Comments on: McGinn’s Rail Options: How Much, and How Soon?

By: McGinn for Mayor - Seattle Transit Blog

McGinn for Mayor - Seattle Transit Blog — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:04:53 +0000

[...] highly visible promise to put another light rail line on the ballot raises many questions. His plan would, at a minimum, complete a study — [...]

By: McGinn for Mayor | SeattleSeattle.com

McGinn for Mayor | SeattleSeattle.com — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:18:34 +0000

[...] highly visible promise to put another light rail line on the ballot raises many questions. His plan would, at a minimum, complete a study — [...]

By: 2010 City and County Transportation Budgets - Seattle Transit Blog

2010 City and County Transportation Budgets - Seattle Transit Blog — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:41:56 +0000

[...] is programmed, and some of it would use the same City MVET authority that Mike McGinn hopes to dedicate to building light [...]

By: Mickymse

Mickymse — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:18:51 +0000

Yes, I remember that report, Ben!

By: uh huh

uh huh — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:34:51 +0000

OK. You go on ahead and ask Patty Murray to write a check for a hundred mil to the city of Seattle on top of the $100M coming to ST each year. I’m right behind you.

By: dreya

dreya — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:39:07 +0000

Wait– did you really just say that sales tax revenues have not actually fallen? Yikes– tell that to Metro. Not sure if your 2009 first quarter numbers are good to go by. Minor point in the theme of your post, but a bold statment so I thought I would address it. Check out the Sales Tax Shortfall pdf from the power point slide (2nd main listing):
http://search.kingcounty.gov/search?as_sitesearch=www.kingcounty.gov/exec/news/release&entqr=0&access=p&output=xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&ud=1&site=w&ie=UTF-8&client=w_frontend&oe=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=w_frontend&q=metro+sales+tax&ip=146.129.30.228

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:39:11 +0000

Sound Transit is an RTA, not a city – those sales tax authorities come from different parts of state law.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:19:59 +0000

Yeah, I think I’ve found some of it, actually. There’s a big report from URS, I’m told, and I’d like to read that before I post more.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:19:19 +0000

uh huh:

There’s a lot of federal money to go around, on a competitive basis. It’s not regional – if we stack up near where ST does, we’ll take money from a less viable project at the bottom of the list somewhere else in the country, not ST.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:17:39 +0000

Mallahan’s practice is anti-Link. He attacked McGinn’s plan by saying he’d “work with Sound Transit to speed up planning” – but that’s exactly what McGinn is doing.

By: Zef Wagner

Zef Wagner — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:25:22 +0000

Where does the .2% sales tax authority come from? Isn’t Sound Transit maxed out with .9%?

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:22:00 +0000

It can’t go into the DSTT because there’s no space for it. After ST2 there will be trains up to every 2.5 min at peak times in the tunnel which is the limit.
A tunnel from Westlake to Fremont would be about 3.25 miles. At the same price as University Link, $600m per mile, that would be about $2b and would take about 9 minutes. I would want it to have stations at Westlake, Belltown, Seattle Center, Uptown, Queen Anne, and Fremont. Just completely guessing, ridership could be about 25-30,000. From there to Ballard is another 2.5 miles, and at $100m per mile that would be $250m and would probably add 10,000 riders or so to that, although it would take a while if it were on the surface. The problem is that it might end up getting less riders than that if it ends at Westlake. It would be better to extend it down through downtown.
However for now it would probably be better to have the route go on the surface through Interbay because having it go under Queen Anne to Fremont would cost so much more and wouldn’t get that much higher ridership.

By: poncho

poncho — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:03:14 +0000

lets just hope this line would be fast. hopefully it would tie into the DSTT since I assume there wouldnt be money for another downtown subway.

just for wild unlikely speculation… what would it cost if a subway tunnel was built from the DSTT at 3rd & Pine north through Belltown, Queen Anne, under Queen Anne Hill and emerging from the tunnel by the Ship Canal in Fremont and running on the surface from Fremont to Ballard in reserved or median lanes or sharing the Burke Gilman trail RoW? stations? ridership?

By: poncho

poncho — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:48:45 +0000

if you have to use it for roads couldnt you use it then for complete streets and scaling back freeway-like traffic sewers to traffic calmed reasonable streets?

By: Kenneth Parker

Kenneth Parker — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:16:45 +0000

Make what you will of the politic of the proposal, but the studies before the plan is simply reasonable project management and planning. Without this you massive cost overruns and designs that dodn’t meet needs. This type of method is how to the monorail fiasco could have been avoided.

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:08:19 +0000

If a new transportation bill doesn’t pass this year they will try to get it passed at the beginning of 2011. The Congressmen leading the charge for this new bill have suggested it will include, among other things, $50 billion for HSR and $99 billion for transit. If we have a $4 billion plan and we get $2 billion of that from local taxes and sources, we have a very large chance of getting a federal grant to cover the other half.

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:08:18 +0000

Sorry but you are wrong. There is several billion dollars available for Light Rail and isn’t just for 1 project or agency. Portland received 500+ million, Seattle received 800+ million, Dallas received 700+ million.

There is a lot of new projects that will receive a lot of funding that pays for nearly half of the projects going out.

Do some research before typing, it saves everyone more making these kind of corrections.

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:05:51 +0000

Right now, he does have a plan. The plan is to hold a vote on light rail to Ballard and West Seattle in the next two years. Once studies are completed, that plan will get a pricetag on it and we’ll see where it will go. In the meantime, it’s not true that he has no plan; his plan is just general at the moment because there’s really no way for it to be more specific.

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:04:12 +0000

However, you do know that McGinn will try to build it whereas Mallahan immediately criticized McGinn for his plan.

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:59:44 +0000

Ooh how about put it along the waterfront and build funiculars at each stop going up the hill?