7 More "Rapid Ride +" corridors, now funded
7 More “Rapid Ride +” corridors, now funded

In initial results posted last night, Seattle voters largely embraced the center-left urbanism of Mayor Murray, approving Move Seattle, retaining all 5 City Council incumbents, and easily beating anti-growth candidates such as Bill Bradburd. Happily, here at STB we are enjoying a 9-0 lead in our Council endorsements, though races may shift as more ballots come in. Here’s a roundup of the early returns.

Council Races

  • In West Seattle’s District 1, Shannon Braddock has a narrow lead over Lisa Herbold, 53-47. Expect this race to tighten.
  • In Southeast Seattle’s District 2, Bruce Harrell has a comfortable lead over Tammy Morales, 55-45. However, low voter registration and low turnout means that his nominal lead is small, just 889 votes.
  • In Central Seattle’s District 3, Kshama Sawant opened a 52-47 lead that will surely grow as late ballots trickle in. Sawant’s 8,200 votes nearly exceed Harrell and Morales’ combined tally in District 2, giving you a sense of the imbalance in turnout between districts.
  • In Northeast Seattle’s District 4, the win-win race between Rob Johnson and Michael Maddux tipped toward Johnson, 55-45.
  • In North Seattle’s District 5, Debora Juarez handily beat Rev. Sandy Brown, 63-46.
  • In Northwest Seattle’s District 6, incumbent Mike O’Brien had a tighter race than expected but still won easily, 58-40.
  • In Downtown’s District 7, Sally Bagshaw faced no credible challenger, winning 80-20.
  • In a heated at-large race in Position 8, incumbent Tim Burgess opened a 58-42 lead, a difference of 13,000 votes. Tho Grant did not concede and the final tally will be tighter, his likely insurmountable deficit is exactly double the one overcome by Sawant against Richard Conlin two years ago.
  • In a sleepy race for at-large Position 9, Lorena Gonzalez easily dispatched Bill Bradburd, 76-23.

Move Seattle


Despite internal polling predicting doom that had election party attendees nervously nursing their beers, Move Seattle jumped out to a comfortable lead, 56-44. The Northgate Bridge is now fully funded. 7 more corridors will get bumped up to RapidRide standards. Half the Bicycle Master Plan is now funded on top of normal appropriations. Graham Street Station is still alive and kicking, though in need of more funds and more political persuasion. Routes to school all over town will be slower, safer, and more humanly scaled. Thank you to Seattle voters for being generous with your dollars and supportive of our mutual rights to a safer, saner city.

Community Transit Prop 1

In a race too close to call, Snohomish County voters within Community Transit’s tax district are approving Prop 1 by razor thin margins, 50.83% to 49.17%, just a 746 vote lead. This measure would build two more Swift BRT lines, create a frequent service network in Snohomish County, and prepare Community Transit to optimize for Link’s arrival in 2023.

I-1366

Tim Eyman’s $8B missile aimed at the state budget is regrettably passing, 54-46, with only King, Thurston, Jefferson, and San Juan counties opposing. The measure would cut the state sales tax from 6.5% to 5.5% unless the legislature puts before the voters a two-thirds threshold for raising taxes.

Other Races

  • In King County Council Position 6, Bellevue Mayor Claudia Balducci beat incumbent Jane Hague handily, 60-40.
  • Incumbent Snohomish County Executive John Lovick was beaten by Dave Somers, 57-42.
  • In Mercer Island, Mayor Bruce Bassett fended off a challenge from anti Sound Transit and “Save Our Suburbs” founder Thomas Acker.
  • In Burien, pro-transit newcomer Austin Bell has a mere 2 vote lead over Darla Green.

STB Election Podcast

As the results came in last night, Martin and Frank recorded their latest podcast. Tune in to hear Martin nearly perfectly predict the results.

What else interesting happened last night? Let us know in the comments.

112 Replies to “Election Results: A Great Night for Transit”

  1. I-1366 will get thrown out by the courts. I expect no impact from its passing other than more angst on the part of uninformed voters who don’t understand that when you vote for something unconstitutional it pretty much aint going to happen no matter what.

