Seattle Times Ignores I-405 Congestion

 The Seattle Times “Transportation Package” in their January 9th editorial, “Legislature’s opportunity in election-year session” seems to provide a “mixed message.” It begins with: 

 The Legislature has delayed far too long in passing a meaningful infrastructure improvement package. 

Urges law makers: 

redouble efforts to make a long-term investment in the state’s bridges, roads, and transit. 

Yet later opines: 

The good news is lawmakers can use the billions of dollars, available and anticipated, without raising the gas tax, and invest today in long-term transportation needs. 

And concludes with: 

The good news is lawmakers can use the billions of dollars, available and anticipated, from federal infrastructure spending, state revenue surpluses and the “cap and invest” carbon program without raising the gas tax and invest today in long-term transportation needs. 

Thus, it’s not clear what the paper is advocating. What’s missing is any “Transportation Package” concern dealing with congestion. Other blog posts have detailed the Seattle Times decade-long failure to ask legislators require a performance audit of Sound Transit’s Prop 1 extensions. Even a cursory analysis would have revealed light rail routed through DSTT didn’t have the capacity to accommodate the transit ridership needed to reduce I-5 or I-90 congestion. 

 

This post details the paper’s failure to fault WSDOT’s approach to I-405 congestion. More than 4 years ago, a Dec 25, 2017, Seattle Times article included the following regarding plans for reducing I-405 travel times between Renton and Bellevue: 

  

In 2019, work crews on Interstate 405 will start building a new lane in each direction between Renton and Bellevue, as part of a series of changes that aim to improve traffic flow on what officials call Washington’s worst corridor for congestion.  

Then, five years later, the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) will open the new lanes, and an existing one each way, to traffic as express toll lanes, extending the interstate’s current tolling system between Lynnwood and Bellevue that opened in 2015. 

WSDOT will spend $1.22 billion on the upcoming project, funded by the statewide gas-tax increase approved by the Legislature in 2015. 

According to the Times, I-405 work was to begin in 2019, money was available, and lanes would be complete in 2024. Yet, the Seattle Times abides WSDOT not doing anything to add the new lanes. Also, ignoring WSDOT’s imposing HOT fees on I-405 HOV lanes between Lynnwood and Bellevue that increased GP lane congestion and didn’t meet 45 mph HOV target during peak commute.  

GP lane congestion increased because WSDOT implemented HOT fees on two lanes: increasing traffic on remaining GP lanes. During peak commute, HOV traffic slowed because the increased congestion on GP lane resulted in too many drivers willing to pay the WSDOT’s limited fees. (Plans to implement HOT on two of four lanes between Renton and Bellevue would have exacerbated both problems.) 

GP and HOV lane congestion could both be reduced if HOV and HOT fees were limited to one lane. The added lane would reduce GP traffic per lane, reducing congestion. HOV lane congestion could be reduced by raising HOT fees to limit traffic to the 2000 vehicles per hour needed to assure 45 mph. Sound Transit could implement BRT on the HOV lane with 45 mph commutes along entire I-405 corridor from Lynnwood to Burien.  Adding transit ridership and further reducing congestion. 

Instead, the Seattle Times ignores both the delay and potential benefits for I-405 commuters.