Larry Phillips, the King County Council man for northwest Seattle and a Sound Transit Board member, has a compelling opinion piece in the PI today.
plan — called ST2 — that comprised the “transit” in last year’s Roads and Transit measure. The goal is to choose ST2 projects that can be built sooner and provide the most benefit for their cost.
ST2 will not include road projects. Highway projects such as replacing the State Route 520 Bridge are back in the purview of the state, where they belong. The state Legislature made progress this year on funding the most urgent of these projects.
ST2 will focus on important regional priorities like extending light rail to Northgate and Bellevue. Getting light rail to Northgate is critical because the Interstate 5 corridor north of the ship canal is by far the highest transit demand corridor in our state. By 2030, transit demand there will reach 171,000 daily trips — nearly half the daily trips on Metro in all corridors today.
The comments over there are all about global warming which is a red herring. Phillips is right on the money about the traffic implications, and it’s nice to read that he’s excited about ST2.
As a fairly new Seattle resident and a relative youngin’, this is the first I’ve heard of Forward Thrust (an awesome name, btw). It’s amazing to think that we could have had an extensive rail system today if only the voters of yesteryear had the foresight to vote for it (and the gonads to ignore GM’s shenanigans). Instead, Atlanta got our federal funding and now, 40 years later, we are finally getting started on our own system.
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=3961
As a Shoreline resident and someone who is concerned with transit in Snohomish County, I was greatly intersted in Phillips statement that the I-5 north corridor is the highest transit demand corridor in the state. It is telling that because of sub-regional equity this same corridor gets the least benefit from Sound Transit (it has far less service than than Seattle/East and Seattle/Pierce). Even sadder, residents between Lynnwood and the University District have no access to Sound Transit services along I-5 (the station at 145th does not operate in peak direction). Light rail to Northgate may help alleviate this problem, but it’s still 10 miles from the county line and the proposed transfer to light rail from any southbound bus service will involve a long walk from the freeway station. Now, I’m all for ST2, and if Northgate is all we can get, then it needs to be done, and done as soon as possible. But the marginalization of residents to the north – remember: the highest transit demand corridor in the state – is a problem that seems likely to continue for a long time under the ST2 proposal.
Sara, the North King money has to start somewhere! It’ll get us to the U-district in the current phase, and to Northgate and beyond in ST2. If we built a line between Snohomish and the UW to begin with, ridership would be awful. You need to start in the middle and work your way out, because your highest ridership is in the middle.
I think maybe you missed my point. I support ST2 with light rail to Northgate – it’s better than nothing. But still: I-5 north of downtown is the highest transit ridership corridor in the state, while this same corridor receives the least benefit (compared to Seattle-East and Seattle-South) of any from Sound Transit service. Does no one else see the irony here?
As for rail between Snohomish County (Snohomish is a city on Highway 2, where no one is advocating light rail service) and Seattle not having significant ridership, I think that is a very debatable point. Sound Transit routes 510 and 511 have standing loads every day, as does Community Transit service from Lynnwood. Routes from Marysville, Mukilteo, Mill Creek, and Bothell also often have standing loads. Every Metro route 301 trip I’ve been on (Shoreline to downtown) has had standing loads. There is already a well-developed commuter market in the north. Light rail would develop it further; having to take the bus for an hour, then walk 1/3 mile to transfer to a train at Northgate isn’t likely to motivate many to switch to transit.
Key global warming issue with the ST2.1 plan? Sea level rise. Don’t build anything which is gonna get flooded by a one-foot rise in sea level.
Luckily, they actually seem to have avoided planning to run tracks outdoors at sea level, except in Tacoma. So this will probably be mostly OK.
The Alaskan Way Seawall replacement is gonna be a *real* waste of money if they don’t plan ahead for sea level rise, though….