Light rail is a waste | Federal Way letters

During my life I commuted by light rail in Bangkok, Guangzhou and Sydney when I lived in those cities. I loved commuting by train. It was quick and efficient. What they have designed here is neither.

We do not need light rail to Federal Way. It is a waste of time. I commute every day by express bus to Seattle. It takes me 30 minutes from the transit center to get to downtown Seattle. With the wonderful route they have chosen for the light rail system, it takes 10 minutes longer to get to downtown Seattle from the airport as it does for me to ride the bus from downtown Federal Way to downtown Seattle.

If they ever manage to get light rail to 272nd Street, it will probably take at least a full hour to get to downtown Seattle from 272nd Street. There are express busses from 272nd that take around 30 minutes. Why would anyone in their right mind ride a train that takes twice as long as the bus?

Sure, there might be those that are not going all the way downtown, but does anyone really commute to the central district of Seattle? And if they are just going as far as the Tukwila station, there are buses that serve that route and do it faster than riding the train.

They should have designed this thing as a commuter system from the start, had higher speed trains, and ran it down I-5. It could have had stops at already existing park and rides. They could have had a station at SouthCenter. That station could have had another train that ran up I-405. Have them both go all the way to Everett, joining back together in Lynnwood. Run it across the floating bridges. Then we would have had a real system that would get you where you wanted to go quickly.  Then the trains would have been full of commuters.

So keep our tax dollars, and let the rest of the fools build their slow inefficient train system.

Jim Stumbo, Federal Way

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