Perhaps we’ve all gone mad. Railroaded. Tug of war. Only it’s not a game so none of us let go.
Lakewood’s Mayor Don Anderson does not like being run over, nor any of his citizens either for that matter he says – referring to Amtrak’s soon-to-begin (December 18) passenger trains traveling at high speed (79 mph) 14 times/day through “the urban heart of Lakewood and South Tacoma.”
When it comes to the Rental Inspection Program, citizens don’t like being railroaded either. Or pulled in a direction they don’t want to go.
“The mayor of Lakewood believes it is just a matter of time before these highspeed trains kill someone,” Anderson said in a response to a presentation by state transportation workers Monday night at City Council.
The KOMO news headline of December 4 read “Lakewood mayor predicts deadly accidents from high-speed train service,” and in the accompanying article Anderson said “grade separations – such as overpasses – should be included to keep trains away from cars and pedestrians.
“‘Come back when there is that accident, and try to justify not putting in those safety enhancements, or you can go back now and advocate for the money to do it, because this project was never needed and endangers our citizens,’” Anderson said.
So much saber-rattling.
The Point Defiance Bypass project has already laid 14.5 miles of new and upgraded track, reconstructed five at-grade crossings, and spent $181.5 million to do so (including a new Tacoma Dome Station) in rerouting trains away from the scenic Puget Sound to instead parallel I-5.
And cut through the heart (literally) of the city.
But demanding grade separations at this point is not unlike whistling past the graveyard.
Which – graveyards – we’ll need more space for. Yes, people will die.
“This year alone, more than 30 people have been killed by trains in Washington; over half of those were pedestrians.”
But that won’t happen here. At least not often. Not to hear the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) tell it.
To save an estimated 10 minutes of Amtrak travel time from Seattle to Portland, WSDOT estimates Lakewood and its neighbors can expect one accident every decade or so.
So that’s cool.
According to WSDOT’s Point Defiance Bypass Environmental Assessment (Appendix F: Traffic and Transportation Discipline Report, p.83), “None of the individual crossings are predicted to experience accidents more frequently than one in every 10 years.”
To Lakewood’s credit, in March of 2013, Lakewood sued WSDOT to stop the Point Defiance Bypass project.
One year later, March of 2014, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Katherine M. Stolz ruled against Lakewood.
Lakewood cited safety among its concerns specifically with regards the Tillicum community.
“The Tillicum community would be directly impacted by the rerouted trains,” wrote reporter Brynn Grimley in the Tacoma News Tribune, January 8, 2014.
Lakewood’s lawsuit described Tillicum, together with its cross-I-5 neighbor Woodbrook, as comprising a total of 4,754 people, with but one way, in the case of Tillicum, in and out of town: across the railroad tracks.
“The Point Defiance Bypass Project threatens to destroy progress made in this neighborhood,” said Lakewood.
In its lawsuit, Lakewood charged WSDOT with “arbitrary and capricious conduct,” and inadequate mitigation. “No meaningful mitigation is proposed,” read the city’s complaint.
But, its protestations notwithstanding, Lakewood lost to the bigger bully’s muscling its might along their right-of-way.
The citizens – and the loss of their fourth amendment rights against wrongful search as many judge the implications of the Rental Inspection Program to be – have likewise lost to the might of Lakewood’s forced entry into heretofore protected private rental spaces.
Though clearly as affective as pushing Jell-O up a hot slide, the pushback against the powers-that-be – whether Lakewood against WSDOT in the case of Amtrak, or the citizens against their city in the case of the Rental Inspection Program – either prove we’re all mad, or maybe there’s an important principle at stake worth hanging on for.
You know though, at the same time, every time we put in a new road ANYWHERE, the reality is that people will die on it. They’ll run off the road. They’ll hit a tree. They’ll drive distracted. Something bad will happen there, and we accept that as the price of more efficient and faster travel. Don’t we?
So this is different how?
Yes, people will die anywhere. It’s just that in this case (although a moot point given the trains are coming, the track has been laid, the crossings are made safer, the horns will be directionally louder, etc.) WSDOT’s Amtrak reroute inarguably takes highspeed trains away from the relatively more remote scenic waterfront (where people have died in numerous train encounters) and thrusts them instead through far more life-congested neighborhoods where they will now travel and statistically deaths will likely increase proportionally to the populace.
