In 2016, Seattle-area voters approved a 60-mile transit system expansion, including new light rail routes connecting the West Seattle and Ballard neighborhoods to downtown Seattle. Sound Transit set out to incorporate station planning concerns—including equitable TOD, new job capacity, and redevelopment potential—early in the planning process for these two projects. To help prioritize routes and station alternatives, the project team used MapCraft Labs to analyze TOD potential in six station areas.

The Sound Transit Lab uses a variety of data to categorize TOD opportunities. For example, the Lab identifies sites suitable for agency-led TOD as well as possible targets for affordable housing preservation. To do so, the Lab calculates the financial feasibility of more than one hundred building prototypes—including single-family, multifamily, mixed-use, industrial, office, and hotel—on each parcel in the station areas. Users can modify assumptions about market conditions and zoning to see how development outcomes might change.

Sound Transit is currently preparing an Environmental Impact Statement for the project. They continue to use MapCraft Labs to analyze how development, displacement, and TOD outcomes would differ between project alternatives.