The Bellevue City Council is meeting on downtown light rail now (6:00pm), and you can view a live stream right here. The City Council is considering a draft letter regarding its preference of the C9T alignment, though more controversy could come up during the meeting.
17 Replies to “Bellevue City Council Studies Downtown Alignment”
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There needs to be an STB betting pool on whether or not they’ll change their minds.
Adopted unanimously; you’d have lost that bet.
Take the tunnel option off the table, and you’ll find a far more divisive council.
Yeah, remove the option that everyone has worked hard to agree on and you would have chaos. So, what’s your point? The Bellevue City Council will fight the original ST preffered alternative which none of the council members supported?
The council has always been unanimous in opposing any at grade alignment. Take the tunnel off the table and the only rail alignment alternative left is elevated. The options at that point becomes stop Link at all (legal) cost.
ST can reciprocate with an agreement to pursue C9T. They can opt for choosing the elevated alignment they might be able to afford. Or they can avoid a final decision by continuing to support alignments they are unable to fund or present opposition which will be even more expensive.
All of the alternatives, even if they win the legal battle result in worse system performance and higher cost.
Bernie, the council has been unanimous in not identifying anything like the funding necessary for the tunnel. So when they all say “We want a tunnel”, my response is “Good for you.”
The choices ST presented for vote were unaffordable (even with a partnership). If ST can’t afford a tunnel why are they spending money looking at alternatives they can’t afford; let alone have the board adopt a preferred alternative they can’t pay for? You reinforce the idea that ST isn’t really serious about working toward a workable tunnel alternative.
You hate cars. That’s evident in some of your recent posts. At grade will screw drivers, no doubt about that. It will add 5-10 minutes to train commutes and the same to auto commutes. That added idle time for cars will increase CO2 by my calculations to about 20% of ST’s claimed reduction for all of st2. You’d support that becuase it’s a way to stiff it to the drivers?
Council has come up with funding alternatives that cover half of the gap. ST has acknowledged that a C9T alternative not even imagined in their original DEIS is half the cost and meets the goals of ST and the city. Your beef seems to be that it might actually be workable.
It’s easy to agree on something when you aren’t paying for it.
Bellevue is far and away the largest tax base in the Eastside Sub-area. How is it the City is “not paying”. How much did the City of Sea-Tac kick in for the elevated station on Intl. Blvd, what was the Port of Seattle contribution to the Airport Station, where’s the funding package from UW for their underground station? You guys are just bitter that Link might not screw over Bellevue as much as you’d hoped for. That’s far more important than finding a grade separated solution that’s works within the ST2 funding package and benefits the entire system.
I think it’s a good sign that there is a) agreement on the tunnel, and b) the city is actively exploring ways to make it financially feasible. There’s more work to go, but I am encouraged by the progress.
One compromise to save money: run at-grade all the way up 112th, avoiding the jog over to I-405, and the expensive elevated tracks and station that goes with it.
With the elevated option they drop the South Main station because it was deemed too expensive. The need for a South Main Station isn’t clear and it’s a likely cost reduction irregardless of which transition route is chosen between the B and C segments. At grade requires more property acquisition because the street needs to be widened. So it’ not really clear that it’s any cheaper.
I’m not sure the road needs a huge amount of widening, given that it’s typically underutilized in this stretch to begin with. Most of 112th is a low density road with walls on both sides of it. That said, I don’t think the property would be that expensive considering that the entire east side of it is basically surface parking, which wouldn’t be too costly.
let’s just go straight up 108th, that would save the crazy loop routing, would make surface extremely affordable, and best of all piss off surrey downs.
Bellevue Way, with an underground station at Main and under the BTC has always been my preferred routing. Unfortunately, I think this is about as good of a compromise as we’ll get. At this point I’ll take anything that serves S Bellevue P&R.
Let’s keep our eyes on the prize, folks. A tunnel in DTB is way more preferable to at-grade- preferable for everyone. Most people who thing At-grade is the way to go don’t appreciate the results of the collaborative analysis done to identify the impacts on vehicle traffic and on the system itself. Delays and unpredictability cut against ridership. So ST and Bellevue have to ask themselves – what’s it worth to a) optimize system performance (with a tunnel located in the right place to serve demand) and b) avoid surface congestion/conflicts with an at-grade. Both sides have much to gain by jointly closing the gap here. That means real money from ST, and real money from Bellevue. The time for political posturing and pandering is over. It’s time to roll up the sleeves and negotiate a legitimate MOU to get this done. Time to get real.
Oh, and we should probably stop coming up with new ideas, new routes, new tweaks. ST has to get the FEIS done, it has a nice bracketing of alternatives, so pretty much all the options are covered. They have a critical path and unfortunately, we’re sitting on it with our creative new ideas.
Played it while making dinner last night. That Balducci is a rock star. Hope ST can get financially creative and find a way to meet Bellevue halfway on this segment.