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.

Monday, March 10, 2025

Sound Transit’s Real Complexity Problem

The March 7th Seattle Times Traffic Lab article “Report: Light rail too complex for its own good” details “operating problems associated with power problems, weak governance, inefficient use of maintenance crews, and a lack of crossover rail switches to avoid blockage”.  The problem apparently is due to the sensitivity of Sound Transit’s “Rail-to-Ground” selection for power system .  Proposed recommendations would allow trains to bypass problems and maintain Sound Transit’s promised four-minute-intervals in 2026.

This post opines the “Complexity” resulting from Sound Transit’s decision to route Line 2 trains through DSTT to Lynnwood and beyond dwarfs the power system problem.  Sound Transit currently routes Line 1 trains every 8 minutes between Angle Lake and Lynnwood. They could have “maintained the frequency of trains every four minutes that’s promised in 2026” by doubling the number of Line 1 trains. 

Instead, Sound Transit chose to provide additional trains to Lynnwood by routing Line 2 from Redmond via International District/CID station through DSTT and maintain current 8-minute intervals to Angle Lake and presumably to Federal Way when it debuts in 2026.

 The problem becomes how do they assure that Line 2 routes from Redmond arrive at International District/CID both 4 minutes before and after Line 1 routes from Angel Lake and later Federal Way?  Line 1 schedules show 36 minutes from International District/CID to and from Angle Lake.  The extension to Federal Way will add unknown minutes in both directions.

The current Line 2 schedule shows 17 minutes from Redmond Technology Center to South Bellevue T/C.  The extensions to Downtown Redmond and across I-90 bridge will add unknown time to the Line 2 route from International District/CID to and from Downtown Redmond.  Assuring the Line 1 and Line 2 trains arrive at the International District/CID 4 minutes apart constitutes a real Complexity problem.

It all could have been avoided if Sound Transit had simply doubled the Line 1 trains and terminated Line 2 at International District/CID.  Line 1 riders from South Seattle would’ve benefitted from additional capacity and Line 2 riders from service that matched east side demand.  

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)