My comments at the September 2015 'Listening Session' - I ran out of time but later had the entire document entered into the record.  

East Link is failed from the start.  Stop now and spend the money in ways that would actually improve traffic.   I lived in South Seattle during the light rail project, I was very supportive in the beginning.  What we got was inferior system on many levels.  East link is shaping up to not only be inferior, but flat out irresponsible.  It is a technically, operationally, and fiscally a failed program. 

Many issues exist and I'm just going to list as many as possible given the limited time:

• 11 open engineering issues - 4 were supposed to close by 60% design
• Critical issue remain and the project is slipping

• Closing the center lane for 7 years is not only inconvenient, it simply doesn’t make sense.  It took 6 years to build the transcontinental railroad. 

• Bus turn-around on the island will further increase congestion.  This issue will remain as the communities to the East along the I-90 corridor and south towards Renton would still present a need for bus service integration.

• The best headway of the system will be a train every ~7.5 minutes in each direction.   This is a capacity constraint based on the downtown Seattle transit tunnel which is dictated by the life safety of the systems.

• The utility of the train is less than a given general lane - people don't just work in downtown cores on 'traditional' schedules. 

• When you factor the penalties associated with reduced lane width the extra outer road lanes will not perform as well as the existing ones.  This will be especially true when we have off-normal conditions such as accidents or the occasional visiting dignitary. 

• We have a transportation system.  This includes all modes including our sea and air ports.  Transit continues to receive a lionshare of the overall dollars while serving less than 10% of the volume.  The transportation system is a network, yet ST analysis in the FEIS ignores the complexity and presents a simplistic analysis that fails to explain critical network effects.  Just as traffic shifted north and south when 520 tolling, the WSDOT folks tried going for tolls over I-90 under the guise of balancing the flow, ignoring the network effects.

• Assuming all the other inconveniences are addressed, commuting by transit more than doubles my commute.  This will not change with light rail, in fact it will likely get longer.  The extra time from transit already would account for my 240 hours of additional time spent commuting in a year.
• Not only is it the time, but timing.  To make tonight's meeting I left the office in Seattle at 430 and arrived at 5.  To take the bus, based on the schedule I would have had to leave at 400 to catch the bus.

• Technology is changing.  Automatic and autonomous vehicles are coming and will increase capacity of general purpose lanes.  It will look really silly at the ribbon cutting of the East Link in 15 years when most vehicles have some level of automation that will support cooperative behaviors.   Don't think this is real or possible?  How many had smartphones in 2007, less than 10 years ago.  What tech changes come in the next few years will be no different. 

Fixes? Ideas?  What are some solutions?  I support the idea that we need transit, but it needs to be sustainable.

<I ran out of time right about here…>

• Why didn't WSDOT build the R8A configuration years ago?  We could use the capacity today.

• Why doesn't WSDOT address the constraints in downtown Seattle?  They spent piles of money on Mercer, only to dump the traffic into a constrained I-5.  The parkway look with trees and cross walks is nice, but it literally is a 'park' way.

• Why not configure the center roads to 3 lanes?  The width is there and constructions could cut those lanes cross lake.  Bring those lanes all the way through from I-5 to I-405 with fly-overs to merge HOV traffic efficiently.

• Why not use the rail corridor that exists on the east side to provide a around the lake loop with BRT integrated on cross-lake routes.  This could be up and running quickly with little disruption to private property, would cost less and likely service more (I'd want to see some analysis to confirm).

• Crime - I'm guessing ST isn't paying for a likely increase in crime in our community as the result of these changes. (http://economics.uoregon.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2014/07/Zukerman_Criminal-Activity-and-Transit_2014.pdf)

Thinking people will reconsider previously held notions and challenge their assumptions.  Sound Transit and WSDOT need to do the same.