The West Seattle Blog and Mike Seely of the Seattle Weekly have a couple posts up documenting the inconvenience suffered by commuters after an accident closed down two lanes of the Viaduct.
"West Seattleites are getting a nice preview of what life will be like once the viaduct is toppled, as an accident this morning on northbound 99 has apparently necessitated the closure of two lanes. A close friend of mine left her home near the Delridge Home Depot around 7:45, and had made it as far as Harbor Island in a half hour's time. Unfortunately, this isn't the sort of situation more buses can help remedy. West Seattle will need its own trolley line with dedicated right of way, a fleet of foot ferries from Alki that set sail every 15 minutes or, better yet, both, once V-Day arrives in 2012."
At issue is the public pronouncement by Governor Christine Gregoire to tear down the Viaduct by 2012 and not replacing it with any roadway capacity. Although it should be noted Gregoire and WSDOT are spending millions of dollars by temporarily retrofitting the Viaduct first before tearing it down.
Adherents to the "Surface Street" option have never been able to adequately put forward a rational proposal of how the 100,000 commuters who use the Viaduct everyday as their primary route to work, school, etc. will find an alternative means of heading north and south through the city without jamming surface streets, arterials and the already crowded I-5. Other than blaming people for contributing to urban sprawl by living in far away neighborhoods like Westwood, White Center or along California Ave.
The current mass transit projects being built don't address the problem either.
Even if you are a light rail enthusiast you have to ask yourself why Sound Transit officials insisted on pushing the line from Sea-Tac miles out of the way through Rainier Valley instead of just running it up through SoDo. Never mind that the Rainier Valley route necessitates boring multi-billion dollar tunnels through Beacon and Capitol Hills and that nobody commutes from Sea-Tac, to Rainier Valley, to Capitol Hill, to the U-District.
Tens-of-thousands of people work in the industrial parks south of downtown Seattle and the area has been the natural north-south transportation corridor ever since the Interurban was running. Logically wouldn't it have been wiser to construct a light rail line where people actually go to work instead of destroying one of the last areas in Seattle where affordable housing still existed so a bunch of developers could get rich gentrifying the neighborhood?
More importantly if the light rail line had been built all the way up the Duwamish Valley it would have been relatively cheap to expand any light rail project to West Seattle by projecting a spur line or two across the Duwamish River with Park and Ride locations in, say, Luna Park or along Highway 509.
Now there is no viable north-south transportation option left for commuters to use except the Viaduct; which is being threatened to be torn down so developers - and campaign contributors - can gobble up cheap real estate along Seattle's waterfront.
I need to start a Puget Sound Reality Tour Company.
In the Tour, I will take Rich Liberals from Montlake, Aesthetes from Capital Hill, Yuppies from Alki and associated other Dreamers, and walk them around Kent East Hill.
See...here...when you ask for 2 Billion dollars so you can drive your BMW over a bridge that is not needed, or asking them to make your commute 15 minutes instead of 20 minutes with a 20 Billion dollar boondoggle...these are the people you, sir, oppress!
Posted by: John Bailo on March 3, 2008 03:37 PMOnly the DON'T BUILD ANYTHING econuts could oppose it.
http://benenfield.com/Waterfront.aspx
Hairy
Posted by: Hairy Buddah on March 3, 2008 08:34 PMCheck your facts, Don Ward. That route was evaluated, and rejected, because there was zero ridership through the long swath of industrial land betweeen downtown Seattle and...well no housing density anywhere south to the airport. Remember how conservatives always complain we don't have enough density to justify light rail around here? Your Duwamish Industrial Express would have proven that theory. Take a trip along MLK some day, and you'll get a feel for what light rail can do when housing densities can be increased - but before a city can increase density, you need an area that actually features...human beings.
"nobody commutes from Sea-Tac, to Rainier Valley, to Capitol Hill, to the U-District."
One thing transit opponents/hobbyist transit planners always miss: barely anybody rides a line from end to end. The line you just described will (conservatively) carry over 100k riders per day. Very few will start at the beginning, and get off at the end. Ride a train or bus from end to end someday, and you might figure this out for yourself.
"More importantly if the light rail line had been built all the way up the Duwamish Valley it would have been relatively cheap to expand any light rail project to West Seattle"
Ward's musings prove even the most ardent transit opponents in this town consider themselves to be couch transit planners. The words "relatively cheap" and the phrase "light rail across the Duwamish to West Seattle" will never be used together again...by anybody who knows what they're talking about, anyway.
