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News & ArtsTuesday, February 2, 2010
City New Coalition Fires Back at Governor Over 520
Posted by Dominic Holden on Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 5:31 PM
Responding to a stern missive sent by the governor yesterday, the coalition of neighborhood groups seeking a transit-oriented replacement for the 520 bridge fired off its own open letter to Governor Christine Gregoire this afternoon. The group, which yesterday unfurled its agenda with the backing of city and state officials, said the state’s plan would “negatively impact the neighborhoods near the project for many years to come” and create “a massive dysfunctional interchange in Montlake.”
“This is all a mistake,” wrote the Coalition for a Sustainable SR 520 with co-signatures from the heads of the local Sierra Club and Cascade Bicycle Club. Sensing its growing influence, the group wants to secure the two new lanes of the 520 bridge for light rail and mass transit, among other ambitions.
Yesterday, the governor wrote that changes to the bridge design could delay the project, an unacceptable option considering the public-safety threat caused by the aging span across Lake Washington.
“If the State refuses to consider reasonable alternatives now, the result will be more delay when WSDOT has to go backward and do the required analysis later,” the group writes in its letter (.pdf). The coalition says that temporary fixes could sustain the bridge while designs are finished.
Fran Conley, head of Sustainable 520, adds, “I think that hiding behind manufactured deadlines and then saying we have to go ahead because of those deadline does not lead to good dialogue. We are looking at what is best for the region.”
The subtext packed between the lines of this message is pretty clear: These residents represent the huge communities, the progressive communities—the wealthy communities—of Madison Park, Laurelhurst, North Capitol Hill, Portage Bay, and Montlake. Plus they have two of the city’s politically influential environmental groups and most of city hall behind them. If the governor wants to piss off a core of wealthy, influential constituents, she can go right ahead. But these folks, who will be living amidst construction through at least 2014, will be acutely aware of what Gregoire—who needs Seattle to carry her in an election—has done well and poorly during her bid for reelection in 2012. Obviously, it would behoove the governor to listen to these folks.
“We are a significant part of Seattle’s voting population, we are also the people who are most affected by whatever happens to SR 520,” says Conley. “I don’t think it’s realistic to put through a huge public project against the wishes of all the elected leaders of the area, the neighborhoods, and the people concerned about the environment.”
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Because, when you come down to it, driving your gas-guzzler is what is funding al-Qaeda.
Well, that and it kills polar bears.
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Trying to get the Montlake interchange moved across the cut, and some of the design schemes they proposed to accomplish this made Alternative A+ look environmentally benign in comparison.
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In the 2010s we do FB pages. Please take a note and go buy an iPad before you appear even more clueless than usual.
http://www.chrisgregoire.com/main.cfm?ac…
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What bugs me about both Gregoire's plan is that there is no room for transit. What bugs me about this joke of a coalition is that there is no room for road expansion.
Anybody who has ridden the 545 at rush hour knows that it is jammed with Redmond commuters. Standing room only jammed. Anybody who has driven on 520 when Microsoft and Bellevue colleges have a week off knows that the rush hour traffic lightens exponentially.
Given these two facts, the obvious answer is that both transit and road needs expanding. But, neither Gregoire nor this coalition would support an 8-lane highway with 2 lanes dedicated to transit. So, we're going to fight over transit v capacity without budging on either.
And, yes, I know that the 8-lane has already been thrown in the ring and thrown out. Which really sucks hard for everybody.
I find it amusing that if you agree with the people who protest progress, they are influential constituents. But, when you disagree, they are lousy NIMBYs.
I find it amusing that you see any contradiction here. OK, not really amusing, just dumb.
@11: You're right, we need capacity. A single light rail line would add the capacity of many, many traffic lanes. Plus, it wouldn't get bogged down in the numerous bottelenecks throughout the city.
Additionally, what will adding traffic capacity to the bridge do? The westbound lanes, so terrible at rush hour, exit onto I-5 or Montlake, both of which are hellish at that time. Expanding the bridge will only allow MORE cars to be dropped into the worst traffic in the city faster.
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For some of us, that bus system doesn't even come within miles of our destination.
One of these reasons that this is an issue is that there is not overnight Park and Ride. You cannot leave your car in the parking lot over night to commute from the stop to your work. Having overnight Park and Ride would cut traffic immensely, I imagine.
This is also helpful for game days, like the Mariners. The traffic with the Mariners is epic. When the light rail goes to the east side, it will need parking, and traffic will lighten immensely. But, the Sierra Club will fight that tooth and nail too.
Transit only isn't a solution for everybody.
Everyone I know just wants a new damn bridge that does come to a fucking stand-still if a car breaks down.
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Let's just get rid of it. As soon as we have rail from Seattle to the east side (2023 or so), just sink it. Then perhaps companies will think a little more about locating on the east side in cheap office parks, and people will think a little more about buying houses in the burbs. And perhaps pressure their respective city councils for zoning changes to allow for more densification.
If I didn't work there, I'd never set foot on the east side. Nothing over there interests me. Getting rid of the bridge would seriously mess with my commute. But, it would also make me thing really hard about whether I wanted to continue that commute, or do something about finding a job in Seattle.
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Selfish fucker.
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The backup happens because there are 3 onramps (all of which are metered with huge daily lines), + an HOV lane all converging within 2 miles of each other, but only one sparsely used offramp.
Think of it this way, if there is construction on I-5 in Shoreline that closes down a lane of freeway, creating a bottleneck of 3 lanes+HOV down to 2, and the traffic backs up every day due to that construction, do you say that Seattle can't handle the influx of two lanes?
Top it off with the brilliant idea of not putting a shoulder on a bridge so that a stalled car or disabling car accident has nowhere to pull over until a tow truck can come by, and you have a recipe for regular traffic disasters.
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I'm kind of guessing people at the UW aren't going to be pleased with a cars-only solution that dumps all the extra traffic out at the UW.
All of the other alternatives aside from A+ actually put the on/offramps by the UW, which would be much worse for the U.
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Which is why the transit-only lanes are the only choice.
The state controls the UW and Arboretum lands.
But outside of that area, it controls nothing.
Hence, if we're nutso enough to add more car-only lanes or even HOV lanes - all that will get dumped out HERE.
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