Comments

1
Dominic Holden:
This complaint of too tall a bridge—along with complaints that the bridge will lack transit lanes, fails to connect buses to the light-rail line, will route more traffic to the arboretum, and more—were on parade Tuesday night at an open house of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT).

Dominic, I'm just as big a transit supporter as you are, but when are you going to stop with the dishonest, misleading mischaracterizations and oversimplifications?

"Will lack transit lanes?" This bridge is going to have HOV lanes on which the buses will travel. One can make those lanes transit-only without fundamentally altering the design of the bridge, but what you write makes it sound like there are six general-purpose lanes and zero HOV/transit lanes.

"Fails to connect buses to the light-rail line?" As a layperson I've tried to gather information about this question, and yet it seems like you're trying to obscure information. It's easy enough to connect buses to the Husky Stadium light rail station so long as you give them a dedicated lane once they get off 520, as they travel on that new Montlake bridge to the station.

Let's stop greenwashing the Montlake interests' parochial concerns by making it sound like they're fighting for transit. All they're fighting for is to get that highway out of their backyard and into somebody else's.
2
You mean there's more to transit than the tunnel by the waterfront!?!? Tell me it ain't so!! I mean Mike McGinn made the 520 a HUGE issue in the campaign right? Oh that's right....
3
Cressona, these were the concerns raised at the meeting. Calling me dishonest for explaining what people said is pretty weird. On your first point, transit and carpools would use the same lane, so they aren't transit lanes--they're mixed-use lanes. But there's no ambiguity as you keep reading; I repeatedly talk about dedicated transit lanes. You also write, "One can make those lanes transit-only without fundamentally altering the design of the bridge," but that isn't true, as the post explains. The state didn't study transit-only lanes in the EIS, so the state can't convert the lanes without another study (18 to 24 months), which, for practical purposes, is "altering the design of the bridge."

As for connecting buses to light-rail, that is also a concern that people brought up again and again at the meeting. But I'm happy to clarify that the concern is that the design "fails to make a good connection between buses and the light-rail line."
4
The sad thing is, instead of engaging in the typical Seattle-area obstructionism, we have an opportunity to truly, tangibly make this 520 project better for transit.

Instead of engaging in this fake argument that we need a new bridge design to create transit-only lanes, we can insist on raising the bar for who gets to go in the HOV lane. Maybe HOV 4+, maybe transit only.

We can fight to make sure that the four general-purpose lanes always remain tolled. Actually, the people who would benefit the most from this would be the drivers themselves.

We can demand that on the route between 520 in Montlake and Husky Stadium there be dedicated transit lanes, so buses don't get stuck in traffic the moment they get off the bridge's HOV lanes.

Of course, it's typical for Seattle for us to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct ostensibly in the name of transit while we can't deign to actually accomplish anything for transit. Call it the Coalition for a Less Transit-Friendly 520.
5
What is the relevance of the religion of Gene and Liz Brandzel, "an elderly Jewish couple who live in a Madison Park apartment?"
6
If light rail and mass transit are not part of the approved design before the project begins, do not count on mass transit being added after the bridge is complete.

7
Dominic @3, neither of us is idiots, so don't play lawyer language with me. You're a writer and you know just what you're writing to get the characterization you want. To repeat, like a stenographer, the charge that the bridge will lack transit lanes is misleading and you know it.

For anyone who actually has to ride the bus between Seattle and Redmond or Kirkland, the difference between HOV lanes and transit-only lanes is like the difference between filet mignon and Porterhouse when right now you're eating dog food. It's a meaningless, distracting distinction.

And really, Dominic, I don't quite understand why, but you've been engaging in an ongoing disinformation campaign on this 520 issue. How about that post where you made the wild extrapolation that having shoulders on the bridge meant they were designing an eight-lane bridge--a post where your only source was a group with a vested interest, the Coalition for a Sustainable 520? You're a journalist. It's too much trouble to get the other side of the story for a really controversial charge?
8
I don't get it. We're building a whole new bridge, and it doesn't include light rail? That's fucked up.

And here comes Cressona, saying "we can fight" for this and "demand" that, but then turns around and broad-brushes all of Seattle, saying all we do is "obstruct, obstruct, obstruct." Well we think we're fighting and demanding. Cressona's handing out the obstructionist label, and I'm not the only one who doesn't buy it.

Using "typical... Seattle" and "obstruct" twice in the same post reeks of talking points. "Layperson" my Aunt Fanny.
9
What the fuck does the Brandzel's religion have to do with ANYTHING???
10
I understand a lot of Dominic's complaints about the bridge, but I don't understand why he cares whether a 40' bridge diminishes the views of some of Seattle's most valuable homes.

