SEATTLE — Can foes of Sound Transit persuasively claim in court that a plan for a light-rail line through Rainier Valley discriminates against residents and minority-owned businesses in the area?
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals listened to legal arguments yesterday on that question and will rule in three to six months, the Seattle Times reported.
Last year, a federal district judge rejected most of the arguments by the group Save Our Valley, which maintained that the light-rail corridor would violate civil-rights law. The group filed an appeal in December.
The group considers it unfair that Sound Transit intends to use tunnels or elevated lines in North Seattle in future light-rail extensions, while in the less affluent South End the agency has opted for cheaper surface-level tracks on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South.
A Save Our Valley statement calls the rail project an “urban removal” strategy to drive out the existing minority community so others can profit through redevelopment. Sound Transit says it has logical reasons to travel at street level: Rainier Valley is flatter and roomier than the city’s North End neighborhoods.
Legal arguments yesterday dealt not with the pros and cons of light rail but with a recent 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that individuals can’t file civil-rights lawsuits if an agency’s actions caused merely a “disparate impact” on a minority group. An intent to discriminate must be proved, according to both the Supreme Court and last year’s district-court ruling.
If the appeals court sides with Save Our Valley, the case will return to federal district court.
After yesterday’s court appearance, Sound Transit general counsel Desmond Brown said valley residents are getting a favorable deal.
“The area that it would be serving has the highest transit ridership in the region per capita,” he said.
But Mickey Gendler, an attorney for Save Our Valley, said light rail “would not benefit the people who live there now if they are pushed out.”
Sound Transit hopes to break ground within a few months on a starter line running 14 miles from downtown Seattle to Tukwila.