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 170th SE. I’m here tonight to urge the council to ask Sound Transit five questions as part of your permitting negotiations.
My name is Bill Hirt and I live at 2615 170th 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 1/10th 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 4th 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 116th?
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.
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