The first model I use as a study example is Denver’s 16th Street Transit Mall. Surface light rail crosses this 1 mile ‘car-free’ transit mall between Union Station and the State Capitol grounds. Specially designed hybrid buses run at 2 minute intervals. There is virtually no waiting time for a bus and no need for shelters. The district is completely developed and busy at all hours. No doubt, there were calls for an expensive subway instead by people obliviously convinced one was necessary.

If Bellevue were to accept the Lake Washington RR Line route for Link LRT, a similarly designed shuttle could run the fraction of a mile from the closest station into town and perhaps even north to SR-520 where it could terminate at a light rail station there instead of another subway into downtown Bellevue. Or, Bellevue could refuse any consideration of this ‘modal integration’ and end up building no light rail lines, ever. Surface and structured parking lots along such a shuttle line would serve ‘double duty’ for transit users and adjacent commercial development.

NYC has a great subway system, but terrible traffic and nowhere to park. Denver has a ‘carfree’ transit mall.

1)I’m poor. I can’t afford it when tax increases end up affecting the gas for my grocerygetter and getting passed along in things i buy.
1a)and being poor, i can’t afford a dense or fashionable neighborhood; Seattle’s ghettos lack reasonable supermarkets that sell healthy food. I generally am hiking four miles to a decent Safeway, not crossing the lake. Building the cost of the bridge into my taxes is unfair as it taxes me even though i don’t really use it, bringing me to…

2)You pay to get your butt on the bus. You pay to play golf. You should pay for nice new roads.

3)When i do need to drive to the Eastside, it will be quick and i won’t sit in traffic all day. $4 and not wasting half an hour in traffic (burning gas at 3 bucks a gallon getting 0 MPG) and the time i save counts. Really, the underclass loses more money in waiting for things; a half an hour late means i lose my job whereas it’s less likely to be that way for people with more dosh, who also benefit by moving at higher speeds. Remember the Tacoma Narrows before the new bridge? That 2.whatever i pay with Good To Go! is worth every penny to not sit in interminible traffic.
3a)The bus goes faster, too! Hopefully we’ll have light rail but this will nevertheless mean faster buses. More people ride the bus when it’s faster.

4)There’s an incentive to keep the toll road moving. WSDOT does a *great* job attending to less severe wrecks. That said, a toll can fund an extra tow truck, etc…the authority has a financial incentive to keep everyone moving.

I think everyone is worried about soil. The southern portal is built in what used to be a tide flat just 100 years ago. You just don’t know what you will encounter. Just take a look at this tunnel in Sweden. It is expected to cost 10 times the initial estimates, and mostly because of poor soil conditions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallandsås_Tunnel

The bad part about then is that moving risk from the owner to builder is then presented in an increased bid cost.

I think this is supposed to be mitigated in part by the construction firm using specifications and methods with which they are most familiar and may potentially be able to reused portions of existing work. But, with the unexpected soils conditions encountered in our latest tunneling endeavor I suspect the cushion any contractor includes in the price will push the cost well in excess of the $2B the State pulled out of the ground for it’s estimate. Especially since the firms will be attempting to bid without incurring any of the extensive engineering work which would all be for naught if they don’t win the contract.