Written by Last Friday the Seattle Times ran this story about the 17.9 billion dollar Sound Transit proposal which will be on the ballot in November.
I’m going to need A LOT of convincing to get behind such a big rail proposal, which ignores our city, in such a rough economy. This proposal effectively ensures that Renton will not see any rail service until after this next phase is complete, in about 2025. Meanwhile, we will see 17.9 billion dollars focussed on the rail extensions to Bellevue, and North and South of Seattle, leaving scant resources for any other transit. With the few bus lines Renton has operating at standing-room-only conditions, its disturbing to think of Renton voters kicking in another 300 million dollars for no extra service over the next twenty years.
As a reminder, our residents contributed about 100 million to Sound Transit Phase 1, and we are now going to be lucky to see 20 million of that spent in our city… it has been earmarked for transit improvements on Rainier Ave that are in the design stage. The other 80 million, which was targeted at some HOV direct access ramps, is now being held pending a multi-billion dollar improvement to I-405 which lacks funding…hence, we will not get our share of our own Phase I sound transit money.
Our city staff, elected officials, and other eastside elected officials have negotiated passionately to try to get Bus Rapid Transit on the 405 corridor for nearly ten years, at a cost of less than one tenth of what a rail line would cost, but Sound Transit still does not include this proposal.
Fool me once, shame on you….fool me twice, shame on me. Sound Transit has to include serious additional transit service to Renton, in line with the tax money we are paying, in order for me to get behind this newest ballot initiative.
Why do you think Renton is being left out of the loop? Could it be “Money”. You build where the money is and if Sound Transit isn’t building in Renton, then there must not be any money in Renton. Why do you think Renton was the butt of all those jokes for so many years on Almost Live? I guess the perception is, things won’t get any better until 2025. Way to go Renton.
It’s not just Renton..
All the surrounding Seattle communities have been treated like tax fiefdoms for the glory of the emerald city.
To top it off – we have the county urging us to accept money-sink annexations.
Renton needs to get a spine and hold up projects like the 405/167 interchange if it wants to pull strings. Look what Mercer Island got when it held up I-90: a new park over the freeway and their own dedicated lanes into Seattle.
Re: It’s not just Renton..
and for the glory of Bellevue…
Re: It’s not just Renton..
Bellevue’s not all that happy with Sound Transit either from all external appearances. They don’t seem to trust them all that much, either — look at the extents they’ve gone to in order to make sure that *they* decide where things go, rather than letting ST come in and say where track and stations will go.
Sound Transit
>hence, we will not get our share of our own Phase I sound transit money.
Thank you Kathy Koelker.
Changing my mind….
I may vote for the Sound Transit anyways, here’s why:
By improving the transportation of the region, Renton’s roads will benefit from the decrease in use. I’m not happy with the situation.
Has Renton considered having a shuttle between the downtown transit station and the MLK Sound Transit Station?
………
I’d really like it if Metro had some sort of ridership standards: If we could keep the stinky, foul, and loud-mouthed off the busses and trains then ridership would improve.
Sound Transit has completely ignored the entire 405 corridor, which is why I’m not going to vote for it. They say “we’ll add more bus service” when asked about 405, but don’t say how they will keep buses moving when they’re sitting in the same traffic we are all sitting in.
My philosophy is that ST is building stuff from where the money lives to where the money works, and those aren’t the people who will ride mass transit. It’ll be pretty hard to convince people who can afford to live along the I-90 corridor to get out of their sport utes, Lexuses, and BMWs, and onto a train with *ahem* “common people.”
I would guess that if you built light rail up the 167/405 corridor, it would be extremely heavily used. Hell, even stick some designated bus lanes up 167 & 405, and give the buses a separate place to go. I have always advocated for bus rapid transit over light rail anyway — if a train breaks down, you’re pretty much screwed. A bus breaks down, you tow it away and bring out another one. In the meantime, the ones that can still drive can simply get around the other bus on teh shoulder, or go in the general purpose lanes. Plus, road is much cheaper than track, and takes a lot less time to build. Just look at how long they’re taking to build it up through the Rainier Valley. They could have built 2 roads by now.
It’s too much money and doesn’t do enough… *and* is too mired in politics to be useful. Let’s combine Metro and Sound Transit into one agency, let them figure out how to run quality bus service from where people are to where they want to go, at the times they want to get there, and *then* decide whether they need more money.
Well said…
Also make the transit agency a full scale regional entity, non-partisan, and not run by Ron Sims – make it independent of local government.
Total Waste of Money
You know, Light Rail/Trains, etc…are VERY sexy. They look cool, they are fun to ride, they are soooooo European. You know what, we are not European. Trains are completely inflexible and incredibly expensive per mile in our geographic and spread out locale. For the amount of money spent on Rail, we could have an absolutely incredible state of the art WI-FI and Satellite TV enabled bus system which could add or remove capacity quickly and change or “massage” routes if they weren’t working well at minimal cost.
I think Heavy commuter rail from Portland to Vancouver, BC, with more frequent Tacoma to Everett trips would be a great adjunct also. That is way different from Light rail.
Re: Total Waste of Money
Tokyo – as train-centric as it is has a massive (and very confusing) bus system.
Pairs has a massive bus system as well, even London is famous for their busses!
America has freeways that work wonderfully for busses.