I've read some intelligent transportation analysis on SP over the past year. Unfortunately, Don Ward continues to rely on bad information (or made-up information) to inform his opinions. But, maybe that's his strategy?
Posted by: BeyondPartisan on March 3, 2008 10:32 PMNot sure when you moved to area so I'm just going to chalk up your critique to local geographical and historical ignorance.
The Duwamish River valley has been the major north south transportation cooridor into Seattle since the Denny's and Yesler were stumping around town. That's why you have two major highways (I-5 and Old 99) and a freight rail line traversing the valley.
Commuters have historically funneled into the valley to travel north and south, to and from work.
It makes no logical sense to have a mass transit line divert commuters away from the areas of Seattle where people work. A very, very small minority of the population works in the Rainier Valley, Beacon and Capitol Hill.
So if you are a commuter coming up from Federal Way, Renton, Sea-Tac, Burien, etc. why would you park your car, go out of your way through these neighborhoods, transfer in Beacon or Capitol Hill and grab a bus or light rail into downtown Seattle.
What is needed is a single fast trunkline heading from Sea-Tac north through SoDo into the heart of downtown Seattle and up into the northern Seattle neighborhoods (you can debate which ones).
Then you have branchlines (served by either buses or light rail) which feed commuters from the neighborhoods surrounding the Duwamish Valley (Burien, West Seattle, Renton, Federal Way, etc) onto a line that takes them straight into Downtown Seattle where the majority of people commuting into the city for work.
But that's not what Sound Transit is about. Its purpose is to condemn as much property as possible via eminent domain so developers can gobble up land, build condos, and then flip the buildings.
And "Beyond Partisan" since you're obviously ignorant about the use of vocabulary, running spur lines across the Duwamish to Luna Park and other such theoretical Park and Ride locations is "relatively cheap" compared to spending a billion dollars a tunnel boring through Beacon and Capitol Hill.
Posted by: Don Ward on March 3, 2008 11:59 PMIf ST had built down the Duwamish corridor instead of Rainier Valley, daily ridership would be cut by about half. Yes, not many people will ride from elsewhere to jobs in the Rainier Valley, but tens of thousands of people will ride from the Rainier Valley to jobs in downtown and the airport, and ultimately places beyond.
And Rainier Valley also generates lots of midday ridership, allowing trains to run every 10 minutes in the middle of the day. Midday service in the Duwamish corridor would have had much longer headways.
Posted by: Roger P. on March 4, 2008 09:12 AMIs the goal of ST to gin up ridership numbers? Sure. A little old lady hopping on the train to go to the grocery store, bingo parlor and pharmacy can generate plenty of trips. If she lives in walking distance to the light rail line she'd have a nice transportation option of choosing light rail over bus service.
Or should it focus on congestion relief? Giving people a viable option where they can get out of their cars, off the highways and on a train which gets them to work.
You answered the question yourself saying ST has a "broader range" of transportation priorities.
Which is why we're at a logjam where we're at having to allow a crumbling piece of infrastructure to sit, instead of rebuilding it (the Viaduct) because it would be bloody hell for people commuting from West Seattle, Burien, SeaTac, etc. because there are no other viable transportation alternatives to serve them.
The multi-billion dollar, over-budget, past-schedule Sound Transit light rail project which is routed through Rainier Valley, Beacon Hill, and Capitol Hill is unable to reasonably service commuters living south of downtown. (To get this back on topic)
Posted by: Don Ward on March 4, 2008 12:15 PMThat train tunnel's got to be over 100 years old. It's survived at least 3 major earthquakes, but it's got to be close to retirement.
Why can't we rethink the tunnel and toss heavy rail into it? That way you get more federal money for freight mobility. You get private financing from BNRR. You probably can swing Sound Transit money in for their commuter rail. Plus you get state money for the highway. Add to that money from the Port for the seawall.
Posted by: troad on March 4, 2008 10:07 PMYes, there are jobs in the Duwamish industrial zone. No, the extremely low density nature of those jobs do not justify the expense of high capacity rail. Somebody living in Seattle for 5 days could tell you that. Beyondpartisan is correct. Ridership would be very low for the conceptual second-guessed alignment you came up with. Not to say a future express spur could not be built. Rainier Valley riders won't be generated by bingo parlors. Big numbers will come from high density housing developments either built, or currently under construction near light rail stations. The conspiracy theory about 'land grabs' is silly and lazy. One more correction: Central Link is on schedule, and under buget (when contingencies are included) Your critique is outdated by nearly 7 years.
Troad, heavy rail already operating in that tunnel: Sounder commuter rail and Amtrak.
Posted by: James on March 6, 2008 11:22 AM