Regarding the letter “What’s to debate?” actually, the decision-making on East Link light rail is not over until the Federal Transit Administration’s Record of Decision is issued. East Link is a federalized project, and Federal rules matter, which Sound Transit accepts willingly because it needs the U.S.as a funding partner throughout its pending, multi-billion dollar light rail network.

At issue are the details of how the trains will be routed between I-90 and downtown Bellevue.

A leader of the Bellevue-based opposition to Sound Transit’s choice of alignment through residential areas south of the CBD has said that Sound Transit’s B2M plan cannot be mitigated to protect people from excessive noise, visual blight, environmental degradation to the Mercer Slough and to our arboreal heritage, etc.

“Arboreal heritage” is about Sound Transit’s preferred plan to cut down hundreds of trees where it wants the train tracks to go.

As Bellevue Reporter Staff Writer Nat Levy has reported in the past, the city has studied a different, freeway-following route for the tracks that avoids these impacts, and engineering professionals with credentials equal to Sound Transit have now demonstrated that it will cost no more and attract just as many passengers.

Bellevue residents seem to agree about where the tracks should go in downtown Bellevue, in the new Bel-Red transit-oriented development zone, and on to Microsoft. Why the train needs to be built to disrupt the lives of residents in neighborhoods south of downtown seems to be the hot question that is far from decided, and of course that question is most pertinent to those being disrupted.

John Niles, Bellevue