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By Larry Lange
PostGlobe transportation reporter
Now the old lady on a bike will have another way to travel.
No longer will Puget Sound-area commuter trains just follow what have been freight train tracks. On July 18, light rail service will begin running on its own 14-mile corridor and is scheduled to reach Seattle-Tacoma International Airport by year’s end.
It’s the first leg of what’s eventually supposed to become a 60-mile system stretching from downtown Seattle to Lynnwood, Bellevue and into Pierce County.
There’s much anticipation about the coming of the initial $2.3 billion system, which will connect Seattle’s downtown transit tunnel with stations in eight other Seattle neighborhoods and one in Tukwila.
And although it’s a big change in transportation, it also may make a difference in the neighborhoods as people begin riding the trains. New housing is planned along the route, and some people expect more businesses will come, too.
“This place is going to come alive with lots of people walking,” predicted Mona Lee, an avid bicyclist who writes a blog called “Old Lady on a Bike.” “Now it’s just lots of cars going by.” She’s ready to take her bike on the trains, maybe to get to the top of Beacon Hill without having to pedal up it.
If it changes Lee’s life, how much the new line will change the corridor along Martin Luther King Jr. Way South isn’t clear, and developments likely will be driven by the economy. Many residents still have safety concerns about the line, most of which runs at street level. And it’s too early to tell how much prosperity the line will bring with its riders.
“I think people are going to ride it, but how many are going to get off here?” said Allen Jefferson, operator of a coffee shop near the Othello Street rail station.
SoundTransit Link light rail train leaves the Othello Station New Holly southbound on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. (Grant M. Haller)
Sound Transit has run commuter trains among Seattle, Tacoma and Everett for several years using shared freight-train tracks. The number of riders of those trains has generally grown, notably after gas prices escalated and travelers sought a cheaper work trip. As of April, the numbers have declined 1 percent as people lost jobs in a bad economy.
The new $2.7 billion, 14-mile line between downtown Seattle and Tukwila also is a rail operation but on a separate set of tracks and using lighter, electrically powered trains.
Planners and rail backers have long assumed that once people board trains that will carry them on rails separated from snarled traffic, they’ll keep using them and will give up their cars at least for work travel.
SoundTransit Link light rail train leaves the Columbia City Station S. Edmonds St southbound on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. (Grant M. Haller)
Sound Transit will offer free rides July 18 and 19, the first two days passengers can ride, and is preparing for as many as 100,000 riders the first day. Fares will be charged starting July 20 and will be based on distances traveled. In some cases, charges will be higher than for Metro buses during off-peak hours, and youths, seniors and disabled riders will pay more across the board for a ride separated from other traffic.
Several bus routes that serve the same areas as the rail line have been shortened in deference to the new trains.
The agency predicts 21,000 people will pay for rides on the initial system each weekday by the end of this year and 26,600 per day by mid-2010 once a Sea-Tac Airport station is finished and trains begin stopping there. But the really big numbers come later, with the agency predicting 91,000 boardings per weekday once the system expands to reach the University of Washington. Construction of the segment to the UW is scheduled for completion and opening in 2016.
Casual conversations with travelers about the new trains draw mixed responses, with most saying they’ll ride it depending on their needs to go downtown and the circumstances. “I’ll check it out, especially if I need to go to the airport,” said one Beacon Hill bus rider who gave his name only as Bobby. Rainier Beach resident Laura Cook, standing at a Metro stop on Rainier Avenue, said she’ll keep riding the bus to shop “unless I’m going downtown, and then I’ll take light rail.”
Having “another way of getting into the city is a blessing, in my book,” said Devin Quinn, manager of the Quality Rentals outlet near the Rainier Beach station.
SoundTransit Link light rail train heads south on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. (Grant M. Haller)
Areas around stations are expected to be come more heavily developed and more densely populated, bringing new businesses welcomed by some neighbors. Neighbors of the Othello Street station plan to celebrate the line’s opening day on a nearby vacant lot July 18, with live music, children’s activities and coupons to nearby businesses to attract visitors.
“I think there’s a commitment to making it work for us, supporting the neighbors that are here, supporting the neighborhoods that are here and bringing in additional businesses,” said Daphne Schneider, a NewHolly resident and member of an Othello Street station advisory group. “I think it will revitalize (that) neighborhood.”
The economy could be as much of a factor in that as the stations. Developer Othello Partners said it will break ground this month for a $70 million, 352-unit apartment complex across Martin Luther King Jr. Way South from the Othello Street station. It plans another complex on property directly north on the opposite side of Othello Street but is seeking financing for it.
One new development, a women’s homeless shelter, recently opened a block from the Othello Street station but remains partly unoccupied while the owner, Union Gospel Mission, tries to raise enough money to fill all of it. Other hoped-for developments await financing and improvements in sales potential. “We’re on hold, like most everybody else, because of the economy,” said Scott Shapiro of Eagle Rock Ventures, which proposes a 64-unit residential development near the Columbia City station.
On Beacon Hill, site of an underground station, there are plans to use part of South Lander Street near the station as a public space on occasion, and some hope for a new P-patch community garden or even a “town square” development between 14 th and 15th avenues a few blocks from the station.
City neighborhood coordinator Steve Louie said it’s not clear how much business the new line will produce on the hill, because the station is 165 feet underground. Residents there aren’t of a single mind yet how much more development and population is acceptable or whether the four-story building height limit should be raised.
“How high that is is very much debatable,” said Judith Edwards, chairwoman of the North Beacon Hill Council, a neighborhood group. “There’s no consensus.” Likewise, Columbia City resident Bill Sheehan recalls how the line took out more than a dozen houses in its path and how several businesses were lost when a nearby housing development was renovated. Some Rainier Valley residents worry higher prices will push others out.
“I think people are looking forward to it, with some caveats,” Edwards said of light rail.
PARKING
Workers put on finishing touches to the SoundTransit Link Othello Station New Holly on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. (Grant M. Haller)(
Also lurking is another question: parking in neighborhoods near the stations. Some community leaders don’t think parking will be a problem. The city established restricted-parking zones around the stations to make sure local residents can continue to park near their homes. The zones, however, are limited in size, and Edwards says some residents worry that outsiders will park all day just outside the zones. Residents are being supplied with free permits for two years, but after that, they will have to pay an annual fee based on the number of vehicles.
Jenna Walden of the Othello Neighborhood Association thinks parking could become a problem if more businesses move in close to stations. “The chicken-and-the-egg dilemma has been a constant,” she said.
Rainier Valley activist Patricia Paschal agrees “parking is a big issue. We’ll see what happens.” The city has prohibited building new parking facilities near the rail stations, fearing they’ll just create more traffic, but it “will closely monitor parking conditions and make adjustments as needed,” city transportation spokesman Rick Sheridan said.
SAFETY
Most of the line will run at street level, without crossing gates to separate trains from other vehicles. Trains sound bells when approaching crossings, and signs warn pedestrians to look both ways before crossing the tracks. “It’s no different than having to pay attention to cars,” Schneider said.
As of last week, there had been three train collisions with cars or people since preservice train testing began, including a collision Monday between a train and a car. The car driver suffered minor injuries. The other collisions involved another car and a pedestrian.
Some, such as Paschal, worry about the risk, saying the ground-level rails were “a dangerous thing to put down the middle of this area.” A 1999 environmental impact statement predicted 29 car-train collisions annually by 2020, based on other systems’ experience.
Sound Transit spokesman Bruce Gray said the trains travel the speed limits in Rainier Valley and the agency has integrated its signals with those for other vehicles. He said train operators weren’t at fault in the three collisions, because two of the collisions involved cars that made illegal left turns and the third involved a pedestrian crossing against a light before the impact.
Gray said Sound Transit has been talking about safety in the valley for two years, mailing fliers, visiting schools, distributing materials in 11 languages, setting up a children’s Web site to emphasize safety and discussing safety at a street fair. “I think we’ve done more than put out a few press releases,” he said. He said the impact statement also predicted 44 fewer vehicle-to-vehicle collisions along the route because of the addition of the rail line.
Some street-level adjustments are being made, sometimes with controversy. Seattle installed center curbs on South Graham Street near the rail line to help prevent collisions and stop traffic backups across the tracks. Merchants objected that the curbs restricted access to their businesses, but the city left the curbs in, citing a “clear safety issue.”
The city is still adjusting traffic signals on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South because of the trains. Residents have complained that traffic backs up for several light cycles after trains get the green light at South Alaska Street. Sheridan didn’t have information about that light but said the city is “working to strike a balance for all roadway users.”
LAND USE
Seattle is rethinking its land-use plans around the underground Beacon Hill station, the elevated station at Rainier Avenue and Lander Street and a street-level station at Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and Othello Street. Recommendations for changes are expected by the end of the year, neighborhood planning manager Lyle Bicknell said.
There’s no immediate plan to rethink land use around eight other Seattle stations with more recent land-use updates, though all allow greater development density than now exists.
Bicknell said other cities’ experiences shows people like the convenience of living near rail lines, but “our challenge will be to show how density can be done well.” City design standards apply just to the larger developments.
A few developments such as the NewHolly complex near the Othello station have popped up along the rail line, and “I suspect that, especially as the economy picks up, we’ll see more of that,” Bicknell said.
A controversial measure in this year’s Legislature, House Bill 1490, would have set minimum station-area housing densities at 50 dwellings per acre, as part of an attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The proposal was defeated after local officials and activists objected.
“The state, the city and regional authorities, along with transportation and environmental groups, have their eye on how this will be dictated,” Walden said. “The question is whether they will respect the local desires of how this should be integrated.”
FINANCES
The economy has raised other issues with the rail operation, too. Sound Transit has reduced by $2.2 billion its estimates of how much money its sales and motor vehicle excise taxes will raise to support its operations over the next 14 years, because less tax revenue is being produced than expected.
Agency critics and its own Citizen Oversight Panel have warned about rising costs for some time.
“In large part, Sound Transit appears healthy today from a fiscal standpoint precisely because, since 2006 (the original opening date), it has not been operating its promised Central Link rail line at all,” said Emory Bundy, a longtime Sound Transit watcher and critic.
Sound Transit spokesman Bruce Gray responds that the agency is fiscally healthy, “because our financial models and our operations try to err on the conservative side as much as possible.”
But after hearing more calls for cost controls, the agency convened a task force that late last month said it had found ways to save more than $300 million over 30 years. Measures included putting bus operation and maintenance out for competitive bids or negotiating better prices for the work; building its own bus maintenance base and doing itself the work it now has other agencies perform; seeking exemption from taxes on fares and train-operation payments; and speeding up construction of a train-maintenance facility.
“Given the fact that revenues are down, people are keenly aware of the need to be efficient,” said Dow Constantine, King County Council chairman, Sound Transit board member and King County executive candidate, who headed the task force. “We need to be watching every penny.”
Woman crosses in front of the SoundTransit Link light rail train's Othello Station New Holly on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. (Grant Haller)
