The Future of Eastside Light Rail: In the Balance

@19
If they succeed in keeping the Link station out of downtown Bellevue the entire project may be dead. If there aren't enough riders, Sound Transit won't get Federal funding, which means East Link doesn't get built.

If they succeed in keeping the Link station out of downtown Bellevue, I bet you'll see the city build a street level trolley system a few years later to connect the downtown to Link.

I should clarify. By "stopping light rail," I meant killing it – in the Kemper Freeman sense.

Robertson did say she would be willing to use the city's permitting power to block ST if the route doesn't suit Bellevue, but she's never mentioned killing light rail altogether.

Erica, from one reporter to another, you're way off on this assessment of the Bellevue City Council.

You should talk to some of Bellevue's new council members before publishing assumptions about their stance on light rail.

It's not so much an anti-rail council majority as it is a pro-BNSF council majority. As in, most of the new council wants light rail to travel along the abandoned BNSF rail corridor instead of Bellevue Way.

No one, not one council member, has mentioned stopping light rail.

FYI, Jennifer Robertson, a new council member, was on the city's light-rail best practices committee. Sound anti-rail to you?

Got your facts straight now?

Agree with @2. I've never understood the opposition to rail out there, including Freeman. Wouldn't rail bring more people to his shopping mall, etc.? Is it just a pure fear of the "wrong element" getting easier access to the this part of the Seattle metro area?

Can some smart Cola person perhaps try to make an objective summary of the objections these people have (i.e., take the seriously even if you don't agree with them)?

5. On an unrelated note, by that logic there is no stopping the Downtown SR 99 tunnel. If a resolution's passed and a higher agency is pushing it through, no amount of kicking and screaming should be able stop it.

Building a station @ 404 makes GREAT sense. Since the Downtown Bellevue core is so dependent on retail, it makes sense why no one wants a multi-year train project in front of their shop.

If I paid a Million Dollars for one of those new retirement homes, I wouldn't want the train clanking out my window every 45 minutes.

Lastly, I think the station local make sense as it replaces that shitty coco's that went out of business 5 years ago. As I see it we would only need to walk 2 more blocks to access a regional transit system...seem fair.

Let's not lose site of the fact that there are destinations on the Eastside other than downtown Bellevue, and that ultimately people want this route to extend to downtown Redmond.

The lack of connectability to points east along I-90 seems to be a flaw in every alignment I've perused.

One of the benefits of good planning is understanding expansion options such as this. Here, I don't even see how one would take a bus to light rail.

As an aside, it also a requirement of planning to listen to the people in the particular jurisdiction you are serving. There is a reason for the ST2/Wallace-Freeman slate disconnect. What is it?

Kemper simply wants to see the problem Sound Transit has on Link through the Rainier Valley avoided---high cost trains devoid of passengers.

You folks ought to look at reality; buses go to the Bellevue transit center, now, and they go to the mall, now, and they actually carry people. What a surprise. People on transit, instead of pipe dreams on publicola.

Kemper and his kult think wider roads are the solution to everything.

I would love to watch the dinosaur and his airhead followers try to make downtown Bellevue a super block Petrie Dish to cultivate their own brand of '50's social engineering.

High rise buildings + super blocks + underground parking + a minimalist pedestrian experience surrounded by freeways and stripmall arterials = the next generation of Freemans and Wallaces gettin' out of the family bidniss.

Kevin Wallace is damn lucky he inherits the family business.

Because, God knows, the guy is too stupid to make it on his own.

Kevin's Daddy has been smart enough to distance himself from Kemper when the self-appointed King of Bellevue goes down his occasional crackpot path (funny how the Inheritance Class sticks together)

Again - Kevin - not so smart. At least the guy knows how to put self-interest over community interest. That's gotta count for something...right?

Witness the future of the Republikan Party.

Sadly, while some Bellevue leaders want to avoid the unsightly transit line, Redmond, at least Microsoft, would like the line... and to get there from I-90 requires getting though some part of Bellevue somehow.

While logic, reason and most of the large cities of Europe and Asia have mass transit to their malls, Bellevue would prefer to keep them "upper middle" to upper class... and for the foreseeable future, except those who purchase condos adjacent TO Bell Square and the "Bellevue Experience", the odds are the demographics of those shopping there and dining there are folks who DRIVE there in their elite-mobiles.

Kemper wants to keep downtown Bellevue an automotive gated community that requires an auto, with no panhandlers, and no one to remind the shoppers of those median and below... Requiring an auto to attend helps that goal.

In the short term I think Light rail would do better to think follow I-90 with a Factoria stop, Take the BCC offramp with two stops at each end of Bellevue College, and then route up 148th or 156th to Crossroads and then Techland rue de Northup...

Property values are more affordable, The old K-Mart plaza on 148th would make a GREAT park and ride (and in the wet season, you could boat there!). SO would the old Highland Jr. High on Bell Red and 148th from there you route up Bell Red Road...

My guess is the majority of the residents from Robins Glen, Lake Hills, Spiritridge, Lochmor (AKA St. Louise Parish) travel into Seattle, Redmond or Renton to work -- For them Light rail will be far more accessible along these routes than if you stay WEST of 405.

Really. The folks WEST of 405 love their cars. They are new, shiny, and have all kinds of ways to keep them entertained stuck in their 6 lanes of megablocks. They don't want transit other than to sound p.c. and would never use them like the folks around Crossroads would. Seriously... more folks jaywalk 156th than USE the overhead skybridge between the Bellevue Hyatt and Lincoln Center.

148th and 156th already are extra wide, have sound barriers, and could sync lights like they did with MLK... no need for tunnels or skybridges. THATS where the folks would use light rail, and There is already density...

If Bellevue doesn't want to be hooked into Central Link, build it to Tacoma instead.

Seems like people are scared of a line that goes outside of the dense core of downtown Bellevue. On the other hand, look at what is along the line: mostly empty car dealerships. Perhaps, instead of bitching about Kemper Freeman's motives we should just beat him at his own game: build it and they will come! Buide the line and development will happen several blocks away from his properties. (parenthetically - for those that have actually commuted upon this route, as opposed to those that have hypothetically commuted upon this route, if there is enough park and ride parking there will be a substantial number of riders)

Gomez - the EIS pretty much has to happen next year, as I understand it. Fortunately, though, the City Council has already passed a resolution in support of the options Sound Transit was looking at already. The new Council can kick and scream a lot, but it's probably too late for them to make a significant change. The voters voted for ST2 - and that includes the voters in Bellevue.

What's the timeline for setting a plan on an Eastside line?

More specifically, when are seats in the BCC up for re-election?

Could Sound Transit table the line until they've got a more agreeable BCC to work with? It looks like at best ST's facing a North/South Korea sort of impasse with an Eastside Link line. If the current BCC doesn't want it, you're not going to get traction without some sort of political coup.

@2 remember the monorail? WaMu didn't want it connecting to its building, something that most developers and building owners in other cities would have killed for. Somehow transit is still seen as a low income transportation mode in this region, and Freeman is of that mindset. Dumb.

I still don't get it... What the hell is Freeman's motive?

This "proposal" skirts three of Wallace's properties. See the first three in the list here:
http://www.wallaceproperties.com/about/portfolio

It should be clear here that Wallace is both pandering to a vocal minority of Bellevue residents who don't like light rail and attempting to enrich himself in the same brush stroke, with no regard for the city he's been elected to serve.

This alignment would make the line unusable for half of downtown Bellevue. Even 110th is pushing it, but 114th puts most of downtown outside walking distance - exactly how Kemper Freeman, who does not want transit users in his properties, likes it.