Bellevue's Vision Line transit proposal has got it all wrong
It's got so many bad, anti-transit, anti-urban, anti-environmental ideas as to make it seem like a plot to discredit Sound Transit coming to the Eastside.
By Mark Hinshaw
March 02, 2010.
If someone were intent on preventing the Eastside from getting light rail, few proposals would be more entirely effective than the so-called Vision Line. It is a concept that is essentially — as triage health professionals might say — “Dead On Arrival.”
Advanced by a group of people associated with Eastside business real estate, notably developer and property manager Kevin Wallace, now a Bellevue City Council member, the Vision Line vividly demonstrates why public transit requires a public agency to respect the needs of transit patrons. I would suspect that few of those advocating this solution depend upon transit to get to and from their workplace, community events, or daily shopping.
First, the mere idea of passing over a protected wetlands — with all the decades of regulations, investment, restoration of habitat, nurturing of plant and animal species, careful insertion of low-impact trails and public education and interpretation — devalues all that effort. Turn back the clock a few decades and those same people advocating this alternative would probably be suggesting filling in the slough — just as was actually happening in the 70s.
It doesn’t matter where the rail alignment would be, both the construction occurring over years and the permanent visual and ecological disruption would be nothing less than unconscionable in this era of enlightened environmental protection. That one proponent dismissed this whole area of progressive policy by saying that fish can swim around the columns could be amusing if it were not so completely ignorant of the complexities of habitat and food chains.
Pursuing this alternative would automatically trigger am extensive, exacting, and very time-consuming impact study — and invite literally scores of public interest groups to challenge its findings in courts for years. Don’t really want light rail in Bellevue? Easy. Propose that it cross a wetlands. This in itself, makes the Vision Line a non-starter.
Bad enough, but the next fatal flaw is the wacky idea of a moving sidewalk, needed to connect the proposed Vision Line Bellevue station alongside 405 with the current Transit Center in the middle of downtown Bellevue. History does indeed repeat itself because at least once every decade since the late 1800s, someone has proposed this “novel” idea. Since we have had the technology to do this for over 100 years, why is it we haven’t seen it all over?
But they are in airports, you say. Indeed — inside a building, enclosed from weather conditions. Outside in the open air, the thousands of belts, gears, pins, bolts, treads, wires, connectors (all moving parts, mind you) are subject to corrosion, degradation, torque, settling, and dozens of other elements that quickly make it deteriorate. In fact, as recently as the late 1970s, the City of Tacoma installed moving walkways in a misguided effort to help people negotiate the inclined slopes of its downtown. Within less than 10 years, the cost of maintenance and replacement was so horrendous that they were torn out.
Public agencies simply can’t pay for such extravagances over time. These business leaders surely must know that true costs are as much about recurring and “life-cycle” costs as about initial capital investment. If they do not, perhaps a remedial course in simple development economics is in order. Or maybe someone is really being slyly disingenuous.
Incidentally, when was the last time you were rushing to catch a plane and discovered the moving sidewalk was down for maintenance? Even airport authorities with their large budgets, can’t keep pace. But more seriously, the idea of a moving sidewalk is fundamentally anti-urban. The suburban mentality is all about the speed of travel between two points — such as someone driving a car to shop for a boat or a big screen TV. Walking in cities is an entirely different mind set; it's not about speed at all. It is about meandering and strolling among a richly layered array of choices available to people at normal walking speed — 3-4 miles per hour. Increasing velocity is simply a false objective.
The point of cities is to enjoy urban life, with spontaneous experiences and chance social interactions. That is precisely what downtown Bellevue is slowly evolving towards. It certainly has a long ways to go, but to install mechanical conveyance systems to “enhance” walking would be not unlike delivering a fine meal to your restaurant table via rubber conveyor belt. Have these people ever experienced actually walking in a real city?
