[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

There are a number of tweets in the original article.

[microgood]

Seattle Light Rail - a monument to human stupidity. This thing cost a fortune - something like 1000% over budget in the first phase. Basically for this to work you need about 3 times the density that the Seattle area has for this to be financially reasonable.

Amazingly, I see Mercer Island's point but I am wondering where the light rail is going since they have the Lid and all.

[WENDLE]

Is this local news? I was hoping for more.

[garjog]

By the time this boondoggle is done everyone will have self driven cars and we won’t need 19th century transportation systems.

[PAR35]

If they put the light rail down the middle of the expressway, how are the folks going to get on and off the trains?

[sphinx]

The City of Mercer Island fears that commuter traffic (much of which is single-occupant vehicles) will divert onto small city streets and into school zones, creating congestion and dangerous situations.

I'm with the City on this. If commuters are frustrated with traffic, they should move closer to their jobs rather than propose fixes that trash other people's neighborhoods.

The City says they had a longstanding deal with WSDOT that their drivers would be an exception to the HOV rule, but last summer the Federal Highway Administration sent a letter stressing that drivers could not violate that federal law, and in early February WSDOT sent another letter to Mercer Island saying WSDOT is “obligated to comply” with that federal law.

This sounds like a sensible solution. Just suspend the HOV lane enforcement for a mile or so to allow entering drivers to merge and then exit the HOV lane in a timely way. The locals can figure out appropriate wording and signage; call it a "merge zone" or "mixed traffic merge zone." A few tourists may be confused, but regulars will know what's going on.

So the question is, why did the feds nix this solution? Is the law really so inflexible that a local peculiarity couldn't be accommodated? (Sounds like something Congress would easily fix on a bipartisan basis.) Or did some carpooling zealot decide to get on his high horse?