Last week, a bus filled with Sound Transit supporters, agency staff,
and members of the public toured the under-construction light-rail line
in South Seattle. The four-year-old “Lunch Bus,” conceived as a way to
bring business to restaurants impacted by construction on Martin Luther
King Jr. Way South, roughly paralleled the route of the light-rail
line, ending up at the Rainier Restaurant at MLK and South Graham
Street.
Contrary to fears that were aired when light rail was first
proposed, businesses on MLK seem to be thriving—although they may
not be the sort of businesses Sound Transit had in mind. Right across
the street from the Rainier Restaurant, within a stone’s throw of a
station that Sound Transit proposed and then deferred, is a brand-new,
drive-through-only Starbucks—the antithesis of the
pedestrian-
friendly businesses the city and Sound Transit had
hoped to attract to the area.
How could a drive-through Starbucks—much less a Starbucks with
two drive-through windows and no pedestrian access (for
liability reasons, people can’t walk in the drive-through
lane)—be allowed in the “walkable town centers” the city and
Sound Transit envisioned along the light-rail line? The answer goes
back to station-area planning, a process that concluded in a compromise
eight years ago after some Rainier Valley residents objected to plans
to change the zoning around light-rail stations—especially at
Graham Street, where residents reportedly didn’t want to preclude a
future gas station.
Under the station-area plans adopted in 2000, new car-oriented uses
(like drive-through windows and gas stations) are prohibited around all
light-rail stations. That would have prevented Starbucks from building
its coffee stand at MLK and Graham—if the Graham Street station
hadn’t been “deferred” indefinitely.
The city council is currently working with neighborhoods to update
neighborhood plans, first adopted in 1999, starting with the three
Rainier Valley light-rail stations. Here’s a suggestion: How about
prohibiting auto-oriented businesses all along the light-rail
route—and, in the long run, banning new businesses that cater
exclusively to cars from urban areas altogether? 
MLK is as dangerous now as it was during construction. Never mind that it’s a visual clusterfuck of businesses I’d never patronize (I don’t need that shit), but cars treat it as a mini-freeway and now there are no-left turns where there had been before. I’m MOSTLY a bus person and one night I was waiting downtown for a 32 or a 36 and this blind man said he was standing by waiting for a 48. Right there I wish I’d had my car with me so I could have given him a lift home – a sighted person takes their life into their own hands walking down MLK. I was pretty scared for this guy, not being able to see, walking down the mess that is MLK.
Funny… the 48 goes nowhere near downtown. Hope that guy got home.
Maybe it was the 42 then – it started with a four!