    Also, the moderates won in (Fort) Vancouver. This is a major setback to the rabidly anti-LR branch of the GOP led by Madore. Maybe, just maybe, there is a little hope for this very important suburb of Portland.

    1. Lazarus, I wish that was more reassuring. But the State Supreme Court ruled Tim Eyman’s first initiative, the one that’s left transportation crippled for twenty years. And the State Legislature responded by enacting it- with a Democratic governor’s signature, if memory serves.

      For good and for ill, elected bodies are composed of people, who either stand up to intimidation or don’t. But same for electorates. Twenty years out- damage still not repaired. Meaning by now, more than one generation needs to be replaced at the ballot box.

      Like I said before: two sides can play the initiative game. Including by rules that State Constitution doesn’t matter.

      Mark Dublin

      1. Ya, except this time in order to put the amendment to the voters they need a 2/3’s majority. Aint going to happen, no matter how weak our current legislature is.

      3. I would hope voters get the final say on this…. instead of a massive tax cut right when McCleary is being used as a weapon by the Educational Industrial Complex against the state budget.

        Voter approval on all taxes = potential veto of all future highway expansion.

        All transit taxes for the indefinite future will see voters anyway.

        Think about that.

      5. Joe-
        You could accomplish having a vote on tax increases by limiting use of the “emergency” clause. This is what prevents a referendum. 2/3rd supermajority requirements are bad governance, since a tiny minority can scuttle anything.

        What you missed out on is voting on I-695, which was ruled unconstitutional (under the single-subject rule). 695’s MVET reduction was later implemented directly by the legislature, and that blew a gigantic hole in the state transportation budget and local transit funding from which we’ve never really recovered (about 1/3 of Metro’s budget was from MVET). If you want to believe Tim Eyman, who would probably high-ball things, its been about $10 billion worth of reduced car tabs over the decade 1999-2009. $10 billion buys a whole lot of stuff.

        Since then we’ve been reliant on gas tax increases for highway funds and local sales taxes to fund transit; Metro’s sales taxes went up twice to the statutory maximum of 0.9% post-695. I think its fair to say we would not have had the significant gas tax and sales tax increases had MVET stuck around, although I think we would have had some increases. So that’s what you’re missing.

      6. Jason,

        As to the emergency clause, I agree.

        As to, “2/3rd supermajority requirements are bad governance, since a tiny minority can scuttle anything” that’s why I prefer simple majority voter approval in a November general election.

        As to, “I think its fair to say we would not have had the significant gas tax and sales tax increases had MVET stuck around, although I think we would have had some increases. So that’s what you’re missing.” Thanks much. Really appreciate the input.

  2. Does me dancing around in joy at Move Seattle result count as interesting :-) ?

    Thanks for the great coverage !

  3. If 1366 passes and then gets declared unconstitutional, surely the legislature will wuss out and pass it all over again. Time to start lobbying Olympia NOT to wuss out.

    Also–hurray for Move Seattle!!!

    1. Unlikely – they need a 2/3 supermajority to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot, and Democratic members are totally opposed.

      1. This sounds like a violation of the single-purpose rule: compelling a legislative action and affecting a tax structure. I’m highly skeptical that it will survive a challenge.

      2. I think it is unconstitutional because it is essentially circumventing the procedures to amend the state constitution. There is no mechanism to amend the constitution via ballot initiative, and I-1366 is basically seeking to do that.

        If 1366 does pass, we will find out very quickly; I would expect a legal challenge filed the day election results are certified, with a direct appeal to the state Supreme Court no matter which way the superior court rules.

      3. I agree with Jason Rogers. What is to stop the next blackmail to include “unless you propose this constitutional amendment, there will be no funding for jails and police”. The equivalent of an old National Lampoon cover about buying the magazine or they’ll kill a dog or something.

      4. Something like that happened in another state earlier this year. It was a law to defund the court system if the court didn’t rule the right ideological way on one issue.

  4. Dumb question – does the Eyman initiative limiting property tax growth to 1% mean 1% on an absolute scale or 1% per capita? This makes a big difference for a rapidly growing city like Seattle.