The final flaw is a more technical one. (Leave aside the absurd notion of long, massive, elevated viaduct-like superstructure lining the entire east edge of downtown Bellevue.) That technical issue is this: A rail transit station depends upon a “catchment area” of workers and residents on all sides. The proposed station location draws only from one side, the west. Normal walking distances between the station and destinations — irrespective of any moving sidewalk — would ignore residents and employees within the western parts of the downtown. This calls into question the very efficacy of rail transit serving downtown Bellevue. Perhaps we should just bypass the place and let Overlake become the next big urban center?
OK, so I can hear your objections. Hey, what about building a big lid over 405 and building a nice big park? (Anyone been following the troubles of Freeway Park recently?) Yes a lid might cause housing and other uses to be built on the east side of the freeway, replacing the past pattern of motels and car sales lots. But downtown Bellevue has ample capacity, for many decades, for both housing and employment — considering all the under-utilized parcels and low-rise building left over from the mid-twentieth century. No need to expand to the east.
But even if that were in the cards for the future, there is one huge practical problem: the distance. Two of the lidded parks we have in this area already – Freeway Park in downtown Seattle and Mercer Island’s big, park-topped lid, have spans of 200 feet at their widest points. In the stretch along 405, the distance is more than 100 feet greater than that. Until Boston’s Big Dig, the Mercer Island stretch of freeway was the most costly segment of highway construction in the history of the U.S. Are we really itching to get that title back?
Nope, the Vision Line, despite its name, is hardly visionary. It merely combines bunch of tired, old ideas with some terrible new ideas. Multiple wrong turns hardly make a right.
Comments:
Posted Tue, Mar 2, 4:35 a.m. Inappropriate
With High Speed Rail, I don't see why all the "transit" is being crammed into the few hundred square miles of Puget Sound.
200 mph trains means instead we can:
1) Live in Spokane and work in Seattle. Or vice versa.
2) Build a "chunnel" through the Cascades and have free flow all year round (unless Global Warming really kicks in and we don't have to worry about snow any more!)
3) Move jobs and commerce to lower cost areas in Central, Northeast and Southeast Washington where land is cheaper and life has higher quality than the dirty crime ridden and now violent Western Washington.
Posted Tue, Mar 2, 8:48 a.m. Inappropriate
If I were Kevin Wallace, I'd be ashamed to show my face after offering his "proposal" for light rail. Then again, "shame" is something impossible for a real estate developer to muster.
Calling this the "Vision Plan" is like calling that frozen hunk of lava "Greenland."
What this plan is, is a plan to please the relative handful of upper income residents who currently live west of the slough and don't want to be inconvenienced in their brief, single occupant vehicle drive into Seattle while construction is underway. That move will make them happy and it will make Wallace and his real estate cronies happy. After all, how ya gonna show a million-dollar house with jackhammers across the street?
In exchange for a few years of convenience and profit for a few already enjoying the good life, the "Vision Plan" will give the future residents of the affected neighborhoods fewer options for the next 50 or so years, and will reduce the overall effectiveness of Eastside light rail by making it availalble to fewer potential riders.
It's hard to imagine now, but the time could very well come where dual-Mercedes households actually think public transportation, good public transporation is attractive.
Posted Tue, Mar 2, 11:02 a.m. Inappropriate
There was a great quote in the original Star Trek Motion Picture where Captain Kirk said, "The Needs of the Many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one"
The modern day version of that quote should be amended to:
"The Needs of the Monied outweigh the needs of the Many"
I used to work at a firm that was located right in the slough. It was a great place to walk around at lunch time and watch the ducks swimming in the water at lunch time.
However, I would have killed for a light rail station I could walk to and have a nice, predictable, congestion-free ride home. Especially when there were Mariners games in the Summer, the gridlock started at Bellevue Way on the way to the I-90 freeway and it was bumper to bumper all the way to Seattle. In short, the freeway completely broke down. It was like on that movie Office Space. You could make faster progress with a walker.
