There’s plenty of room for trails and rails, and there are already numerous parks and parts of the Eastside suitable for walking and riding bicycles.

Your fancy figuring with the cost of the buses is ignoring the labor costs, the depreciation schedules, and the cost of fuel.

Least convincing- your statement that north-south transportation can’t be solved by trains, but in the future we will build more roads. Sorry, not buying it.

The joint PSRC/Sound Transit Study called for by House Bill 3224 (or ST-2) confirmed how little benefit taxpayers would get by spending over $1 Billion dollars on the Eastside corridor to run passenger trains, no matter where the money comes from. And, this does not even include other important hidden costs.

But, not surprisingly, there are already pro-train people projecting 154,000 ‘North-South trips/day on the Eastside’ by 2030, rather than the mere 6,270 trips/day projected for 2020 by the ST-2 between Tukwila and Everett. So, let’s consider the effectiveness of this new number and see how cost-effective the same 1 Billion dollar investment (railroad-only cost, no trail) would be.

o 154,000 trips/day (yr 2030) = 77,000 people traveling round-trip during the day.
o Using only buses that carry 75 people seated, we’d need 2,053 bus-trips per day (154,000 / 75). Everybody seated!
o If we spread the bus service over only 12 hours/day to move those people, we’d need 171 buses, assuming that the buses can make – on average- ONLY 1 trip per hour. That means that we’d be able to transport 12,825 seated people per hour (171×75).
o If we get the fancier buses at $1 Million each, the total cost would be $171,000,000 (assuming that we buy them all today and park most of them until 2030!). That is 17% of the estimated rail-only cost on ST-2.
o 171 buses deployed each hour would theoretically allow individual bus-departures every 21 seconds throughout the Eastside. Thus, if they were to start from, say, 11 key points, buses could run every 4 minutes from each station, a KEY feature for a successful urban transit system. Or, if 14 key starting points were chosen, they could run every 5 minutes.

WHAT’S OVERLOOKED

o SERVICE

The 171 new buses could have many starting and ending points, as well as stops along the way and serve the people who live in the denser/central areas, as well as those farther away. They would run on existing roads and use P&Rs.

Trains envisioned in the ST studies would make stops only every 3 to 5 miles in odd locations requiring transfers to buses. However, this is the type of service provided elsewhere in the world to connect central stations of cities far apart, not in the same urban area. Buses, tramways and subways are used in urban areas, depending on the city size and density. In King County, we don’t need many major train stations, only a good one in Seattle that is well connected.

Buses could also start immediately on the Eastside for a fraction of the $171,000,000 cost estimated for 2020 or 2030, and routes could be modified at will over time to achieve optimal results and eventually mesh up with the Light Rail line that will be built.

o URBAN SPRAWL

The train will service mainly people living near the outer limits of the RR route. Thus, it will actually encourage further growth away from Bellevue and Redmond, rather than motivate people to live near downtown areas. This will make the future regional traffic problem worse, rather than better.

o URBAN PLANNING ISSUES

Any effective, urban, train or light-rail transportation system will eventually REQUIRE a DOUBLE track, greater frequency and many more stops. So, looking into the future, what would the Eastside and Kirkland look like with a double rail bed through the middle of existing residential areas of the city, instead of on some of its existing streets or highways? Where would the trail be?

UNTIL we have just a few attractive ‘dense-living areas’ with a wide range of apartment prices on the Eastside, we will NOT reduce car driving. We will simply waste taxpayers’ money. There are currently too many must-go-to areas, for work, exercise, and doing errands, dispersed around the Eastside, to which one must drive a car to get to them in a timely fashion.

To achieve higher density in and near downtown areas on the Eastside, they must be people friendly, not just business friendly. Downtowns need to be places where people WANT to go to relax, not places where they HAVE to go to shop or do business. They should include many types of amenities, galleries, pedestrian-only streets, attractions for people of all ages, and summer and winter parks.

The North-South through traffic challenge cannot be solved by using trains. But, discouraging car-use by people near city centers will help a lot. Over the very long term, new roads and/or tunnels will HAVE to be built if the population grows as expected.

Meanwhile, the loss of a potential ‘linear park & trail’ for the Eastside along the BNSF Corridor would be a tragic loss for a large swath of the heaviest residential area on the Eastside. This linear park and non-motorized transportation corridor could service many cities and neighborhoods, as well as connect innumerable already existing smaller parks, bike trails and even some beaches on Lake Washington. All of this, without people having to get into a car or, if coming from farther away, by simply driving to the closest P&R.

A well-developed, multi-use linear park would be an enormously attractive urban feature for young and old Eastside residents. Its cost? About $60-70 Million dollars (if the RR tracks are removed).

Best of all, if the density of the Eastside ever justifies the use of the space for something else, the corridor will still be there. In the interim, one or more generations of people would have enjoyed this public asset.

SHOULDN’T THE $1 BILLION SAVED after buying the 171 buses and building a multi-use Trail/Park ($1.3 Billion, minus $171M in bus cost and $70M in Trail cost) BE BETTER used on Education, low-cost Housing, downtown Transportation, urban improvements, etc., etc.?

Personal note- the Times aerial photo pretty much shows the mail route I delivered in ’68. Except of course most of the buildings weren’t there.

Anyway, in some respects LINK already is online. From here on out it’s going to be pretty much “Well thank god we got this much done at least”, and the real discussion starting now is where the extensions or alternate corridors go.

