I am always astounded by the notion that Sound Transit has an accurate idea of what their preferred alignment will cost, considering that they are billions of dollars over budget. Not to mention the fact that the recently released, independent Arup study showed that the B7 alignment would have a ridership of 1,500 more per day than the ST preferred alignment.

Another thing that ST is not telling you – their estimates do not include the cost of sound mediation, i.e. concrete walls all along 112th. I’m not an expert, but I’m guessing that will be pretty expensive. Not to mention that the ST alignment would cross two busy streets every 5-10 minutes.

Maybe I’m missing something, but isn’t mass transit supposed to decrease traffic congestion? I also love how ST portrays pro-B7 citizens as anti-sustainability, while ST proposes an alignment that will shave off a massive swath of the Mercer Slough wetland.

And who knows, maybe ST could stay on budget for once if it did not spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on lobbying and by being fined by the Public Disclosure Commission for not reporting their expenditures.

That’s right Sound Transit – blame it all on those annoying Bellevue citizens who don’t want to have their homes taken from them.

James Alastair