The residents of Capitol are craving their station on Broadway, despite the construction inconveniences. It's going to be a great addition to Capitol Hill. Unfortunately, the residents of Bellevue are only thinking short term and only of their own personal interests.
Posted Tue, Mar 2, 11:43 a.m. Inappropriate
Rail needs to go where the jobs and residents are. Even in 10 or 20 years the center of gravity will be 108th or close to it, and not the freeway. The rail line already has the Bel-Red corridor covered.
Posted Tue, Mar 2, 4:42 p.m. Inappropriate
A new story in the The Seattle Times indicates crossing Mercer Slough is off the table. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011228474_bellevuelightrail02m.html
But there are other ways to align the tracks to get to the Bellevue light rail station location criticized in the above piece, in which one assertion caught my attention:
Hinshaw's statement, "The point of cities is to enjoy urban life, with spontaneous experiences and chance social interactions," strikes me as dead wrong.
The urban life characteristics he cites are side benefits for many, but I would counter that planned experiences and expected interactions are the main purpose of cities for most: working at an office every day, shopping at stores you know are there, particular entertainment venues as destinations.
However, I would note that chance social interactions and spontaneous social experiences with strangers are characteristics of riding transit, compared to driving. As an aside, these are encounters which I generally enjoy, though occasionally I am perturbed.
Unfortunately, survey data indicate that the social interaction environment inside a transit vehicle is not a big drawing card for most people. Spontaneous enjoyment possibilities from riding transit are outweighed by the practicalities of getting to and from bus stops and train stations, and resulting travel time and comfort. All factors considered, most people entering downtown Bellevue in the present day are in cars, and relatively few take take transit.
The region's politicians with public support are spending billions and billions with the aim of making transit better, but the evidence is slim that the future transit share of trip taking is going to be an expansion visible on the street.
To some, light rail just seems important for a great urban place like Bellevue to thrive. Those who are not committed to a daily transit lifestyle may disagree.
Those who read the transit ridership forecasts may also disagree.
The published Sound Transit forecast for the Bellevue CBD with a light rail train station in the heart of downtown is that the workforce commuting trip transit market share will rise from 8% now to 12% in 2030. This would follow years of construction disruption and then subsequent years of light rail trains running on the street in the preferred alternative.
Some don't think 8% and 12% on transit are all that different compared to 92% or 88% in cars, a 4.3% reduction in driving to match the 50% gain for transit. Some don't believe transit can get to be more attractive in the future with the improvements coming to automobility.
So, if you happen to think light rail will not really change mobility to/from/within downtown Bellevue very much, you may want to keep the tracks and station away from the main rights of way in downtown where a street railroad would interfere with cars to some degree.
Wrapping back to my opening point, I'm guessing this Vision Line proposal aligns well with those who see less value in random social encounters on streets and trains than Mr. Hinshaw perceives.
Posted Tue, Mar 2, 8:04 p.m. Inappropriate
It is simple. Kemper does not want light rail. What part of "1950's" do you not understand?
Posted Tue, Mar 2, 8:47 p.m. Inappropriate
Your commute mode share numbers appear to be WAY off. This survey says Downtown Bellevue had 19% bus ridership among commuters in 2008, and 61% single-occupant vehicles. (I'm not saying this is the only authority, but it also jibes with other sources I vaguely recall.)http://www.ci.bellevue.wa.us/pdf/Transportation/mode_share_survey_summary_2008.pdf
Maybe you're thinking of the 2006-2008 numbers that show Bellevue's residents using transit to commute 8.5% of the time. The 12% sounds reasonble in that context.
Downtown Bellevue's pedestrian, bike, and transit commute mode shares should rise significantly in the coming years. The pedestrian numbers in particular should jump due to the wave of housing within easy walking distance. Light rail in two directions will be part of that. Also, as DT Bellevue densifies, transit will be easier than driving in a lot of ways, as it is in DT Seattle.
