Why would a street-level light rail alignment be so bad for downtown Bellevue?
Taking up road capacity with a light rail line at street level would severely impact the ability to accommodate buses, bikes, vanpools, cars and pedestrians as downtown continues to grow. An inability to expand downtown streets and a handful of critical intersections constrain the capacity of the system. Especially problematic are three major downtown streets – Northeast Eighth Street, Northeast Fourth Street and Bellevue Way – which carry a high volume of traffic to regional highways. If traffic signals are adjusted to accommodate light rail it will have a severe effect on the entire network, resulting in increased congestion. More congestion, in turn, would delay light rail trains, creating a choke point for the entire East Link system.