      1. There are two different 1% in state law.

        First, there’s a comparatively long standing constitutional limit on total ordinary property taxes [state, city, county, school, etc. all added together] on any given property of 1% of assessed value. That’s not the 1% that’s being talked about here.

        Second, there is the Tim Eyman inspired limit on the growth of property taxes. What that says is that as a general rule, the total ordinary property taxes raised by a jurisdiction cannot grow by more than the lesser of the rate of inflation or 1% per year (modulo an allowance for new construction).

        Both are fairly damaging. The first means that a city raising property taxes may prevent some other entity (say a school district) from doing so. It has been cited as a reason that the county doesn’t increase property taxes to pay for transit. The second was explicitly designed first to avoid government growing simply because of real estate inflation, and eventually to starve the beast.

    1. Madison BRT is now funded but will still seek grants, while the CCC will attempt to be mostly grant funded but may receive unitemized some Move Seattle funds.

      1. New transportation bill has passed the House, so small starts should actually have money to give out in FY16!

  6. Depending on the final victory outcome of Move Seattle– does this encourage the Garneau’s of the world to dump huge money into anti-ST3 ads in order to keep down the Seattle vote? If the SDOT route is chosen from Ballard to Downtown, will there be support from Amazon and Expedia to support ST3 through ad buys?

  7. The Kirkland #2 race turned out to be an important one for transit. Challenger Jason Chinchilla cast the race as a referendum on BRT, promoting his candidacy as ‘protecting the corridor from buses’. He lost 63-36. No evidence that he got any traction from his anti-transit views at all.

  9. I am pleased Move Seattle is up by a good margin not because I am a big fan of it but because of next year when ST3 is put up, we should expect slightly better results. A 60%+ vote for ST3 would hopefully send the message that we want even more.

    1. Totally. But lets ask for more now, before ST3 is finalized! Why wait? Lets actually get really good transit!

      1. Because of Snohomish and Pierce Counties…

        Let’s first ask the legislature to free subareas to choose their own tax rates.

      2. Can’t have differing tax rates within a taxing district. If Snohomish is to have its own rates, it needs to have its own district. Then it needs to have its own majority vote, and can’t rely on the Seattle super-majority.

        In other words, they won’t allow it until ST has bought them everything they want. They may be happy to let Seattle have its own district later.

      3. I think we can carry the votes in King, and get enough of Pierce if the plan is ambitious. In my mind, the more the solution you’re advocating addresses the problem people see, the better it is politically.

    2. Since we’re going to bring up ST3 here, I really think we need to gauge transit advocate enthusiasm for this thing via a STB Poll. Because in the end, it’s going to be us who lead the charge via phone banking, dogfighting with the trolls, writing letters to the editor sorties, put signs up and donate.

      1. Sounds like a fair idea, but details matter. ST3 with Ballard-Downtown via SDOT alignment is different from ST3 with Ballard-Downtown via Queen Anne tunnel, for one example out of many. You’d need to poll every variation to get something meaningful… but if you do it well, I think it’d be very, very significant.

      2. Indeed, indeed. I think we need to let Sound Transit Board & Staff know where the Seattle Transit Blog commentariat – guys like us – stand. We’re the door knockers and trigger pullers who are up there doing the grunt work that gets elections won.

      4. I remember but Sound Transit is not Seattle Transit Blog.

        Air superiority is not won by Sound Transit staff, period. They can easily lose a campaign but not win one.

        It’s transit advocates like me who WIN them. Just ask them sore in the a** trolls on the Everett Herald troll site right now!

      5. I think that is a good idea. I think it is fair to say that a wide consensus of regular contributors supported both the Seattle and Snohomish County propositions. As I said in a previous comment, this includes people who are often at odds when it comes to various proposals (Martin, d. p.*, mic, Martin, myself, etc.).

        I agree, this is a bit different than simply a preference of those willing to fill out a survey. This is a passionate and knowledgeable group of people who support transit in general and solid projects (as exemplified by their support of proposition one). Bus as has been reported several times here, a lot of these people will not just support anything. I think I speak for many when I say that we will not, for example, support extending the spine while we build a slow streetcar to Ballard.

