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Sound Transit sets budget, schedule for Northgate light rail extension
Nearly half a billion per mile is pretty spendy. But, that’s infrastructure that will be there forever (yes, updated in the future, but they don’t have to re-dig the tunnels). Portland’s light rail system is great, but there are several locations where it has taken out auto traffic lanes, and that definitely can sour public support.
This is awesome. I just wish we had that when I lived in Seattle. The commute to/from downtown was a nightmare and as I understand, it’s even worse today. It will be great if they can eventually have a train from Seattle to the Eastside, maybe West Seattle through downtown, across Lake Washington to Bellevue and Redmond, with connection to Kirkland and Woodinville. What a strain that would take off the commute!
There is absolutely no excuse for this unbelievable waste and mind-boggling expenditure. The line will never ever make any economic sense. And as far as the socially right thing to do, the imaginary ridership just will not be there. Worse, in the last 20 years Seattle ripped up its well-placed existing rail network to Issaquah, Redmond, Bellevue, and around the North and South of Lake Union. The right-of -way in most cases has since been transformed in lovingly green “rails to trails” with no chance of ever being rebuilt and used as a railroad corridor again. No matter what the City Councils in the region say in paying lip service to “mass transit” now, the powerful Northwest NIMBYS will NEVER let a noisy dirty ugly train roll by THEIR mini-mansions again without a legal fight of the century. I am so fed up with Seattle and their unrealistic position on trying to do business I can’t see straight. The Seattle City Council voted 9 to 0 not to let any coal trains ever roll through the city…a major US port…because of the global warming evils that coal would do to the planet if it were exported to Pacific Rim countries. So Seattle turns away this huge rail opportunity (and the employment and revenues that it would provide) to fell good about global warming. Watch the news from the Eastside community of Bellevue about the attempt to expand the light-rail over there. The NIMBYS and greenies are already putting up legal roadblocks to the plans for the rail route. Nobody wants the noisy dirty ugly mass transit system near THEIR house, no matter how politically correct they are. If we tried to build the UP tomorrow, 150 years after the fact, it could never be done, and we all know why.
9 years to build just 4.3 miles. Ridiculous.
The nearly-8-mile long Cascade Tunnel, still in service today, was built in just over 3 years. In the late 1920’s. With far less technology available.
The thing with MAX is that it can run on the surface due to the terrain and layout of the Portland and outlying areas. It helps that you guys have a flat area and some open space. Seattle is squeezed by hills and water and any open space is already taken by houses. So the only option is underground. If one were to compare the terrain and layout of the two cities one would see that they are significantly different.
True, it is taking a ridiculously long time to build, but we all know why that is. And comparing any tunnel dug today to how the Cascade tunnel was built (not quite, but almost slave labor) is beside the point. In the end, however much is built, future generations will wonder what all the fuss was about. Traffic in Seattle has gotten VERY bad with many more cars and virtually no new roads in the 35 years I have been here. Mass transit is the only way out, since most people continue to drive single-occupancy.