My June 6th Yahoo email account included the following:
In late 2022, it was announced that East Link would fully open no earlier than spring of 2025, with the possibility of an Eastside only starter line opening in Bellevue and Redmond in 2024.
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Ongoing replacement of the track in several spots along the East Link alignment between Seattle and Mercer Island, including sections of the I-90 bridge. Crews are working both day and night shifts. This work is scheduled to continue through the end of 2023.
The May 1st release of the April “Agency Progress Report” included the following regarding the replacement:
Work is progressing slowly, and it is anticipated the forecast completion date will continue to shift in the coming months.
The email confirmed that when East Link opens, the 14-mile, 10 station extension, will have service every 8 minutes during peak commute. Whatever the date, the result of the track problem is a delay in demonstrating that Eastlink should have never been built.
That Sound Transit should have never been allowed to confiscate the I-90 Bridge center roadway for 4-car light rail trains. It reduces transit lanes into Seattle, precludes two-way, bus-only routes with 10 times light rail capacity, 10 years sooner.
Sound Transit compounded the lost-capacity problem by choosing to route East Link beyond Chinatown station through DSTT to UW, Northgate, and eventually to Mariner P&R near Everett. The result being both Line 1 Link and Eastlink capacity are limited to half of the DSTT capacity,
Even more absurd, Sound Transit will use East Link to replace bus routes into the city. Apparently not recognizing I-90 Bridge congestion is not due to too many buses. Spending more than $3B on a transit system that halves Central Link capacity and is used primarily to replace bus routes surely qualifies as a debacle.
Especially since the more than $3B spent will result in an operating cost that dwarfs any rational fare box revenue. The $30 per vehicle mile cost of a light rail train and 14-mile extension length will cost $3360 per round trip. With 8-minute peak service for 8 hours and 16-minute for 10 hours, the 100 trips a day will cost $336,000: again, dwarfing any fare box revenue
Sound Transit refuses to release Quarterly Service Provided Reports detailing how many riders were added by the three Northgate Extension Stations or what those riders cost. However, Sound Transit would not have been able to hide the results of the East Link June 23 Revenue Service date.
Thus, the result of the need to redo track attachments is a 2-year delay in exposing the East Link debacle.
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