McGinn at Odds with Council Over Light Rail

I say we connect West Seattle-Magnolia-Ballard with a light rail tunnel underneath Elliot Bay!

Rush forward with the tunnel, but study and delay light rail. Nice priorities Council; it will be interesting to see how well this plays with voters next year.

Can we assume you're with the mayor and would prefer to rush forward with light rail to West Seattle & Ballard, but delay the tunnel.

It's not about Mayor vs. Council; it's about studying our transportation options and investing in the ones that make the most sense. The draft draft EIS shows that the tunnel is a disaster, but the Council just shrugged it off and kicked the project down the road while dismissing the overwhelming evidence that it's a bad project. West Seattle – Ballard LRT may prove to be a bad project as well, but delaying the studying of it just seems very hypocritical coming from the Council at this point.

Please don't attack me… can someone explain why light rail from West Seattle to Magnolia/Ballard is so important? Are there tons of people needing that commute that I'm not aware of? What's it going to connect to? How is it going to be cost effective?

Its important so when KEXP has their Hood-To-Hood challenge the participants can get up close and personal on a sexy Eurostyle Train in an Epic Battle for Seattle!

It would be via downtown. So yes, there are a lot of people in both West Seattle and Ballard that need to get downtown, and currently don't have many good options.
The Southeast has Link, and the Northeast (at least at the UW and Northgate) have good, regular service to downtown.

I have to drive to W Seattle from Greenwood today for an appointment. Viaduct, baby! If you don't live on the W side, then clearly it wouldn't affect you. If you did live on the W side, you would know exactly how important it is.

The western ends of the city have no direct way beyond surface streets to cross them. The east has I-5; there's 99 in the middle up north. The West… nothing.

It's not so much Ballard to West Seattle as providing good transit from both of these areas to and from downtown. The monorail died several years ago, we're still waiting for Rapid Ride, and there are people who would be willing to ride LRT who do not like the bus. Let's study it and find the best option.

A West Seattle to Downtown tunnel to Interbay to Ballard and on to Everettland link would be amazing and join the whole region together.

Really? I live in Ballard, takes 15-20 mins to commute downtown by car for work. An extra 5 if I stopped off at Peets for a double capp.

Connecting West Seattle to Ballard isn't really the point, at least no more than the point of Link is connecting Rainier Beach to Mercer Island. The plan—insomuch as it is a plan at this point—would be to kill two birds with one stone by connecting both neighborhoods to downtown via a single line shaped roughly like a backwards “L.”

“Personally, I believe that light rail is the best technology….you have to do the study to demonstrate that.”

Surely there will be a study commissioned from the mayor office that will support this and one commissioned by opponents that says that it's a horrible idea.

At least the light rail discussion has taken over the DBT discussion for the time being. When was the last DBT article published on publicola? I'm going through withdrawal.

You are missing the point, though – the tunnel has already been studied. LR from W. Sea to Ballard is just a concept, but we do know the results of trying to monorail it from one to the other. It is definitely in the interest of the city to avoid another boondoggle such as that, and take a closer look to see if LR is even the way to go, or if some other mechanism is better (such as BRT or dedicated bus lanes that are actually dedicated).

Instead of building an new and incredibly expensive light rail to Ballard and beyond, why not just open 3 stations for the Sound Transit Sounder train in Ballard, Interbay (serving Magnolia and Queen Anne) , and the waterfront just south of the sculpture park? Negotiate with BN for expanded service during the daytime, build the stations, and, voila, dedicated rail service to northwest Seattle!

The monorail was based on a prior study under schell saying this corridor is our no. 2 corridor for rail transit and monorail works. The monorail project showed that the price per mile was fine and the other issues are fine, except that the finance plan was at issue because the MVET took in less than expected; in other words, the problem was not monorail or rail for this corridor, only that the tax chosen wasn't generating enough money.

The problem was the revenue side, not whether or not this corridor needs grade separated rapid transit.

No, you're missing the point. We have never studied the tunnel; it was a political agreement, not one that came out of any sort of analysis (the stakeholder group didn't even look at it because WSDOT deemed it too risky and expensive). The only study we've done is the completely rigged draft draft EIS which shows that the tunnel is a complete disaster for transportation in our city and will likely cost billions more than we're being told. It is definitely in the best interest of our city to avoid a boondoggle such as this and take a look at the options that the stakeholder group recommended (based on objective analysis, not backroom deals).

it is our number two corridor, just like 99 is our number tow highway corridor. rail in this west side corridor also would connect to the light rail allowing you to go on rapid rail from Roosevelt to Ballard — even if you transferred down at Westlake the westside rail (if it is grade separated like the monorail was) would mean this trip is only 20 minutes or so.

Every city that has a good train system has lines connecting the various parts of the city and meeting at least downtown. NOt having a west side line is like going to New York to ride the subway and finding out they only have an eastside line to the upper east side and no west side line to the upper west side. You don't have the full benefits if you only have part of a system.

