The four Kemper Freeman sock puppets on the Bellevue City Council are at odds with Sound Transit over the best route for East Link light rail. Essentially, Sound Transit would like to run the rail line through Bellevue, while predictably, the Freeman clan would prefer it flank its outskirts.
To this end, the four member anti-rail majority commissioned a $670,000 study to explore its preferred “B7” alternative, and it’s fascinating to watch the diverging coverage. For example, PubliCola, which got a sneak peek at the report, broke the news as such:
Unreleased Study Bad News for Supporters of Controversial Rail Alignment
A $670,000 study of a light-rail route through Bellevue supported by four members of the Bellevue City Council will show that the line will either cost more, or carry fewer riders, than the proposal supported by the Sound Transit board (and the three-member council minority).
While the Seattle Times followed with:
Report looks at location for Bellevue rail station
Building a light-rail station near Bellevue Way Southeast and Interstate 90 would boost ridership on Bellevue’s preferred route, a city-sponsored study concludes.That change would raise the cost somewhat, but it is “a feasible alternative,” Arup North America, an engineering design and consulting firm, said in an interim report released Thursday.
PubliCola concludes the study is “bad news” for B7 supporters, while the lede in the Seattle Times suggests the Freeman alignment would “boost ridership.” How can they both be true?
So as usual, I’ll just choose to trust the analysis of the geeks over at Seattle Transit Blog, who after pointing out that conflicting Bellevue and Sound Transit studies are in some ways difficult to compare, clearly conclude that “the ridership difference between B7R and B2M is basically a wash, but B7R is approximately $40m more expensive.” So there.
no wetlands in our neighborhood!
The Seattle Times take is simply Orwellian. When they say it “boosts ridership” they’re comparing a modification to a bad route (B7R) with the original bad route (B7). Both B7 options have slightly lower ridership (though enough to call it a wash if you’re being generous), and cost more than the preferred Sound Transit alternative (B2M).
Cascadian, Orwellian is right. It’s like if you’re deciding between Product A and Product B, and an allegedly impartial observer says Product B’s price can come down 20% while leaving out the fact that B would still be 30% more expensive than A.
Y’know, I was reading that Times article this morning, and it took me the longest time to realize it was about the inferior B7 route. Heck, the writer couldn’t even refer to it by name. And it’s like, in the process of removing all unflattering facts, the editors ended up with a fact-free story, or a story free of relevant facts. Lindblom should be thankful he didn’t get his byline planted on that hack job, assuming he at least has a bit of integrity left with having to stay employed at The Times.