East Side Cities Should Sue to Block Bus Intercept

The August 20^th Mercer Island council meeting video shows the council has gone beyond abetting Sound Transit’s bus intercept to conniving with them to implement it. The council spent nearly 2 hours discussing how they can work with Sound Transit to implement the 2017 “settlement agreement” to terminate all I-90 cross-lake buses at the Mercer Island light rail station.  

The 2017 agreement was just the latest version of Sound Transit’s attempts to use light rail to replace bus routes into Seattle.  East Link needs bus riders since relatively few commuters will live within or able to park within walking distance of light rail stations.  A January 21^st 2014 Integrated Transit System (ITS) presentation to Mercer Island council proposed 40,000 of East Link’s projected 50,000 riders would come from terminating I-90 corridor buses at South Bellevue and Mercer Island light rail stations. 

A subsequent (Nov 19^th) Mercer Island presentation went into considerable details about ITS.  Sound Transit’s approach was for buses to exit I-90 on west bound I-90 HOV off ramp to a 200 ft drop off and pick-up area on the 80^th Ave overpass before returning to I-90 on east bound HOV on ramp.  Five different configurations were proposed for routing 84 buses per hour on and off the island during the peak commute.  Mercer Island objections led to all five versions of Sound Transit ITS configurations being labeled as “no longer under consideration”.  

A subsequent Sound Transit depiction of I-90 Bridge included both East Link trains and a Sound Transit bus “suggesting” the end of any proposal to use East Link to replace I-90 buses.  Thus it’s not clear what precipitated the 2017 Settlement Agreement.  Especially since ending bus routes on the I-90 outer roadway HOV lanes will do little to reduce congestion there and nothing on GP lanes.

What is clear is the Mercer Island council made a monumental blunder when they agreed to the following provision in the agreement.

Whereas, Sound Transit is a regional transit authority created pursuant to chapters 81.104 and 81.112RCW, with all powers necessary to implement a high-capacity transit system within its boundaries in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties. 

Sound Transit has interpreted that proviso as allowing them use the Revised Code of Washington to do whatever they deem is needed for a high-capacity transit system.  What’s absurd is there would be no East Link if Sound Transit had complied with RCW 81.104.100 (b) detailing the HCT planning process:

Options to be studied shall be developed to ensure an appropriate range of technologies and service policies can be evaluated. A do-nothing option and a low capital option that maximizes the current system shall be developed. Several higher capital options that consider a range of capital expenditures for several candidate technologies shall be developed.

There is no indication Sound Transit ever considered adding fourth lanes to the I-90 Bridge outer roadways for non-transit HOV and implementing two-way BRT on bridge center roadway.  It could have provided 10 times East Link capacity, 10 years sooner, at I/10^th the cost.

Sound Transit’s response to an earlier query about its failure to comply included the following:

Your assertion that Sound Transit’s failure to consider bus rapid transit (BRT) use of the center roadway failed to meet the statutory requirement outlined in 81.104.100(2](b) is misplaced. As noted above, the cited statute does not apply to project level reviews. 

Clearly if Sound Transit declares East Link is not required to comply with RCW 81.104.100(2) they surely can’t use chapter 81.112 RCW to demand Mercer Island accept bus intercept.  Yet the Mercer Island council continues to allow Sound Transit to proceed with plans for a bus intercept plan that will be a disaster for the entire area. 

The plan includes limiting I-90 corridor transit to 16-20 buses an hour, a fraction of the 84 buses an hour they originally proposed.  Island residents objected to even that number at the July 17^th council meeting.  The  “Working Group” the council created failed to come up with an acceptable way to drop-off and pick-up bus riders. In the end the council will likely agree to whatever Sound Transit dictates, irrespective of any islander concerns.

The bottom line is the Mercer Island council has gone from abetting Sound Transit to conniving with plans to implement bus intercept.  Again, Sound Transit should have never been allowed to proceed with East Link.  Not only did they violate RCW planning requirements, the WSDOT allowed them to confiscate the I-90 Bridge center roadway despite a 2004 FHWA conclusion the center roadway was still needed for vehicles with 4^th lanes added to outer roadway. 

If allowed to continue, bus intercept will limit I-90 corridor bus routes to 16-20 per hour during peak commute, adding thousands more current and future commuters to the resulting outer roadway lane congestion.  The $3.6 billion spent on East Link should not result in I-90 corridor transit capacity being limited to16-20 buses per hour.  The Seattle Times Traffic Lab is either unaware of the problem or chooses to ignore it.  Thus the most likely way to prevent Sound Transit from implementing the bus intercept debacle is for east side cities to take legal action to stop it.  There is plenty of justification for doing so and the entire area would benefit.