Train's A-Coming!

I attended Sound Transit’s (ST) North Corridor Environmental  Scoping meeting on Tuesday, Oct.11, at the Shoreline Conference Center. Someday we’ll be able to ride the  Link Light Rail downtown or all the way to the airport! It can’t happen soon enough, and 2023 isn't soon enough.

Just think, all those  years ago we had a solid beginning for a regional transportation system: the  Interurban Railroad, and then we tore  it up. Cars were the big new thing, and the roads had to go through- not an easy  task in this landscape. The bricks to pave the North Trunk Road (Highway 99)  were brought from the Renton brick works on the Interurban itself,  and the not-so-old tracks were all torn up by 1941. With the automotive takeover we sprawled and forgot about rail.

Yes,  cars do a few things well,  but I  ascribe much of the changeover to what I call “The Cult of the New”, an American  predilection to discard anything perceived as old, on the assumption that  whatever is old must therefore be obsolete and whatever is newer must be better.  Yet here we are again: cars have proven to have severe disadvantages, especially  when used in large numbers, and rail in its various kinds is being rediscovered.  Its inherent efficiency, reliability and usefulness in urban planning make it  worth huge public investment.

The  new/old interurban railroad is Sound Transit’s Link Light Rail. Sounder heavy  rail has been running since 2000 between Seattle,  Edmonds, Mukilteo, and Everett, but there’s no  stop in Shoreline. Should they ever decide to build one the natural place for it  is Richmond Beach, which started as a Great Northern Railway stop and has road  access all the way to the tracks, but that’s unlikely.

Last  October there was a preliminary scoping meeting at Ingraham High  School in Seattle which developed three possible routes.  The point of the latest meetings is to get public input on exactly which of the  three is preferable. Call them I-5, Hwy 99, and 15^th  Ave NE.

The I-5  option would go right up  the interstate’s right-of-way (ROW) from Northgate to Lynnwood. The stated  advantages are that by far most of the ROW is already publicly owned, so would  require little in property acquisition, with its attendant costs and  disruptions, and stops can be placed at interchanges, where there’s plenty of  traffic access from all sides. The disadvantages are that it’s nowhere near any  of the current and planned concentrations of commercial and residential  activity, so Transit Oriented Development (TOD) would mean either big changes to  the city’s plans or would be impractical. That’s big, because the purpose of the  Link –and any transit- is to move people and synergize with the Comp Plan!

The  Highway 99 option would  cut over at about N 110^th St from Northgate and go  up Aurora Ave  N all the way to N 205^th  St, then zip back over to I-5 for  the remainder of the journey. The advantages are that it runs right through  Seattle’s Bitter Lake  Urban Village (a stop at N 130^th  St) and Shoreline’s Aurora Square (a  stop at N  160^th  St), supporting Shoreline’s long  term goals. The disadvantages are that it misses Shoreline’s planned Town Center (a stop at N 192^nd  St Park & Ride instead of  between N  175^th  St and N 185^th  St) in what is intended to be the  densest part of the city. In addition, it would be more disruptive of properties  along the west side of Aurora (we’d need to buy more ROW), could mess  up bits of our new Aurora Corridor Project, and it would be more expensive,  mostly due to the property issues. 

The 15^th  Ave NE  option would  go north from Northgate up 15^th Ave  NE. The advantages are that it  goes through Shoreline’s Ridgecrest/Briarcrest business district (a stop at NE  145^th  St. That place really needs its  own name, folks!) and North City (a stop at NE 175^th St),  Shoreline’s best example of what Seattle calls an “urban village”, is most  easily accessible to Lake Forest Park, and is physically quite direct. The  disadvantages are that while it supports the east side of Shoreline it misses  the main parts and requires significant property  acquisition.

None of  the plans actually serve Mountlake Terrace on  their way to Lynnwood. They go instead to the Park &  Ride at SW 236th  St & I-5, which is near almost nothing and would  inevitably require supporting lots of driving. Garage structures top $20,000 per  space, according to ST. Many people are up in arms about having plenty of parking around their transit, but I can't really get excited about it. No real transit system is tied to large parking- there are no Park & Rides on the New York subway system! Any parking we build should be with the understanding that it wil be converted to something useful later.

Sound  Transit argues that the function of this leg is to maximize service between Northgate and  Lynnwood, as the  two big Regional Urban Hubs in the regional master plan, and by  implication any other stops just slow things down. Now, I get it: the more stops there are the slower the train would necessarily be, but I contend that any transportation mode must serve the communities and their legally mandated plans.  I fully support express trains with stops limited to only the largest  destinations, but if it is not express it must be subject to the needs of the  various cities.

Among  these options I am all in favor of the Highway 99 option. ST insists the  additional four minutes’ projected travel time will drive away 4000 daily  riders, but I don’t buy it. If you can count on a train’s schedule and you’re still flying by all the cars on I-5 you'll ride anyway, and those ‘lost’ riders will be made up with all the riders gained from the new, invigorated  Shoreline  Town Center.