AFAIK the state DOT is still on the hook for replacing the bridge over 405, and you can bet they would love to see that obligation replaced with the commitment to build a few bike paths and hiking trails.

In the past it made more sense to regard Seattle as the north-south axis, with steel, milling, and other manufactures located at the waters edge and on water-level routes. But the population of Seattle has been about the same for 40 years while the metro region has doubled. The center is shifting.

The tone from Ben’s post and others on this blog suggests that some would never support building the system fully out to serve all communities because of the types of commutes/building patterns that exist now. Which will never really change unless you build out some sort of transit in between everywhere at some point in the future. Sorry, the wording of his post just strikes me as “We’re better than you who live out there”.

I more look at this like a chicken and egg scenario. The reason people don’t ride transit is because in most of these places it doesn’t exist yet in a convienient enough manner for people to use it. Besides, what qualifies as an edge to edge commute? Duvall to Redmond, which is almost equal distance mileage wise as Seattle to the Microsoft campus(which many people do on this blog)? Kirkland to Bellevue? Woodinville to downtown Bellevue? Snohomish/Lake Stevens to Bellevue?? The only difference at this moment in time being that there’s frequent bus service inbetween MS and Seattle and not so much inbetween Duvall and Redmond.

Anyways, this is digressing from the main subject of this post which is East Side Rail and getting into a whole other subect.;)

And you do realize there’s a problem with taking freight locomotives across the I-90 bridge? :)

The capital expense here is MORE THAN DOUBLE the Sounder North corridor.

I really don’t care what your background is, although it’s patently obvious you’re a heavy-rail-only foamer.

Inflation is zero right now anyway. Possibly negative.

I’m not opposed to midday Sounder runs. I’m opposed to creating more development on the Eastside when we have empty lots all over Seattle. Actually, more than anything, I’m opposed to beating a dead horse over and over and over and lending these trolls the opportunity to spew bullshit in the comments.

There has NEVER been ANY possibility of private contribution. NONE. The only people suggesting that wanted to kill East Link.

There’s nothing wrong with the study. The study shows that this is less cost effective than Sounder North, which itself was a not cost effective project that Snohomish County required before they’d get behind Sound Move.

i.e., if we’re talking 405, then connect Kirkland to Bellevue to Renton to Seatac. Don’t head off to Woodinville or Auburn where the ridership just isn’t there.

A century ago, interurbans were popular. About half the money invested in interurbans was invested after 1910, and none of that ever paid a dime in interest. Why was that? Well, duh, the automobile.

Now the age of the automobile is ending. Investments in freeways now are going to be just as intelligent as investments in interurbans were then.

How much do people want to spend widening 405? And widening 405 doesn’t do much for the people who live north of somewhere out there anyway.

As was the case with LINK, but for different reasons, we need a new transportation corridor on the east side. It should serve new dense development, and by a curious coincidence the BNSF line goes past a number of commercial sites that have been held off the market. Who knew.

And a billion ain’t that much. Get federal matching funds for the $50 million and you have the 10% down that usually will get you into a residential mortgage quite handily. Believe it, the rail barons of the past did not make their money by putting 50% down in cash when they made a purchase.

Dealing with AGW will require new dense super-efficient buildings on super-efficient transportation. The technology is there, the Germans and French do it all the time, it’s just a question of whether we have the will.

In this case, this is a great example, with instead of light rail across the lake, extend this line across the lake so people have a fast and comfortable line right into the city. Later it can be brought into Bellevue via a tunnel deviation.

The Sounder North line was already an upgraded, nearly fully grade separated ROW with welded rail with some areas of single track due to prior mudslides. The biggest capital expense is/was adding CTC and double tracking 6 sections that needs to be addressed that were double track at one point in time. So yes, naturally, the cost is going to be cheaper, open your eyes. There has been plenty of posts by Brian regarding this already.

Eastside corridor is jointed rail (on straights) welded rail (on curves) that the BN (Burlington Northern, before the Santa Fe merger) upgraded before it was primarily used for the Maltby Turn, Renton Rock, and the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train.

The capital expense is slightly higher than the Sounder North corridor. The bonehead who did this study believes that the bridge (Wilburton) is unable to withstand a DMU or passenger train. Look up the specifications of the dinner train consist and it is 3 times heavier than anything that has been ran on the line. The bicyclist can go a different path instead of laying an ungodly amount of money for a new rail bridge. Too bad it isn’t flat and level, get some exercise.

What drives the cost up on this corridor is the need to upgrade the crossings so the idiots doesn’t turn into the train. This plan mentions using expensive wayside horns to cut down noise. Screw that. If they want the luxury, THEY can pay for it, just like the City of Ruston did.

As for the line not going into Tukwila Sounder Station, as Brian in his comment above, that is nothing more than a pathetic excuse that the railroads play and nothing more. They run a daily train (J-WITSSE9) (Special train, Wichita, KS to South Seattle, WA 9 = HOT train) which typically arrives in the morning or late at night.

The $1 billion dollars coming from my MOW background is ludicrous. As many times as I worked on the track and ridden with the crews on this line, there is no reason why this should be even near what the cost is. I certainly hope that somebody will step up and prove these fools wrong in this region. It is quite sickening to read the comments on here from the bloggers and commenters and talk as if they know so much.