The 6/20/14 post detailed how
Sound Transit’s delays in adding the 4th lane to the I-90 bridge
outer roadways had already forced thousands of cross-lake commuters from both
sides of the lake to needlessly endure years of increased congestion. Whatever the reason, their current
plans to extend the delay until 2017 will allow ST to never “consider” two-way,
bus-only lanes on the center roadway or to “demonstrate” the added lane will
provide needed capacity until it is too late to do anything about it. (A 2004 FHWA study concluded center
roadway closure will increase congestion on the outer bridge roadways even with
the added lane.)
Sound Transit may have believed
the increased capacity from light rail will attract enough additional riders to reduce
outer roadway vehicle congestion. They
were undoubtedly aware of the very successful Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)
system between San Francisco and the Oakland area. It currently averages nearly 400,000 riders every weekday. However it does so with up to sixteen
10-car trains an hour. The Seattle
tunnel will limit East Link to 4-car trains every 8 minutes or 7 1/2 per hour
(4500 riders per hour (RPH) assuming 150 riders in each of the 74-seat cars).
Furthermore, BART provides easy
access to a huge population base with five separate lines serving a wide area
on the Oakland side. East Link
will be a single line with the South Bellevue and Mercer Island light rail stations the only access for the
vast majority of cross-lake commuters.
Thus, East Link will do absolutely nothing to alleviate I-90 or 405 congestion, even if it had the needed capacity. To put it mildly “East Link is no BART”!
Yet Sound Transit’s 2008 DEIS
claimed East Link would “meet growing transit and mobility demands by
increasing person-moving capacity across Lake Washington on I-90 by up to 60
percent.” They supported
this assessment with claims light rail could accommodate “up to 24,000 riders
per hour” (RPH) and was “the equivalent of 10 lanes of freeway”.
ST projected East Link would have
50,000 daily riders by 2030. More
recently they explained 40,000 of the riders would be the result of terminating
all existing cross-lake bus routes at South Bellevue and Mercer Island light rail stations. Transferring transit riders from buses
to light rail cars does very little to increase cross-lake capacity. Thus it’s
“unclear” how East Link could increase I-90 transit capacity by 60%.
Even this limited number of
riders is beyond East Link capacity, at least during normal commute hours. The
40,000 total rides are presumably split between 20,000 morning and afternoon
commuters into and out of Seattle. With a maximum capacity of 4500 RPH, it will take nearly 4 ½ hours for East Link to accommodate the 20,000 inbound and outbound commuters each
weekday. As a result rather than
attracting the thousands of additional transit riders needed for their 60%
growth projections, East Link will reduce transit capacity. During the peak commute thousands
of former bus riders will be forced onto the I-90 outer roadways adding to the
congestion there.
By the time East Link begins
operation (2023?), I-90 commuters will have had to endure 6-7 years of
increased congestion due to ST confiscation of the center roadway. Imagine their outrage when they
experience the additional congestion from thousands of former transit riders
forced onto outer roadway when East Link begins operation by terminating cross-lake bus routes.
A debacle by anyone’s standards!
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