Yesterday, the city council released the executive summary from its 520 replacement study. The conclusion? Basically, there aren’t any options on the table that meet all of the councils goals effectively, but the city council could pursue some changes on the margins. Publicola reports:

In addition to suggesting that the city council push for higher occupancy minimums for HOV lanes and continue to work with the legislature for more transit on the bridge, the council’s report recommended that the state reduce the size of the Montlake Interchange on the Seattle side of the bridge; ditch a proposed seventh lane over Portage Bay, instead using bridge shoulders for merging and I-5 exiting; and working to reduce the impact of traffic on the environmentally sensitive Arboretum.

The Times also has a nice break-down of the report.

In related news, the Mayor’s office was planning on releasing its report about light rail over the new SR-520 span but now they’re planning on “putting it out early next week,” according to Aaron Pickus, a spokesman for McGinn.

24 Replies to “Council 520 Study: No Great Options”

  1. It’s interesting that the report suggests pushing for higher occupancy minimums for HOV lanes, considering the WSDOT’s standard for 520 has been established at 3+ occupants. It seems to me that since 520 is going to be tolled, which will deter some people from even using the facility, increasing the standard to 4+ or higher would result in a highly under-utilized HOV lane and thus remove the benefit of even having one. I imagine that the “higher occupancy” recommendation is a back door way of suggesting a transit only lane. Hmm.

    1. What we want is definitely a transit-only lane. This isn’t “back door”, the problem is that the lanes are 18th-amendment – otherwise we would be talking about a transit-only lane at the state level.

      1. We don’t need a transit-only lane on SR 520. We need to move people across the lake. The Eastside is at least a generation or two away from being developed in a way that can adequately be served by transit comprehensively. Until then, carpools and vanpools are an important part of the mix. The HOV lane will be very important for moving people across the lake for the foreseeable future, especially if you want to provide an incentive by allowing them to use the bridge at a lower toll rate or untolled.

      2. Paul, between 255, 545, 542, 271, 555/556, 540, 256, 242, and the other 520 routes I’m not thinking of, we have plenty of demand for a transit lane.

      4. We do not want a transit-only lane. Currently Metro and ST carry about 14,000 people daily across 520 with fast service–almost as many as Central Link. But almost as many also travel this corridor in one of the biggest vanpool networks in the country.

        What the report is advocating is that the state enforce the law that when HOV lanes fall below 45 MPH, you kick cars out. That makes sense.

  2. Come on McGinn, you can do it!

    If McGinn were to pass a proposal for a light-rail line between Ballard to Issaquah via the 520 Bridge, the whole “lightrail on the bridge debate” would no longer be an issue; the lightrail needs to cross the lake atleast twice.

    1. AndrewM, and the light rail corridor from Ballard to Montlake would go…where, exactly? It’s impossible to conceive a viable corridor across the lower North End that’s not in a tunnel.

      Topography, together with narrow EW streets, would dictate a tunnel from roughly 3rd Ave. NW to Montlake Blvd. Cost would be in the vicinity of University Link, but probably more because it would need more than two underground stations.

      Much as I’d like to dream this dream, right now it’s one for the next generation.

      1. It’s impossible to conceive a viable corridor across the lower North End that’s not in a tunnel.

        What about the old rail line that became the Burke Gilman trail?

      2. Thereby missing almost all of the urban centers. Plus, that line doesn’t have the right of way available for double track.

      3. The BGT is one of the most famous bicycle trails in the country, and has been an inspiration to many to build bike lanes in their own cities. It’s full at peak hour with commuters. It would be a shame to destroy it, and it doesn’t look wide enough for bikes and trains to coexist.

      4. It’ll be a couple billion dollars, but it’ll certainly be one of the highest-priority extensions. If ST3 is on the scale of ST2, that’d be a few billion dollars for the North King Subarea. If McGinn gets light rail to Ballard and West Seattle from Downtown, we could easily use the ST3 money to build a tunnel from Ballard to Wallingford to the U District.

      6. That’d be 3.5 miles, just a little more than U Link, so it would probably be around $2b if it costs the same.

    2. We can have two LR lines cross the lake even without using SR520 — just interline East Link on I-90 with whatever new line you want to build in ST3.

      It would be easy.

      And I don’t know how McGinn could possibly pass anything that impacts LR east of the middle of the lake — it’s not in Seattle! Maybe Dow could, but not McGinn.

      1. It would be easy, but it wouldn’t help much with where the transit demand is.

      2. I tend to agree, but if ST3 still has subarea equity in place then whatever LR was added to the East King subarea would probably be something like a line along I-90 to Issaquah via Eastgate P&R. It wouldn’t meet the ridership levels/metrics of the Seattle lines, but then again it wouldn’t have anything near the construction costs of the Seattle lines either, mainly due to ROW availability.

        That said, it would probably make more sense to build an Eastside only line that went something like Woodinville-Kirkland-Bellevue CBD (interlined)-Eastgate P&R-Issaquah. Seattle would be served by transfers in Bellevue.

        Bottom line: Interlining across the I-90 bridge is available, but probably isn’t required even in ST3 – and a LR line across 520 really isn’t required either. There are plenty of other options for expansion.

      3. Huh? The far higher-ridership corridor is Issaquah/Eastgate-Downtown, not to Bellevue and the U District. An Issaquah-Bellevue-U District line can come later.

  3. I ask…what’s the rush.

    Supposedly Seattle elected a “neighborhood oriented” people Mayor.

    Yet since taking office his whole administration seems bent on ramming home big ticket projects that only benefit a few square miles of downtown.

    Where’s the wide reaching focus?

    Where’s the perspective?

    Seattle basically elected mini-Nickles as far as I can tell…

  4. Can we just get 520 replaced already and stick to the plan? Otherwise, the project budget will end up like the East Bay bridge replacement in Oakland. We can plan for HCT using light rail at another time for a redundant line but we need a replacement for 520 and BRT should do for now to develop the corridor with a dedicated transit service.

  5. Here’s a modest suggestion: Since there will be no reason to have a transit lane west of Montlake Blvd after Husky Stadium Station opens, why not have the transit lanes exit, as a unit, above Montlake Blvd, and high enough above the Montlake cut to not be a bascule bridge, then land at the station. HOVs would have to exit the transit lane before Montlake.

    A transit skybridge might be a bigger eyesore for the neighborhood, but would significantly reduce the footprint from a second bascule bridge that would have torn out houses in the neighborhood. The skybridge should be convertible to light rail, or joint rail/bus use, of course. Allowing some bus use would hopefully mean ST would never have to buy the skybridge from WSDOT.

    If the skybridge would have to be too high to be feasible, then have the second bascule bridge be one lane each way, transit only, directly between the station and 520, still with the transit bypass becoming the center freeway lanes, with no HOV lanes continuing west of Montlake.

Comments are closed.