LOL... Like that will happen.
The “Seattle process” is all that makes the piss-ants on the city council feel powerful and important. Their egos won't stand to let it go.

If our public agencies and politicians were really serious about the need to get cars off the road now and not in 20 years (well maybe 17 now) this would be rolled out in half the time. You know, treat this with the urgency that we lip service to and really make priority that we need to make it.

How about, instead of just making light rail happen faster, also making light rail FASTER? So much of it is at ground level with multiple traffic stops, it's hardly an improvement on driving ones own car. (Which latter has the advantages of, not only not having to ride public transit, but also possibly avoiding mocking mention in the Stranger's "We Saw You" column describing the denizens of public transit.)

@3: All of the new Seattle projects will be grade-seperated, or in other words not at ground level.

@3

You're talking about fully grade-separated rail. Seattle Subway is easily the loudest proponent for grade separation in the region.

My thanks for @4 and @5 above for their clarifications:
But time will tell whether budget constraints lead to grave "grade-separation" compromises.
It's happened before.

Ed Murray is The. Worst. Mayor. Ever. That's your problem right there.

Instead of getting behind a vastly accelerated light rail program for our city he obsessively focuses on Manhattanizing downtown for rich people, blitzkrieging the Jungle, even though he knows full well there is no actual housing for the hundreds of people who live there (no to mention thousands of additional Seattle residents who are homeless, or fear becoming homeless because rents are exploding, and flying to China to line up biz deals with Chinese plutocrats who want park their hot money in Seattle. In 2017 we'll get a chance to elect a mayor who will get good things done for our city, including clearing obstacles that prevent rapid construction of a climate friendly rapid transit system.

The Manhattanizing of downtown as you call it started long before Mayor McCheese

MikeWB @6, when, pray tell, have these "grave 'grade-separation' compromises" you speak of happened before?

I can't speak to how the service levels Sound Transit puts on the ballot may or may not be legally binding, but the agency's history has been for budget shortfalls to cut short the amount of line they're building, not to compromise the quality of the line. There's a reason that, despite the big budget blow-up of the early 2000s, we're looking at a delayed UW and Capitol Hill subway rather than a UW and Capitol Hill extension running at street level.

Also, let's just keep in mind that, after they had to call a mulligan in the early 2000s and revise their whole budget, Sound Transit has been running under-budget. Add in that they have some institutional experience estimating the costs of these projects and with accounting for things not going as planned. So it's hard for me to look at ST3 and fear that they're being too risky in their optimism.

@9-Look at the original line through Rainier Valley. Why was that built on grade? If Sound Transit's M.O. is not to compromise the quality of the lines, that was not a very convincing start. The decision to put so much of that line on grade means that we're stuck with unnecessary delays in the core of the system for years or decades. This is why it is so important to keep the pressure on to fully and completely grade separate any new lines. IIRC, the alignment for the Ballard line on grade and down 15th Ave NW was highly rated in the last Sound Transit literature I saw exactly because it would be cheaper to build.

dvs99 @10, I'm just as disappointed as you are by Sound Transit's decision to run at-grade through MLK. But I don't believe the initial Sound Move ballot measure promised better and then Sound Transit went and downgraded the alighnment to at-grade. The ballot measure itself was a disappointment. From an old document I dug up on the Sound Transit site:

The first segment will be a line south between downtown Seattle and the airport serving the Rainier Valley area. That part of the system will be built primarily on aerial structures and on the surface through southeast Seattle.

Again, I don't believe there's a precedent for Sound Transit presenting grade-separated as its preferred alignment for a segment on a ballot measure and then downgrading that segment to at-grade after the measure had passed.

I would like to suggest the idea of moving industry and the Coast Guard out of the lakes in order solve the need for either a high bridge or a drawbridge. The industries that move taller ships through the locks and canal would save time bringing their boats in and helping with relocation has got to be cheaper than the hundreds of millions being proposed for a tunnel.

"What about Sail Boats"? Well, tough love to the upper middle class and up: Dock in the Sound or stay lake bound.

This would ultimately save money, further clean up our lakes and increase lake front land values.

Why we let sail boats interrupt rush hour traffic, I have no idea. Just as some cities ban Rigs on their roads during rush hour, maybe, and at the very least, Seattle will put its foot down about the canal.