Connecting the densest communities on the Eastside is the most reasonable place to start. Start being the operative word here, connecting Redmond to Bellevue now instead of after rail goes across I90 makes the most sense. The post, DJC on East Link Alignments points out many of the issues which are likely to drive up cost and defer building. Even if the project were completed on schedule 2021 for segments D and E is an unacceptable trade off. The priority for eastside residents is for transit to serve those who live and work on the eastside. The currently proposed order of construction is all about perpetuating the choice to live across the lake from where you work. It’s nice that transit makes that possible but I don’t think that’s what’s meant by transit oriented communities.

Call it commuter rail, light rail or just public transit; the BNSF corridor is, right now, the most effective place to put money because the right of way is already owned and established for rail use. 10-15 years from now it will most likely be a bicycle trail and the cost of replacing the roadbed and the political will to restore rail through areas that have developed without it will make the project lengthy, expensive and most likely impossible. The segments D & E of Eastlink are primarily part of the SR520 corridor (scratch the Overlake “joggle”) and coincide with the BNSF right of way at each end which tie it to Snohomish and Renton/Auburn. The growth patterns which have pushed people working in Belleuve and Redmond to live in these out lying areas are driven more by the price of land than by a lifestyle choice which was the case back in the 1960′s.

Back to the proposed Bill on Transit Oriented Communities, I think it’s a big step in the wrong direction to extend the details of transit planing to the State level rather than focus local issues like zoning at the community level. It’s hard enough to break the Seattle strangle hold on eastside planning. No need to bring Vashon Island and Spokane into the mix.

The “reverse commute” is traditionally meant as Seattle residents working on the Eastside, which happens to be extremely well served by East Link. You seem to be referring to intra-Eastside commuting, which is an entirely different problem.

East Link will connect the densest communities on the Eastside, which seems like a reasonable place to start when building a rail system. North/South rail is going to have to wait for ST3 except for a possible commuter rail line.

If you search our archives for Eastside commuter rail you’ll find tons of discussion of this project, and some of its serious shortcomings. I wouldn’t dismiss the project out of hand but suffice it to say that once you get into the details things don’t look as great as they would seem in theory.

I now live less than 4 miles northeast of the Belleuve Transit center. In the time it takes to get there I can be downtown on a bus from South Kirkland P&R. The eastside is not well suited to transit only solutions, it requires P&R lots. Bellevue Transit Center is the center of congestion and until the infrastructure is in place to get there adding capacity makes no sense. The crush of people isn’t coming from South Belleuve, Mercer Island or Seattle. North and south is growing and so is east in a big way. All of these areas are served by Eastside Rail on the recently acquired BNSF line from Renton to Snohomish. The Eastside Link (segments D & E) complete this route by offering service in the most congested area of the eastside. The key is both of these can be up and running a decade before rail gets pushed across I90. That’s what the Seattle oriented thinking doesn’t seem to understand. We need it now or companies like Microsoft and Google will go the way of PacCar and others that have left the area.

East Link serves the “reverse commute” very well, which is more than I can say for the current model of Metro bus service. It’s not commuter rail where the trains only go in the peak direction.

I’ve heard elsewhere that more people working in Downtown Bellevue live North or South than East or West, but that’s not immediately relevant to transit planning. If you look at Sound Transit Ridership reports, almost twice as many people come in on the 550 than on the 532, 564, and 565 COMBINED. That’s because commuters from Seattle live in the kind of communities that encourage transit use, while those that drive on I-405 are widely dispersed.

All this is pretty off topic regarding transit communities except to point out that I think local control should play a much bigger role than what this bill proposes. In fact I question whether or not this legislation is actually being introduced as a poison pill to make it harder to build stations. There are certainly very good reasons to build a station where there is virtually no housing if it is heavily commercial or a major transfer point. Do hotels at the airport count as “dwelling units”?

Of course, both highways have exits that lead to different destinations. With that in mind, Eastlink has many stations all of which are accessible from anywhere on the line. So while a rider from Overlake might go all the way to downtown for his job (“1960′s thinking”), he’s just as likely to head to the many Bellevue stops.

Have an Eastside line completely segregated from a Seattle line would be very poor transit planning. While you may think it’s old-style planning, obviously the ridership between Bellevue and Seattle would be higher than, say, Bellevue and Kirkland.

Very interesting to hear the thoughts on North Link. East Link is just a bad idea as proposed. It’s based on 1960′s thinking that eastside transit means getting people into downtown in the morning and back in the evening. My hope is ST starts to listen to the neighborhoods it should serve and stop with the model railroad idea it’s bent on following. The Central Link seems like a really good idea. Actually getting that operational, Lord knows how things are on again off again around here, makes a huge difference on how the SR520 replacement should be built.

I agree SR-99 might be a better alignment for getting to Everett from Northgate particularly WRT development around stations. However SR-99 would require a lot more money to build than an I-5 alignment. We’ll see what is on the table when it comes time to select alternatives for the DEIS. I’m sure there will be at least some pressure to serve SR-99.

I haven’t been up to Rainer Vista in a while but I thought it had been redeveloped similarly to New Holly and High Point? While those aren’t super-dense, they are more dense than what was there before and more dense than much of the city.

I don’t stereotype Beacon Hill – and I doubt that’s even come up in the actual bill discussion in Olympia, so I wouldn’t worry about it.

Yes, this would require some upzoning. But if those homeowners don’t want to sell, hey. They stay. :)

Zoning doesn’t mean people go to the limit of the zone!

There will be places where this bill forces upzoning. It doesn’t force anyone to sell their house.

Alexander talks about density and the necessity of densities around this minimum for walkability, I was just pointing you to that one because I remember the discussion takes place mostly at that ‘scale’ of pattern – in the few before and after. I actually disagree with his 4 story limit in our cities, because we have wider streets than he envisions. We’re not about to move those back, so I don’t mind 6-8. Sure, you can’t throw a sandwich to someone on the 8th floor, but the seclusion offered by the height does appeal to many. Giving them that while making their walking trips cross others’ paths is a good compromise.

Well, my main concern was that I’ve seen (in a few places) people posting that Beacon Hill doesn’t “deserve” light rail because of some mythical anti-upzoning movement up here, and then it tends to get followed by a lot of stereotyping of Beacon Hill by people who probably never set foot on it before. I could be slightly sensitive on the topic.

The whole urban village isn’t NC40, though — I think there are still SF zones here. I know the house west of us is not NC40, but I am pretty sure they are within the boundary. (Can’t look it up now — gotta go to work.)

I’m not sure about the mechanics of this bill, but its definitely a great subject and it is good Oly is talking about it.