Even center or side-running elevated would work pretty well in this corridor. Combined with street improvements it would still be a vast improvement over what is currently there.

It’s two miles farther, though, so ST doesn’t want to go that way. Maybe it’ll be the end of a Ballard Line, should it ever come about.

The only thing you do is to defend Kevin Wallace. Care to reveal any conflicts of interest on your part? Or we should just ignore your posts as from Wallace Property?

In reply to you:

(1) We have no problems with developers in Bellevue. We have problems with a developer paying thousands to get elected, then immediately use his position to influence policies for which he will directly benefits from. You know what’s this called? Corruption.

(2) Care to tell me what “long history of active involvement in Bellevue matters” Kevin Wallace has? Except making money from his Wallace Property company?

(3) Care to show us where is the research supporting that Vision Line is superior in serving downtown residents? Where is the research showing that people are willing to take trains to a shadowy, noisy station beside Interstate (oops, Wallace just happens to own a few acres of the currently worthless land there), walk uphill at least half a mile to anywhere? Where is the ridership number?

See, I just destroyed you. Show us answers before you are completely disregarded on this board, where a lot of us are not Wallace’s muppets and sincerely care for Bellevue.

Ben seems correct on the park-and-ride investment. The ST2 funds have the opportunity cost of foregone service frequency. Example: East subarea funds could be spent on Route 522.

I do however know how loud the freeway already is in downtown Bellevue.

Isn’t the presence of noise an argument for the train? Should it only be present in quiet corridors?

Downtown Bellevue is hardly downtown Dallas. It’s a ludicrous comparison.

Look, every city would “like” to have a subway in its downtown core. There’s no better way to move masses of people in and out of a CBD than by an attractive and rider-friendly subway.

It certainly would benefit the through-riders as would the Vision Line. But the Vision Line without some sort of dedicated CBD circulator is a big mistake and really quite deleterious for the future of downtown Bellevue.

I do think it might work with a circulator that has proper priorities (e.g. not buses). But without it, downtown Bellevue would be crippled and eventually eclipsed by Redmond.

Do you really want that for your city? I doubt it.

I have stood next to the Sound Transit lines that are already working and listened to how loud the trains are. If the Eastlink trains go up Main Street there will not only be displacements in residential neighborhoods, the residents that don’t “qualify” for condemnations will be left with trains running on their back property lines. You don’t have to have experience living next to a train line to know that the noise, vibration and property values will take a negative hit.

Oh, and there is plenty of research that proves all of those things. And don’t give me the tired arguement that property values will go up for residential neighbors of Eastlink. Research shows that is only true for those that live a few blocks from a station or farther out than 2 blocks from the line. House values for homes along a train line between stations do not hold or improve their value.

Since you’re going to argue from authority:

Do you have any experience living next to a light rail line?

You continue to make this point as if it supports your position. But you’re not advocating a funding source for a tunnel, you’re instead advocating a surface alignment outside downtown.