Bellevue City Council needs backbone on light rail route

The Bellevue City Council’s study request of the BNSF light rail alternative route by Sound Transit is an exercise in wasted effort as the route is clearly defective in two important ways.

First the route bypasses the high density population and business center of Bellevue with its downtown transit station. As such, the route fails the fundamental test of any mass transportation system, which is to connect the primary origins and destinations of commuters and shoppers.

Second, the route needlessly intrudes and damages forever the 300 acre Mercer Slough Nature Park, a wetland carefully assembled and developed by the city over the past two decades.

Surely a superior route can be found preserving the integrity of the park while providing an effective light rail hub for Bellevue. But to do that the council must display a bit of backbone and dismiss the noisy complaints of a selfish few who spout tiresome, and questionable, NIMBY arguments about route alternatives paralleling portions of Bellevue Way.

R.T. (Dick) Haelsig, Bellevue

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