Also, if you "displace" 19,000 HOVs into the GP lanes, how many of those become 2 or 3 cars because there's less advantage to carpooling? The Montlake community is freaking out because demand might add another 20,000 cars in 2030, so I think another 20,000-40,000 cars due to the transit lanes thing would be a big deal.
11
@6 ftw. Look at the fight we've had to put up to get light rail across I-90, a bridge that was designed to someday accomodate light rail. It's the same thing all over again. What's the definition of insanity again?

My vote? Fuck the 6-lane design. 4 LANES ONLY...2 for HOV/transit and 2 for light rail. SOV commuters can move their asses to the appropriate side of the lake or learn to commute the correct way.

Full disclosure: I'm an SOV commuter myself (live in Seattle, work in Bellevue), and I can't wait until I can ride that sweet, sweet rail across the lake. Sure, I could take the bus now, but I'd have to make 2 transfers and it'd take twice as long as my drive, so that's out (though I'll probably be singing a different tune when tolling starts up).
12
@4

Of course, it's typical for Seattle for us to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct ostensibly in the name of transit while we can't deign to actually accomplish anything for transit.


Look, right now there are four lanes. The proposed bridge is going to be eight lanes. So it's a whole second bridge, for traffic and infrastructure purposes. The current bridge totally altered the entire Montlake/North Hill area when it went in -- it cut North Hill off from the rest of the hill, retarded growth along Portage Bay and basically turned Union Bay into a cul de sac. And you can't really appreciate the impact of that without looking at what's on either side of it. There's Broadway and there's the University District -- and there's this dead zone in between them. Union Bay should be -- used to be -- an urban village, like Fremont or Ballard. There used to be separate town there: Union City. The first 520 bridge plowed that entire region under to make room for a freeway interchange.

So now we're basically talking about building a whole second bridge. Doubling the traffic load on that area. On 23rd, on I-5, through Eastlake, down Harvard and so on. It'll destroy property values, increase traffic speeds, and reduce walkability.

In the long run, we need to cut down on cars to reduce emissions and other forms of pollution. We needed to cut down on cars 40 years ago. Building more car capacity is a bad idea in its own right. Doing it at the cost of turning an even bigger chunk of our city into an economic dead zone is a worse idea.
13
Unific @8:
I don't get it. We're building a whole new bridge, and it doesn't include light rail? That's fucked up.

And here comes Cressona, saying "we can fight" for this and "demand" that, but then turns around and broad-brushes all of Seattle, saying all we do is "obstruct, obstruct, obstruct."

You know full well I'm not broad-brushing anyone. You know full well that it's a very tiny group that is engaging in this typical Seattle obstructionism.

And something tells me, too, that you're sophisticated enough to know that demanding that light rail be built immediately on the new 520 is not about light rail. It's about establishing a negotiating point that's so far out of reach, you're showing your hand that you're not negotiating in good faith.

Then again, something else tells me that, unlike me, you couldn't give a flying fuck about light rail.
14
Judah @12, I appreciate that you're sincerely trying to engage in a serious discussion, rather than in throwing out the hole host of red herrings and smokescreens that dominates this discussion. But where do you get eight lanes?
Look, right now there are four lanes. The proposed bridge is going to be eight lanes.

The new bridge is six lanes, two of which are HOV/transit. I recognize that a second Montlake bridge is going to have to be built, but other than that, I fail to see how this is in any way an expansion of general-purpose lanes.
15
-She chastised Bill Gates for saying Americans must reduce carbon emissions while leading a business that wants a wider freeway. “You can’t have it both ways.”-

Um... Actually you can... Roads do not, and never will, emit carbon. Its the cars that drive on them that emit carbon.

Since Americans will (listen very closely here) NEVER GIVE UP THEIR CARS the only way to reduce auto related carbon emissions is to create non-carbon emitting automobiles.

And guess what, those cars are not going to be hovercrafts and will need freeways and roads to travel on.

What's more, until such time as low or no carbon emitting automobiles are readily available, increasing capacity in order to reduce gridlock (and engine idle time) will reduce carbon emissions.
16
This is a joke. I've called Murray's office and I know plenty of my neighbors have. If he wants to lie, fine. But the reality is that people are sick and tired of being told of a cataclysmic disaster striking Seattle and taking out 520/Viaduct, yet progress being halted at every turn.

If our elected officials are so concerned about safety, then let's get moving with A+ and the tunnel. McGinn keeps forgetting (conveniently) to announce that Seattle would be on the hook for cost overruns if we went with a surface option.

And the $250k spent on a consulting firm? Let's see, for $1 I can tell you what their findings are going to be since I am sure he shopped around for a firm that will give him the answer he wants. What a waste of taxpayer dollars.

