Comments on: Three Musings on the McGinn Light Rail Plan

By: Editorial: Plan New Light Rail Carefully - Seattle Transit Blog

Editorial: Plan New Light Rail Carefully - Seattle Transit Blog — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:34:09 +0000

[...] decision (e.g., at-grade through downtown) is grounds for opposing the package. As I’ve mentioned before, despite loose talk of 2012 or 2016 ST3 votes, ST3 is not necessarily close at hand and a regional [...]

By: Light Rail Vote in 2010? - Seattle Transit Blog

Light Rail Vote in 2010? - Seattle Transit Blog — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:45:41 +0000

[...] project will consist of an all-surface alignment from West Seattle to SODO station, combined with a souped-up Ballard/Fremont Streetcar to connect those neighborhoods with Westlake Center. This would cost relatively little and punt [...]

By: Bringing Better Transit To The West Side | hugeasscity

Bringing Better Transit To The West Side | hugeasscity — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:32:52 +0000

[...] on Cary Moon’s tunnel post there was much discussion about options for transit service and McGinn’s proposal for light rail to West Seattle, and Joel Horn, former executive director of the Seattle Monorail Project, was [...]

By: The Race We Have - Seattle Transit Blog

The Race We Have - Seattle Transit Blog — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:38:36 +0000

[...] next battle would be the ballot measure. As I said a while back, there’s almost inevitably going to be a tradeoff between serving a lot of neighborhoods with [...]

By: Zed

Zed — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:11:51 +0000

The new bridge over the Willamette doesn’t have to accommodate ship traffic. A bridge over the ship canal either has to be a high-level bridge like Aurora or a lift bridge.

By: joshuadf

joshuadf — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:46:31 +0000

A new bridge is expensive, but not unreasonable. Nothing like a tunnel.

Portland is building a transit/bike/ped bridge across the Willamette for $132m:
http://trimet.org/pm/planninganddesign/bridge.htm

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:37:25 +0000

Ben, I think we’re still talking anywhere from $60 million to $100 million per mile even for a surface alignment depending on the amount of utility relocation, ROW acquisition, and how nice you decide to make the street when you are done. I’m guessing the downtown and Belltown portions will end up being on the high-side of that figure while some other portions might come in on the low-end.

The Duwamish crossing is likely to be $150 to $250 million all by itself with a similar figure for the ship canal if an existing bridge can’t be re-used.

All that said, I’m still in favor of doing it even if it is essentially the Fremont/Ballard streetcar line with Link-style LRVs and dedicated lanes.

By: joshuadf

joshuadf — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:30:46 +0000

Portland is building a transit/bike/ped bridge across the Willamette for $132m:

http://trimet.org/pm/planninganddesign/bridge.htm

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:27:24 +0000

I don’t know, but for what I needed it for the 2007 numbers distilled in the format Orphan Road were perfect. I wanted rough all-day per-route ridership figures for estimating the potential for rail in various alignments (and to provide a rough comparison to the current and planned link lines).

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:13:31 +0000

Even a largely surface line won’t be $1.2 billion. My back of the envelope calculations say you’re looking at $500 million just for the two water crossings alone. Now you could run light rail across the Fremont bridge but that causes a bunch of operational and congestion problems in a new rail line you may not want to impose on your system. I mean, OK Portland does this with the Steel Bridge, but that bridge doesn’t open as often as the Fremont Bridge nor is the ROW quite as constrained.

All that said there is the tax base in Seattle, especially if property taxes are tapped, to provide the same level of yearly revenue for building rail that Sound Transit has for the entire ST district.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:40:24 +0000

You aren’t going to build another elevated line in the city, either.

And $1.2 billion? LESS line than that cost $1.75 in 2005 dollars. Get real – you’re talking about $3 billion, and probably more because you can’t actually ride the West Seattle bridge with a double tracked line.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:39:34 +0000

Is there a KCM 2008 ridership report yet?

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:39:06 +0000

Please, please don’t. Mallahan is anti-transit, flat out. We can’t afford to lose a vote on a protest.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:38:21 +0000

reality-based – I don’t know where you’re getting all these problems. McGinn’s plan is likely to end up being westlake – fremont bridge – ballard, for which we already have plenty of right of way.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:36:37 +0000

Right on. :)

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:36:15 +0000

Uh. No, a streetcar-style (Portland-like) rail line would be hundreds of millions, not billions.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:35:27 +0000

The seawall replacement is not that much money – you’re talking about peanuts compared to a new rail line. This comment reads as “there are a lot of things going on and I can’t pay attention to all of them therefore they must be stressful!”

There are different people working on different things. This is no different than a lot of buildings being built at once by different companies.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:33:49 +0000

Zed, the thing that made Link slow was waiting for money to trickle in – not lawsuits or talking.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:33:18 +0000

No one is building elevated transit in the city center.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:31:58 +0000

You need the legislature to re-grant that authority.