The future of light rail in Bellevue is all over the map. Sound Transit’s $2.8 billion East Link line would head east from the ID Station, travel across I-90 and Mercer Island, then swing up to Bellevue before shadowing 520 to Redmond. But the devil is in the details.
Surrey Downs and the Mercer Slough neighborhoods are both convinced light rail ought to run elsewhere. Rookie Bellevue City Council member Kevin Wallace, whose company owns about $50 million in properties along proposed light rail routes, is pushing for light rail to skip downtown entirely.
The Seattle Transit Blog, naturally, has been reporting on developments, but this morning they posted an open letter to the Sound Transit Board and Bellevue’s mayor and city council, that goes the full wonky. It’s full of walkshed charts and rational argument about crippling a $2.8-billion investment to “save” money. It also, unintentionally, illustrates why people have such a hard time figuring out what’s going on with transportation plans. My favorite passage involves just the Cs:
Earlier segment C options proved unsatisfactory, so we’re most interested by the recent report which brought three new options to the table: C9T, C11A, and C14E. We think the best alignment for Downtown Bellevue is C11A. If a grade-separated option is preferred for regional accessibility, C9T is the best proposed alignment. C14E is a novel and constructive attempt to save taxpayer money, but it does so at the cost of serving a major urban center; a regional investment like East Link shouldn’t cut corners.
