Seattle Transit Blog has an impressive scoop: In a statement to STB, King County Executive candidate Hutchison said, “We should build light rail on the new 520 with a designated lane. We should not take lanes away from I-90 for light rail.”
Hutchison’s opposition to voter-approved light rail on I-90 (and thus to the entire Sound Transit 2 plan adopted last November) is in keeping with her support from (and of) Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman, who is suing to stop light rail from running to the Eastside. The I-90 alignment—which has been, again, approved by voters—would send light rail through downtown Bellevue, where Freeman owns tens of thousands of square feet of commercial and retail property.
STB also reports that Hutchison defended Freeman’s lawsuit during a debate last Saturday night, calling it “a violation of the 18th amendment [to the state constitution], which says roads money can’t be used for any other purpose” besides building roads.
Hutchison has said repeatedly that she supports light rail. However, the implication of her proposal would be to kill a project that was overwhelmingly approved by voters across King County
Sandeep Kaushik, spokesman for Hutchison’s opponent, Dow Constantine, calls Hutchison’s statement “just the latest indication of her true anti-environmental and anti-transit views. She’s doing the bidding of her biggest supporter, Kemper Freeman.”
At a press conference responding to anti-Constantine ads (which were funded by Freeman and other anti-environmental interests) this morning, Constantine noted that the King County Executive appoints ten of the 17 members of the Sound Transit board. “The executive will have more power than any other person [over] the fate of light rail,” Constantine said.
PubliCola has a call in to Hutchison’s campaign spokesman Jordan McCarren for comment.
Full disclosure: Kaushik helped found PubliCola in January. He has no editorial role at PubliCola.
Tweet
Headline check.
“Hutchison: Ditch Sound Transit Plan, Build Light Rail on 520”
Fixed.
@2: Here’s a discussion of the technical barriers that make it more difficult to run light rail over 520.
http://seattletransitblog.com/2008/06/19/why-link-will-cross-i-90-first/
what a stunning misteake;
go for it Dow:
expensive, financially reckless, contrary to will of voters and anti light rail, anti light rail anti light rail.
Yay! Glad to see that old I-90 post is getting some use.
Please take note – the idea that we can build light rail on 520 would likely derail East Link entirely. It’s a far, far more expensive proposition, and we probably don’t have the money to do it at all. Her stance would likely effectively kill rail to Bellevue entirely.
ECB – any way to quickly pull the precinct-level results from last fall for Mercer Island and other neighborhoods along I-90 and in Bellevue?
That’s potential Hutchison country, but, I bet there were also a lot of “yes” votes for light rail along there that were counting on riding the train instead of the ST #550 to downtown in a few years.
cvbn,
http://seattletransitblog.com/2008/12/08/prop-1-precinct-maps/
Yeah, I’m not sure how Hutchison or KF thinks a 520 line will somehow absolve Bellevue from Link coverage, which is clearly the idea (since they don’t want a rail line through Bellevue). Either way, Bellevue will get a station.
It just shows the bitchy news anchor isn’t thinking and doesn’t think things through very well.
Do both?
I’d be very interested to hear her rationale for choosing 520 over I-90. It would be much more difficult for a 520 light-rail solution to connect in any meaningful way with the existing Sounder/Link infrastructure, which may, of course, be the whole point – make it unusable and make people even MORE cynical about true mass transit.
@7,
Awesome map – looking closely, ST2 passed in a majority of the precincts on Mercer Island and generally along the proposed East Link route through south Bellevue and out to Redmond…
Someone (ECB!) should point out to these people that Hutchison wants to take away their train and give it to Medina, Hunts Point, Yarrow Point and Clyde Hill, who voted against it.
@8 Calling her the bitchy news anchor is completely unfair, she was actually a glorified weather-girl.
Some years ago I heard, via a KIRO employee, that Susan Hutchinson — whose reputation was that of a good-looking face who could read the teleprompter, but without a whole lot of substance — had dived under the desk when the teleprompter broke, leaving it to the male co-anchor (Gary Justice?) to ad-lib.
Anybody know anybody at KIRO?
God that woman is a bitch. I can’t get her to keep her mouth shut. I’ll tell you one thing, at least Huckabee didn’t rip me a new one if I missed morning prayer meetings.
Can anyone explain why Kemper Freeman doesn’t want light rail to Bellevue? He’s been fighting it like mad, but I just don’t get his reasoning.
Seems to me his malls would make more money if more people could get to them.
Or is the fear that with easy access to Seattle, people will get the fuck out of the ‘burbs and spend all their money in town?
It’s socialistic.
I think he owns property that it would go barreling through, or something like that.
I'd be very interested to hear her rationale for choosing 520 over I-90. It would be much more difficult for a 520 light-rail solution to connect in any meaningful way with the existing Sounder/Link infrastructure, which may, of course, be the whole point – make it unusable and make people even MORE cynical about true mass transit.