        The nature of that discussion is tricky, of course, because there are a lot of different possibilities. My preference, of course, is this: https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2015/08/28/seattle-projects-for-st3/. I would support that, or projects similar to that, regardless of what the suburbs decide to do. If ST3 is a subset of that, I will support it. If they support something else, I’m not making any guarantees. I do believe there are folks that will support anything for ST3, but I’m not one of them.

        * I have been in contact with d. p. and he supported proposition one. I never asked him about the Snohomish County proposition, but I assume he supported it as well.

      6. Thanks much, RossB. I agree with you that asking about ST3 will be difficult.

        But I do believe the question needs to be put to transit advocates. After all, transit agency staff are very limited in what they can say during an election. The transit advocates have to bring the enthusiasm to make the sacrifices of time & money to win the election.

        We have a community really of advocates who comment, dialogue and even sometimes compromise to coalesce to get transit. I would hate to see this tool called STB not used in the critical months ahead.

        One thing’s for sure: I, for one, am not ready to beat the drum for ST3 for light rail to Paine Field WITHOUT a great bus network to feed that light rail stop. No network from CT – that Sound Transit contracts to staff some of its routes; no support for the Paine Field detour.

        I also believe Ballard and its advocates have made clear they want their fair share of service. I, of all people here, should empathize with that sentiment.

        It’s going to be hard framing the poll questions… that’s for sure too.

        Finally, I hope Mr. DP is ok.

  10. As soon as I saw the location of the Keep Seattle Affordable Group’s election party I knew it was over for them. The 125th Street Grill – yes that weird forlorn restaurant surrounded by an abandoned motel at 125th and Aurora, by Lowes. I could not think of a decision more fitting for this group than to have a “party” there.

  11. I’m happy with Move Seattle passing. But now the Northgate pedestrian bridge costing $25,000,000 will now regrettably be built at that price.

    1. As someone who frequently has to walk across the freeway, its worth the price. The existing crossings are so poor that I would have been willing to pay a pedestrian toll for the bridge if it had been required.

      1. +1. I believe that people underestimate the length of this bridge, too. The design must be attractive enough to be comfortable.

      2. I disagree. A bridge is a utility first and foremost. I’m all for attractive designs, but when pursuit of the attractive design makes the price of the project overly exorbitant, then that’s real money being poured into a project where it could have other uses. Northgate would not become the city dump if we forgo the Apple Bridge® for something cheaper, but we would probably save at least 10M probably.

      4. That’s assuming that the design is the cost driver. It could be that a plain bridge would cost almost as much. And the art floor is 1%, which is hardly a lot. I get tired of ST station presentations devoting half their time to the artwork and the artist, but I think that’s just because art is a public-relations-intensive aspect, in a way that coupler design and pantographs are not.

      5. By attractive, I meant in a way that will encourage people to use it. So maybe it must be safe, accessible, comfortable, lit, covered(?). I didn’t necessarily mean aesthetically pleasing. A simple, nArrow cement viaduct with hurricane fencing, a la some of the seldom-used interstate crossings of the previous era, do not do this. this will be a pretty heavily used bridge, btw, so we need not be cheap. And just think of the cost if it was carrying cars! :-0

      6. If you look at the render (http://stb-wp.s3.amazonaws.com//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/northgate-bridge-650×310.jpg), it goes well beyond the 1% floor art. It even goes beyond a simple roof. It’s a steel and glass lattice that is runs along the entire bridge, wrapping around one side. And the spiral looks like it could be tightened, too. It is about aesthetics. And it’s $25,000,000 (if I have that number right). I’m sure this bridge could have been built at 10 million. $500,000 buys a decent sized house, it’s fifty (50) of those. If I recall correctly, Federal Way Community Center was built for 20 million. Pierce Transit’s annual budget is $162,000,000. This bridge is 15.4% of that. It’s enough to run Pierce Transit (and all of Pierce Transit) for almost two months. In 2012 when PT had a deficit (before economic recovery, as you know the story ended differently), it was short by $8 million per year. The cost of this bridge would have filled that gap until early 2016. (When your pedestrian bridge project has to wait for the next billion dollar tax measure to pass to get funded, that should tell you something)

        And you criticize republicans for thinking money spent on Sound Transit is wasteful. Sorry, but as much as I support measures that increase transit service (and I am for this one big time), it frustrates me and shakes my trust in Sound Transit’s decision making process (although not as badly as the South Link I-5 alignment) when they divert this much money away from transit to build an exorbitantly expensive bridge.

