Bellevue City Council Enabled East Link Boondoggle

Recent posts have detailed how Sound Transit and WSDOT failed to deal with the congestion on the area’s major roadways and how Seattle Times failed to either recognize that incompetence or chose to ignore it.   This post details why even with their incompetence, East Link, the most egregious example, could have been avoided.   

The Bellevue City Council could have stopped East Link by disallowing any of the 10 permits Sound Transit needed for construction.  Instead they enabled what will inevitably be recognized as one of the biggest, if not the biggest, boondoggle in public transit history.  Bellevue residents living near or commuting along the route into Bellevue have already borne the brunt of light rail construction.  The council allowed Sound Transit to close South Bellevue P&R, ending access to transit for many, despite their Memorandum of Understanding with the council to provide alternatives.  

Their permit approval resulted in Sound Transit closing the I-90 Bridge center roadway, ignoring an FHA September 2004 Record of Decision “I-90 Two-way Transit and Operations Project”.  It concluded the center roadway was still needed for vehicles, even with the R8-A 4^th lanes added to outer roadways.   The FHA clearly believes East Link increased cross-lake congestion for Bellevue and all I-90 cross-lake commuters.

A Bellevue City Council East Link veto would have eliminated all the devastation along the route into Bellevue and the loss of South Bellevue P&R.    It could have forced Sound Transit to use east side Prop 1 funds to add parking with access to additional bus routes.  A veto could’ve “forced” Sound Transit to recognize the benefits of adding 4^th lanes to the bridge outer roadways for non-transit HOV with two-way bus only lanes on bridge center roadway to facilitate the added bus service. 

Instead Sound Transit ignored the need to increase transit capacity along the entire I-90 corridor for 10 years.   Their access for I-90 commuters to Bellevue has consisted of eight 555/556 buses between 5:20 and 9:00 am. via Bellevue Way to Bellevue T/C.  They’ve never provided any bus routes directly to the T/C for I-90 commuters.

The lack of a transit alternative along I-90 has increased congestion for both SOV and HOV commuters.  SOV commuters face long lines on I-90 on ramps.  HOV commuters (and those who do manage to get on buses) have easier access to I-90 but, like SOV commuters, face miles-long congestion on the lanes to Bellevue and I-405 connections.   The commuters added by recent construction along I-90 will surely add to the congestion during East Link construction. 

         All of the devastation and congestion resulting from Sound Transit decision to spend hundreds of millions each year on light rail construction rather than on increasing transit capacity might be justified if East Link operation reduced congestion on the areas roadways.  Instead East Link operation, will not only not ease I-90 corridor congestion, it will increase I-90 bridge congestion, and will halve Central Link capacity south of the International District.   

          Sound Transits decision to route Central Link through Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) severely limits capacity.  A 2004 Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), Central Puget Sound Region, “High Capacity Transit Corridor Assessment” concluded the (DSTT) station length limited light rail trains to 4 cars, that safe operation required a minimum of 4 minutes between trains, and that the 74-seat cars could accommodate 146 riders; limiting its capacity to 8880 riders per hour in each direction.  Both Central Link, south of Seattle, and East Link, across I-90, will be limited by DSTT capacity to one 4-car train, every 8 minutes with 4440-rph.   A fraction of the capacity needed to reduce congestion on either I-90 or I-5.

         Sound Transit initially promoted East Link as the way to reduce I-90 Bridge congestion by replacing cross-lake buses.  (40,000 of the projected 50,000 riders were from terminated bus routes)  They apparently didn’t recognize reducing the number of buses on the I-90 Bridge HOV lanes does nothing to reduce GP lane congestion.  East Link will have about half the capacity of current bus routes and any buses routed to the South Bellevue light rail station will face miles of congestion on GP lanes to station.   East Link riders will largely be limited to those within walking distance of light rail stations.

         Again, a Bellevue City Council disapproval of permits could have forced Sound Transit to use east side funds to increase bus service.  A 70-ft articulated bus can accommodate up to 119 sitting and standing riders.   Sound Transit could have added 40 such buses with more capacity than East Link without spending a dime on light rail construction.   Even more important, Sound Transit can increase number of buses to whatever is required to meet future growth.  (900 buses an hour are routed to Manhattan on a single lane.)  East Link (And Central Link South) will always be limited to less capacity than 40 buses.

 In conclusion I started this blog more than six years ago because the Bellevue City Council ignored three years of personal appearances and emails attempting to make the above arguments.  They simply ignored my concern that Sound Transit’s claims in the 2008 were sheer fantasy.  They ignored the FHA conclusion the center roadway was needed for vehicles and the PSRC conclusion the DSTT limits on capacity.  In 2016 they recommended ST3 approval, ignoring my attempts to point out its failure to do anything to reduce congestion.  They later justified allowing Sound Transit to proceed with the Operation Maintenance Facility with the totally absurd claim it would attract “1.1 million square feet of housing, office, and retail space" of "Transit Oriented Development".

At this point very little can be done.  Congestion throughout the area is only going the increase as more commuters attempt to use the area's roadways.  The Bellevue City Council, who could have prevented it, instead played a major roll in enabling it.  Both I-90 commuters and Central Link south commuters will pay a heavy price as a result.