As to “efficient and faster travel” while, again, a moot point, a case may be made that Amtrak is not the best means to that end.
“‘Amtrak has virtually no impact on reducing traffic congestion, pollution, or energy use. Even a doubling of train ridership would reduce energy consumption and traffic congestion by less than 0.1 percent. It is estimated that Amtrak removes barely 2 percent of lane capacity – considerably below the threshold required for construction of a new lane, much less a new freeway or toll road. Growth in traffic is dependent on economic growth, business expansion, and suburban growth, which Amtrak has virtually no capability of affecting.’ Amtrak At Twenty – End of the Line for Taxpayer Subsidies, auto analysis # 266, by Jean Love, Wendell Cox and Stephen Moore
The question begs to be asked: What are we saving time for?
What are we saving time for with these Amtrak trains? In a word: shopping.
In a letter dated November 14, 2008, David Bugher, Community Development Director, Assistant City Manager for Development, City of Lakewood, writes to George Xu, Planning and Strategic Assessment Manager, WSDOT State Rail and Marine Office.
Noteworthy in this letter is Bugher’s systematic and extensive (6 pages) verbal ‘derailment’ of the State Rail office’s “plan”.
Specifically, Bugher exposes the real intent of WSDOT – in WSDOT’s own words – to “embrace transportation strategies to change driving patterns.” And even that claim Bugher disputes calling WSDOT’s preferred method of travel “debatable as applied to Amtrak Cascades service.”
And then this, more specific to your question as to what – in truth – the time-savings is for. Again, from WSDOT itself: “over 80 percent of Cascades trips are leisure-based.”
In other words, there is no “demand for Amtrak Cascades service,” as WSDOT would have the public believe, but the whole expenditure of federal funds – the new station, the track, the crossings, the horns, etc. is, in Bugher’s words, “strongly tied to marketing.”
As if that were not enough, WSDOT’s contention that “of every $1 billion invested in rail, an estimated 20,000 new jobs would be created curbing global warming and supporting cleaner energy” prompted Bugher to suggest this and several other claims were not only “superficial”, but Bugher even goes so far as to suggest WSDOT’s claims are “outrageous” since, in several instances Bugher writes, “no supporting data or evidence (is) included to offer a logical foundation for the argument.”
WOW!! $181.5 million spent on this project, and the goal is 10 minutes faster to Portland? Eh, lets think about this again. Now Men this is the plan, we spend someones money to build a new train that goes from Seattle to Portland and is 10 minutes faster??? Yay, we like the SOUND of that. All new Track, new Train Station and a really fast Train that when it crash’s, nobody will be in the office to handle all the calls for Help! Wasn’t in the Budget Boy’s!! Safety should be the number one concern on this project, who the heck cares if you might be TEN minutes faster, is there a Bargain Price Ticket for all this Speed. Ten minutes is Bee’s Wax, a cover coat for Big Bully’s to get what they want! Is anyone’s life worth Ten minutes, how about a Child’s life. Should have said, Built to the Highest Standards of Railway Safety with no Possible passenger injury or death’s possible!! Bla, bla, bla! Maybe one every Ten years it was noted from the Bully’s! Slow that Train down and you could have a calmer group of passengers and the crossings will be safer for all the neighbor hoods! Train People, it could be your family member that is injured in this plan of yours, think about that!!
I cringe when I think of all the commuters that will be negatively impacted by the 14 trains travelling through our streets every day. Just what do Lakewood’s residents get out of this deal (don’t answer). Oh Well, let’s just expect to arrive at a destination a couple minutes later every time we get in a vehicle. This adds up!
Waste of more time. They are here. Get over it.
And now we have catastrophic evidence that the WSDOT & Amtrak bypass was more than a fool’s folly. Today’s Dupont crash, which was also mentioned in the Lakewood lawsuit, is a disaster that should not have happened.
I have no doubt that Judge Katherine Stolz should shoulder significant blame for summarily dismissing the valid concerns laid out in Lakewood’s lawsuit.