Light Rail will eventually come to Bellevue. We just don’t know where yet. But it keeps getting narrowed down.
The great and powerful of Bellevue’s business leaders (OK mostly just the one guy) filed a suit to try and stop the light rail from using the I-90 Express Lanes. That failed. When they built the highway they had that as part of a contingency plan. Using that plan Sound Transit purchased the express lanes from WSDOT during the Truman administration. So when the judge woke up during final arguments there was a great yawn. The ruling handed down went something like this: “Sound Transit already owns those lanes so there’s no issue.”
We here at Lake Boren Rapid Transit HQ applaud this ruling. But why couldn’t we get it months ago instead of going through all the motions? By the way, we applaud the ruling because it keeps the entertainment going.
Also months ago (it’s like watching a glacier) the Bellevue City Council hired a consultant to evaluate alternate routes. They don’t agree with the route Sound Transit has chosen but they’re confused about the costs and benefits of the alternatives. So “spend more money” is standard answer.
Several other powerful business leaders sent a letter to the Bellevue City Council telling them to get over their bickering and work with Sound Transit. Their point is it’s important to get the project going and all these delays just add cost and put off eventual benefits.
Sound Transit wants to hang a left off I-90 and head into Bellevue via Bellevue Way and 112th to Main Street. At Main they dive underground. Well it’s not really a dive so much as digging into the hillside. Bellevue agrees with the tunnel part, although there’s no boring money.
The problem is Bellevue doesn’t like giving up street space. The neighbors are complaining about the noise. They want to use the old BNSF corridor and somehow cut across Mercer Slough Nature Park. You need to get Google Maps to show this. MSNP (I can do it too) is a wetland full of peat and other waterlogged ground. It’s against the rules of nature to build railroads in places like this. BNSF is between 118th and I-405.
No matter which alternative gets chosen some folks will be evicted. Others will have commuter rail close to home. They assume neighbors will naturally use the light rail if it’s in the front yard. That allows them to claim 45,000 riders a day. I never learned this kind of math in school. These people must have gone to some management school where facts are what you say they are.
Ouch, that seemed a little grouchy. Let me see, where is this leading? Oh, yeah, once they’ve torn down a bunch of peoples’ houses and crossed over a protected wetland they get near Main Street. If the line is running up 112th Avenue NE they make a sharp turn and go underground right there at Main Street. However, if it’s meandering around in the Mercer Slough Nature Park there are a few things in the way before it gets there. Things like the Red Lion and Sheraton Hotels. These are large outfits.
My vision is that they just run the trains through the lobbies. There’s your riders right there. Travelers would put on a nice pin striped hotel terry robe and grab toast and coffee in the lobby café and then step on the train for a ride to the business meeting. No need for all that formal stuff, like getting dressed and waiting outside for the limo.
The study shows the numbers are not too different if you just use percentage. A little more cost here, a few more displaced citizens there, about the same to build in the peat bog as on a busy street. The main issue is the folks at Red Lion and Sheraton might get annoyed. But that’s what consultants are for. We’ll just add a footnote that says something about hotels more than 20 years old are pretty much ready for destruction anyway. Who knows, they’re the experts? Why should I solve all the problems?
Speaking of solving problems, I think the best way to deal with it is to just stay on the freeways. It’s already noisy there. Looking at the map again you can see that the line on I-90 gets right close to I-405. Just make the turn and head north on I-405. That eliminates all the noise issues along Bellevue Way and the condos along 118th which is the other noise sensitive area.
There’s a section of I-405 where the north and south lanes get separated. Use that as the tunnel entrance. Dive underground and head toward Main Street and just connect to the unfunded downtown tunnel. The only thing above ground would be parking garages.
You could have “hotel” stations where visitors in the Sheraton and Red Lion could just hop an elevator and drop down to the light rail. That would make Bellevue seem more like a big city. Fancy underground hotel stations, each with its own Starbuck's. But the point is we get this noisy thing below ground and that makes everyone happy. Let’s see, is there anyone out there that might get upset over this? Yeah, only those 45,000 daily riders and maybe a few taxpayers when they find out they have to pay for it. I don’t see a down side.
Al
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Washing Up in the Sink
Well I’ve been suffering from writer’s cramp. Basically all my subjects are in stagnation. SR 520 Floating Bridge: tolling delayed but nothing else going on; Alaska Way Viaduct: Stupid mayor still trying to obstruct but neither side actually doing anything; Light Rail in Bellevue: City Council still squabbling and nobody has changed sides; Newcastle Library: still digging the foundation, nothing above ground yet.
And that’s about how most everything is going right now. One thing that’s changed is the price of gas: that $4 gas is about the best running stuff yet; I can’t wait to get below a quarter tank again so I can get me some more of that sweet, smooth runnin’ gas.
