My
Sept 12th Presentation to Seattle Times Interviewers
My
candidacy is due to Sound Transit’s 1990’s historic blunder in selecting light
rail for cross-lake mass transit.
They knew or should have known that a bus rapid transit (BRT) system had
ten times light rail capacity at 1/10th the cost, and could have
been in operation in 2 years not 20.
Fifteen
years ago Sound Transit could have added a 4th lane to the bridge
outer roadways for non-transit HOV traffic and initiated BRT on the center
roadway. The BRT could have
provided direct connections between every eastside P&R and Seattle. The entire eastside would have
benefitted by allowing more commuters to leave their cars near where they live
rather than where they work.
Instead
Sound Transit has used the years to spend hundreds of millions on a light rail
system that will never have the capacity or the accessibility for more than a
fraction of cross-lake commuters. Their
2008 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) claimed a 4-car train every 9 minutes
was like adding 10 lanes of freeway capable of 24,000 riders per hour. Even if they crammed 200 riders
on each of the four 74-seat cars, the maximum theoretical capacity would be
less than 11,000. The only access
for most cross-lake commuters to this limited capacity would be a South
Bellevue P&R: a P&R that
will never have the needed capacity or accessibility.
Sound
Transit also claimed their addition of a 4th lane to the outer
roadways would provide “travel times across I-90 for vehicles and trucks that
improve or remain similar with East Link”. They used that claim to convince a Kittitas judge that the
center roadway could be used for light rail. Yet their own
2004 studies showed a single lane did not have sufficient capacity for both bus
and HOV traffic.
Cross-lake
commuters have already needlessly endured years of increased congestion because
of Sound Transits blunders. What’s
truly incredible is it gets worse!
In 2016 they’ll close off the center roadway and force all cross-lake
traffic onto the outer roadways, a sure recipe for eventual gridlock. They’ll use the next 7 years to spend billions devastating parts of Bellevue with light rail tracks and
5000-volt power lines creating a light rail system that will have a miniscule
effect on outer roadway congestion.
None
of this had to happen. Sound Transit could have used the eastside tax money to eliminate the
need for 520 tolls rather than waste it promoting light rail. The Seattle Times could have stopped it years ago by
exposing Sound Transit’s failure to consider BRT for cross-lake transit. The decision to ignore my many emails
on these issues has been an abdication of your responsibility to inform the
public. Your continued silence will
be a major contributor to Sound Transit spending the next 10 years and billions
on East Link, devastating parts of Bellevue and eventually grid locking I-90 bridge.
No responsible newspaper would
allow that.
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