Posted Tue, Mar 2, 8:48 p.m. Inappropriate
jniles, I'm talking about your numbers being way off.
Posted Tue, Mar 2, 11:59 p.m. Inappropriate
Mhays, I stand corrected. Thank you for the reference to the City of Bellevue survey, which I hadn't noticed before.
Based on what you have found, a case can be made that Bellevue CBD workers are trending rapidly (aboard buses!) toward a much higher transit market share than what I reported above based on Sound Transit's Prop 1 claims.
In my previous comment I quote the "existing" baseline transit mode share number (8%) into Bellevue CBD as reported in the Sound Transit phase 2 justification materials as of August 2008. I see now in the fine print that ST back then was using year 2000 Census Bureau numbers, considered the gold standard, but more outdated with each passing year.
In comparison, the reference you found has the Bellevue 2000 bus-only fraction from the City survey at 13%, which is already beyond the 12% that ST forecast during the autumn 2008 Prop 1 election would be the case by 2030 with bus plus light rail. It's a head scratcher, worthy of an audit if more people actually cared about quantitative evidence.
Going further, if the bus market share number for Bellevue CBD commuters in 2008 is 19% with the present all-bus system (as you report in your comment), I now wonder what ST and Puget Sound Regional Council are expecting for 2040 transit share to Bellevue's downtown with cross-Lake light rail in place on I-90 and BRT on SR 520, the officially planned configuration.
Since decisions expending billions are justified based on these numbers, I'm trying to find and publicize what the transit performance numbers are at the activity center level of detail. I can't find the Bellevue CBD 2030 transit market share in the Draft East Link Environmental Impact Statement. Maybe somebody else will.
Puget Sound Regional Council will have data on the 2040 commuting mode forecast covering Bellevue CBD by mid year, and perhaps a tale of significant future progress will be told then. Or not.
The issue for me and colleagues is the amount of incremental improvement in transit benefit from spending the additional billions to build light rail to Bellevue CBD instead of expanding express bus service. Proportional, or not? I view the determination as open until an alternatives analysis is performed, no long likely unless ST's preferred use of the I-90 floating bridge by light rail were overturned by higher, non-local-government authorities in the months between now and the Federal Record of Decision in early 2011.
The ST analysis of the all-bus alternative in the East Link Draft EIS is incomplete, since no attempt was made to compare its single light rail to a state-of-the-art rapid bus system on managed lanes. (Such a bus system is what Sound Transit proposed and analyzed for the new SR 520, and is the basis for this agency now being opposed to light rail on SR 520 until well after I-90 light rail is built.)
Despite what mhays has found, I stand on my assessment above that the Vision Line advocates don't believe that the benefits of a light rail station in the heart of the Bellevue CBD are worth the cost. By "heart" Kevin Wallace and supporters would demand an expensive tunnel that Sound Transit says it cannot afford to build. See Councilman Wallace's own description of the Vision Line benefits and costs at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2010867795_guest25wallace.html.
David Brewster made other points in favor of the Vision Line approach in his earlier Crosscut piece at http://crosscut.com/2010/02/02/eastside/19630/.
More to come: Bellevue City Council is still split on which alignment to support in the vicinity of downtown Bellevue.
Posted Wed, Mar 3, 12:03 a.m. Inappropriate
jniles is a long-time opponent of Sound Transit and light rail. Not only are his numbers off, but so is his argument. He speaks of the inconveniences of transit to argue that most people will choose cars and then uses questionable numbers to say rail won't change anything. This doesn't pass the common sense test or real world experience. Rail is in over 30 US cities and in every case development happens around station areas and those cities gain dense neighborhoods. It is not like we haven't seen the excellent examples in our neighboring cities to the north and south.
Rail will attract new riders. Many people in East Coast cities almost never ride a bus, but a regular rail riders. Rail also offers a powerful tool to fight climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
By focusing on one tiny slice of the argument for rail, Mr. Niles ignores the environment and growth management.
