An article
in the August 29th Bellevue Reporter details a Sept. 9 Sound Transit
meeting at the Bellevue Golf Course explaining plans to offset the loss of a
part-acre of the Mercer Slough Park needed for the South Bellevue light rail
station by adding acreage elsewhere. Apparently this is an ST response to Sec 4(f) of the
Department of Transportation Act that protects parks, waterfowl and wildlife
refuges from encroachment by transportation projects unless there is no feasible
and prudent alternative or if the impact is de
minimis after mitigation.
Their
approach to this minor issue typifies ST priorities when it comes to
dealing with East Link problems. For
example, over the last three years they’ve spent tens of millions getting
“public input” for light rail stations that aren’t needed until 2023. Yet they refuse to spend the minimal
amounts needed to add 4th lanes to the I-90 Bridge outer roadways
and demonstrate the added lanes will make up for the loss of the center roadway.
They’re also apparently
unconcerned about the inability of their scheduled light rail service to
provide needed capacity for cross-lake commuters. They simply ignore the potential impact from the lack of
capacity on I-90 bridge center and outer roadways for cross-lake commuters.
In the
Mercer Slough Park land-swap-mitigation plan ST simply ignores the far more
egregious “encroachment” on the park; namely light rail train noise. Central Link 2-car train noise has
forced ST to spend millions “sound proofing” homes more than 300 feet from the
tracks. Obviously 4-car trains
running on elevated tracks near the station will increase the noise.
The ST Shoreline Substantial
Development Permit Application
goes into great details about the extensive mitigation efforts for ~200
properties some distance from the tracks along the west side of the route. Yet they’re doing absolutely nothing to
mitigate the noise on the east side for tracks directly adjacent to the park. As one who years ago used to enjoy the
quiet solitude of canoeing along its waters, the idea ST would consider the
resultant level of train noise de minimis
is truly obscene.
ST’s approach to environmental
law regarding the Mercer Slough is consistent with their DEIS claim “The East
Link Project would also offer environmental improvements over the No Build
Alternative”. They substantiate that claim promising “The
project would benefit the region by decreasing daily vehicle miles traveled
(VMT) by approximately 200,000 miles and daily vehicle hours traveled (VHT) by
approximately 15,000 hours.
It reminds me of an old “Peanuts”
cartoon where Snoopy opines “birds have been known to fly to the moon and back”.
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