Comments on: Kevin Wallace Responds

By: Editorial: Site ‘Future Downtown’ Bellevue’s Station Right - Seattle Transit Blog

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:05:51 +0000

[...] plan, downtown’s main transit hub will have to be sited directly within this core. When I interviewed Kevin Wallace in November, he implied support for moving this hub from the current transit center to a [...]

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:02:44 +0000

Cindy, based on your numerous but unfortunately weak posts defending Kevin Wallace, I highly doubt you have the Bellevue downtown residents’ interests in mind.

No one living in downtown condos will use the Vision Line, if you have the faintest ideas where the condos & apartments are.

Care to tell me where you live? And which group of residents living where will use the Vision Line?

I will not be surprised if [deleted, ad-hominem]

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:27:38 +0000

It is in the City of Bellevue City Council minutes.

By: ericn

ericn — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:27:38 +0000

No, Sound Transit includes both segment and total East Link ridership totals for each alternative in the DEIS. If you’re having trouble finding them, look at pages 18 and 19 of the East Link DEIS executive summary. Also, I’d like to see a link to Sound Transit’s ‘admission’ of flawed ridership numbers.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:34:31 +0000

Calling yourself “Matt the Engineer” doesn’t give you any more credibility than anyone else commenting on this opinion journal. Cindy the Downtown Resident

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:15:41 +0000

It is a matter of perspective. I consider the savings in the use of an already existing resource (B7) and setting the rail line up for the next phase (Issaquah, Newcastle, North Bend, Renton) at the same time to be killing two birds with one stone.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:12:46 +0000

Kevin did not say that developers would not benefit, let’s get real. He said that his company would not benefit, there is a big difference. He did say that there is TOD potential in the Wilberton Station area. What property does Wallace own in that area?

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:10:02 +0000

Actually Martin, all those parklike thoughts were discussed in the development of The Vision Line. Let’s do remember that one of Kevin Wallace’s requrements is to stay inside of the Sound Transit budget for the project. Not even Sound Transit does that.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:07:49 +0000

Sound Transit has also admitted that the ridership number in the DEIS are flawed. They agreed to restudy the numbers. The problem is that ST looks at the alignment numbers individually. when the entire system is looked at as a whole, the numbers are musch, much different.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:26:40 +0000

Kevin Wallace did not run for City Council on the premise that the Wallace family interest has nothing to gain or lose from one alignment over the other. He’s now an elected official which means you always have to qualify your answer, But I think it’s obvious that he ran because the alignment had a huge impact on not only their investments but the interests of all Bellevue residents. Quality of life of all Bellevue residents includes taxes, traffic, accessibility and land use. Anyone with no investment resume wanting to dictate a huge investment in public trasportation through DT Bellevue should be the real cause for concern.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:30:25 +0000

I believe the noise concerns with B3 modified are rather overblown. The rail line will be across a couple of rather busy streets from any residences and for the most part the residential properties are up a slope and set back a bit. There are only a couple of driveway crossings of the rail alignment so there won’t be the level of bell and warning chime noise there is on MLK.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:24:41 +0000

I wasn’t being critical of Wallace Properties or their investment strategy. Just pointing out that I would expect them to redevelop many of their properties at some point.

Because of that redevelopment potential I have a hard time swallowing council member Wallace’s assertion that he and his family business have nothing to gain (or lose) from one light rail alignment over another.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:09:10 +0000

most of the Wallace properties in Downtown Bellevue are exactly the sort of dingy older low-rise office and retail buildings that are ripe for redevelopment.

Looking at the County records there seems to be a pattern of the Wallace family buying foreclosure properties. Not surprising that they are as you say “dingy”. This sort of willingness and perhaps we could say “savvy” tells me the family is long term committed to the community. Remember, these foreclosure properties are open to all offers. Who stepped up? Perhaps more interestingly, who made really really bad guesses on how development in Bellevue was going to go forward?? History, those who don’t learn from mistakes are doomed to repeat them. I’m completely comfortable with a guy who’s family is rooted in the community, received his undergraduate degree from SU (don’t consider that my ringing endorsement for Patty Murray) and law degree from Gonzaga representing me on the City Council.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:49:27 +0000

And keeping to the current schedule (which is way optimistic) about -40Db.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:45:41 +0000

Yes! I’m a supporter of B7 but I thought the City Council proposal for B3 Modified was an excellent compromise. Another solution, although not in play would be to turn east at the P&R. No great advantage except perhaps not having to move the Winters House and pushing the noise pollution into the wetlands instead of the residential area above Bellevue Way and along 112th (yes the wetlands would suffer, which means the residents also suffer. No free lunch. Surrey Downs residents may not be frequent transit users but I guess no frogs have Orca cards so maybe wetlands win?). Construction cost would be comparable if they follow the side running alignment that is largely wetlands or wetlands buffer area anyway. Perhaps reduces cost of a spur to Eastgate/Issaquah sometime in the future.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:08:12 +0000

That doesn’t follow. Moving an elevated line from 112th (C7E) to 114th doesn’t make it useless. The station would be located West of 114th whereas with C7E it would have been east of 112th so they’re in virtually the same spot. I’m not sold on the Vision Line but for a someone who claims to be “one of those North Seattleites who doesn’t really know much about anything south of the ship canal” calling it useless because it “will not induce any of the impacts that the council was initially concerned about” has no quantifiable justification. It makes it sound like the impacts of elevated rail are so universally egregious that it would have to be moved miles away to mitigate them.

By: Aleks

Aleks — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:27:00 +0000

That’s not all!

“He asserted that since the alignment is far enough out of the downtown core, the elevated portion will not induce any of the impacts that the council was initially concerned about.”

If it’s far enough for the elevated-ness not to be an issue, then it’s too far to be useful.

By: Martin H. Duke

Martin H. Duke — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:23:45 +0000

Plus some or all the Eastgate buses may very well feed into SB.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:09:10 +0000

I don’t think it’s meant as elitist. Most of the properties seem to be smaller office space. Small companies have a much higher instance of SOV drivers than large companies.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:23:36 +0000

Also very funny considering most of the Wallace properties in Downtown Bellevue are exactly the sort of dingy older low-rise office and retail buildings that are ripe for redevelopment. See the building on the SE corner of NE Northgate Way and 5th Ave NE for an example of where Wallace tore down a crappy strip mall and built a large mixed use building. Why woudn’t they want to do the same with their Bellevue properties at some point?