Posted Wed, Mar 3, 8:51 a.m. Inappropriate
Where jniles and I agree is that bus service needs to be strong as well. Seattle's commute transit numbers (city, county, metro, csa, etc.) are far better than any Western US city other than San Francisco. That's because buses can spiderweb into most neighborhoods and close to most jobs, and those who work in major centers often have nearly door-to-door service with minimal walks at each end.
What Seattle could do with $50,000,000 per year for more in-city bus service. The routes are jammed now...imagine turning those 20 or 30 minute headways with jammed buses into 15 or 20 minute headways.
Posted Wed, Mar 3, 5:27 p.m. Inappropriate
Finally, a clear and cohesive article about the Vision Line! Taken independently the ideas floating around about this proposed alignment sound benignly absurd: moving sidewalks, seriously? When I also consider that it proposes an alignment through a wetland (thank goodness that’s off the table) and stations located as far from the downtown business core as possible, it does look like this scheme was engineered for failure. Call me paranoid, but could scuttling light rail be a way to keep the hoi polloi from riding to Bellevue mall on the rail?
Posted Wed, Mar 3, 6:13 p.m. Inappropriate
Mhays is right that in Seattle when gas prices were high and the economy was humming, the transit loads were screaming for more buses, more often. Instead, we have one shiny light rail line built to the Airport at over $2.5 billion plus operating costs, now including ongoing wheel squeal reduction expenditures.
I'm tracking the surging ridership on this railroad day by day at http://www.bettertransport.info/pitf/Linkpassengercount.htm . Get on board that train, there is lots of room.
Right now, supporters of strong bus transit in our region should review the Puget Sound Regional Council's (PSRC) new Transportation 2040 draft plan, now online and posted for public comment through March 9 at http://www.psrc.org/transportation/t2040/.
This State- and Federally-mandated Metropolitan Transportation Plan calls for a doubling of peak bus service hours over 30 years, including $3.6 billion to set up arterial rapid bus lines like Community Transit Swift and Metro RapidRide. The City of Seattle's long-planned Urban Village Transit Network with 15 minute headways throughout the City is implemented in this Plan.
According to PSRC, this boost in service generates tremendous time saving benefits for existing transit riders. Arterial traffic lights and lane markings are tweaked for faster bus movement. Everybody has an Orca Card for faster boarding.
The Plan is based on a sophisticated computer model. After grinding away for 24 hours, it forecasts that the vast majority of transit trips in 2040 will include a bus ride, even if we have built the completed Sound Transit rail lines -- commuter and light -- from Everett to Tacoma and the East Link light rail branch to Redmond.
The Plan results reveal a troubling inability to double transit market share by 2040, despite all the forthcoming decades of spending. From the present day all the way to 2040, more than half of government transportation dollars are allocated for transit, but the needle on transit market share does not move in proportion.
Here's the shocker: Over 34 years, the Plan takes total transit market share from 2.9% to 4.9%, and for work commuting trips from 10.4% to 17.4%. Toward doubling, but no cigar. Cars will continue to be how we move about, mostly.
There is an "unconstrained" spend-all-you-can-dream version of the Plan also issued by PSRC that does a little better in growing ridership in competition with the almighty automobile, but still fails to win the gold medal for doubling transit market share.
Colleagues and I are in the process of trying to unravel the numbers churned out by the PSRC model to see if it now confirms the wisdom of voters approving Sound Transit's permanent taxing authority to build the railroad portion of our transit future. Bus service dominates the ridership market, but the funding of the county bus agencies in the Plan is left in a status of "to be determined."
Here's a final jolt from published plans ... light rail on SR 520 instead of buses and HOV would not make ridership better in 2040. Ask Sound Transit. Ask PSRC.
Posted Thu, Mar 4, 6:55 a.m. Inappropriate
Unfortunately, Eastside light rail design is suffering from divisive politics, politics created in the first place by prematurely building light rail to the Eastside.
