Ben and I went on the Sound Transit Light Rail Construction lunch bus yesterday. It was awesome to see how far along the construction is, and we had a great tour guide, Roger Pence from Sound Transit, who seemed to know the answer to just about every question we could think of. The other riders were all transit supporters, though one gentleman seemed to think that at-grade light rail is useless. We ate lunch at a table with a Federal Way Council member, Mike Park, who had some very interesting perspectives on an ST2 package, regional politics, and how badly Federal Way wants light rail.
As for the construction, Sound Transit has received more than half of the 34 cars ordered for the initial segment, and will be ready to test trains on essentially the whole line once the Beacon Hill tunnel construction is finished. The MLK portion of the line looks essentially done, and the stations look great. The Tukwila Station is a masterpiece, and has a very prominent profile next to SR 518. The mountain view from ontop of the platform is beautiful.
It was a beautiful day, the trip was really illuminating and the company was great. I highly recommend going on future lunch buses.
wikipedia says Federal Way has 85,800 people, so that’s a considerable voting group. Sound Transit might be smart not to ignore them.
any photos from the tour?
I’ll put some photos up tonight.
How much was the lunch-bus?
Of course at-grade light rail isn’t useless. On the other hand it pushes development and urban renewal goals, not rapid transit goals. I prefer better transit over gentrification any day.
anonymous, the lunch bus is free.
michael… rapid transit goals are generally the same as development and urban renewal goals. The development goals are short-term, though, because the larger buildings you end up with age and become cheap in the long run.