This post has been updated with comments from Mayor Mike McGinn and a statement from Gov. Chris Gregoire
All nine members of the city council signed off on a letter to the state transportation department today generally supporting the state’s six-lane preferred option for replacing the 520 bridge today. However, the council members did ask for changes to the Seattle side of the bridge design; expressed support for “high-capacity transit” (like light rail) above and beyond the two HOV lanes included in the state’s proposal, as long as including such transit doesn’t delay construction; and designing the bridge to include wider bike and pedestrian lanes.
Meanwhile, Mayor Mike McGinn, who wants to reconfigure the bridge design so that it can accommodate light rail from the day it opens, sent a much briefer letter to the state urging them to delay choosing a final preferred 520 option and “immediately evaluate other options that can accommodate light rail and minimize impacts on sensitive parks and neighborhoods,” a process he estimated could be finished within a year. The six-lane plan, he wrote, would make it difficult, if not impossible, to add rail to the bridge in the future. “This is our one chance to ‘get it right’ and to build a bridge that meets the needs of Seattle and the region for years to come.”
On the phone this evening, McGinn said the council was trying to have it both ways—expressing support for transit on the bridge, but refusing to support the planning delay required to make that happen. “There’s something in that letter for everybody to like,” he said. “They don’t think [the state's preferred six-lane option] is good, but they also say that they think they can do [rail planning] within the state’s timeline. They end up on both sides of the question. This kind of straddling on this issue hasn’t really worked for Seattle.”
McGinn says he supports eliminating the ramps from 520 to Lake Washington, a top priority of the neighborhood groups that have joined his pro-light-rail alliance, but that his plan would require a second bridge for light rail over the Montlake cut. Neighborhood groups have opposed a second Montlake Bridge.
The letters comes in response to two studies by consultant Nelson/Nygaard, commissioned by the council and McGinn, respectively.
In its report to the mayor, Nelson/Nygaard wrote that, in order to accommodate light rail, the bridge might have to be expanded 10 feet; that a gap between the eastbound and westbound lanes on 520 would have to continue through the Arboretum; and that the pontoons that hold up the floating bridge would have to be larger to bear light rail’s weight. City Council member Mike O’Brien, who has been supportive of McGinn’s proposal to build rail on 520, has not returned a call seeking information about why he signed the council’s letter.
In their letter, the council effectively dismissed each of these concerns, arguing that the bridge could be designed to hold light rail at its current proposed width; that the state could consider extending the gap as part of the environmental review process that’s already ongoing; and that the pontoons could be expanded later.
Additionally, the council’s letter acknowledges two elements of the state’s proposed design that are unpopular with neighboring residents—ramps dumping traffic directly from 520 onto Lake Washington Boulevard, and a proposed second Montlake Bridge—are likely to be built. But the letter asks for specific design changes to mitigate the impact of the additional traffic on the Montlake neighborhood and the arboretum, including the relocation of new HOV ramps to 24th Ave. rather than Montlake; a new lid over 520 between Montlake and 24th Ave. East; and slowing down construction of the second Montlake bridge while “test[ing] measures,” like transit prioritization, “that may eliminate the need for construction.”
Rob Johnson, director of the pro-transit Transportation Choices Coalition, says the council’s letter generally “looks really good.” His only “soft criticism,” he says, is that the letter includes no mention of using tolls to pay for transit across the bridge (in addition to bridge construction), something transit supporters have been pushing for. “We could have used some stronger statements from the city council to say that… toll revenue should also be part of a plan for constructing transit in that corridor,” Johnson says.
Gov. Gregoire weighed in with a letter this afternoon, which to took a not too subtle dig at McGinn for potentially delaying the project. Gregoire says:
“Delaying 520 is not an option. The forty year old bridge is in danger of sinking in the next earthquake or windstorm and must be replaced. The new bridge will have four lanes plus two carpool and transit lanes to accommodate our region’s current and future transportation needs. When a plan to bring light rail to both ends of the bridge is developed and funded, the new bridge, as designed, will be ready to accommodate it.
“I thank the Mayor and all nine Seattle City Councilmembers for being engaged in the process. I particularly thank the council for their commitment to opening a new bridge on time in 2014.”
Among the council’s other recommendations:
• Building six lanes for traffic, including two HOV lanes or high-capacity transit (bus-rapid transit or light rail) lanes;
• Reducing the size of the bridge interchange with Montlake Boulevard;
• Putting a lid over 520 between Montlake and 24th Ave. East and include bus stops on the lid;
• Adding dedicated HOV and transit lanes to Montlake;
• Minimizing the size of the bridge across the lake;
• Reducing the 32-foot proposed height of the bridge, which the council’s letter calls “unacceptable.”
