Good luck pushing that eight-lane bridge idea in Medina, guy. I'm sure they'll be thrilled.

If you're going to spend all that money, it seems stupid to limit the capacity to what's there today, plus a transit option which may or may not work for the majority of people.

Build three lanes of highway in each direction, PLUS a transit/rail lane.

8 lanes is not an eternal expansion of pavement.

I do support the Montlake neighborhood's approach to routing those lanes, no idea of what the current status of their plan is, but it is probably more important than the 6 vs. 8 question.

-Douglas Tooley
Lincoln, Tacoma

My Blog

What's remarkable about Republicans is they always talk about smaller government, less taxes. Unless the subject, of course, is building freeway lanes.

If Dino wants to talk about how to redesign 520, perhaps he should also talk about how to pay for a lavish redesign of 520.

OT: Josh - your cost figure in the paper last week was way off:

“So, with a popular transit-only agency poised to complete its $5.7 billion project, which includes light rail from Sea-Tac to the U-District, why not give that agency the green light rather than, once again, shackle it to roads?”

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=490765

Get with the times! Phase I hasn’t been at “$5.7 billion” since the ‘90’s. The current ST spending estimate for Phase I now is over $12 billion. You can see that in the agency’s latest SEC paperwork.

I'm with HL.. The area has grown in a huge way since the bridge was originally built, the region's largest employers sit on the other side of the bride from where many live. Why in the world would we build something with the same capacity than we currently have (and possibly less)?

@6: Because SOVs are not the most efficient use of the space if the goal is increasing capacity and throughput.

Something else I'd like to hear - if you build 8 lanes, where do the cars go once they get to I-5 or I-405? There's no capacity left to soak up all the cars the 520 expanders want to put on the bridge.

The problem with 8 lanes on 520 is, where does the traffic from the extra lane go? Do we add a lane to I-5 to take the traffic? Do we dump it off in the U. District, which is already gridlocked at rush hour? Do we dump it off at Montlake or Portage Bay? Not in your or my lifetime.

Transportation facilities like 520 do not exist in a vacuum. You gotta look at what happens upstream and downstream, but I'm not surprised that Rossi's transportation plan fails to understand that. (His transportation advisor is a propagandist, not a transportation expert.)

@7: But that isn't the goal. The goal is to increase efficiencies for the most people at the lowest cost. SOV's do that if the bridge and highway exchanges are tolled at different prices throughout the day.

Maximizing rush hour "throughput" (your ideal) primarily serves employers who want cubicle monkeys in their seats at 8:15 every morning. If the goal of infrastructure design is to maximize employer benefits (your focus), then let the employers pay for it. A corporate income tax, a tax on the value of intellectual property - you catch my drift, right? As long as the revenue sources are targeting people, then to be fair the infrastructure needs to be designed for the efficiency of people in general. And people in general do not travel during the rush hour across the lake to downtown business locations.

Ugh, I really wish transportation planning/transit planning wasn't so politicized and or polarized. Didn't the WSDOT say even in their studies that an 8 lane 520 bridge is not feasible and would be backed up anyway due to the fact that I-5 in Seattle wouldnt be able to handle all the traffic. How hard is it to realize that we need both high capacity transit and more lanes where its feasible to do so. Instead everyone just wants to impose their vision of reality on everyone else. I,e. Everyone should drive and transit is a horrible evil communist plot or everyone should take transit 100 percent of the time and owning a car is evil.

I'm just sick of the political arguments on both sides because its really an idiotic fight that should never have been politicized in the first place.

Build the bridge with room for transit on it.

I don't care what they do as long as it's consistent between 520 and the bridge in terms of number of lanes. I'd like to throttle the life out of the DOT retards who had the HOV lane ending and merging back into traffic right before the bridge, creating a giant bottleneck. I assume they're the same micropenises who created those off/on ramps that cross each other all up and down 405. I hope they get ebola and die screaming and bleeding out every orifice.

What's the fuss? Buses and HOV cars can use the same lanes as light rail.

@7 - How does an HOV lane that sits empty move more people through?

@9 - You eventually will have to expand capacity on 405 and I-5 as well.

@11 - Employers do pay for it.. Indirectly... Employees faced with rising toll costs will ask for higher salaries.

I'd love to see a train that goes from downtown Seattle to downtown Bellevue and Redmond. If we wait for the train people to pull their heads out, we will NEVER have a new bridge though.

We JUST put this issue to the voters. The populace doesn't want to mix roads with transit. Yes, that is dumb.. But, until the transit folks bring something to the table, they simply don't factor into this discussion as far as I'm concerned.

Drivers are being asked to pay for this bridge with tolls. Once the Transit people find some cash of their own instead of trying to think of ways that they can get their hooks into the toll money, then I'll start caring about what they think.

I agree with Rossi... the two HOV lanes should not be converted to light rail. Keep the HOV lanes an convert two of the general purpose lanes to light rail.

Who cares what the GOP wants.

Seriously ... this is the year of the Blue Tidal Wave.

Won't be many of them coming back - and they all know it - or at least the smart ones do.

oh, and @14 - have you ever BEEN on the 520 bridge?

"How does an HOV lane that stays empty move more people through?"

It won't be empty. It will carry more people than the other lanes - and faster.

Seriously, I used to work on the Eastside and I still get my car fixed over there ... don't post about the 520 bridge if you have no idea what it's like.

By the time they EVER build LRT on 520 (like 2040 at the earliest), even the new bridge will be toward the end of its operating life (forty years for these things), so why should we care if they design it for LRT?

Then why not designate two lanes for plug-in hybrids only? It won't be built until after those 80 to 100 mpg enviro-friendly numbers are out, and you KNOW all the greenies at Microsoft want to show them off ...

