Comments on: Bellevue City Council Endorsements

By: STB Endorsement Cheat Sheet - Seattle Transit Blog

STB Endorsement Cheat Sheet - Seattle Transit Blog — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:23:19 +0000

[...] Bellevue City Council Position No. 2: Vicki Orrico [...]

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:08:19 +0000

Michael, it’s unclear whether 5th Avenue businesses are performing “just fine”. Development since the monorail was built has largely eliminated 5th-facing storefronts, while development in other similar corridors has added storefront space.

It’s not just me – The Transport Politic has written about elevated alternatives as well:
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/05/19/is-elevated-acceptable/

By: News Roundup: The Action’s in Bellevue - Seattle Transit Blog

News Roundup: The Action’s in Bellevue - Seattle Transit Blog — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:26:56 +0000

[...] City Council mulls Link alignments. We just published our endorsements for who should continue this work. We also reported on the newer, cheaper tunnel option [...]

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:59:18 +0000

The residents and city government of Bellevue has made it pretty clear that an elevated alignment through downtown is their least favorite option.

By: Mickymse

Mickymse — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:23:58 +0000

Ben, please don’t spread the same kind of FUD we dealt with during the monorail campaign… There’s simply little evidence that an elevated train has a big negative impact on businesses.

Our monorail runs past businesses and restaurants and condos that are performing just fine.

And we can now look to the area around Mt. Baker Station to see if folks will build TOD and open thriving new businesses around elevated light rail.

By: Martin H. Duke

Martin H. Duke — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:57:58 +0000

Bernie,

Although you made a mistake, I applaud you for actually going out and checking our facts.

And if you want to vote for Conrad Lee based on his perceived attention to “the little guy” and “neighborhoods”, that’s obviously your prerogative. Just know the implications that might have for the Link alignment and the future of the BNSF corridor.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:23:13 +0000

Heh! No, it’s okay. When I was futzing with it, I got this contribution to disappear entirely (with two tabs open), and then I just tried saving out PDFs wherever I was and figured out it could only handle one tab at once – and even then, I had to start again from a new browser window once I had it in that state.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:29:00 +0000

I apologize. I am wrong and John you are correct; the website has serious flaws. Neither candidate for position 2 has a contribution from Kemper Holdings on 9/19. This had me very confused since I cut and pasted that from the PDC website. If you have two tabs open in Firefox you can pull up the donations for one candidate with a different candidates name at the top of the page. The $1000 donation from Kemper on 9/19 was to the Robertson Campaign. You can also get it to display Phyllis Orrico as the top donor to the Conrad Lee campaign. I’ll go crawl back under a rock :-(

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:46:31 +0000

Yeah, I went through a second time with a clean browser just to be sure.

By: Sherwin

Sherwin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:30:20 +0000

Quit it with the “little guy” talk. You indeed are mistaken. A quick look on Conrad Lee’s website > Endorsements. CTRL+F: “Kemper Freeman” and what do you know? He’s right there. And what else? Conrad Lee had the nerve to attend Sunday morning service at my church to campaign. Know most of you all aren’t big church-goers, but I am and Conrad Lee is a textbook definition of a established politician. Pretty disingenuous stuff, but getting back to issues, he is definitely the “more buses, more roads!” guy.

By: John Jensen

John Jensen — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:32:25 +0000

The PDC search is terrible. Especially if you have multiple tabs or windows on the site.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:17:10 +0000

Bernie, I just checked the PDC site. You’re confused.

I see the $1000 contribution from Kemper Holdings. It’s to Conrad Lee, on 07/08/2009. Here’s the PDF: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/39870/LEE%20CONRAD%20S.pdf

There is no match when searching for a contribution to Vicki Orrico from Kemper.

It is very easy to confuse the PDC’s search system, so I don’t blame you for making the mistake.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:43:42 +0000

Against her is Conrad Lee, a Kemperite and PRT advocate.

Conrad Lee has long been a supporter of the little guy and the hardest working neighborhood advocate on the council. Vicki Orrico on the other hand is supported by Kemper. Check the PDC listings:
KEMPER HOLDINGS LLC 2009/09/19 $1,000.00
Once more the Seattle Transit Blog gets it completely backwards on Bellevue.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:32:05 +0000

It’s largely concerns about urban design. To see some of the discussion, you may want to go over the sound transit board meetings in which the options were discussed, and the documents submitted by the City of Bellevue.

Nobody here is saying it’s OK to have highways through a city center either. I’m generally against any general purpose lane expansion.

An elevated train really does have a big negative impact on the surrounding businesses. Pedestrians don’t like walking under a big concrete thing whether it’s a train or an offramp, and it’s tough to find uses for the space underneath (especially in a fairly ped-empty downtown like Bellevue) so that it doesn’t become a homeless haven.

The Bellevue candidates probably haven’t expressed opinions on it because it hasn’t been on the table.

By: Jonathan Dubman

Jonathan Dubman — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:13:51 +0000

So a light rail tunnel in downtown Bellevue probably costs a minimum of $300 million more than a surface option, though it also provides for a faster trip and avoids delays for other vehicles (including buses headed to BTC), which is certainly worth something.

Can someone remind me why we are not still looking at an elevated option? Wouldn’t it provide cost savings versus the tunnel as well as more mobility than a surface option? Wouldn’t it be less impactful to construct? Is it concerns about urban design? Why is it OK to have rivers full of traffic in a canyon made of skyscrapers but it’s not OK to run a clean electric elevated train in public ROW that animates the landscape, advertises itself and provides for a more enjoyable ride than either a tunnel or surface route? It would have to be supported by columns, but wouldn’t that still take up less room than a surface option?

I’m not opposed to a tunnel per se. I am just wondering why the elevated concept doesn’t get more love. Not sure if any of the Bellevue candidates have expressed opinions on this.

By: justin

justin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:14:08 +0000

I heard once that a incumbent has never lost a race in Bellevue, I hope that changes this time.

I watch many most of the Bellevue Council meetings and just have to say that Conrad Lee usually rambles on and makes no sense, and Don Davidson is a classic old school car centric 50′s man.

We have ZERO bike lanes in DT Bellevue and terrible bike cross city connections. We desperately need more mid block ped crossings, a few are being talked about but slow to implement. We need to shorten the light cycles, it’s hard enough being a ped around here without waiting for a long light cycle, then waiting for the left turners, then finally getting a chance to cross 5 or 6 lanes without being hit.

Bellevue could become a great city if we had the right leadership.