Therefore the Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report will attempt to give advice. The benefit of giving advice in a blog is that you don’t have to listen to anyone who doesn’t want advice.
Here’s my advice: get a riding mower – those things are so cool. You don’t need a lawn, just go drive it around the local park. Wait, no, that’s not it. The advice is “get a new bathroom sink.” But you need to follow these steps to maximize the fun:
First order a sink on the internet. Its best if the sink is not the right one for your bathroom. Find a cheap sink and order it.
Second get a really expensive faucet set since the current set is not compatible with your cheap new sink. This is a crucial step. If you don’t do these first two the rest is not much of an adventure.
Third take out the old sink and make sure it leaves the premises – recycle, Goodwill, dump, whatever. Just make sure you can’t use it again.
Forth you discover the random sink you bought on the internet won’t fit the hole where the old sink was. Act annoyed for several hours.
These next steps may not have to be in any particular order since you’ve already made it past the point of no return.
Contemplate the idea of rebuilding the bathroom countertop to fit the new sink. This is because the expensive faucet set you bought has passed the 30 day return period so now you really have to use it.
Discard the idea of rebuilding the countertop. This is just wise.
Sleep on it and use the other bathroom. You do have more than one, right? If not why did you mess up your one bathroom? Call a professional.
OK, now you’ve slept on it and the result is that precious faucet set is your biggest investment in the sink project and it’s pretty critical that you use it. So how do we do that with the lowest cost? That’s now the pacing item, as we used to say at work.
Brilliant idea at 3:00 am! Buy a new cheap sink that fits both the existing countertop hole and the new platinum faucet set. What a great idea! The key here is that a new sink is still a fraction the cost of that faucet set so this plan is the lowest cost alternative. And it achieves the original goal of getting a new bathroom sink.
The next steps involve a lot of labor and cussing. We’ve all done this so I won’t bore you. The result is a great new sink with a really snazzy faucet set and the same old countertop that really looks cool with the new sink. What a great job. It only cost double the original plan not counting that expensive faucet set (that we won’t mention the cost of).
Well, another job well done. Until somebody reminds me there’s a perfectly good new sink sitting in the guest bedroom closet. Oh, right, now we have an extra sink. How does one deal with that?
Here’s an idea: we have a summer place (rich people have these too, but we’re only “acting” rich; it’s not really ours). Wow this saga is not over. What great news. I’m still under 700 words and I’m aiming for 1000.
A long time ago the actual summer place owners added a bathroom. As a gesture of goodwill (that word again) we contributed a sink. Completely different type. It has legs and a way to hook it to the wall so it didn’t need a countertop. Well, before it got to the summer place somebody dropped it and it broke. No problem, that’s what they invented epoxy for. By the time I saw the sink again it was ready to be installed but had some really ugly epoxy seems. Imagine my surprise!
Well, amazingly it still holds water and the installation went according to the form book, as Bertie Wooster used to say. So we’ve had a broken bathroom sink in that summer place for a quarter century. Brilliant idea: since we now have an extra sink at home why not replace the epoxy laden sink?
But it requires a countertop. It’s not the kind you hook to a wall and support on a couple of legs. No problem! I just get a chunk of laminate and a little plywood and build a countertop. I can do that standing on my head, as Bertie Wooster also used to say. Bertie had a lot of cool sayings.
All I need to do is visit the local Ace and pick up a few things and poof we have a new sink in the summer place. How hard can that be?
Well, it turns out that here in the glittering Greater Newcastle Metropolitan Area you can’t get a small sink top size laminate (some of us call it Formica). It comes eight feet long. What am I going to do with the other six feet of For, (sorry) laminate? Maybe I can… no that makes a small project into a major project probably consuming my whole summer. I’m a busy man; I’m retired so I don’t have a lot of free time like when I was working.
In addition we have a heater under the sink because there’s no central heating. We need to make sure the countertop is fireproof. This means I can’t just slap a laminate on plywood. More complication and costs.
After discovering all this and before actually buying any materials I decided to see if there was a faucet set that could fit somebody’s budget that would also match the wrong sink I bought several months ago. Here’s the show stopper – nothing that fits that sink can be had for less than the cost of a brick of gold. Wait, that’s how we got into this fix.
Here’s our decision: (This is why everyone respects us from coast to coast and border to border.) We decided that the whole project would benefit from abandonment. Give the damn sink to the Goodwill and quit trying to fit that cheap-ass sink into places that cost an arm and a leg! The sink was cheap. Getting it installed is the cost generator. So that’s the advice from the Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report: If at first you run into a roadblock don’t defy the Revenuers just quit the moonshine business and do something more fun.
