Just want to say that I really appreciate Ben’s second thoughts on this and his apology. Thank you for taking the time to think twice about jumping to conclusions about other’s motives.

I apologize to you for a piece that was out of line. It’s clear to me now that I was attacking the wrong people, and I’m sorry. I’m glad you found it funny, but I just bucketed you and Mr. Wilkinson together with anti-transit folks.

That said, I don’t think it’s cost-effective for Sound Transit to spend half a billion on this when that would otherwise mean further light rail extensions. We can’t serve Snohomish County with light rail until the North King subarea builds light rail up to the county line – so every dollar in North King should, in my opinion, go directly to light rail construction.

Financially, I don’t think there’s any way to get Sound Transit back to the ballot with any of those packages and money for an interchange project like this – it’s a nearly $500 million increase (presumably not all of that is the interchange, though) between the two alternatives, and that’s several miles of elevated light rail (which I’m assuming north of Northgate).

Again, I’m sorry. I’ll leave the post untouched to show off what an ass I am. :)

I co-authored today’s Seattle Times piece with Rob Wilkinson. I don’t know who posted anonymously above; it wasn’t either of us.

I enjoy reading this blog even on those occasions when I do not agree with it, and even this one was entertaining, even though it contains personal attacks against me. I choose not to take them personally because it’s very clear that although we have indeed met, Ben does not know me at all. Ben, I’d welcome the opportunity for us to actually get to know each other. We probably share a great deal of interests and values, even if we might disagree on occasion. Maybe we can collaborate somehow.

While we do live in Montlake, neither of us is a multimillionaire, or even close. In my case at least that is laughably far from the truth. I wish it were true, as I would then have much more freedom to give time and money to causes I believe in.

It is also laughable to say that I never take a bus. I have actually taken buses regularly since 1977, when I was 9 years old, growing up in Chicago. I have commuted by bus for years to Microsoft and use transit regularly in Seattle and when traveling elsewhere. I own a car (from 1986 which gets 30 mpg) but the battery keeps dying because I don’t drive it enough. I have voted in favor of many transit measures, phone banked against lopsided packages that did not offer enough for transit, logged thousands of hours studying transit planning and personally advocating for better transit, and given generously of limited time and resources to advocacy groups.

Rob and I have actually worked hard for years not to undermine the SR 520 project but to support it constructively, to make it as great a project as it can be, and to ensure that precious public funds are spent on solutions that really work. For quite a while I advocated for a 4-lane solution with congestion pricing and light rail, but two things happened. One, it became abundantly clear that that vision would not achieve a critical mass of political support. Two, I realized that that particular configuration has its own set of problems, which I’m not sure it’s worth going into at this point because those issues have been decided now. There will be HOV lanes on SR 520, and transit will be provided via buses. I would personally prefer riding a train to a bus, but not enough to go 27 minutes out of my way each way. Others are free to make their own choice on that, provided the options are made available.

One of the chief motivations of developing the Pacific Street Interchange option was to improve transit. We want to improve the speed and reliability of existing local Metro transit routes that cross the Montlake Bridge, to enable potential transit routes up Montlake Blvd. to University Village and Children’s Hospital, both of which continue to expand, and most importantly, to directly connect transit on SR 520 to the planned UW light rail station, which we enthusiastically support. We advocated for including transit-supportive provisions in various pieces of legislation and found a good deal of support for that within the City of Seattle and in the state legislature. I am personally on record advocating for improved transit connections between the UW station and buses running on SR 520 since 1999. In fact, I advocated placing the station there in part because it offered better connection opportunities. The tunnel is now going under my house.

Despite having worked on Pacific Street interchange for years, I am not bitter that that option was not selected, because I think we actually have an even better plan in the works now, thanks to the Governor’s mediation process and some great work on the part of both WSDOT and citizen advocates within and far beyond Montlake.

We are well aware that the vast majority of commuters at Montlake are not coming from the immediate neighborhood. That is partly why we are willing to make the sacrifice of losing the transit stop in Montlake that is a 3 minute walk from my house, a stop I personally use all the time. Anyone who wants the “one seat” ride on light rail from Brooklyn, Capitol Hill or anywhere else along the line to Redmond or elsewhere on the Eastside will have that choice provided light rail is constructed for that length, but we feel it is important for SR 520 to be as great a transit corridor as it can be regardless of what happens on I-90.

If you read the op-ed carefully, you will see that we are not suggesting taking money from East Link, nor delaying anything. We tried to be as clear as we could that we were not making that argument, saying “both corridors are critical”, and “This is not about the Eastside versus Seattle (it’s both), or trains versus buses (it’s both), or Highway 520 versus I-90 (it’s both.)” The motivations Ben ascribes to us are completely off base.

The plans currently on the table are as follows:

(a) an 0.4% sales tax and 12 year implementation plan, with increased bus service on SR 520 and a capital contribution of perhaps $150M, with light rail only to Overlake Hospital in Bellevue.
(b) an 0.5% sales tax and 12 year implementation plan, with increased bus service on SR 520 and no capital contribution to SR 520, with light rail all the way to Overlake/Microsoft, which supports Bellevue’s redevelopment plans for the Bel-Red corridor in addition to serving the large employment base in Redmond.
(c) the 20 year plan with 0.5% sales tax that was part of the Roads & Transit measure last year, with light rail at least to Overlake/Microsoft and possibly beyond. There was no capital contribution to SR 520 specifically for transit, but the roads component of the package had a whole lot of regional funding for that project.

The essential point of the op-ed is that we believe a capital contribution to SR 520 is warranted with or without the light rail extension to Overlake, on its own merits. Maybe the solution is to extend the Sound Transit plan beyond 12 years, which apparently is being actively discussed now. Given that the taxing authority is capped, and there is widespread interest in getting light rail service at least to Overlake, maybe that’s the right answer. Other additional funds could be spent addressing the concerns of communities to the north and south that feel underserved by the 12 year plans.

cheers!

ballardcommuter, the Governor’s expert review panel (findings linked from the current plan page) found that the base six-lane alternative would cost 3.9 billion, and that the pacific interchange alternative would cost 4.38 billion. The current available funds top out at about 4 billion, making Pacific Interchange an impossibility.

While they aren’t saying outright “it’s not an option”, the numbers don’t seem to indicate that it’ll be possible, which is the assumption I’ve been working with.

I just reviewed the WSDOT’s SR 520 replacement project’s website, and I didn’t see anything about cancellation or anything about not building the Pacific interchange, but I have seen new proposals from the West-side mediation meetings, and they are kind of similar to the Pacific interchange, ranging from:
- 6-lane alternative w/ no Montlake transit stop
- Six-lane corridor with tunnel through the Arboretum and tunnel under the Montlake Cut
- Six-lane corridor with shallow tunnel through the Arboretum (Foster Island Berm) and bridge over the Montlake Cut

Here’s the link:
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/SR520Bridge/CurrentPlans.htm

I have met Mr. Dubman, and found him to be an honest, sincere transit advocate who walks the talk. As I have not met Ben Schiendelman, I can only assume from his most recent words that he is not.

I wonder this: when the replace bridge, are they going to replace the section from I-5 to Montlake? If so, are they going to add express lane access to that section? I should find that out.

When you limit your transportation investment, you end up forcing people out of the city because they can’t get around – but the same people would previously have lived AND worked in Ballard!

We need to connect Ballard to Downtown before we connect Ballard to Redmond, though.

Direct access from the bridge to Husky Stadium sets up an excellent way of getting downtown across 520 — express buses get off, and it’s 9 minutes to downtown from there.

It beats the heck out of sitting in that horrific 520/I-5 merge.