Regardless, yeah, recent developments have put me squarely AGAINST the Redmond TC park and ride.

First, the Redmond TC seems to be the political holy grail of local pols to rally support for EastLink and the extension of same three decades from now.

Second, I’ve actually been down there in past weeks. It’s more of a nightmare than ever. Building a garage, and then selling half the land there pretty much kills any opportunity to do anything with that space in the future. Fine. They can have it. Putting a park-and-ride (or a transit center) in the middle of a neighborhood surrounded by 2 lane roads and requires countless turns is stupid, but that’s what we’ve come to expect from transit planners here.

Bear Creek-Overlake-Seattle is a much more elegant routing than anything running thru Redmond TC. Bear Creek offers more service options to more voters than the Redmond TC which was maxed out 10 years ago. And Bear Creek has more employment centers within a mile than does Redmond TC. And Bear Creek has space and available land. And Bear Creek is much closer to other transit corridors (202, 520, Avondale, Union Hill, Novelty Hill, E Lake Samm Rd, Eastside Rail Corridor).

What do I really care, actually. I’ll be in my 60s before Link reaches Redmond TC anyway. In my lifetime, bus will ALWAYS be the better alternative for most of us on the Eastside.

Like I said, god forbid we’d actually try to get ahead of the situation.

What I was referring to is this conversation from March:
http://seatrans.blogspot.com/2008/03/redmond-transit-center.html

It seems like you may have shifted your position:

By refusing to expand the PnRs at Redmond and Bear Creek, you are increasing the likelihood that I won’t find a space and will opt to drive instead.

If you were just saying, then I can accept that.

Anyway, as I alluded to before, I think a DMU on this line isn’t the best idea. The ROW should be preserved and used for a future light rail line. The line should deviate from the BNSF corridor to hit Downtown Bellevue, and connect Downtown Renton to Downtown Kirkland.

If ST3 could go from Overlake to Bear Creek, and from Renton to Kirkland, the Eastside would have an excellent transit network. (You can go slightly south of Renton and build some of those massive P&R’s to facilitate long-distance ridership.) I think getting Renton-Bellevue commuters into trains is one of the easiest ways to encourage density on the Eastside since that corridor is just miserable to drive on.

The cost of this has not been studied at all, but will likely be considered in ST2.

Uh, I’ve NEVER wanted a PnR at Redmond TC. In fact, I’ve repeatedly argued against any PnR there. It’s a black hole for anyone other than those within walking distance, which is why the Redmond extension would be a boondoggle. If I never have to go into downtown Redmond again, that’s fine with me.

“The problem with this line is less that it’s impossible, and more that its tiny ridership would deal a devastating blow to the image of transit. That is why these generally anti-transit people support it!”

God forbid we actually build pro-actively. In most cities on the 405 corridor, the only remaining developable tracts of land are along the Eastside Rail Corridor.

As has been already said, if the theme of “if you build it, they will come” was a good reason for running Link thru Rainier Valley, then it should also be a reasonable means to support getting trains on the Eastside Corridor sooner rather later.

PRESERVE THE CORRIDOR!

Where the state opens the mighty purse and builds a road development happens. The people in Gig Harbor and Port Orchard fought that second Narrows Bridge to the bitter end, but the fix was in.

That’s how all those highways on the Eastside got built. There was no need for them. When I was a kid we’d go out cruisin’ on the 405 and you could go for minutes without seeing another car- at 9 at night. I used to drop my girl off in Renton, drive back to Bellevue, and see maybe 20 other cars at 11 PM.

Land developers and local political gangs pay big to get their guys in the statehouse and tilt the playing field towards roads into undeveloped land. Everyone else can march around with a few signs if it makes them feel any better.

/cynicism

That’s a ton of new housing that needs to be provided. But the region can’t afford to build that housing using the wasteful methods of suburbia. Roads, sewage plants, water mains, power supplies, public services- all of these are immensely more expensive in low density communities.

It’s not a question about people moving from suburban homes to condos, although everyone in my parents generation has in fact done that as they got older, it’s a question of where do we build the new units needed for expected growth.

And the answer seems pretty obvious to me- build the new housing where the train goes. After all, it’s not like they’re going to one day decide to simply run the train down another street. [Cue Chorus: That's why transit stimulates development, and development seeks out transit.]

