February 15, 2011 Sound Transit moves ahead with stadium station

February 15, 2011 Sound Transit moves ahead with stadium station

February 15, 2011
Sound Transit moves ahead with stadium station, I-90 track
study
By JOURNAL STAFF
Image courtesy of Sound Transit [enlarge]
This updated image of the Husky Stadium station shows a new crossing for pedestrians and bicyclists over
Montlake Boulevard Northeast.
Sound Transit is moving forward with plans to hire Hoffman Construction as the general
contractor/construction manager for the light rail station at Husky Stadium.
The Sound Transit Capital Committee last week voted to recommend the full board approve a
contract with Hoffman that will not exceed $148.8 million. The project includes building a
pedestrian bridge from the station over Montlake Boulevard Northeast to the University of
Washington campus.
Construction would begin in April and take five years.
The committee also voted to hire a joint venture of Parsons Brinkerhoff and Balfour Beatty to
design a prototype track system for putting light rail on the Interstate 90 floating bridge. The
maximum contract amount is nearly $4.9 million.
A light rail line has never been built on a floating bridge.
For more than a year, Sound Transit, the University of Washington and other entities have been
trying to figure out how thousands of pedestrians and bicyclists will cross Montlake Boulevard at
the Husky Stadium station. The groups have come up with a plan but need to finalize a $43
million agreement to execute it.
Capital Committee members are recommending that Sound Transit execute that agreement with
the Washington State Department of Transportation and the UW.
The agreement will go to the full Sound Transit board for approval next week. Under the
agreement, WSDOT would contribute up to $22 million for the Montlake Triangle project, plus
$5 million for a reserve fund. Sound Transit would chip in $12 million, and the UW would
contribute up to $4 million.
In addition to the pedestrian bridge over the boulevard, the project includes building a land
bridge to connect the triangle to the main campus over Northeast Pacific Place and the BurkeGilman Trail. Both Northeast Pacific Place and the trail would have to be lowered. Sound Transit
or the UW would take on final design and construction.
The area west of the boulevard would be landscaped and other site improvements would be
made, with the UW handling design and construction.
Initially, Sound Transit planned to build a longer pedestrian bridge over the boulevard. But the
city of Seattle considered the span a sky bridge, and Seattle discourages those. City officials
asked the project partners to take another look at the design.
With a new plan in place for the boulevard crossing, design of the Husky Stadium station must
be updated. Capital Committee members are recommending the full board amend the contract
with Northlink Transit Partners to re-do the design, which is estimated to cost more than $1.5
million. That would boost the total contract to more than $55 million. Jacobs Associates, Aecom
and HNTB formed Northlink with other consultants.
LMN Architects and KPFF Consulting Engineers are designing the Husky Stadium station.
The I-90 contract with Parsons Brinkerhoff and Balfour Beatty calls for designing a prototype
system that allows light rail to travel over the existing I-90 expansion joints, which move to
accommodate the bridge's floating sections. The tracks also will need to move to allow
continuous contact between the tracks and light rail vehicles.
The contract calls for computer modeling of the design as well as developing a testing method
for the second phase of the project. The second phase is fabrication, testing and production of
the track bridge system prototype.
Copyright 2011 Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce