Eastside should be light rail, says Bellevue
In a highly anticipated (at least by me) decision, the Bellevue city council voted 5–2 in favor of the Light Rail option (over the Bus Rapid Transit alternative). Although just about everyone who had officially weighed in on this prior to the Bellevue decision (ie – Redmond, Kirkland, Issaquah) had been in favor of light rail, Bellevue had seemed on the verge of pulling a Georgetown (ie – trying to avoid “that element” coming into their community by not participating in the region-wide mass transit solution, then later on regretting it and having to hack together something much worse than rail) and not endorsing light rail into/through their community.
According to the KC Journal article, the two no votes both wanted to stall and talk about it more rather than decide between the light rail and bus rapid transit options as Sound Transit was requesting.
We’ve still got a long, LONG way to go before I (and thousands of others) can ride the train out to work in Redmond and avoid getting stuck in traffic for an hour each day… but it’s a step in the right direction!
Evan Dodds - Non-work-related blog » Eastside should be light rail, says SoundTransit said,
July 14, 2006 at 8:12 am
[...] In a rapid follow-up to my post the other day, the final word is in… Sound Transit is going to go to the voters in 2007 with the Light Rail option. Great news for the future of the whole of the Puget Sound area, and great news for those of us who live in Seattle but work in Redmond (or Bellevue)! [...]