      7. Denver’s new arch bridge cost $8 million.

        http://www.denverpost.com/denver/ci_25273632/construction-set-pedestrian-bike-bridge-over-interstate-25

        Denver allowed the contractor to build it as an arch bridge though rather than “saving money” by requiring shorter spans and lots and lots of columns.

        Maybe if you let the builder “spend more money” on “unnecessary features” such as arches and box girders, it would be cheaper to cross I-5.

        Their $8 million is for a bridge, by the way, which is half the length of the Northgate bridge. So, double the price to $16 million and add a bit for inflation (construction materials have increased in price more than standard inflation) because this thing will be built in the future rather than last year, and the $25 million doesn’t seem like it is such a bad starting point.

        You would hope that the bids received from contractors is cheaper than that, but you don’t want to come up with an estimate and find that the bids are twice the estimated price.

  12. Looks like Community Transit Prop 1 is gonna win. Barely.

    Have to say I have my constructive criticisms of the campaign. I will deliver a penultimate draft “face forward” like one of my heroes Alise Mills would tomorrow to the chairwoman of that campaign, then post them in the following open thread.

    That said, fellow transit advocates, I gotta tell ya them trolls are so gonna be beat like a drum. So sick of them and their no-ideas, all whine campaign; they MADE ME MAD.

    1. At least you didn’t have a single multi-millionaire personally funding the anti campaign against your transit measure. lol.

      1. Well I gotta say the dynamics of that kind of investment would have done us in up in the North by Northwest. I’m going to deliver my constructive criticism of the campaign to the campaign chair tomorrow, then post here on the subsequent open thread. I owe the chair that much as we did not have the great grassroots energy up in the air you Seattle folks do.

    2. The gap towards passing has widened with the most recent ballot counts. Looks like CT is going to win by almost a full percent.

  13. Pingback: Madison BRT Open House on November 16
  14. Pingback: Seattle voters shake up school board, City Council – and fund transit – NPI's Cascadia Advocate

  15. I’m kinda surprised that San Juan County is one of the ones opposed to I-1366. Most of the people I’ve talked to there seem to be heavily libertarian leaning.

    I’m guessing they fear ferry cutbacks.

    2. Not terribly surprising, they’ve been one of the most consistently left leaning counties in recent elections.

    3. San Juan is the only county that leans more Democratic than King.

      My understanding is that they’ve turned down increased ferry service before, just as Vashon has, because they want to limit the number of visitors.

      1. djw, the Jumbo Mark Is were tried up in the San Juans back in the 1970s. Wake wash concerns and lobbying ended those efforts, which turned out to be a good thing for Kitsap County connections to Seattle & Edmonds.

      2. Okay, I’ll bite… I’ve lived on Vashon Island for 21 years, when was last time we turned down better ferry service?

      3. It was more a bridge than ferries. In the 1960s Forward Thrust proposed a bridge from Seattle to Vashon and Kitsap County but the west side said no because they didn’t want it to turn into Mercer Island and Bellevue.

    4. A lot of people in the San Juans are ageing hippies and new agers. Bodies of water are spiritiually significant to them, and the water generates negative ions which improve people’s moods and clean the air. It’s in the Olympic rain shadow so the weather is mild, supposedly like California. It’s a good place for a rural commune.

  16. Some reckless predictions going forward! In 2017, Dow Constantine is going to run for governor vs. Jay Inslee, Sally Bagshaw is going to run for KC Executive in his place. Ed Murray is going to run for Congress in 2016, leaving the mayoralship open for Tim Burgess to ascend to as council president, then in 2017, Tim, Mike O’Brein and 43rd District rep Brady Walkinshaw will all duke in out for the mayor’s seat.

    I have some evidence for all my wild theories!

  17. Now that the Move Seattle ballot measure has passed it’s time for those in Madison and Washington Park to realize that we will have a BRT and that the current plans are NOT to have it go to Madison Park as the 11 does today.

