Benefits for Seattle, not Eastside
Editor, The Times:
Bellevue City Councilman Kevin Wallace’s proposed Vision Line “may provide light-rail access to Eastside” [Opinion, Jan. 25]. Unfortunately the Vision Line doesn’t provide Eastside residents with access to light rail. Seattle residents will be able to ride light rail to Bellevue and beyond. The only access for most Eastside residents will be the relatively small park-and-ride lot in the Wilburton area along Interstate 405.
The preferred Sound Transit proposal at least includes the South Bellevue Park-and-Ride, which they plan to increase to about 1,500 parking spaces. Even that increased capacity is of dubious value because of the problem getting to the park-and-ride in the morning and back to Interstate 90 in the afternoon.
The expectation that light rail will attract large numbers of potential riders to the Bellevue-Redmond area is belied by Seattle Central Link. Sound Transit has recently recognized the only thing light rail “attracts” is park-and-ride lots — with ridership about half of projected levels.
The reality is that none of the proposed routes will come close to providing access to the vast majority of cross-lake commuters. Sound Transit projections of 40,000 to 45,000 riders by 2030 are farcical in view of the limited cross-bridge capacity and lack of access.
Sound Transit confiscation of the bridge center-section for light rail will only result in future gridlock on the bridge’s outer sections for the vast majority of cross-lake residents.
Bellevue residents — 41st and 48th legislative districts — voted against the East Link proposal in 2008 for good reason. The $4 billion spent on East Link will do absolutely nothing for congestion along I-405 and I-90. The idea that the Bellevue City Council along with the Eastside legislators would acquiesce to any East Link proposal is practically criminal.
— Bill Hirt, Bellevue
Should go closer to downtown Bellevue
The Vision Line light-rail proposal for Bellevue is an I-405 alignment with, according to Kevin Wallace, a 10-minute walk to anywhere in downtown Bellevue.
I do not think many people could walk in 10 minutes — or for that matter would walk — from Bellevue Square with two shopping bags, in the rain, to I-405 to catch the light rail. The light-rail alignment to Bellevue should go through the Central Business District (CBD) and provide easy access to work, homes and shopping in the CBD.
To get the greatest value from the light-rail investment, Bellevue should select a route in the CBD based upon maximizing the number of people who will use it. Today, Bellevue residents are still focused on the car for all their transportation needs.
But 10 years from now, as light rail becomes available, I predict we will see that focus will have shifted to using more rapid mass transit because our roads can no longer accommodate all those cars with our predicted increase in population density.
— Paul R. Perkins, Bellevue