About this blog

My name is Bill Hirt and I'm a candidate to be a Representative from the 48th district in the Washington State legislature. My candidacy stems from concern the legislature is not properly overseeing the WSDOT and Sound Transit East Link light rail program. I believe East Link will be a disaster for the entire eastside. ST will spend 5-6 billion on a transportation project that will increase, not decrease cross-lake congestion, violates federal environmental laws, devastates a beautiful part of residential Bellevue, creates havoc in Bellevue's central business district, and does absolutely nothing to alleviate congestion on 1-90 and 405. The only winners with East Link are the Associated Builders and Contractors of Western Washington and their labor unions.

This blog is an attempt to get more public awareness of these concerns. Many of the articles are from 3 years of failed efforts to persuade the Bellevue City Council, King County Council, east side legislators, media, and other organizations to stop this debacle. I have no illusions about being elected. My hope is voters from throughout the east side will read of my candidacy and visit this Web site. If they don't find them persuasive I know at least I tried.

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

More Sound Transit Board Incompetence

A previous post detailed reasons why the October 26th Sound Transit Board’s approval of the 2024 Rail Service Plan demonstrated they didn’t “get it”.  That the board didn’t recognize neither the East Link Starter Line nor the Lynnwood extension will increase the transit ridership needed to reduce congestion into the city.  A precursor to similar results from Board approval of future Sound Transit “voter approved” extensions.

 

This post details another example of Board approving transit system incompetence. The Sound Transit failure to recognize the folly of routing East Link and West Seattle Links to Northgate and beyond and routing Ballard Link to SeaTac and beyond.  That terminating Ballard Link at existing Westlake station and terminating East Link and West Seattle extensions at the existing CID station would end the need to spend up to 10 years and $13B boring a second tunnel and 5 stations for access.  

 

Again, the Board could save the billions and years by modifying the existing CID and Westlake stations to accommodate terminating the Links.  The modified CID station could provide what the Board had called, “a once in a lifetime for a space for people to transfer from light rail to light rail, to Sounder and Amtrack”.  Satisfying a year of nearly unanimous public comment at board meetings expressing desire for a “near CID” station.  Instead, the Board abided Sound Transit ignoring the request for additional study of the “near CID 4th Ave location.   

 

Terminating East Link and West Seattle at CID would allow operations to meet local demand rather than sharing what’s needed for the route to Northgate.  Ending the loss of half of DSTT trains diverted across I-90 Bridge.  Also ending the difficulty in merging the return routes for safe passage of the two trains through DSTT.  

 

East side commuters could easily transfer at CID to Line 1 trains to SeaTac or UW and beyond.  Terminating West Seattle Link at CID will end those commuters accessing at SODO, further reducing Line 1capacity to and from SeaTac.

 

Terminating Ballard Link at existing Westlake station would allow the Link to be expedited rather than wait for the second tunnel.  Riders would not have to use “new Westlake station” to transfer to existing Westlake station for access to downtown Seattle.

 

The bottom line is an earlier post opined the Board doesn’t recognize using “voter approved” light rail extensions to replace bus routes into Seattle reduces transit capacity and nothing to reduce congestion.  Their decision to proceed with boring the second tunnel just needlessly adds $13B and 6-10 years of disrupting  downtown Seattle to the debacle.

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