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October 29, 2013 at 7:07 pm #799209
kgdlgParticipantSadly I currently do not have time for the Coalition, but I am really hoping Wakeflood does! I am so glad it has formed and that you call attention to it TR! Thank you. Time is of the essence, and in the near term, things are only going to get worse over the bridge.
October 30, 2013 at 7:05 pm #799210
wakefloodParticipantI joined. I’ll attempt to keep abreast of their efforts and post things here when they might seem appropriate.
They’ll probably think my idea is pie-in-the-sky but I can’t imagine any other more plausible scenario that actually has significant positive impact. I hope I’m wrong.
October 30, 2013 at 10:14 pm #799211
kgdlgParticipantWakeflood, your suggestion seems a lot less pie in the sky than light rail, and I think the majority of west seattle folks think that is achievable sometime soon.
October 30, 2013 at 11:17 pm #799212
Genesee HillParticipantThere is rail right now to the West Seattle “peninsula”. I repeat, there are train tracks to West Seattle right now. That are used.
It is not that difficult to lay rail from Link Light Rail to the Junction, all of four miles, and has been done “big-time” in the past.
Heck with the high level West Seattle Bridge. They should re-name it the “Bridge of Whining West Seattle Crybabies”.
October 31, 2013 at 12:50 am #799213
JoBParticipantGenessee Hill
“They should re-name it the “Bridge of Whining West Seattle Crybabies”.”
don’t fall over.. but i agree :)
October 31, 2013 at 1:35 am #799214
kgdlgParticipantGen Hill, there may be rail to west seattle now but this is so very very different from high capacity light rail. I am no engineer but Wake Flood has a point about how expensive it may be to bring high capacity light rail up to the junction, vs the cost and relative efficiency of a BRT system (not the bus system we have now mind you). At some point we need to know how much it would cost to run light rail here and whether this is politically feasible. If a re engineering/building of the bridge is necessary, for example, the question may go no where…
October 31, 2013 at 1:38 am #799215
wakefloodParticipantWell, Genesee, you’re half right. There surely was a streetcar to the junction and all the way down Fauntleroy to…End O’ Line Joes.
It wasn’t light rail (much higher capacity) and it had a very nice trestle bridge that covered the entire mud flats to the base of Sodo. It is nicely depicted in one of our murals.
That trestle couldn’t be built today unless it had 100 ft clearance or had two drawspans that would open for shipping and disrupting service.
All of which is to say, that was then and this is now…
October 31, 2013 at 1:40 am #799216
wakefloodParticipantYou could dedicate every bridge in Seattle similarly! ;-)
October 31, 2013 at 5:00 pm #799217
wakefloodParticipantUntil someone shows me engineering that makes it economically feasible to put light rail at grade or elevated from the Junction to Downtown, I’ll assume that the best TECHNICAL solution (today) is to bury it like they did in Capitol Hill. They have roughly the same geographical and at grade limitations that WS has.
Again, it’s only a few miles long and it’s costing $2B. That option isn’t going to be on the funding horizon again in my lifetime.
I’m trying to find a 20-30yr. solution that is significant and maybe bridges (pun not intended) to a 21st century technology – rather than a 19th century one. I’m not sure what that will be – flying cars/trains?? But things are in the works that will leapfrog light rail.
Heck, in terms of bang for the buck, fixing the high bridge weave by adding a lane extension at pigeon point would probably get you 20% more throughput for $40M…
November 2, 2013 at 12:56 am #799218
JulieMemberSince this now appears to be a transit thread: Wakeflood, here’s my big concern with BRT: It’s easier to get a BRT project started than fixed-rail solutions, but it’s also easier, once it’s started, to scale it back, as expenses and objections rise, to something that is no longer BRT. This is exactly what happened with “Rapid” Ride. (I realize it was never originally conceived as true BRT, but the actual implementation is scaled back from the project as originally presented.) Furthermore, the very flexibility of BRT is not only a strength but also a possibly fatal weakness–it can be dissolved very easily; fixed-rail solutions are not impossible to un-do (West Seattle being an excellent example), but it takes more effort.
November 2, 2013 at 6:49 pm #799219
wakefloodParticipantI’ll concede that point, to a degree, but since both systems have been scaled back in our history, and witness the multiple scaling back scenarios currently in-progress with the east side Light Rail section, I’m not sure how much easier it is.
November 2, 2013 at 7:05 pm #799220
JoBParticipantwafeflood.. it is always more difficult to take up track than it is to cut back on buses.
November 3, 2013 at 3:37 am #799221
wakefloodParticipantIt’s not hard to reduce the number of cars and/or their headways either…
November 3, 2013 at 4:22 am #799222
wakefloodParticipantAnd let’s not forget that it’s likely that true BRT in WS would require some physical structures (ie ramps, short overpasses) that are just as hard as track to remove.
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