There was another portfolio of sketches done by a noted bridge designer which I can’t locate right now. It centered around just the portage bay bridge and had a cable stay design that would work and probably be less expensive that the cut and cover approach favored by WSDOT. If it lasts “forever” (100+ years) it ends up costing way less than the replace every 50 years approach.

520 to Westlake/Mercer is not simple. Maybe a tunnel, maybe around the south shore of the Shipcanal. The point is there is no good reason to connect 520 with I-5 southbound. Coming from the eastside and trying to go downtown (the part with the tall buildings) it’s faster most of the time to exit at Roenoke. I know that’s “cut through” traffic which is to be avoided. Coming from the eastside to say SODO drivers should use I-90. WSDOT is kindly widening I-405 and adding lanes to I-90 so make people used it. We already know there are too many downtown exits on I-5 and removal is on the “to do” list. Eastside drivers going to say the Seattle Center need to get on Mercer. Currently you merge onto I-5 south and then barge across 5 lanes to exit at the Mercer Mess. Avoiding the 1/4 mile on I-5 seems like part of the solution. I also think exiting at Montlake should be HOV only (meaning off peak, like after 7PM SOVs can use it). Some people are going to want/need to drive to UW in a SOV and the options would be Unversity Bridge or I-5 north to NE 45th.

Yes all this makes it harder to drive the U-district in a SOV; that’s the point. Especially with Link coming to Husky Stadium there should be significantly less reason for SOV trips from the eastside to UW. And since Link will get you to downtown with transporter like speed there’s no reason to clog 520 and the Montlake bridge with a westbound on-ramp or eastbound off-ramp. The proposed 6 lane no alternative 520 replacement is inadequate for today’s demand. By 2030 it will be worse, much worse than the current configuration. The only sensible solution is to eliminate some of the demand and streamline the corridor. Cheaper now and better for the future.

And this is even before we consider the recent completion of a second Narrows bridge.

The continual increase in the ferry size and traffic is part of a plan for continual increases in traffic and road spending west of Puget Sound that shouldn’t happen. Subsidizing suburban growth is even dumber in Sequim or Belfair than it is in Bellevue or Issaquah.

Enough already. And yes, I’ve ridden the ferries all my life and actually lived on the water for 15 years and live west of the Sound now.

Which means that no one in our area would ever go for it.

In the past few years STB has outperformed the local dailies in seeing the big picture. It gets a lot easier to figure out what is being reported and how to interpret it when more facts and less inflammatory language are used in posts, and Andrew has done very well here.

Good point.

For example, look at the list of projects needing big funding. Three of them- ferry system spending, 405 widening, and Viaduct replacement- are things I wouldn’t do at all, but generally get a pass with no critical exam even by transit bloggers.

Giving the ferry system an adequate capital budget is absolutely necessary. The failure to properly fund that budget was why WSF was still running 70+ year old ferries everyone knew should have been replaced decades earlier. If we continue to fail to fund capital replacement and maintenance for the ferries there soon won’t be a ferry system.

The ferry system is already down 4 vessels and the only reason we can keep the Port Townsend/Keystone route open is due to the willingness of Pierce County to lease one of their vessels to WSF. There are currently 4 ferries over 50 years old, these will need to be retired soon. In 8-11 years there will be another 5 ferries reaching 50. In 13-14 years another two ferries will reach 50. Considering the current construction schedule calls for a new ferry every 2 years that means it will take 22 years to replace the older vessels at which point it will be time to start replacing the 6 Issaquah class ferries.

One thing that really comes through to me, though, is that legislators are cuddly poodles, eager to get our attention and please us, compared with the agencies.

For example, look at the list of projects needing big funding. Three of them- ferry system spending, 405 widening, and Viaduct replacement- are things I wouldn’t do at all, but generally get a pass with no critical exam even by transit bloggers.

And if you think you need a scorecard to deal with the legislature, just try penetrating the thicket of rules, regulations, and trickle-down actual instructions to actual agency employees that are used to implement the law the legislators passed.

This, incidentally, is one reason Mercer Islanders are about as tractable on highway issues as a tiger mother defending her young- they fought the state DOT for twenty years and won. In a sense they evolved into the saber-toothed tiger of the transportation world- and in the process did us all a big favor by putting a choke-chain and a muzzle on a DOT that began their 1960s rampage on MI by hiding all the critical testimony from hearings and illegally bulldozing a wide swath on the island.