BTW if one is thinking “Ballard, I never go there!” there are others thinking (“Othello station — I never go there!” or “Beason Hill — who goes there! there's hardly any density there at all. Werid” or “Fife — who goes there?” or “Tukwila — never go there,” etc. In fact the synergy between Capitol Hill and U district and places like Ballard and West Seattle is far greater than the synergy between Cap Hill/Udistrict and places like….Fife….or…..Lynnwood….). Hope this helps.

Any Light Rail expansion should be done through ST to ensure regional integration and that we get a real network, not a bunch of stub lines.

If McGinn wants LR he should find a way to give ST the funds needed to speed up their studies for ST3 and try to figure out a way for the city to directly subsidize the North King Subarea to speed up construction of the expansion lines within city limits.

In the short term, what about the Fremont and Ballard extension to the SLUT?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Streetcar_…

Is there an EIS, draft or final, on light rail from West Seattle to Ballard?

This was all studied before we built the monorail, the study said this corridor is great for transit and monorail works best. The monorail died because of a lack of revenue/lack of support of other officials who today are just fine with a huge $3.9 billion revenue shortfall for light rail or an even bigger revenue shortfall for roads (as we flatten growth in gas tax).

I think at this point the best choice for this corridor is a skytrain. Some people were all weirded out about monorail as a technology, fine, make it a light rail that's elevated and call it a skytrian like in Vancouver. The point is it should not be in the surface street getting stuck in traffic on First Ave downtown…you need travel times that are quick. The monorail was about 18 minutes from outer 85th to downtown or Morgan junction to downtown — that's quick ! And if they're going to build the monster tunnel under downtown, why not put the light rail in it instead of just auto highways.

Without the viaduct the need for transit in this corridor is even more pressing than back ten years ago when the study under Paul Schell was done. The need is obvious and it's rather lame to note we are building rail to Fife before we even have a plan to hook up our light rail lines to West Seattle or Ballard. The monorail opponents said over and over in 2005 that they weren't against transit in this corridor, they just didn't like the agency or the monorail, and year after year those same politicians have done nothing to bring rapid transit to the west side of seattle and today they are active in supporting the underground tunnel for cars under downtown and other highway projects while having no proposal and no plan for rapid transit on the westside. Sadly, proposals such as Rasmussen's to tax to buy a lot of various transportation improvements are not based on any systemic plan to actually move huge numbers of people from each quareter of our city to the others on a rapid (rail) system…it's just adding little pieces here and there without any central strategy or vision. A bike sharrow here, a pedestrian bulb there, a $4 billion auto tunnel here, a SLUT there for a mile, in the end unless we have a westside rapid rail line connecting to the light rail on the eastside of Seattle (note: of Seattle in the I 5 corridor) we won't ever really have a rapid mass transit system we can use to get to all parts of seattle.

There is not a lot a room to negotiate there. Way to much freight being shipped to offer anything but occasional service.

This is this like the one thing I support the Mayor on, well that and the broadband thing, but thats only because I live in one of Seattle racistly gerrymandered broadstrip districts.

I really wish the Mayor had been going on about this for the last sis months instead of dicking around with tunnel nonsense.

And if memory serves, the reason for that was terrible planning on the part of the Monorail board, including assuming people who don't even live in Seattle would be paying the MVET.

So, there was a miscalculation of the the MVET should have been, leading to piss poor overall funding. Which begs the question – what would the actual cost of monorail been per person?

And how much would that be for LR? Especially with all of the improvements for cyclists and others that we are expected to pay for? Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem paying for things, but I do think that there should be better studies done confirming whether or not LR is the way to go, or if there are other, more cost-effective ways of connecting the west side neighborhoods.

The draft draft is so that people can comment and get a good actual draft. I would not agree with your characterization of it being “rigged”.

What's rigged is people complaining because the draft admits that more cars will be on city streets, so people point to that and cry foul.

Of course, they don't point out that, because it's NEVER going to happen, there are no estimates for what the S/T would do to city streets, at least none that are recent. The last ones I saw had S/T nearly double the surface traffic (and commute time increases) of the DBT.

There's no room to multi-track that corridor without massive expense and huge EIS issues. The Ballard station location that was proposed is horribly inconvenient for the vast majority of Ballard residents. Interbay has a yard and tons of freight traffic. And as Giffy says, there's not a lot of room to negotiate there.

Why would the process to update the transit master plan ever even limit itself to looking at only one project in one corridor of the city. Seems like that would be as incomplete of a process as only looking at “buffered bike lanes in Sand Point” or “sidewalks in SE Seattle”. It makes sense to me that the Council would want an update to a 5 year old plan to be comprehensive.

The mayor wanted to update the entire TMP, not just one corridor. The question was whether the update of this one corridor would assume light-rail from the start or take a step back and look at all modes (ie, express buses, streetcars, BRT, etc. etc.)

Michael M

And if memory serves, the reason for that was terrible planning on the part of the Monorail board, including assuming people who don't even live in Seattle would be paying the MVET.

Actually, Berk and Associates, since hired by both the Port and Seattle, miscalculated the MVET. They were hired to figure this out but failed. No problem for them to get more government work later.

Part of the problem was that ST was collecting MVET from south of the city but putting into the North King County sub-area (Seattle), which made MVET revenue appear to be greater in Seattle. Nether the board nor the staff assumed people living outside the city would pay.