Al
And that’s about how most everything is going right now. One thing that’s changed is the price of gas: that $4 gas is about the best running stuff yet; I can’t wait to get below a quarter tank again so I can get me some more of that sweet, smooth runnin’ gas.
Therefore the Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report will attempt to give advice. The benefit of giving advice in a blog is that you don’t have to listen to anyone who doesn’t want advice.
Here’s my advice: get a riding mower – those things are so cool. You don’t need a lawn, just go drive it around the local park. Wait, no, that’s not it. The advice is “get a new bathroom sink.” But you need to follow these steps to maximize the fun:
First order a sink on the internet. Its best if the sink is not the right one for your bathroom. Find a cheap sink and order it.
Second get a really expensive faucet set since the current set is not compatible with your cheap new sink. This is a crucial step. If you don’t do these first two the rest is not much of an adventure.
Third take out the old sink and make sure it leaves the premises – recycle, Goodwill, dump, whatever. Just make sure you can’t use it again.
Forth you discover the random sink you bought on the internet won’t fit the hole where the old sink was. Act annoyed for several hours.
These next steps may not have to be in any particular order since you’ve already made it past the point of no return.
Contemplate the idea of rebuilding the bathroom countertop to fit the new sink. This is because the expensive faucet set you bought has passed the 30 day return period so now you really have to use it.
Discard the idea of rebuilding the countertop. This is just wise.
Sleep on it and use the other bathroom. You do have more than one, right? If not why did you mess up your one bathroom? Call a professional.
OK, now you’ve slept on it and the result is that precious faucet set is your biggest investment in the sink project and it’s pretty critical that you use it. So how do we do that with the lowest cost? That’s now the pacing item, as we used to say at work.
Brilliant idea at 3:00 am! Buy a new cheap sink that fits both the existing countertop hole and the new platinum faucet set. What a great idea! The key here is that a new sink is still a fraction the cost of that faucet set so this plan is the lowest cost alternative. And it achieves the original goal of getting a new bathroom sink.
The next steps involve a lot of labor and cussing. We’ve all done this so I won’t bore you. The result is a great new sink with a really snazzy faucet set and the same old countertop that really looks cool with the new sink. What a great job. It only cost double the original plan not counting that expensive faucet set (that we won’t mention the cost of).
Well, another job well done. Until somebody reminds me there’s a perfectly good new sink sitting in the guest bedroom closet. Oh, right, now we have an extra sink. How does one deal with that?
Here’s an idea: we have a summer place (rich people have these too, but we’re only “acting” rich; it’s not really ours). Wow this saga is not over. What great news. I’m still under 700 words and I’m aiming for 1000.
A long time ago the actual summer place owners added a bathroom. As a gesture of goodwill (that word again) we contributed a sink. Completely different type. It has legs and a way to hook it to the wall so it didn’t need a countertop. Well, before it got to the summer place somebody dropped it and it broke. No problem, that’s what they invented epoxy for. By the time I saw the sink again it was ready to be installed but had some really ugly epoxy seems. Imagine my surprise!
Well, amazingly it still holds water and the installation went according to the form book, as Bertie Wooster used to say. So we’ve had a broken bathroom sink in that summer place for a quarter century. Brilliant idea: since we now have an extra sink at home why not replace the epoxy laden sink?
But it requires a countertop. It’s not the kind you hook to a wall and support on a couple of legs. No problem! I just get a chunk of laminate and a little plywood and build a countertop. I can do that standing on my head, as Bertie Wooster also used to say. Bertie had a lot of cool sayings.
All I need to do is visit the local Ace and pick up a few things and poof we have a new sink in the summer place. How hard can that be?
Well, it turns out that here in the glittering Greater Newcastle Metropolitan Area you can’t get a small sink top size laminate (some of us call it Formica). It comes eight feet long. What am I going to do with the other six feet of For, (sorry) laminate? Maybe I can… no that makes a small project into a major project probably consuming my whole summer. I’m a busy man; I’m retired so I don’t have a lot of free time like when I was working.
In addition we have a heater under the sink because there’s no central heating. We need to make sure the countertop is fireproof. This means I can’t just slap a laminate on plywood. More complication and costs.
After discovering all this and before actually buying any materials I decided to see if there was a faucet set that could fit somebody’s budget that would also match the wrong sink I bought several months ago. Here’s the show stopper – nothing that fits that sink can be had for less than the cost of a brick of gold. Wait, that’s how we got into this fix.
Here’s our decision: (This is why everyone respects us from coast to coast and border to border.) We decided that the whole project would benefit from abandonment. Give the damn sink to the Goodwill and quit trying to fit that cheap-ass sink into places that cost an arm and a leg! The sink was cheap. Getting it installed is the cost generator. So that’s the advice from the Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report: If at first you run into a roadblock don’t defy the Revenuers just quit the moonshine business and do something more fun.
Al
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)