And shame on you guys for not calling him out on how he selected the firm and how that money could have been better used elsewhere.
17
It's funny. I'm sure most of these people who have suddenly become such great champions of light rail on 520 are about as full of crap as the congressional Republicans who have suddenly become these great protectors of Medicare from alleged cuts. They could not care less about light rail, and the only reason they've claimed the mantle of light rail is that they see it as a way to confuse the real issues at hand.

Just ask any of these people where the light rail would go or how they would pay for it, and they don't have the faintest idea. They have no plan. They have no real desire to create a plan because frankly they have no real desire to expand light rail.

And boy, I'm glad that Seattle Transit Blog is, however gingerly, finally calling bullshit on these faux transit f…: Moreover, although everyone likes to wrap themselves in the transit flag it seems that lots of stakeholders* really have other interests at heart.
18
I'd like a Chunnel.
19
Oh, so that is what the balloons were for. It wasn't obvious to people there.

I thought that people were pretty much in agreement - business, greens, locals, etc - that we want them to build the pontoons, we just want to be sure it has transit-only lane capability when built.

Loved the cachement ponds for stormwater overflow - at first I thought they were public swimming pools ...
20
Increasing capacity doesn't reduce gridlock/congestion in the medium or long-term. Do you all not remember the debates about SR1 and SR2? Study after study shows that increasing traffic capacity increases use proportionately as people change their driving habits to use the new lanes. Erica B pointed that out over and over again in the roads and transit bill discussion. Build it and they will come. Otherwise you're building capacity that won't be used, and that's just dumb.

And while it is a 6-lane bridge it will have wide shoulders, ostensibly ones that can (and eventually will be) converted for more capacity. It'll be 8-lanes in size at any rate.

@5, 9 - It's called adding a touch of color to the piece, like when he also described Rainey's hair, coat and scarf. Sheesh.
21
Suddenly Slog cares about what rich people in Madison Park think....thanks for the laugh.
22
Curse you Cressona - you've revealed our Judeo-Masonic conspiracy to bring suburbia to its knees, by demanding modest concessions towards mass transit, in a city paralyzed from 4-7 every afternoon by a million other Grande Latte-sipping Hyundai-driving assholes like yourself.

You know what Cressona - go fuck yourself in your ass. Maybe after a few years EIS we can widen it for light-rail transit.

23
z... Wurm @22: Curse you Cressona - you've revealed our Judeo-Masonic conspiracy to bring suburbia to its knees, by demanding modest concessions towards mass transit,...

OK, z-something, please explain what exactly these modest concessions towards mass transit are, and how they are so modest--oh, and what plans you or anyone else has for them.

I'll let you know I'm a serious supporter of mass transit myself, so I'd welcome a serious and sincere mass transit plan.

In terms of modest concessions to transit in general, I'd be perfectly happy with the proposals Martin H. Duke details in his Seattle Transit Blog post:
There are lots of small-bore things transit advocates can fight for that could improve things like the connection to U-Link, but also don’t blow everything up: a transit lane on Montlake Blvd. between the interchange and Husky Stadium; Bernie’s idea of eliminating the general-purpose exit on Montlake; Ben’s idea of making it clear in the legislation that gas tax money is not paying for the rail right-of-way; and, even though I don’t think it’s a big deal, the Montlake Flyer stop.
24
I think the new six-lane floating bridge will be 115 (I count 116) feet wide. Included in that width are the 14 foot bicycle/pedestrian lane and two shoulders 10 feet each that with a little restriping could become two more lanes = eight lanes. The floating bridge as designed will be anywhere from 22 to 30 feet higher than the present bridge--in effect a Viaduct planted in the middle of the lake, as objectionable there as one now is on the Elliott Bay waterfront.
The Portage Bay Bridge of either Option A or Option A+ will be seven lanes. I don't know the present width of the Portage Bay Bridge, but this will be one wide bridge. It will also be 12 feet taller than the present Portage Bay Bridge.
This is overscale design for the setting and will increase vehicle trips. While things are postponed long enough for a good design that will reduce vehicle traffic, we have an opportunity to do what we can afford--that is, fix the bridge and institute tolling on both SR 520 and I-90. See what that does to SOV demand. In the meantime, come up with a good SR 520 design that includes light rail and figures out how it should connect up with light rail and/or buses on both the east side and the west.
Just because a committee "mediated" a bad design and the legislature leapt to endorse it doesn't mean we have to build it and ruin so much that our city is about--views of water and mountains, small scale (Lewis Mumford on cities you can walk around in), and liveable urban neighborhoods.
Erin

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