    We need to lobby for the BRT going all the way to Madison Park even if it means wire for the buses. The alternative may be the loss of the 11 as it runs today The questions is what will Metro do for those needing a ride from the Park to MLK, a shuttle or ask then to walk claiming the low ridership?

    1. +1. It’s still possible the 11 will stick around, but extending the BRT would be much better.

      1. I can’t see Metro running the 11 to MLK just for the Park bus users, can you? I just can’t see the room on Madison for the 8, 11 and BRT can you?

      1. Madison Park should have some sort of bus service. If you replace the 11 with a BRT route that doesn’t go to Madison Park, you have to invent a new route to serve that area, and the service would either duplicate the BRT route for much of its length or be less useful to most residents than the current service.

      2. Except, I looked on the map, and this new route wouldn’t really be a replacement for the 11. It’s a long way from MLK to Madison Park; the new!11 would have a really short overlap, and could easily run independently.

      3. Yes, look at the map, but also look at having the 8, 11 and BRT on East Madison to 19th Ave East. There isn’t enough room for all three especially around MLK.

      4. Let me ask you, what is your suggestion? Should Metro still run the 11 from Madison Park alongside the BRT or would you suggest that there is No need for a bus to Madison Park?

      5. We definitely need a bus to Madison Park! My first suggestion would be to extend the BRT just like you’re lobbying for. But my second suggestion – if that’s not chosen – would be to run the 8 and 11 along Madison up to Thomas, alongside the BRT. It’d be overservice, but better than a shuttle or leaving Madison Park totally stranded.

      6. The only way you can run the 8, 11 and BRT through MLK and Madison area is to eliminate parking and the center turn lane. It already congested there between the 8 and 11 and the added frequency will create an even worse bottleneck there.

      7. They’ll be curbside bus/turn lanes east of 13th, so there’s no incompatibility whether the 11 runs on Madison to 19th or (far more likely) on John/Thomas to CHS.

      8. Zack,

        I was there when the KC approved the 8 and 11 on East Madison to 19th Ave East, so why are you talking about them being on John/Thomas now?

      9. Post Madison BRT. There could and should be another restructure surrounding the introduction of Madison BRT, with something closer to Metro’s original Alt 1. It’s still several years away.

      10. I have no idea what congestion you are talking about and see no reason Metro should stop running the 8 and 11 just because they’ve added this new line.

      11. I ride the 11 many times a week and there s congestion going east at MlK and East Madison and I’m not imagining it either. It is impossible for TWO buses to use the stop at the same time. BTW, have you noticed that the center lane is a delivery lane?

      12. OK, here is what I would do:

        The 11 would start the same way (at McGilvra) and go up Madison. But once it gets to Thomas, it heads east (towards Group Health). It follows the 8/43 route (Thomas and John) until Broadway. From there I’m not sure where to go. Any direction is fine. If it goes north, it ends almost immediately (like the 43 Zach proposed — https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2015/10/12/options-for-route-43/). It could go south, which would enable some interesting one seat rides. Of course it could go downtown as it does now or double up the 8, and head west (towards Queen Anne). All are fine, in my opinion. I think I would go north, which is essentially just finding a spot for it to finish. That saves a lot of time.

        I would finally kill the 43.

        Extra service hours would go into both the 48 and the 11. Obviously the shorter you make the 11, the more frequency you have. Meanwhile, you enable:

        1) A very fast two seat ride from Madison Park to First Hill and downtown. I think this will be faster than taking Link to downtown. The transfer will be on the surface, and the Madison BRT should be very fast.

        2) Similarly, there is no need for the 43 because now you have a fast way from Montlake to downtown. Just take the 48 and the Madison BRT.

        3) A reasonably fast connection from Madison Park to the Capitol Hill Station. For a while, the main benefit will be to get you into the tunnel. If you are making a transfer to a bus that goes in the tunnel, then this would make sense. If you are headed to a Link stop like the SoDo or Beacon Hill, then this makes sense. For Rainier Valley and the airport it might be faster to switch to the 48, but by getting on Link early you avoid a transfer as well as a lot of traffic. It might even make sense as a way to get to the UW if Montlake traffic is a mess (e. g. UW events). Eventually, of course, this makes sense as a way to get to areas on the north end of Link (Roosevelt, Northgate, etc.).

