Five BCC Questions for Sound Transit

I intend to present the following at the Bellevue City Council’s 11/26 extended session meeting.

Bellevue City Council
My name is Bill Hirt and I live at 2615 170^th SE.  I’m here tonight to urge the council to ask Sound Transit five questions as part of your permitting negotiations.

1.   Why didn’t the ST Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) ever consider Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as the “no-build” option for the I-90 bridge center roadway?  BRT had 10 times light rail capacity, at 1/10^th the cost, 10 years sooner, and was far more accessible.

2.   How did ST conclude in their 2008 DEIS that a 4-car train every 9 minutes could accommodate up to 24,000 riders per hour?  If you crammed 200 people into each of the 74-seat cars the maximum possible capacity is less than 11,000.

3.   Why did ST claim single lanes on the outer bridge roadways could accommodate all the bus and HOV traffic  when they close down the center roadway to install light rail.  Their own 2004 study showed one lane wouldn’t have needed capacity for both bus and HOV traffic.

4.   Why didn’t ST add the 4^th lane to the outer roadways 15 years ago?  All cross-lake commuters, but particularly reverse commuters have had to endure years of increased congestion because of the delay.  Their plans to delay the lane for another 4 years are particularly onerous in view of the added traffic from those avoided 520 tolls.

5.   Why didn’t ST ever consider a tunnel from the South Bellevue P&R to 116^th?  They recently agreed to tunnel from the University to Northgate, a far greater distance.  The Bellevue tunnel would have eliminated the devastation along the route into downtown and the encroachment on Mercer Slough Park that violates federal environmental law.  

The council owes Bellevue residents and the entire eastside satisfactory answers from ST to these 5 questions before approving any permits.  The sooner the council recognizes that’s not going to happen the sooner this debacle can end, the $200 million tunnel expenditure driving the cities capital budget problem will disappear, and East Link money can be diverted to BRT reducing congestion for everyone.  It would also eliminate the recent concern about a maintenance yard in Bel-Red area.