The July 23rd article “Access to light rail remains unsolved,” about how the city and Sound Transit plan to mitigate bus traffic, mentioned three scenarios, yet the details of only two were covered in the article: one that would displace two Mercer Island families from their homes (cost $8-11 million) and the other that would impact a portion of the sculpture park (cost $13-18 million). I wondered why the MI Reporter didn’t dig deeper to report on why the option to route bus traffic through downtown wasn’t under consideration. The implication from Mayor Bassett’s comment is that it would be a bad idea to do so, however no concrete reasons were given for what factors were considered to discard that option. Given the cost of the two options covered in the article, and particularly given that demolishing someone’s home and displacing their family shouldn’t be done unless it’s the only viable option, I’m very interested in hearing more in-depth reporting about the decision-making around the Town Center option. Did that option get a thorough review or was it just dismissed because it didn’t sound good on the surface? Did anyone attempt to consider if there were benefits for bringing buses through the Town Center? Could it offer more convenient bus stops for patrons? Would it familiarize more people with our downtown and bring more business? I don’t know the answer, but certainly a good decision-making process would attempt to look at all factors before throwing out that option. I would appreciate the Reporter doing a follow-up article on this issue.

Anne Cameron