Traffic could decide which city hosts new NBA, NHL arena

The City of Seattle and Bellevue are the options for housing a new arena for the NBA and the NHL, and a new discovery would make Bellevue a better option for an arena.

The Transportation Management Program (TMP) to study traffic impact  is required of businesses and developers before building an establishment.

For the last 8 months, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has been trying to get a facility built in SoDo.

Both CenturyLink and Safeco fields filed the TMP, which stated that both venues would need to have the end time of one event and the start time of another to be four hours apart to allow traffic to clear. The TMP is required by the City of Seattle, but factoring in the NBA and NHL schedules with Sounders, Mariners, Seahawks and other events would be difficult.

A spokesperson for Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development said that there hasn’t been a traffic study ordered for a new arena site in SoDo.

A spokesperson for Mayor McGinn told KIRO 7 that they were not comfortable talking about traffic impacts on SoDo and it is too early to discuss. KIRO 7’s Chris Egert spoke with the City of Bellevue and they had no new developments.