The King County Council–Seattle City Council joint meeting on The Viaduct just concluded a moment ago, lasting a little more than 2 hours. As was hinted at the Seattle Council briefing on The Viaduct that we covered downtown one month ago (read our story here), the information presented today was more about related elements such as the Urban Mobility Plan — ways that we will get around either without, or despite, The Viaduct. And it did provide some glimpses into West Seattle’s possible transportation future — near-future (another Viaduct meeting in WS was just announced for next month) and far-future:
NEAR-FUTURE: Another West Seattle open house on the Central Waterfront Project — in other words, what will replace The Viaduct’s central section — is now set for May 13th, 5:30 pm, Madison Middle School. (It’s on the Public Events page of the WSDOT website’s Viaduct section.) This is a followup to the first WS open house (Feb. 12 at Cooper Elementary; WSB coverage here).
Now, looking further ahead — lots of possibilities. Again, this isn’t everything discussed at this meeting, which is now in its third hour, but rather the items we heard of major West Seattle interest:
LIGHT RAIL? Future possibilities presented for transit included the bullet-point line “future development of light rail in the West Seattle and Ballard corridors.”
STREETCAR? The list of future route possibilities for extending the Seattle Streetcar did NOT mention West Seattle. However, the wish list did include an extension from Sodo via 1st Ave. to “Uptown.”
BUSES? Seattle Councilmember Tim Burgess asked the question that many people in West Seattle ask frequently (we even heard it at the Democratic caucus on Saturday, when King County Councilmember Dow Constantine — who co-chaired the councils’ meeting today — was taking Q/A) — why won’t RapidRide service start in West Seattle till 2011? (Burgess also asked why Ballard RapidRide isn’t kicking in till 2012.) The answer was more or less, that’s just the way the Transit Now ballot measure-funded projects are going, but there may be some other service increases possible in West Seattle before then. Also re: RapidRide — another bullet-point briefly mentioned was a “future Delridge RapidRide corridor.” The assembled councilmembers heard again about how dramatically bus usage has risen — even just going into the “Center City,” ridership has risen 17 percent in the past 3 years, according to Metro, with an increase of “34,300 (annual) boardings” in that time, and some routes are maxed out.
HIGHWAYS: Lots of discussion about ways to squeeze more people onto existing highways — 99, I-5, etc. Your interest, of course, will depend on which of those routes you ultimately use for your commute (if any), and we’ll link to citywide-media reports when they turn up later. A few notes that are likely of wide West Seattle interest: The state’s I-5 project manager acknowledged it’s a “series of chokepoints, constraints, and weaves” and says the state is currently studying some of those difficult spots (the West Seattle Bridge exit to NB I-5 was *not* mentioned so far as we could tell) to decide what could be done. Possibilities mentioned early in the meeting included extending the “collector-distributor lanes” on northbound I-5 southward to the WS Bridge exit, and adding a southbound lane from 520 all the way to Spokane St. (WS Bridge exit). Sections of 99 outside of The Viaduct also could be considered for a transit/HOV lane.
PASSENGER FERRIES: The King County Ferry District plans were briefly mentioned, including the goal of having the Elliott Bay Water Taxi running year-round between West Seattle and downtown by 2010.
TOLLS? PARKING? While writing this, during the Q&A time, we’re hearing that the transportation managers presenting information today had a “whole separate list of slides we didn’t think we had time to fit in this morning.” (At a future meeting, they promised, while also saying the first “corridor” to be tolled will unquestionably be 520.)
The big question with most of the above is, where will the $ come from. No real answers so far; at the Democratic caucus on Saturday, Councilmember Constantine did note that Sound Transit is still deciding whether to try another ballot measure this year, on the heels of the failed RTID measure last year.
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