in a tunnel to the Riverside Development.
The City of Everett has explored other options, such as building a bridge from Smith Avenue & 36th Street, and over the several tracks to the riverfront development.
In addition to our proposed route under the tracks, the Future Concepts Report also suggests:
Building a bike/ped connection over the BNSF tracks as part of a future light rail guideway alignment.
A bike/ped bridge at 38th Street over the BNSF tracks.
Green Loop
The Convergence Study Report published in 2021 recommended the creation of a “Green Loop” that would provide pedestrian and bicycle connections between new public parks and open spaces.