        It is tempting to extend the BRT all the way to Madison Park, but the big problem I see with that is relatively speaking, this would be the weakest part of the route. Building this and running this will be expensive. You want the most bang for you buck, and Madison Park, while more densely populated than much of the city, is nothing like the other places on the route. The other places are major population centers, major destinations or major transfer points (or all three). This is none, really. Madison Park itself has reasonable density, but the average for the additional distance (from MLK to Madison Park) is fairly low. Meanwhile, there are no major employment or educational facilities (unlike the rest of the route). By my reckoning, you increase the operations and development cost by about a third, and you would only get a relatively small number of additional riders.

      13. RossB,

        Given you comments I have to questions why anyone would use an 11 past the starting point of the BRT. For example, a BRT starting at BRT would get all of the customers west of there and then what is the justification of running an 11 that only picks up a few people in Madison Park. In addition, there is no way that the 15-minute frequency could be maintained in my view.

        BTW, there are a lot of people who work in Madison Park, on example is the Park Shore retirement home and another is Broadmore’s employees. In addition, not all the employees of the business live in the Park either!

      14. Yes, I am confused about your description of congestion precisely because I ride the 11 to and from work whenever I don’t have a better option, using the stops immediately west of MLK. You must be traveling at a different time of day, because all I see are two lines which come roughly once every quarter hour – plenty of time to wait around in between. I can’t imagine how an average volume of one bus every five minutes would pose a problem.

      15. I saw the problem today with the 11 having to wait for the 8 to get out the loading zeon at MlK and East Madison. In addition, the buses are stopped by trucks in the center turn lane. I am not imagining this and it happened this afternoon. BTW, I ride the 11 3 to 5 times a week and I’ve been doing that for more years than most!

      16. SDOT has talked about running it to Madison Park but without the BRT features, so no special lanes or fancy stations. It’s not a favored alternative but at least they’re aware of it. I think it’s the most sensible solution and the others are significantly lacking. It’s only a half mile from MLK until the street ends, so it seems silly to terminate just short of it and force an 11 shadow route. It’s probably being driven by the project budget: it’s already going beyond the mandate of 23rd, and Madison Park would just increase expenses further. But layover space is a major factor: it’s hard to find a site that’s available and inexpensive and convenient for bus turnings (and has restrooms nearby), so if Madison Park is easily available that could outweigh the cost of getting to it.

      17. Mike,

        For whatever it’s worth, I support the idea of the BRT going to Madison Park, but there are many there who have no idea what saying NO means for Metro service there. For example, some still won’t accept the idea of trolly buses with wires down Madison.

        I voted for Move Seattle because I want to see the BRT on Madison with the street improvements it brings! I really believe that Metro will adjust to having a stable BRT on Madison that the can’t move to another street like John/Thomas.

    3. Now for those of us who don’t have civil engineering jobs, can we be shown some love here!

  18. Can anybody comment intelligently on the Shoreline city council races? The last council narrowly passed the 185th area rezone over lots of local objection, and kicked the can down the road for 145th. The 185th rezone was impressive (as the 145th plans are, but opposition is strong), and such zoning is essential to the success of link. Currently, there’s almost nothing there on Link north of Northgate. But with rapid access to the U-district and Downtown, there’s potential for serious growth around the station areas.

    Anyway, two seats were up – I know that Jesse Soloman, who won, was a major supporter of the rezone, but the other race doesn’t have any incumbents in it, and their stated positions are safely vague on the matter.

    1. I reside in Shoreline. …and reside fairly close to the 185th Street Station. The sign where the station is to be built is frequently defaced by unhappy residents and property owners.

      For those that don’t know, the seat in question (Council Seat 2) was vacated by transit proponent Chris Eggen who was running for the Ronald Wastewater District Board. Keith Scully and Jessica Cafferty received support from various Democratic groups. …but both treaded lightly on the subject of Shoreline’s growth.