I battle 520 traffic on a DAILY basis... I have an intimate knowledge of the traffic patterns, not a "used to work there and sometimes use it" knowledge.

we should have a surface solution for 520, too!

I believe it is high time to stop considering any HOV or LRT for 520 whatsoever.

Look. Let's face reality folks. You simply are not going to force people to jump into a HOV vehicle or take the bus given the current mess that transit has. It is too inefficient. Taking a car by yourself while slower, is still faster than the total trip time of having to deal with transit changes, dropping others off etc. Until that fact changes BEFORE any other factor, you will NOT get more people to get on transit. PERIOD.

Therefore, what should be done is create 8 lanes of bridge... 4 in each direction and be done with it.

Any LRT or Transit option can be done more efficiently on a Federally funded interstate... E.g, the I-90 bridge expansion.

At this point everything else is folly...

All the eco-rabid folks posting here are trying to force change down other people's throats with mass transit. Why should I or anyone else have to cave to your transit demands?

I don't have a desire to wait 20 years for your pipe dreams to become reality. If we didn't have such crazy raging liberals on this side of the state it is likely we would have something accomplished already.

Have you ever wondered why no other similar sized metro has this kind of transit fighting going on?

Reality Check

Ohh... and for those of you claiming that we don't have enough connector lanes on I 405 and I 5, that is folly. You would simply architect the westbound merging lanes onto Montlake Southbound and UW northbound for 2 of the lanes and keep a similar configuration for the I 5 merge. Eastbound is trickier and will take an 4th lane expansion all the ways up I 405.

Note that this would be removing the ridiculous HOV designation that currently exists, as once this expansion is completed, traffic would flow most efficiently thru that narrow corridor if all lanes are open for all traffic, and you restrict an commercial traffic from the 2 left lanes at all times, (similar to what California does in similar situations)

There you have it. Although radical, this is just another example at a way to solve the issue. I'm sure many roll their eyes at some of this, but it is no better than your stalemate plan.

Reality Check

Reality Check, you are proposing some radical stuff but I don't believe it is any more radical than people who don't even use this bridge (or who used to work there and sometimes use it to get their cr fixed) feeling like they have any say in how it gets done.

I'm not ready to go so far as to say that we do away with all HOV lanes, but I do believe that the HOV lanes exist solely because of bus schedules.

If transit people really want an HOV lane on the bridge, great, go get some money to add to the budget and we'll see what we can do to work with you. The proposal on the table right now is a TOLL bridge though. These tolls will be paid by DRIVERS, not bus riders. Until Transit brings something to the table, I agree that the plan of record should be, NO HOV. NO TRANSIT.

I can't believe that I am going to agree with Dino. Don't make me put a "ROSSI for governor" sign in my yard..

Hey Will in Seattle, tomorrow is Februry 1st. How is that Transit Only initiative coming along?

Nah, just do what most major cities around the world do and have people who want to use the HOV lane pull up to the bus stop and take people across the bridge.

Pretty simple, actually.

And if there were HOV lanes across the 520 bridge, they'd be full, Clint. The prob is they don't actually go ACROSS the bridge.

I said they COULD do it in February.

But I did say 2008 - and there's this election in November that's gonna be a Blue Tidal Wave ... gee, I wonder what will be on that ballot ...

The actual bridge with NO HOV lanes is the smoothest sailing on the commute. Imagine how much smoother it could be if there were 6 NO HOV lanes...

So, let me get this straight.. They COULD do it in February, but have decided not to. Instead, you think they will do it in 2008, when it has already been reported it isn't on the agenda. It must be great to have access to your sources of info. Do you just put your head into an empty plastic bag and ask around?

As I said before, this really isn't a Red/Blue thing. The vast majority of Seattle is Blue. The majority of Seattle who was just asked to weigh in on this actually voted AGAINST transit.

Want to blame somebody? Blame Josh and Erica who seem to have been responsible for the Stranger endorsing the No side of the vote (and swaying a possible 250K voters), blame the voices in the bag who told you not to worry because there was a blue/transit storm coming in February, blame the transit folks who have failed to get this on the agenda, but don't blame the folks who are committed to finding and paying for a solution. And don't think that because folks are commited to a solution that means they are committed to YOUR idea of a solution.

Why don't we just build office buildings for MSFT and the other software companies in Seattle at taxpayer expense. MSFT's expansion alone will fill up the roads and transit. We will never be able to provide the kind of commuting ease that Clint and the other commuters want so let's just build them office space by their homes.

RC's brilliant idea to throw two lanes of freeway onto Montlake/23rd will work like a charm. Look up the traffic volume on that stretch of road. It's packed already.

If the Stranger wants to back surface/transit downtown they'd better not support more lanes than today on 520 because the city can't absorb more volume.

Nice try, Will. Before the Prop 1 vote, you said:

[...]
sigh. try telling the truth - a no vote will mean denser walkable communities when we vote yes on ST2.1. in Feb 07.

Posted by Will in Seattle | October 15, 2007 6:21 PM

Whatever... As I said, the bridge itself is smooth sailing. The real problem is the merging of busses and from the HOV lane and cars from other onramps.

The MSFT expansion doesn't mean rapid growth for MSFT. It's main purpose is to grow the campus to the correct size and stop having to double and triple up people in existing offices.

Clint doesn't want taxpayers to build offices or bridges. Clint wants to build them himself by paying a toll, having other users pay a toll and having people who don't use the bridges or pay tolls to either STFU about it, or go get some money to put behind their agendas.

@31:

Let me know when tolls pay for the entire bridge. Oh wait, you can't afford that - you need our help. So no, none of your fellow taxpayers is going to STFU.