Bensch

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:09:50 -0800

Sound Transit didn't start with University Link for a couple of good reasons. First, there's no place for a maintenance base along that part of the alignment. Sound Transit would have had to do the bus tunnel retrofit anyway, and build the base in SoDo. So in "passengers per mile", you wouldn't have gotten the numbers you're suggesting. Second, it's a very complex and expensive project, and the critical path would have been a tunnel boring operation the agency at the time had no experience with. While that's true of Beacon Hill as well, the tunnel there is a much smaller component of the overall project. Any cost overruns on Beacon Hill can be absorbed by project reserves from other parts that didn't overrun, but with U Link, we need to know better what the project will cost going in. Given construction cost inflation at the time that the project order was selected, it wasn't known whether the taxes we voted for could pay to get to the University District at all anymore. If construction inflation kept going above 10% a year for much longer, we wouldn't have! Given how unobtrusive metro stations are everywhere else in the world, I wouldn't be too worried about people being unable to find the Link entrances on the Hill. On bike racks: Remember that you will be able to bring bicycles aboard Link. Why would I, as a cyclist, lock up my bike on the street when I can take it with me? It'd be taken apart for parts! That's also something that's very cheap to add more of later - there will be plenty of space in mezzanines and at surface level - but riding systems elsewhere in the world, I haven't seen many full bike racks. Not even in Paris. I don't care either way about the art, but do note that the FTA is giving us $750 million for this project, and it's their policy that we spend 1% on art.

edgeplot

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:05:06 -0800

I don't get why Sound Transit decided it has to level two blocks of perfectly viable businesses in the heart of the Broadway business district to build this station. In Chicago, New York, London, Paris and just about any other city with underground mass transit, the transit authorities manage to shoe-horn in transit stations without demolishing entire blocks. The gaping hole left in the Broadway commercial district as a result of this poor planning is completely unnecessary and will never heal.

Seattlest: Sound Transit Unveils 60% of Design of the Capitol Hill Station

Bensch

edgeplot