Bellevue City Council, Sound Transit to discuss downtown light rail options Thursday, Feb. 11

The Bellevue City Council and Sound Transit Board of Directors will hold a joint workshop from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11, to discuss a new report on four recently proposed, downtown light rail alternatives.

The meeting will take place in Room 404-406 of Meydenbauer Center, located at 11100 N.E. Sixth Street.

Members of the public are invited to attend the meeting, but no public comments will be taken. The meeting will also be available for viewing on Bellevue TV, Channel 21. Check the BTV schedule for times.

The purpose of the meeting is to provide information, answer questions and facilitate discussion among council and board members regarding downtown route options for the East Link light rail project.

The four new downtown route alternatives are analyzed in a Concept Design Report available on the Sound Transit website

website. The choices include two street-level alternatives, one elevated alternative and one tunnel alternative. Two earlier options identified in May 2009 continue to be studied.

In addition to the joint council-board meeting on Thursday, Feb. 11, Sound Transit will host a public open house on the four new downtown alternatives. That event is from 4-7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 18 (with a presentation at 5 p.m.), on the first floor concourse of Bellevue City Hall, 450 110th Ave. N.E.

East Link, approved by voters in 2008 as part of a regional ST2 package of transit projects, includes the extension of light rail from Seattle, across Lake Washington to Bellevue and on to the Overlake Transit Center in Redmond. Sound Transit is scheduled to make a final decision on an East Link route through Bellevue by early 2011.

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