I pointed out in their inaugural meeting that Link was a real estate development project, not a transportation project. And I introduced them to the Law of (Robert) Moses, which says, "Once you put in the first stakes, they'll never make you pull them up."
I won't be able to speak for Link's ability to function as a successful transportation project until it opens for business in July 2009. But I can testify to its efficacy as a real estate development project.
I took a tour of the right of way where it runs down the middle of MLK Way in South Seattle. MLK Way was a 4 and 5 lane highway. It is now about the width of a 10 lane highway. Outside the rail right of way, there are two lanes on each side. The large median, with the light rail tracks, takes up about the same width as a 6 lane highway in itself.
All the rundown businesses and apartments on MLK have been torn down. On intersecting streets, a lot of homes in poor condition have been torn down some distance from MLK. The new single family homes and apartments are subsidized housing aimed at a multiracial neighborhood. In other words, whites have been invited to return to what was once an Italian neighborhood that went black. Several years before the line opens, transit-oriented development has already begun to line MLK Way -- which is exactly what former Seattle mayor Norm Rice had in mind when he pushed to run the line down MLK in the first place.
So it's fulfilling the main function set by its designers.
The problem with light rail is that its backers have turned it into a religion. There are places where light rail works well (San Diego, Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland, St. Louis, the Los Angeles Blue Line), where it works adequately (San Jose, the LA Gold Line), and where it has failed ignominiously (Buffalo, the LA Green Line, the River Line in New Jersey). Light rail is not a panacea.
But I have long since stopped listening to Emory Bundy. When I saw Maggie Fimia at a chamber music event last week, she greeted me and tried to convert me to her BRT religion, but I explained the economics of gasoline, diesel -- and electricity. For Emory, Maggie and their group, BRT has become just as much a religion as light rail. Both modes have their uses in the Seattle area. But I no longer take such a dim view of Link. It may just work after all.
Seattle is a very dense and populated area. If the Link fails, it will be because it does not have the service characterisitics and speed of modern subway and elevated rapid transit like the Washington Metro, MARTA in Atlanta, or BART in San Francisco. The key of the link succeeding is speed.
If it's not too expensive, conveniently timed and connects directly to the Sea-Tac airport, I intend to use it to bypass the traffic jams there.