ST Express 550 riders can’t wait for East Link

On occa­sion, when I make a cross-lake jour­ney using Sound Tran­sit’s ST Express, I step upon a bus that’s packed tighter than a can of sar­dines. Today end­ed up being one of those days — even though my trip took place before rush hour. My sus­pi­cion is that the Blue Angels’ prac­tice had some­thing to do with it, because the squadron’s per­for­mance over Lake Wash­ing­ton caused Inter­state 90 to be closed twice (once in the morn­ing and once in the after­noon). This forced the rerout­ing of the 550 Express, which nor­mal­ly goes over I‑90.

I chose to wait until after I‑90 was reopened to go back across Lake Wash­ing­ton. But appar­ent­ly many oth­er peo­ple had the same idea, because the 550 I walked onto had bare­ly any room. After the doors had closed, I turned to the per­son behind me (who had gra­cious­ly made room for me) and said, I wish we had light rail run­ning through this corridor.

“Oh, man,” he said. “That’s what we need!”

All the peo­ple around us nod­ded their agreement.

Anoth­er spoke up and lament­ed that East Link was still more than a decade away. “That might be true,” I replied, “but at least the project is mov­ing for­ward.” I explained that just last Thurs­day, the Sound Tran­sit Board had select­ed an align­ment for East Link which Belle­vue’s City Coun­cil could live with. Every­body who was fol­low­ing the con­ver­sa­tion seemed very pleased to hear this.

Tim Eyman and Kem­per Free­man can blus­ter all they want, but the real­i­ty is, the peo­ple of Puget Sound want this project. They vot­ed for this project. And they expect Sound Tran­sit to build what it promised.

The beau­ty of light rail is that it offers a faster, clean­er, more reli­able com­mute. Light rail is some­thing peo­ple know they can depend on. The ser­vice is fre­quent enough that you can ride with­out a sched­ule. Trains don’t have to dwell as long at stops as bus­es because peo­ple just walk on or off (no stand­ing at the door wait­ing to pay your fare!) And you don’t have to wor­ry about traf­fic, because light-rail runs in its own right-of-way.

Peo­ple who have to cross Lake Wash­ing­ton on a reg­u­lar basis (like me!) have been ready for East Link for a long time. We want it to come it online as soon as pos­si­ble… and we wish that it already had.