Light rail will be about 3 times the cost of the monorail. It would take an MVET of about 6% to pay for it. Yearly revenue would need to be about $180M to $200M per year for at least 40 years.

ST is issuing new bonds through at least 2023 meaning they will paying for them until 2053. They are admitting to a $3.9B shortfall – it'll be awhile before they can build a west side line.

Morning:

Technicalities. But the point. Thanks for clarifying what I was trying to say! (I think)

Oh, and Josh F. – I hate you.

The study has not been drafted.

It is a “belief”, according to the mayor. He just knows it. Cost overrun that!

RapidRide bus service will begin serving part of this. Trains must be installed before those buses render the question moot.

Light rail up in the air, or underground to either West Seattle or Ballard is well beyong the funding capacity of the Seattle tax base. At-grade rail (except at the water crossings) is more realistic from a funding standpoint but not much more efficient than bus service. As has been pointed out, there is a lot of bus service from the Junction in West Seattle, and from Market/45th in Ballard.

ST2 at-grade system is over $300 per mile – well it does tunnel from UW part way to NG – but the bulk is at grade. There is a basic problem in the CBD if no new tunnel is built. The crossings will both require new high bridges.

Without very large federal funding building fixed rail will be tough.

Thanks everybody. Usually I'm smart, but the way this idea is talked about makes it sound like an independent project (duh, the best way between W Seattle and Magnolia is a ferry . I agree that those areas are poorly connected to other parts of Seattle . Lots of water tends to do that to a city. I just wish we could have started out with a more comprehensive rail plan instead of this ad hoc crap that's half idealistic (no parking) and half special interest driven (MLK/fwy/airport? Bellevue mess?). The way it's going we're spending a ton of money on something that won't be used very much.

Actually, RapidRide should begin to demonstrate clearly the ridership demand in this corridor and the desire for higher frequency transit service.

In addition, transit planning should try to address tomorrow's problems and channel development (those who think this is some sort of socialistic tyranny are welcome to continue using the old Indian trail). Had the citizenry voted for rapid transit back in the 60s, Puget Sound might look more like Switzerland and less like SoCal.

Sound Transit should look in to acquiring long term loans from the federal government to finance the shortfalls in its construction budget. ST could also seek more than the $3.9B shortfall to speed up construction and expand to more areas, like LA is doing with its 30/10 financing plan: http://www.metro.net/projects/30-10/.

The idea is by building out the rail system more quickly and by providing greater coverage (perhaps to W.Seattle and Ballard), more people will start riding the trains. Also, real estate values, and hence tax revenues will increase, aka a tax “increment”. Sound Transit will repay the federal loans with the higher tax revenues.

Otherwise, we'll bitch and squabble for years and years, which helps no one.

Actually – the monorail board or least Tom Weeks and Joel Horn knew that the MVET was not enough to finance the monorail as early as June before the vote on the measure to approve the monorail was on the ballot. They made a calculation that once the project was moving that the voters would expand their tax base or the city would bail them out in order to sell bonds and start construction.

True that – the rush hour bus service to and from Ballard is excellent.

Rise -perhaps you should read the Cambridge report – as late as February after the vote DOL gave them revenue numbers 20% above the pre-vote estimate.

Will you still do that (commute downtown in what I assume is a SOV) when oil is $200/barrel (i.e., gas is $20/gal. and rising)? Don't you think we need to start figuring out how we're going to get people out of their cars? Doesn't that take transit infrastructure? (And if you suggest electric cars, let's see where the juice comes from.)

The S/T option has 'less' environmental impact than the DBT because it 'limits' the displaced traffic to Alaskan Way, whereas the DBT 'disperses' the displaced traffic to at least 3 additional corridors in South Lake Union and Lower Queen Anne. The AWV replacement option which displaces the least traffic is some version of the cut/cover Tunnelite. I prefer the 'stacked' SIX-LANE version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P91H-l9QCfU&feat…

Remember that the Lower Belltown segments of SR99 can be lidded to conceal the sight and sound of traffic.

Why not just put in a Ferry from West Seattle to Ballard? Seems as though the quickest, most environmentally friendly, most inexpensive way to go. Perhaps add one stop downtown where folks could connect if they want to go anywhere in the core of the city or catch existing lightrail elsewhere.

There was a more comprehensive rail plan, Sparky. We didn't have enough money to build the light rail line as originally planned – and now we are on the way to Cap Hill, the U District and north. 20,000+ rides a day isn't bad, and the next two stations will add tens of thousands of more trips a day.

the bulk of transit demand (and population) in West Seattle isn't located near an easy ferry terminal location. Ditto Ballard, where you have the additional problem of a busy commercial waterfront in which you'd need to find space for a dock. Then you need good transit access to the terminals on both ends, which is already difficult to do in West Seattle but potentially might be easier in Ballard depending on location…except there's no $$ for that additional transit service as Metro has this huge budget hole. Again, the vast majority of the demand is from Ballard to downtown and West Seattle to downtown; geography alone dictates that downtown is going to be the major transfer point.