The board of the Tillicum Woodbrook Neighborhood Association (TWNA) has received a request from the design-build contractor for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to update this community concerning I-5 construction as it relates to the two interchanges for Tillicum.
There are two parts to this presentation scheduled for May 2, 6:30 P.M. at the Tillicum Community Center, 14916 Washington Ave. SW, Lakewood.
The first “is to provide a construction schedule update specific to Thorne Lane and the impacts on Union Avenue, as it will need to be closed for an extensive amount of time to raise the profile of it to match the new elevation of the Thorne overpass. You can see just how tall the Berkeley overpass is. Expect that Thorne will be just as tall.”
Presenters of WSDOT’s rail division will also be on hand to update the community concerning high-speed Amtrak trains coming through town.
Shortly after the December 18, 2017 derailment just south of Tillicum, a horrific crash of a train on its inaugural run that made international news as it took three lives and injured 62 others of the 77 passengers on board, the TWNA Board contacted WSDOT requesting the neighborhood be placed on the list of “communities along the bypass” that would be reached out to before service resumed.
As of this current announcement, the rail division is “still not certain when they will be returning to the Point Defiance Bypass, but they might have more information by May.
“No date has been set as they are awaiting the results of the investigation.”
Tillicum, along with the rest of Lakewood, has long opposed the rerouting of Amtrak Cascades service from along the Puget Sound waterfront to the life-congested neighborhoods paralleling I-5.
Turns out the fears of death by train – not an infrequent occurrence on the more remote shoreline – were not unfounded.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into the derailment of train 501 “is about two-thirds complete,” according to WSDOT’s project website.
Not until the NTSB issues its full report however can Amtrak Cascades return to the bypass.
Preliminary findings, according to a July 10, 2018 article by Mike Lindblom, Seattle Times transportation reporter, determined that the engineer of the train traveling at 80 mph on a 30-mile curve “tried in vain to see a speed-limit sign.”
The engineer had made only “one southbound training run in the new corridor between Lakewood and Nisqually.”
The engineer “told investigators about a last-minute change in locomotives” leading the NTSB to speculate that “his peripheral vision was hindered within the unfamiliar locomotive.”
“Event-recorder data say emergency brakes weren’t applied before the December crash.”
Michael DeCataldo, vice president of Amtrak operations, “admitted that as many as seven people rode in the front cab last year during night practice trips, exceeding Amtrak standards, in the Lakewood-Nisqually area.”
“The board mentioned the lack of ‘cab signals,’ that trigger an alarm if a speeding train passes trackside detectors.”
Positive Train Control (PTC) – lifesaving technology – had been required by Congress in be in place by the end of 2015 but as of the derailment in December of 2017 that had not been done.
One day after the derailment a co-authored story in “The Seattle Times” stated that “to fully collect federal stimulus money, construction had to be completed by mid-2017,” leading to the suggestion – one WSDOT disputes – that “officials pushed ‘aggressive’ timeline before safety technology was ready.”
The Amtrak derailment in Washington led six congressmen from the state in early January, 2018 to propose a bill that would prohibit the use of new passenger train routes until the train-stopping technology had been installed, according to Lindblom.
In July of 2018, Washington State Senator Steve O’Ban demanded to be brought to account those found derelict in their duties to ensure safety.
“It is my hope that upon the conclusion of its investigation, the NTSB will hold accountable those responsible for the events that led to the loss of life in my district.
“The victims’ families and my constituents deserve accountability from the appropriate personnel and agencies that caused this accident.”
According to a KIRO 7 report by Deborah Horne, September 15, 2018, PTC has now been installed.
For more information, WSDOT has a question and answer page on their website about the derailment.
Oh, and while we’re at it.
WSDOT is studying “Ultra-High-speed Ground Transportation” – a train that would travel the “about 350 miles” between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, BC at speeds up to 250 mph, arriving “in just a few hours” and, in some stretches, “might even share the same tracks” as Amtrak Cascades.
Compare this idea with what has happened with California’s plan to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, a comparable 381 miles.
Originally promoted to help sell initial bonding in 2008, the trip in California was projected to take only two hours and 40 minutes. Now, the best-case scenario would have been three hours, thirty minutes.
‘Would have been’ except that the original estimate of $32 billion has now ballooned to “an obscenely expensive” $77 billion and has prompted California’s Governor Gavin Newsom to derail further train funding – for now – with not even 165 miles of track yet finished.
