Guess all that anti-light-rail money that’s been poured into the Bellevue City Council races over the last few years didn’t buy much in the end—especially after voters this month implicitly supported the idea of light rail to the Eastside (yet again) by rejecting Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman’s light-rail-derailing Initiative 1125.
Yesterday the Bellevue City Council, perhaps seeing that the debate was over just about everywhere except its chambers, voted 7-0 to approve a light rail route through downtown Bellevue (and onward toward Redmond) that involves a short tunnel under the city. Now that that’s out of the way, the next step is more planning, construction, and then expected opening in 2023.
This, for better and for worse, is what democracy looks like.
Lube up and get ready for light rail through your city’s backdoor, Kemper!
Right on! Suck it, Freeman! Suck it, Eyman!
Can’t wait to take the light rail over to Bellevue Square in the next decade. I’ll be wearing my rattiest flip-flops, and I’ll make sure the Mrs. has some curlers in her hair.
2023. Great. I hope it opens on my 40th birthday.
I still don’t accept that it needs to take us the better part of two decades to plan and build a rather short rail line.
Here’s a question…why would a businessman NOT want to have light rail bringing people closer to his businesses? Wouldn’t that mean more people in the area, getting there for less money, which means they can spend more money at his stores? What is his motivation for not wanting transit and light rail?
Only in Seattle does it take 20 years to build 15 miles of “light” rail.
#5
Guess we threw him in the briar patch then.
@5: I explored that very question here.
@5:
Sure, if they’re the RIGHT KIND of people, like, you know, the kind that are too well-off to need to take public transit.
12 YEARS? And hasn’t it been 12 years already in the planning and voting? I guess I should give up on seeing light rail across 520 in my lifetime. Hell, it makes the Seattle demands of the new 520 being built to be upgradeable for light rail superfluous. The planning and build time for light rail across 520 will exceed the expected lifetime of the new 520. We should be planning light rail on the next next 520 bridge at this rate.
been hearing about this since i moved here a decade ago
do not expect to see light rail across the water before i leave
25 years for what, 10 miles of rail? great work folks.
If you think Money isn’t going to continue trying to halt this thing, well, you need to review the history books in Seattle. Much can happen between now and 2023. I say start tearing shit up today and put that motherfucking rail in by the end of next year.
Kemper Freeman has an “over my dead body” mentality about Eastside light rail. I can’t seeing him giving up the fight until either of the following two events occurs: (1) the trains start carrying passengers under downtown Bellevue, (2) Freeman himself becomes a dead body.
Will he go so far as to pony up for another nuisance Eyman initiative during an odd-year election cycle? Or will he content himself with the occasional public grousing?
My hope is that Freeman will transition to something akin to the Confederates’ “Lost Cause” rationalization over their defeat in the Civil War. He will maintain that his cause was noble and that light rail is destroying a traditional way of life (a way of life that only lasted a few generations), but he will acknowledge that he lost.
My fear is that Freeman will take the fight to Olympia. I have to wonder, how much damage could a Gov. McKenna do?