(I submitted the following to the Mercer Island City Council in response to Sound Transit's plan to terminate King County Metro buses at the MI light rail station.)
What
Mercer Island Council Should Do
The
March 13th MI News article “Mercer Island Transit Interchange” is just
another attempt of Sound Transit to convince Mercer Island City Council to go
along with attempts to increase East Link ridership. It began more than 4 years ago with a January 21, 2014 Sound
Transit presentation to the council about Integrated Transit System (ITS)
proposal.
That
presentation detailed how 40,000 of East Link’s 50,000 daily riders would come
from terminating I-90 corridor buses at either South Bellevue or Mercer Island
light rail stations. They claimed:
The light rail stations at South Bellevue
and Mercer Island will:
Smooth bus-rail transfers
Help improve efficiency and cost-savings
Provide
more reliable and frequent service
Enhance
rider experience
Help
optimize transit operations
The reality is it’s “unlikely”
forcing bus commuters to transfer to and from light rail trains at either South
Bellevue or Mercer Island will provide any of the purported benefits. The Mercer Island city council rightly
rejected all four of Sound Transit’s “Scenarios” for accommodating up to 84
buses an hour at the Mercer Island light rail station. And Sound Transit agreed not to terminate Sound Transit buses
at the Mercer Island station.
However Sound Transit still
intends to use East Link to replace all cross-lake buses. Sound Transit route 550 will be
eliminated and 554 will be terminated at the South Bellevue light rail station.
As a result, Mercer Island
commuters will loose all access to Seattle via bus.
Sound Transit’s latest attempt to
boost East Link ridership is to convince Mercer Island City Council to go along
with a plan to use East Link to replace King County Metro I-90 bus routes. Metro buses that currently don’t stop
on the island will be terminated at the Mercer Island station.
This proposal was the result of
Sound Transit commissioning a Mercer Island Transit Interchange Operational and Configuration
Study to
evaluate how Metro buses will integrate with the light rail station. It resulted in the following purported
benefits:
The future transit
interchange achieves the key tenets of the Settlement Agreement:
·
A roundabout at North Mercer Way & 77th Avenue SE, and no
substantial bus operations/layovers along 80th Avenue
·
Future bus volumes less than existing bus volumes
·
No routing of regional buses through MI Town Center
·
Limited occurrences of long bus layovers
·
No bus idling
Typical of Sound Transit, they
apparently believe the Mercer Island City Council, that didn’t want Sound
Transit buses terminated on the island, would accept King County Buses. Even if they did it’s unlikely King
County Metro will go along with forcing riders to transfer to and from light rail at Mercer Island station.
The Mercer Island City Council
should use the meeting to insist Sound Transit 554 continue to be routed to MI
station and across I-90 Bridge into Seattle when East Link begins operation. They should join with Issaquah City
Council to insist Issaquah commuters not be forced to transfer to and from
light rail at the South Bellevue P&R and islanders should be given the
option of commuting by bus, especially during peak commute when East Link
trains could be full. (Terminating Metro buses there adds to the problem.) That Sound
Transit should reserve 50% of the MI P&R for those willing to pay for stalls
with islanders given priority to assure access.
The bottom line is Sound Transit
ridership projections for all their Prop 1 and beyond light rail extensions are
based on using light rail to replace bus routes. They refuse to acknowledge that congestion on the area’s HOV
lanes is not due to too many buses.
Their attempt to replace I-90 King County Metro bus routes with trains
is just the latest example and should be rejected.
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