      Lorn Richey was pretty straight forward. He was against the radical rezone. …but when it came to one of the Council Seat 2 candidates, she “supported smart sustainable growth that reflects the needs of current and future residents.” The opponent, supported “cautious sensible growth” and wanted more sidewalks, streetlights and school crossings. I think you’ll see a more cautious approach to rezoning in Shoreline with greater input from residents as the City moves forward.

      On a side note, it’s easy for those of us not near the alignment to critique zoning. A co-worker of mine is losing his house thanks to Link construction. He’s not too happy about it.

  19. Don’t forget Bellevue City Council Position 3: John Chelminiak is ahead of Don Davidson 51.31% vs 48.54%. Anyone who sat through the Eastlink related Bellevue City Council meetings when Don was Mayor will be happy to add this race to the list of pro-transit votes, assuming the result doesn’t change.

  21. Am I reading correctly that they will spend 100-200 million on the lander street railroad crossing, 100 million on Madison and 100 million to PLAN the central street car connection?

    If so this is insane and sickening

    1. I believe it’s either much less or there are some local issues that required the budget to be increased for that project…..

      1. Madison BRT gets $15M from Move Seattle. The balance (>$83M) will be sought from the feds.

    2. Where are you reading this? I’ve consistently heard 120-160 million for the whole project, so I can’t see how that could be. Besides the basic absurdity of the number on its own.

      3. Ah, well that’s confusing. Let’s hope that long term pdf with the crazy numbers doesn’t get passed then.

  22. On Mercer Island, in addition to Mayor Bruce Bassett’s 55/45 likely victory, there are also 55/45 leads (and likely victories) for incumbent Debbie Bertlin and newbie Wendy Weiker, both moderates who likewise fended off anti-growth, anti-transit opponents. Incumbent Jane Meyer Brahm is trailing Dave Wisenteiner 52/48, in a race much less active than the others.

    This is as active a city council election as I have seen in 20 years here. There is clearly a strong reaction against growth and transit development, that was defeated by a somewhat stronger desire for continuity and a pragmatic, moderate approach. I won’t try to say there is a pro-growth, pro-transit consensus, but rather a recognition that both are coming, and a desire to negotiate some particulars rather than just saying “no”. (Some of those particulars are reasonable to me, others not so much.)

    Surely not the great good news that Seattle saw, but good news none the less. Most likely, in another 20 years we’ll look back and think “what was all that controversy over Obamacare about?” – and also, if we even remember it, “what was all that Save Our Suburbs stuff about?”

  23. That $1 Billion sure pays for a lot of “Bridge Replacement Studies.” How many times has the City of Seattle evaluated the necessity to replace the Magnolia Bridge? The City spent $650,000 in 2003 on replacing that bridge in 2003. I’d hate to think how much this new study would cost. Me thinks that the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars that routinely gets thrown away for 1,000 page documents no one reads could be better spent actually replacing the bridge that is being supported by metal bracing because the concrete is crumbling, since the structure has far exceeded it’s useful design life and is seismically damaged.

    Move Seattle has no funding to actually replace that bridge. ….only to “study” the replacement of it AGAIN! It’s a waste. Move Seattle has lots of money for useless studies.

    1. Most of it is for actual infrastructure, through- the studies are in part to satisfy requirements for federal grants and in response to changing traffic and commuting patterns that require another look at plans for various routes.

  24. I meant to say this in the morning: Thanks to everyone for making Proposition One happen. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be in the beginning. I know a lot of people on here worked hard to make it happen and they deserve a lot of credit.

  25. Mayor Murray correctly gaged his city by pushing forward with a very aggressive tax increase, soon to be followed by another next year with ST3. Let the grand experiment continue.
    According to DC ( http://cfo.dc.gov/node/957012 ) Seattle has lots of room to catch up to the most expensive cities to live in – Philadelphia and Bridgeport. Both have a local tax burden of 21% collecting $15, 700 each year from a typical family of 3 earning 75,000. Seattle ranks 45th nationwide collecting $5,000 each year for an average of 6.7% tax burden.
    There’s lots of room to grow if catching Philly is the benchmark.

    1. I’m sure Mayor Murray has a task force working on this already. 45th place is just plain unacceptable!

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