President Trump ‘billed’ Newsom $3.5 billion saying in a tweet the Federal Government wanted their (taxpayers) money back for promises not kept for the project that was supposed to have been completed in 2020 but which – were funding even available – wouldn’t see the train arriving until 2033.
It’s trains sucking funds into sinkholes like this – California’s and Washington’s – that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC, and Democrats all) touts as part of America’s “example to the world” in her so-called Green Deal (gangrene more appropriate) that ecologically – according to AOC – saves the planet. People should ride trains not planes she says, all while spending seven times more on air fare during her campaign than purchasing train tickets.
All of which leads Jim Geraghty of “The Morning Jolt”, February 14, 2019 to write, “If California — which, if measured as a separate country, would be the fifth-biggest economy on earth — doesn’t have the tax base to support a project like this, no state does.”
Including Washington.
Why can’t government just STOP with passenger trains? It was a great part of history in the 1800s to provide a means to connect the East to the West but, their time has passed as a means for personal travel. It is no longer practical for people to travel by train. Even so, when they got off of the train, folks walked or rode horses or buggies to get where they were really going. Of course, in communist Soviet Union (Russia), where people are forced into cramped and dirty cities, trains still work great–at a huge loss of personal freedom! But, we are not, and never will be, a socialist/communist country where the government dictates where we live and how or when we move about the country.
Trains are still a very competitive means for transporting large volumes of goods to and from ports to major American destinations, especially bringing products from Asia through Tacoma and Seattle, for example, to the rest of the continent. But, trains haven’t worked very well for moving people since both automobile and air travel were invented and revolutionized passenger travel throughout the entire world!
So, let’s talk about the future, not the past. I am certain that various means for travel haven’t even been invented that will make existing forms of travel, or brand new forms, a much better and less costly method to get around. No one would pay to ride a train if they had to pay the actual cost of the ticket without any government taxes stealing from the rest of us. Just like the Sounder and all those Puget Sound government fantasies keep stealing from my CAR tabs to pay for the TRAIN, taxes against the people should not be taken against the public purse to lower the actual cost of train travel. Does anybody know how much a Sounder ticket from Lakewood to Seattle ($5.75, one-way, https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/how-to-pay/fares/sounder-train-fares ) would cost without stealing tax money? My guess is that it would be MUCH MORE!
At least when I pay for gasoline in my car, I am using the road systems for which the tax is paying. But, that is a voluntary choice I make. It isn’t forced upon me by government, like in communist countries. If folks want to take a train or other public transportation, then simply charge the actual cost and stop taking the real cost from me. I don’t need trains or buses and, they don’t work with my type of work, lifestyle and transportation needs so, why am I forced to pay for them?
Take a look at the cost of the high speed rail project in California which apparently has been put on hold after wasting $5B+ on a project that has ballooned to $77B and will go higher: all this for less than 200 miles of rail between a couple of cities. Just imagine the cost of a country wide conversion to high speed rail and that’s only 200mph rather than 550mph of air travel .The difference in cost between highways and rail is staggering. The Cali project was costing $30,000+ a running foot while a 6 lane interstate costs about $1700 a running foot…….about 20 times more efficient per foot not to speak of the huge increase in passenger traffic capacity and lower operating maintenance costs and the flexibility that roads provide. Simple question: how are you going to get from the rail line to your home? Walk? Miles? I guess everyone will have to live in crowded city sky scrapers adjacent to rail stations. Ahhh!…. that is part of their plan; to herd everyone into urban areas where they can be more easily domesticated and made dependent upon these very politicians. Every one of these rail lines, like AMTRAC would also have to be subsidized or have sky high fares. Don’t these politicians have calculators to figure this out before the open their mouths? Their ignorance and stupidity is astounding!
AMTRAC is a wonderful way to travel, if you have the time. Taking the train to LA, for example is a 2 night overnight. Even with the mess at the airport, flying is about 6 hours getting there and getting out of the airport at the end. Locally, trains make sense. I have taken the train to Portland, Bellingham and Longview. Cheap, comfortable, and efficient. Took about the same amount of time as driving but a lot easier. Am currently planning a trip to Albuquerque in early 2020. Four + days on the train and the fare’s not much lower than flying. Sorry, AMTRAC. Buses to Seattle are still a better bet. Sounder takes over 1 hour, lots of stops and starts, with an exit at King Street Station and a change to city bus to get around in Seattle. Bus goes all the way to central Seattle in about 45 minutes.