The recent Bellevue Transportation
Dept “Access to Bellevue 2020” Keeping Bellevue moving forward,” exemplifies an
approach to transportation that prompted my “activism” more than 10 years
ago. Anyone with a modicum of public
transit competence would have recognized Sound Transit’s 2008 East Link “Draft
Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) was sheer fantasy.
Light rail routed through the
Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) didn’t have the capacity needed to
accommodate both I-90 and south Seattle public transit needs. Sound Transit should have never been
allowed to confiscate I-90 Bridge center roadway precluding 2-way BRT with ten
times the capacity, 10 years sooner, at a 10th the cost. There was never any justification
to devastate the route into Bellevue, permanently scarring the city skyline
with elevated light rail tracks.
The Bellevue city council decision
to ignore attempts to explain why they should not approve the permits Sound
Transit needed prompted me to file as a candidate in 2012 to attract viewers to
this post detailing those problems.
Eight candidacies, 600 posts, and more than 150,000 views have failed to
prevent Bellevue from abetting Sound Transit’s East Link; what will surely be
regarded as one of the biggest transportations boondoggles in history.
The problem is not Sound Transit’s
ability to construct an East Link light rail extension and light rail stations through
Bellevue to the Bel-Red area.
The problem is, with the exception of the 1500 parking stalls in South
Bellevue Park and Ride, the extensions and stations limit access to residents
who live within walking distance of light rail stations. A fraction of what's needed to justify operating costs and reduce area's congestion and
In July 2019, the BTD proposed
adding access to the East Main station via “transit oriented development to
take advantage of the new transportation system”. It included a plan
to use the land use code to force the Red Lion Hotel, Hilton Hotel, the
Bellevue Club, Radiant Logistics, Citadel Church, and Savers to relocate to
allow residential development including “affordable housing”.
The
East Main “Transit Oriented Development” was apparently replaced 2020 with
BelRed Transit Oriented Development near the Operation and Maintenance
Facility, and Spring District/120th and BelRed/130th
light rail stations. The 2020
BelRed Transformation depicts huge developments around both stations. Again promising they’ll provide
affordable housing in the “mix of retail and public space and market rate
housing”.
However the current status is the BTD
is “Requesting Proposals” for 120th station and “In Planning” for 130th
Station. One would think the BTD,
after having more than 10 years of BelRed planning, current status would be
more than “requests for proposals” and ‘In planning” to base access for
riders. Potential residents and
businesses “may” not be attracted to noisy 4-car trains trundling past on
elevated tracks for 18 hours a day.
Even Sound Transit recognized the
need to increase access. In 2014
they proclaimed 40,000 of their projected 50,000 daily riders would be those
forced to transfer from buses to light rail for the cross-lake commute. Their recent “bus intercept” agreement
with Mercer Island to terminate bus routes on island requires Sound Transit and
King County Metro halving I-90 corridor routes to provide access to light rail
on island.
The bottom line is the BTD 2020
plan for “Keeping Bellevue moving forward” will do nothing for the 68% of
Bellevue residents who consider congestion their major concern. That when the Covid-19 pandemic does
pass the downtown Bellevue will again anticipate 18,000 more will be added to
the 52,000 who will likely return.
Most of the 50,000 originally planned for Microsoft’s expanded Redmond
Campus will likely return to work.
East Link operation in 2023 will demonstrate only a tiny fraction of both will commute
via light rail. It’s the others
the BTD should now be making plans to help with their commute.
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