The City of Bellevue is getting excited about the upzoning policies along Bel-Red road, where East Link is planned to run. With the proposal suggesting heights of up to 150 feet, they’re making the relatively anemic upzones in the Rainier Valley look bad.
Of course, there’s the wee matter of Proposition 1 passing first. And the NIMBYs will come out of the woodwork when it’s time to decide.
Hugeasscity has the details.
There was an article a while back (dont remember the source) but the builders are planning on redeveloping whether Link happens or not. If you are familiar with the area, it really is a valuable plot of land and ripe for redevelopment.
The builders want to, but Bellevue won’t upzone to ten stories without a transportation plan in place.
Wait… why is it at-grade in the artist’s rendition?
you tell ’em jonlin!!!
It’s at grade through bel-red maybe.
Or elevated.
Probably at grade.
Really hope they choose the elevated… that was the main criticism about central link.
It wasn’t a good criticism, though. Remember, we’re not going to run trains every two minutes to Redmond. They’ll start at every nine, and then later drop likely to every six minutes.
This whole thing about grade separation is waaaay overblown. When was the last time MAX had an accident? We’re five times better separated in the rainier valley than they are through downtown. When was the last time Tacoma Link had an accident?
Ben,
This whole thing about grade separation is waaaay overblown. When was the last time MAX had an accident?
This is my East Coast bias showing, but it’s not really about accidents — it’s about operating speeds. If you fully grade-separate operators can run those trains at full speed. That’s what makes rail competitive with driving when you take into account all the travel to the station and the waiting.
So, there are two things in balance here. I suspect on Bel-Red, you’d drop a minute at 55mph. Is that worth the negative impact on the big urban renewal project they want to do? Elevated does not work as well as at-grade/partial separation to make a place livable. The line wouldn’t do much over at 520.
Looking at the Plan, it appears taht they want to have the large park running a significant portion of the total length of the corridor.
What if instead of at grade in the middle of the street, they were to do a cut and cover for the rail under the “Park”.
This would give you Grade seperation at a modest cost, without the need to have an elevated structure.
Lor Scara
I don’t think it’d be a modest cost. You’d probably be looking at an additional half a billion.