Bellevue Reporter Ignores This Republican Candidacy,

The June 7^th Bellevue Reporter editorial used the Republican failure to challenge Snohomish County Executive David Somers to “wonder whither the Snohomish County Republican Party”.    One would think Bellevue residents would be more interested in local candidates.  Yet the paper neglected to mention in the May 24^th front-page article, “Residents file for November general Election” I had filed as a candidate for the 6^th District King County Council. 

But it’s nothing new as they’ve refused to mention any of my previous 7 candidacies.  Admittedly they’ve never been about winning but to attract viewers to posts on my stopeastlinknow blog.  For years surveys have shown Bellevue residents considered congestion as one of their major concerns with the latest showing 76% thought so, nearly four times their second concern, the 17% concerned about the price of housing.  Yet the Bellevue Reporter has ignored countless emails referring the paper to posts on the blog detailing the problems and what could be done to ameliorate them.

While there are several reasons for the area’s congestion, the most egregious example of the Reporter’s failure to inform readers is their support for Sound Transit’s East Link.  There was never any need for Sound Transit to confiscate the I-90 Bridge center roadway or to devastate the route through Bellevue, ending forever the city’s persona as “the city in the park”.

10 years ago Sound Transit could have added 4^th lanes to the bridge outer roadways for non-transit HOV and implemented 2-way BRT on bridge center roadway.  The increased capacity from adding BRT routes could have easily accommodated future cross-lake transit needs at a fraction of light rails cost. 

Instead Sound Transit neglected to consider two-way BRT on I-90 Bridge as their “no-build” option.  Selling East Link to voters in its 2008 DEIS as the equivalent of 10 lanes of freeway with capacity of up to 24,000 riders per hour.   A 2004 PSRC study, funded by Sound Transit, concluded the DSTT limited light rail capacity to 8880 riders per hour in each direction.  East Link’s share, 4440 rph, is a fraction of the promised capacity.  Sound Transit could have added that capacity with an additional 50 buses an hour without spending a dime on light rail construction or devastating Bellevue. 

Even more absurd, Sound Transit doesn’t plan to use East Link to add cross-lake capacity, they intend to use it to replace existing bus routes. Apparently not recognizing spending billions to reduce the number of buses on I-90 Bridge will do little to reduce congestion.  They did so because of the limited number of commuters within walking distance of light rail stations and lack of parking with access   

The end result is east side commuters will no longer have access to cross-lake bus routes.  I-90 corridor commuters will be forced to transfer to and from light rail at Mercer Island light rail station.  Even worse their share of East Link’s limited transit capacity will be limited to 20 bus routes an hour, ending access to transit for many, and adding to those forced to use bridge outer roadway.  A sure recipe for gridlock on I-90 Bridge and added miles to I-90 corridor congestion.    

Again none of this had to happen.  The fact east side residents will also be forced to pay hundreds if not thousands in ST3 taxes to fund the construction of and later for the operation of a Sound Transit light rail spine that does nothing to reduce congestion is truly "pouring salt on their wounds".  The Bellevue Reporter’s decision to ignore my candidacy is just the latest example of their failure to inform readers of that reality.