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Construction half complete on Seattle light rail extension
What an outrageous amount of money for the distance and it being “light rail”, 1.6 miles “chrome plate” light rail? Nickel Plate is already taken.
Building in a built up urban area is EXPENSIVE. Building light rail is cheaper then trying to build freeways though. When was the last freeway built in a major urban area?
Britt, the cost would be rather high if the extension were to be all surface running. But, the extension will be elevated above street level for the entire 1.6 miles on a completely new elevated line. The cost isn’t so high when you consider the amount of new construction.
Seattle area voted down a big transit package called forward thrust in the late 60’s so the federal money went towards building MArta instead. Now that voters here finally approved light rail it’s more expensive. The 1.6 mile extension is all tunnel including a particularly tough section that goes under two levels of I-5.
And in the progressive state of Wisconsin, something on the far side of $6 billion is currently being spent on highway construction projects…and not one penny on rail. Just like the glory days of the 1960’s.
I am guessing some folks don’t understand the high costs involved in building new systems and the tremendous benefits that will be devired from thier investment. Good show Seattle.
The part of the story I object to is the two decades. They started in 2000 and in 2023 they will be no where near 50 miles. They may of coarse define a decade as more than 10 years. The meaning of words is changing fast and my education was a long time ago.
Problem is how long these projects have and are taking from concept to reality, and the cost. They could of had hundreds of miles of monorail lines already running, for a fraction of the cost.
They keep adding lanes to I-405 here in the Seattle east side area as well. As they’ve done so they’ve had to build retaining walls for the hills, in some cases Three stories high. During that 25 year period the population growth has been huge, so while that freeway has gone from mostly two lane to mostly four lane in that time, traffic jams have gone from three hours in the mourning and evening to pretty much all day. Sound Transit has been trying to build a voter-approved extension, but that’s been tied up in court by the frivolous lawsuits of one Kemper Freeman, a rich Eastside developer, who lives in a penthouse on top of a tower he owns in Bellevue, and “commutes” across a sky bridge to his office in another tower. I believe the court has finally dispensed with his third lawsuit, so we can get down to progress.
They keep adding lanes to I-405 here in the Seattle east side area as well. As they’ve done so they’ve had to build retaining walls for the hills, in some cases Three stories high. During that 25 year period the population growth has been huge, so while that freeway has gone from mostly two lane to mostly four lane in that time, traffic jams have gone from three hours in the mourning and evening to pretty much all day. Sound Transit has been trying to build a voter-approved extension, but that’s been tied up in court by the frivolous lawsuits of one Kemper Freeman, a rich Eastside developer, who lives in a penthouse on top of a tower he owns in Bellevue, and “commutes” across a sky bridge to his office in another tower. I believe the court has finally dispensed with his third lawsuit, so we can get down to progress.