Get On the Bus (in the tunnel)

Seattlest just got done attending the press conference for the re-opening of the Downtown Bus Tunnel. After two years of work, it's set to reopen next Monday. That's exactly two years (as King County Exec. Ron Sims was fond of repeating over and over today) after it closed. We have to say, we're pretty impressed with what they've done.

Needless to say, it's a pretty big achievement in a region not exactly known for making things happen quickly, especially in the realm of transit, to finish a project this big, and this important, on time. Among other things, they ripped out 3 miles of road bed under downtown streets, added 18,000 feet of rail and lowered the road bed so there won't have to be a step up or down onto the new trains, according to King County Council member Larry Phillips.

Oh, yeah, the new trains. Did we mention that there was a real live Sound Transit light rail train in the station? Forgive our transit geekiness for a second, but it was pretty cool to walk around one and see for ourselves how it would be laid out (think one of those attenuated buses that Metro runs, but narrower. It seemed like there weren't enough seats, but we'll withhold our judgment on that till we have the facts from ST).

The most interesting moment of the event came when Pierce County Executive and Sound Transit Board Chair John Ladenburg spoke. He is the chief proponent of including the inane and unnecessary Cross Base Highway on the roads half of the Roads and Transit Bill we're going to be voting on (as a package unfortunately) come November. Even so, he used the occasion to pump up his love for transit by telling us that he prefers calling the Roads and Transit Bill the "Transit and Roads Bill." Cute, but even when you throw in a story about yesterday's awful, 2.5 hour commute from Tacoma to Seattle which ended with the fact that Sounder Trains still ran on time all over the Sound, it doesn't erase how you held hostage the light rail expansion for a highway no one needs or wants.

Seattlest's second favorite point that was made today, this time by Mayor Greg Nickels, was that closing the tunnel and and moving buses to Third Avenue was going to tie up traffic to no end. That, Nickels said, didn't happen. "It all worked." One wonders then if the fear mongering about the effects on traffic if we don't replace the viaduct is just as unfounded.

Whatever may happen (and regardless of what has come before), the tunnel IS re-opening on time and apparently, Light Rail is still on track to do the same (the plan is for trains to run to Tukwila by July 2009). After what we all went through trying to get it built in the first place, it's something to be happy about.

Look for massive Metro route changes downtown come Monday, Sept. 24th when the tunnel re-opens at 5 AM. After that, it'll be open 5 AM to 7 PM Monday through Friday, just like it used to be. But don't plan to chat on your cell phone or send text messages while you're in it. Seattlest tried to send one and realized we had no service.