The Bellevue City Council hit its first checkpoint with consultants Arup North America LTD, which is developing an in-depth study on the council’s preferred Eastlink light-rail alignment.
The meeting was an early preview of the main issues Arup is working through to develop a report to be out early in the summer. The most discussed aspects of running light-rail along the BNSF rail corridor included navigating various sensitive areas in the Mercer Slough and the design of a new park-and-ride station near Interstate 90.
Representatives from Arup told the council they are working on ways to clear up some of the issues surrounding the slough and park-and-ride. Council members encouraged them to come up with the best solutions to the problems, even if it means presenting new ideas.
“We want to have an alignment that has the ridership, has cost and functionality that is very excellent for the system as well as the region,” said councilmember Jennifer Robertson.
One of the main concerns with the B7 alignment has been the need to go across the Mercer Slough to get to the rail corridor. Arup project manager John Eddy said a primary goal of the study is to minimize damage to the slough and reduce costs of mitigation.
“We don’t like to touch lousy material often,” Eddy said of the soft soil in the slough. “The more you have to touch the more mitigation you have to do.”
A new station for the B7-revised alignment has been a point of contention among the public. The consultants talked about an idea that’s been floated of building a smaller station and adding another on 118th Avenue Northeast. But, Eddy said, two stations are likely to be more expensive than one.
In December, the council authorized an expense of $670,000 and hired Arup to study the B7-Revised route in order to get an “apples to apples” comparison with the B7 route studied by Sound Transit in its draft environmental impact statement for East Link.
The study will include early engineering and environmental work. One element of the work was an open house was held on Jan. 25 and it attracted about 185 attendees.
A second public meeting and open house will be held March 8, to present preliminary work of the study. The event is from 5-7 p.m. on the first floor of City Hall. It will include two presentations, at 5:15 p.m. and again at 6:15 p.m., to unveil work done to that point. Topics will include route alignment, station and park-and-ride layouts, environmental issues, private property considerations, and traffic.
A third public meeting is also planned as part of the process, along with additional council meetings. Arup will produce a concept design report on the B7-Revised alternative this summer. Once the report is completed, additional environmental and engineering work would be needed to bring the B7-Revised analysis up to a similar level as the various route alternatives already studied by Sound Transit.
Sound Transit prefers the B2M route that enters into downtown through Bellevue Way and 112th Avenue, a route the council voted against 4-3 because of its potential impacts on neighborhoods.
