Bellevue's light-rail study a waste of time and money

AS Bellevue faces its own gaping budget hole, questions remain as to where the city is placing its priorities. The hotly contested issue of where to expand light rail in Bellevue has tested the city's can-do image, setting off recent shenanigans and spending frenzies among a City Council generally regarded as competent and fiscally prudent.

In October, the council authorized spending $670,000 to study a revised version of the B7 light-rail route, an alignment supported by four members of the council. A few of the revisions are raising eyebrows, including a new six-story parking garage in the Enatai neighborhood, despite the proximity of an existing park-and-ride lot less than a half-mile away.

The $670,000 covers only a small portion of a larger three-phase study that could take up to three years to complete and cost more than $3 million, an amount currently not in the budget. That would come on top of the $800,000 already spent studying light rail.

The study's timing is questionable. Sound Transit, which has repeatedly opposed the B7 route for environmental impacts and low ridership, plans on deciding its final light-rail alignment next spring, months before Bellevue's $670,000 study is even scheduled for completion. Such a late and costly study treads the line of obstructionism, calling into question how much responsibility the city even bears when it comes to regional transit matters.

A 1999 ruling in a state growth-management case between Sound Transit and the city of Tukwila found that cities "may not make decisions regarding [light rail] system location" but instead are obligated to "accommodate" the regional transit authority's chosen alignment.

Even still, a string of political shenanigans have accompanied the spending frenzy among the Bellevue City Council's B7 supporters. When the light-rail study was originally discussed in early September, pro-B7 Councilman Kevin Wallace sneaked his own study proposal into the council's discussion materials. Conveniently stripped of an author's identity, the proposal turned out to be written by none other than a known Sound Transit critic.

Wallace's ire for Sound Transit showed again the following week when he sparked a full-fledged shouting match with Councilwoman Claudia Balducci, a Sound Transit Board member, over the light-rail debate.

Recent council conduct over light-rail discussions should be disconcerting to residents. As the council continues to exhaust the city's coffers and time on light rail, the rest of Bellevue is facing serious budget realities, ranging from reductions in park services to a 40 percent cut in funding for local arts groups.

A Nov. 15 city budget hearing attracted more than 50 speakers, each testifying on behalf of issues ranging from human services to transportation. Even younger residents are paying attention. Students from Bellevue High School's swim and water polo teams have recently showed up at city meetings, pleading with the council to address the astonishing lack of aquatic facilities in Bellevue.

More startling is a $100 million hole in the city's Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), which funds various capital projects across the city. Many now run the risk of being deferred or canceled indefinitely.

Some of the cuts are not without irony — one neighborhood-approved project cut in the CIP would have made sidewalk improvements near Enatai Elementary School, protecting schoolchildren and pedestrians from vehicle traffic brought in by the very park-and-ride lot the council's pro-B7 quorum has endorsed in its proposed study.

Bellevueites deserve better than this. Such political acrimony in a time when real leadership is needed is an embarrassment to a city considered one of the country's best places to live. Yet if the City Council continues to tread down the path of fights and fiscal recklessness, there may not be much to boast about anymore.