In the past few years STB has outperformed the local dailies in seeing the big picture. It gets a lot easier to figure out what is being reported and how to interpret it when more facts and less inflammatory language are used in posts, and Andrew has done very well here.

Tim

Yes, I would certainly welcome two or more additional trains to our friends in Spokane and would use it in a heartbeat. It could either use the existing passenger line through Wenatchee or as you say the other line throgh Yakima.

Maybe, our friends down in Portland could also lobby for an additional service to Spokane using the southern route through Washington.

Tim

I’d love to see some Seattle to Spokane rail service along the lines of the current Cascades service. Say 2 trains per day each way between Seattle and Spokane. Maybe run one train each way via Stevens Pass and Wenatchee the other via Stampede and Yakima. I suspect such service might prove fairly popular as long as the speed competed well with driving, especially if the service extended into the Idaho panhandle. Probably unlikely since the existing and very successful Cascades service is having trouble getting money from the state, but one can dream.

As for Rep. Clibborn there is some skepticism regarding her position on East Link. In past public statements she’s come across as rather protective of “her bridge” and opposed to either converting the center roadway to transit use or tolls on I-90. I don’t know if that is due to her past views being mischaracterized or if she’s slowly coming around on both issues. In any case it will take some time before I consider her to be sympathetic to my views on transit.

One thing I think local transit supporters can do to bolster their case statewide is to attempt to connect with transit supporters in the rest of the state. It only helps our case if we are seen as not only wanting better transit in central Puget Sound but supporting Light Rail in Spokane or Clark County, or better bus service in Yakima or Bellingham.

Both the 520 and the I-90 I believe will need to be tolled if enough funds are going to be raised for the 520 replacement.

Rep. Clibborn told me when I met her last week that much of what goes on is purely politics and that events move so fast that even politics gets left behind sometimes. We have seen this with her current support for funding the engineering study for the I-90 bridge between Mercer Island and Seattle. I am not entirely convinced that she was always against Light Rail on the bridge deck, merely that politics got in her way at some point and made it appear so. Anyway, she seems to be on board now.

I hope that the same will happen with trying to snatch ST funding for road projects. Much of this dovetails in nicely with an earlier post of mine when I suggested that Olympia has a legislative lens through which it views the state as a whole. Politics is the art of the possible to which I would add that it is occasionally derailed by the appearance of the impossible, a wall difficult to see over. Funding roads comes naturally to Olympia because they are the state’s artery system, whereas our beloved rails and buses and trains go only on defined corridors and then chiefly in the major urban centers. Without roads, no one would be able to get to the stations and transit centers within our cities let alone between major centers such as Spokane in the east and Seattle in the west.

Yes, of course I would like to see more rail between the two cities, but like it or not (and we don’t) most people traveling between Spokane and Seattle are going to use the I-90. The question then remains, how would we like folks to move around once they are here in Seattle and the Puget Sound? This where the Seattle Transit Blog comes in and provides its input to Olympia. I don’t think we can claim to represent the interests of the whole state – whole swathes of eastern Washington sadly hate Seattle and doubtless tell their representatives so in Olympia.

So anyway, hopefully this explains something of what Olympia feels and the responsibilities of our legislators. Having said this, our role is to make sure that Sound Transit keeps its money safe. Other than the 540/545/555/556, Sound Transit doesn’t currently have a lot of use for the 520 bridge. I don’t see why its bank account needs to be raided for funding it anymore than Metro’s does or Community Transit either for that matter since both agencies use it as well as Sound Transit.

Let’s hope that all of these things too shall pass. ST would do well I think to announce some start dates for ST2 projects. Looking at the terminus of Link at SeaTac Airport, I am thinking they should just carry on and plough further on south from there. The new buses begin in June but beyond that, does anyone know what is next? I remember asking Metro once to add a note to their timetables whenever they added a schedule change funded by Transit Now and to my surprise they adopted the idea. It may not have just come from me, but all of those Transit Now banners you see on some of the timetables are an excellent example of change-to-marketing-as-a-result-of-taxpayers-giving-us-more-money. Sound Transit needs to be just as visible with its projects-to-ST2 funding and I am sure once it kicks off a few that more of the public will pressure the likes of Speaker Chopp to back off taking their money.

Tim

Prop. 1 passes by a large margin, but some in the state legislature still try to with hold funding and extort the agency for cash for pet projects.