Bellevue as a whole is less dense than Kirkland, though, yeah. I think focusing on the downtown revitalization of these cities should be a priority for transit since its a known priority for the local governments.

the BNSF Eastside line is next to the Wright Runstad development site and Ovelake Hospital.

an elevated wye could connect the line with the Bellevue Transit Center.

the long distance transit trips oriented to downtown Bellevue can be carried well on express buses in the HOV lanes (e.g., Snohomish County and South King). ST and WSDOT have already built the NE 6th Street center access ramps.

two-way all-day transit service on the BNSF could be the transit spine for intra Eastside trips, whether DMU or LRT was used. The right of way is key. It will be easier to toll the limited access highways than the arterials.

the main objective is the extend the range of pedestrians. service on the BNSF would do that. service is more cost effective than parkiing stalls.

JJ asserted that Bellevue is less auto dependent than downtown Kirkland and Redmond. Not sure that is so. Overall, Kirkland is denser than Bellevue. All three downtowns have pretty complete street and sidewalk grids. All three will continue to densify. Bellevue wants to add more ramps to I-405. Their arterials will choke with traffic.

before counting your ST3 lines, please note that East Link needs an affriimative vote on ST2 and about 12 years of planning and construction.

“Seattle developer buys former Safeway property in Bellevue
By Amy Martinez
Seattle Times business reporter
October 12, 2006

A large swath of underdeveloped land near downtown Bellevue has a buyer.

Wright Runstad & Co. of Seattle said it signed a contract this week to buy the 36-acre property near Interstate 405 and state Route 520 from Safeway…”

That is as close to Downtown Kirkland as you need to get.

1.) I’m not convinced the people of the Eastside want to fundamentally change their land use patterns and even less certain that they want to vote for higher taxes in order to pay for changing their land use patterns.

2.) Adaptive land use is primarily a tool for shaping future growth rather than serving the existing population. This works great if the existing population is happy with the status quo and wants to protect it from increased congestion by funneling all the new people into TODs. Of course some will move themselves, but most will not. I also don’t believe this is the case on the Eastside. Traffic is a nightmare with todays population.

3.) Adaptive land use spurs additional growth. Once again I’m not sure that the Eastside wants any additional growth. Surely I could be wrong here, but why build a transit system designed to spur growth if the policy position is to force most of the new growth outside the existing cities anyway?

The point is that the transit mode that is built should match the intended land use patterns. In Washington state as of right now, land use policy is made at the local level, not at the regional level. As such, the structure of the regional transit system should either follow the local will regarding intended land use, or we should take land use policy out of the hands of cities and put it in the hands of a regional government. Pick either one.

DMU’s vs Light Rail:
It’s about startup cost. DMU’s don’t need expensive electrification to run; capacity can be increased as demand requires it. Think of it as rail, with fewer stops and higher speeds attained between stations than a LRT or a subway system.
BTW: I-405 went through the Wilburton Tunnel, not the tracks. A simple bridge will allow the tracks to go over the soon to be widened 405.

Walking:
Yes, people can actually walk – up to a mile with ease. I know it’s hard to imagine, but they do this all over the country when commuting. I really can’t understand why this seems to be such an issue on a pro-transit website.
Of course what would happen is buses would be run on circulator loops from the stations, to allow connections to be made with ease, once the demand is there.

There are plenty of areas along the BNSF corridor that could have high density along transit nodes in the next 20 years with proper zoning.

First, 40 years ago those ‘population centers’ weren’t there. There’s nothing logical or ‘natural’ about their location, they all developed because of boondoggle road spending and developers like Freeman and Scott. When I delivered mail on the Bel-Red road the Safeway distribution center wasn’t there, or, at best, only a gleam in Safeway’s eye. The Bellevue City Hall has moved twice since then! The population centers of 2050 will have been built where the transit goes.

And secondly, that’s why you put the new transit corridor where the old corridor isn’t. That’s a major reason Link runs up MLK Way S- to reach a new market and use cheaper land for ROW and stations.

As for the idea that the Eastside is “highly dispersed” and they should get transit “adapted to their land use patterns”- No. The Eastside of today was built for the private automobile. Some people will continue to own cars, others will move to walking or bicycling distance of bus stops.

The simple fact is that we used to walk 3/4 of a mile to catch the schoolbus, but today the schoolbus stops at the end of each driveway. People simply wouldn’t ride buses that wandered all over the Eastside- it would be quicker to walk. Been there, done that.

Light rail is a great technology and it really works well in some corridors, but it may not be the best solution for every corridor imaginable. A lot of the eastside is highly dispersed. No one single corridor is going to do it. If there was one single corridor, or if they had the density to justify rail on 3 or 4 seprate corridors, then that would be one thing, but has it not occurred to you all that the people of the eastside would actually be better served with a transit system that was adapted to their land use patterns rather than trying to shoehorn them into a rail based solution?

And is the line in Bellevue close to an East Link station? Seems like it would be a quick transfer to get to downtown, Seattle, or Redmond.

One benefit to having the stations a bit further out is that the possibility for increased density around the stations seems higher.