The best course may well be to delay construction until the need is perceived clearer. Bellevue voted for the current council on this platform, that is called a mandate.
Personally, I see two options for phasing the Eastlink - either build a commuter transfer station near I-90 ending all current downtown Seattle bus trips at an I-90 park and ride - or build the currently unfunded downtown Bellevue Tunnel (as a joint bus/rail corridor) and delay the lake crossing.
But even those options have problems, including the planned cost overrun item of the not completely engineered I-90 light rail conversion.
Perhaps it is best to wait until there is a more favorable Council in Bellevue, or urge the center of downtown to move closer to the freeway.
FWIW, there are a significant number of medium density offices across the freeway, I have to wonder how well this author knows the area of which he writes. Also, I'd like to see a current feasibility study for a moving sidewalk.
Posted Sun, Mar 7, 10 a.m. Inappropriate
From the story: "If someone were intent on preventing the Eastside from getting light rail, few proposals would be more entirely effective than the so-called Vision Line. . . . Advanced by a group of people associated with Eastside business real estate, notably developer and property manager Kevin Wallace . . .."
Wow. Talk about missing the obvious.
The whole point of this "vision line" route is to get construction of light rail out along the Bel-Red road stretch ASAP.
That's where there's been upzoning already, and there are numerous parcels ripe for major redevelopment. If ST doesn't spend years digging up downtown Bellevue (where not that much additional development is possible near the proposed stations), the redevelopment of the Bel-Red Road corridor could begin sooner rather than later.
Wallace Properties owns several parcels there, K. Freeman Jr.'s associates would play a big part in the new construction out there - that's why they're pushing for it. It's more money for them more quickly if downtown Bellevue is by-passed.
It's not like the ridership gain difference would be that significant. This light rail line has too few stations near where most people work and live ever to make much of a difference in how we get around.
Posted Mon, Mar 8, 10:22 p.m. Inappropriate
Bellevue City Council Monday night March 8 voted 4 to 3 for a version of the Vision Line as the preliminary preferred alternative.
Posted Wed, Mar 10, 5:35 p.m. Inappropriate
I am not sure where all of the anti VisionLine commentors live, but I would guess not in Bellevue or on the eastsidem since your comments are inaccurate. If one was familar with the routes under consideration and actually understood what was being proposed, they would see some of the benefits of the VisionLine and the potential it brings to expanding Light Rail farther east along I-90 to Issaquah. Lets see, why not build a light rail system on an exisitng rail line and along a freeway instead of plowing through historical sites, neighborhoods, and existing car lanes.
Posted Thu, Mar 18, 10:23 a.m. Inappropriate
- linw,
The line will eventually get to Issaquah. The argument that "We have to do it NOW for something almost 2 decades away is ludicrous. Connecting to Issaquah will happen but It doesn't have to go through the Slough now to go there in the future.
The fallacy you state in your last sentence is littered with falsehoods.
You seem worried about the Winters House - yet where were all of you protesting the widening of Bellevue Way years back. You also say plowing through neighborhoods - I'm guessing you mean passing by Surrey Downs and Enatai. Where is your outrage about plowing through the Mercer Slough Neighborhood. You are quite selective in your outrage.
The Vision Line is DOA. Kevin Wallace is even jumping ship for the tunnel. He's acting like it's his idea now. Kevin Wallace will be a great Council Member - if by great we all agree means unprepared, ill-versed and ready to waste tax payers money at a moments notice. Thank you to all the Kevin wallace supporters. You've done our city proud.
B3 Side-running which I'm guessing your against linw, is better for all of Bellevue and West Bellevue. It's commuter base is right there and those people will be able to charge a lot more for their homes because of this commuter convenience.
Also Linw - I live in the Mercer Slough Neighborhood.
Where do you live and who else would you like to plow over today?