On June 1, the center lanes on Interstate 90 will be closed for six years or more, causing traffic and safety trouble for all who use I-90, especially on Mercer Island. The Washington State Department of Transportation now owns the rights to the I-90 center lanes, and unless directed by the Legislature to take the time to carefully review critical traffic and safety issues and alternatives, WSDOT will transfer those rights to Sound Transit (ST) and the closure will be immediate and irreversible.
Who can direct WSDOT to require ST to honor prior written agreements, fully disclose details of the safety and traffic issues and reduce the impact of construction and closure from six to two years? The State Legislature can. And who holds the keys in the state legislature? Rep. Judy Clibborn.
After having testified to the Senate Transportation Committee and the House Transportation Committee, attended a Republican Leadership Council, spoken to four State Senators and six House Representatives and several Mercer Island City Councilmembers, I am convinced the key to requiring WSDOT to delay the I-90 center lane closure in order to address all of the promises made and to look more deeply into the safety issues rest with Rep. Clibborn. The problem is in Clibborn’s district and therefore it is dependent upon her, since she is Chair of the House Transportation Committee, to take the lead or at least support legislation to stop the I-90 center lane closure. It’s with respect and awe that such a momentous and important decision rests on this one person.
Rep. Clibborn introduced a budget proviso that would require Island Crest Way access to I-90, but did not address the promised HOV access or the mitigation for mobility required on town center streets or ST parking. It does nothing to reduce the time of construction disruption and congestion. A previous editorial in the Mercer Island Reporter set out the details of a proviso that can and should be added to the Island Crest Way proviso Clibborn introduced.
The Legislature can and should take action now to direct WSDOT to honor those agreements, to buy time to work with USDOT on HOV access and to limit the construction disruption and time to two years from six years. But most important, it will buy time to make sure the plans for the bridge and tunnels are safe.
Unless changed soon, on June 1, the outer I-90 lanes between I-5 and I-405 will be narrowed from three lanes, 12 feet wide with full shoulders, into four lanes, 11 feet wide with narrow shoulders. The tunnel lanes will be even more narrow — only 10.5 feet wide.
We already know from a strikingly similar bridge that this will cause more accidents and deaths. The Brent Spence Bridge (BSB) serves I-71 and I-75 across the Ohio River. In 1985, transportation officials narrowed the BSB lanes from 3 x 12 foot lanes to 4 x 11 foot lanes. As a direct result, the BSB became one of only 15 major interstate bridges labeled as “functionally obsolete” for failure to meet safety and traffic flow standards. It ranks No. 7 for bridges with a highest crash rate. Motorists are five times more likely to have a wreck now on the BSB bridge than on the Ohio, Kentucky or Indiana Interstate systems. About eight bridge accidents a month are bad enough to require police presence. Overnight, the I-90 reconfiguration will in all likelihood endanger lives and create a new burden on taxpayers to replace a dangerous bridge with what with all probability will be classified as “functionally obsolete.”
Let there be no confusion about my sentiment that the risks to regional mobility and safety exceed light rail benefits. While on the Mercer Island City Council, I made numerous public statements questioning the engineering and throughput assumptions of a train over a floating bridge, along with the safety issues on the outer lane re-configuration.
Sound Transit has not been open and honest on car tabs or safety. Last month, Sound Transit announced an unbudgeted $225M engineering modification needed for the train over the floating bridge — after earlier reports supposedly identified all of the safety and engineering challenges. ST must have known about this before the November ST3 ballot, but did not disclose it or the real effect of the car tab taxes. The Legislature needs to direct WSDOT to delay the transfer of center lane rights to ST until the prior promises can be kept, the disruption delayed and the safety thoroughly studied. Otherwise, the region has only the Mercer Island lawsuit to protect the region from a rush to break promises and to create a more dangerous bridge without a way to undo the damage.
My ask is for you to write Rep. Clibborn. Ask her to delay the closure of the center lane. The I-90 outer lane reconfiguration (R8A) from three lanes to four lanes has safety risk. Our political leaders have the responsibility to have a backup plan. That backup plan is to delay the center lane closure.
Mike Cero
Mercer Island
