More on Stopping Sound Transit Bus Intercept

The previous post detailed why Sound Transit’s refusal to comply with RCW 81.104.100 voids any claim they can use Chapter 81.112 to justify forcing Mercer Island to accept terminating all I-90 corridor buses on the island.  However, it’s not clear whether the city council will choose to do so.  They’ve ignored previous posts detailing Sound Transit’s failure to comply with the RCW was ample grounds for disallowing the permits Sound Transit needed for East Link. 

Sound Transit has failed to comply with the RCW for all of the Prop 1 extensions.  The Ballard and West Link extensions are the only ones that could comply with the requirement light rail was better than the “low cost” bus alternative for high capacity transit. Their failure to comply could be grounds to force Sound Transit to divert money from the Prop 1 extensions to the Ballard and West Seattle links. 

Sound Transit compounds that failure by using light rail to replace bus routes rather than increase transit capacity into the city.  Current I-5 bus riders will be forced to transfer to light rail for the commute into and out of the city.  Replacing bus routes does little to reduce HOV lane congestion and nothing for GP congestion.  Riders added will reduce access for current Central Link commuters, ending it for much of the day with even a fraction of Sound Transit's Prop t projected ridership.  More reasons to use failure to comply with RCW if not stop Prop 1, at least slow it down.

Sound Transit’s version of the forced transfer for East Link, “Bus Intercept,” is even more egregious.  Like the Central Link extensions along I-5, it’s all about boosting light rail ridership rather than increasing transit capacity (and reducing congestion).  In this case Sound Transit is so desperate to boost East Link ridership they and King County Metro have agreed to halve the number of I-90 corridor buses in order to transfer riders on Mercer Island. Ending access to cross-lake transit for thousands of commuters. What was sold to east side residents as the “equivalent of 10 lanes of freeway” will not only increase cross lake congestion, it will increase congestion along the entire I-90 corridor.

The bottom line is East Link should have been disallowed ten years ago.  Doing so could have resulted in Sound Transit adding a fourth lane to the I-90 Bridge outer roadways for non-transit HOV.  Two-way BRT could have been implemented on bridge center roadway for a fraction of light rails cost with 10 times its capacity.  There would have been no need to close the bridge center roadway or devastate the route into Bellevue.

The Mercer Island city council should at least mitigate the East Link debacle by ending Sound Transit’s “bus intercept”.  Commuters throughout the area would benefit.