Building a Better Bellevue is starting a Commentary page.
Here is Enatai resident Robert Rosell’s message to the Bellevue City Council, dated August 10, 2010:
Dear Bellevue City Council,
My family lives in Enatai on the bluff overlooking Bellevue Way and the blueberry farm. We have been closely following the evolution of the Sound Transit Eastlink project and, because of the location of our home, have a strong personal interest in the outcome. We have hosted a community get-together at our house where Sound Transit representatives explained the alternatives they were exploring and the anticipated impacts. We have also attended numerous meetings and panels put on by the City and Sound Transit and written several letters as part of staying connected to the process. We appreciate the efforts both the City and Sound Transit have made to reach out to the neighborhoods that will be impacted by the Eastlink project.
Since this all began I have found myself conflicted. On the one hand, my family all favors bringing light rail to Bellevue and the Eastside. We see rail as an important element as Bellevue continues its growth and evolution into a regional center. On the other hand we will be significantly impacted by the location of the route along Bellevue Way, right below our home. We were especially concerned about the possibility of an elevated line down Bellevue Way.
As information has continued to flow and new options have emerged, it has become clear to me that there is no real benefit to bringing the rail line down Bellevue Way and 112th to reach downtown Bellevue and beyond. If Sound Transit was building a trolley system that would offer stops along the way between the freeway and downtown, making it convenient for residents to board at locations closer to their homes, there would be an strong argument for locating the tracks in proximity to residential communities. But the Eastlink project is a point-to-point rail system where people connect at a park-and-ride on one end and the downtown center on the other. Where the tracks run, therefore, doesn’t impact accessibility. It does, however, impact the community.
With new options that have been presented to enable a stop at a location near where Bellevue Way connects with I-90, it has become even more obvious to me that a version of the B-7 alignment is the only one that makes any sense. The costs of mitigating noise, the construction impacts on neighborhoods, the need to displace people from their homes, and safety concerns as cars intersect with trains will be significantly reduced or eliminated by avoiding running tracks down Bellevue Way and 112th.
A recently added concern has been the difficulty Sound Transit is having with current noise levels along the segments of their route that have already been built. When Sound Transit staff met with us back in 2006 and 2007, they were confident that the noise levels produced by trains once the system was built would be no louder than a bus going by. That has not proven to be the case elsewhere in the system. Even well insulated windows won’t eliminate noise at the levels the system has been experiencing. With service running well into the night, having the trains running nearby will likely have a negative impact on both our personal comfort and the value of our property.
We appreciate the position the majority of the City Council has taken in favor of a B7 alternative and encourage the entire Council to join in the effort to ensure that light rail becomes a valued asset to Bellevue and the Eastside and not an ongoing irritant for our southwest neighborhoods. It’s worthwhile to take the time to do this right.
Thanks for your attention.
Robert Rosell
Here is another letter to the Bellevue City Council:
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 5:38 PM
To: coun...@bellevuewa.gov
Subject: Building a Better Bellevue Comment Follow-up
Dear Mayor Davidson & City Council Members,
I hope this finds you each well! And rested and recovered from a long evening. We appreciate your diligence and commitment to working through these difficult issues late into last night.
I write to respond to questions raised by Council Member Balducci, following my public comments last evening on light rail noise impacts.
Council Member Balducci questioned my reference to sound levels equivalent to a “garbage disposal at two feet.” Frankly, I was surprised and offended by the questions and tone, which implied that I was lying to the Council and public.
Please refer to the attached documents, which I was prepared to hand up to the Council last evening and which substantiate my comments.
The first two pages are excerpts from The Greenbusch Group’s July 14, 2010 Draft Peer Review of the B2M noise impacts. You will note on the second page that Table 3 compares the average noise levels of various vehicles to a garbage disposal at two feet. Per the table, the approximate noise level of a “typical” at-grade light rail train from 50 feet away is 75-79 dBA as compared to 80 dBa for the garbage disposal at two feet.
The Seattle Times has reported that:
[A Tukwila property owner], who started taking noise measurements last year, said the new vinyl barrier has lowered the volume about 3 decibels, but he says noise is still 82-83 decibels, similar to what a Sound Transit noise consultant, Michael Minor & Associates, documented last year.
A reading of 83 decibels is similar to standing alongside a kitchen garbage disposal. The cumulative effect of trains running up to 19 hours a day exceeded Federal Transit Administration standards for residential areas, the official study found.
See http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012048950_trainnoise07m.html?syndication=rss (emphasis added). Some of the impacted residences along the Central Link are approximately 140 feet from the Central Link. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009419669_stnoise05m.html. Michael Minor & Associates is Sound Transit’s noise consultant; the 80+ decibel readings are reported to be consistent with Sound Transit’s readings; Seattle Times also uses the reference to standing near a garbage disposal to analogize to light rail noise impacts.
Note: the impacts at issue do not include bells, whistles or other warning devices.
The next five pages are excerpts from the Federal Transit Administration’s May 2006 Transit Noise and Vibration Impact Assessment. Here is a link to the document: http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/FTA_Noise_and_Vibration_Manual.pdf. I highly commend it to you as it is both an informative and straightforward read.
The first FTA excerpt, Figures 2-6 and 2-7, shows noise attenuation due to distance over soft ground. You will note that noise attenuation is less the higher the receiver is in relation to the noise source. For example, sound attenuates by less than a decibel at a height of 40 feet above the noise’s source at a distance of 1,000 feet, whereas it attenuates by nearly 10 dB (halving the sound) at a height of five feet over soft ground for that same distance. At 100 feet, the attenuation is less than 3 decibels for a receiver five feet high over soft ground.
The second page of the FTA excerpt shows how sound propagates beyond a sound barrier, particularly upward. You will recall that the noise consultant’s presentation and report called for sound insulation in upper level residential units as a noise wall would not mitigate such impacts.
The third page of the FTA excerpts contains Figures 2-9 and 2-10, which plot community annoyance as a function of noise above pre-existing levels.
The penultimate page of the FTA excerpts contains Figure 2-12, with is a graph showing the weighted sound average for a typical transit-vehicle passby. You will note that the peak noise level is 88 dB, and the Sound Exposure Level impact (see the definition in the excerpt) is 89.6 dB, due to the roughly four-second peak noise exposure event. That is, a person will perceive the peak noise impact as equivalent to a nearly 90 dB noise–such as a heavy truck or motorcycle at 25 feet, per Table 3 of the Greenbush report.
The final page of the FTA excerpts, Table 4-1, indicates that light rail noise assessment screening should be done for receptors within 350 feet unobstructed and 175 for obstructed properties (i.e., properties with intervening buildings).
For reference, Enatai Elementary School is about 1,000 feet from Bellevue Way on 108th Avenue SE. As you know, hundreds of homes sit within 1,000 feet of Bellevue Way and 112th Avenue SE. Sound Transit has acknowledged at least 119 impacted residences within 175 feet of 112th Avenue SE. You also know that the majority of the residences sit well-above the right-of-way along Bellevue Way and 112th Avenue from Bellevue Way to Surrey Downs Park. Please note that the 45 apartments at 112th Avenue SE and Bellevue Way, which to this day are unaccounted for by Sound Transit, have second floor units and rooms.
Sound Transit acknowledged in the materials it prepared for the 112th Avenue segment open houses that it cannot mitigate exterior impacts below FTA guidelines for some properties (it has not identified which, yet). Sound Transit will not voluntarily pay compensation or mitigation for any unmitigated noise impact. It will only compensate a physical taking of property and provide “last resort” sound insulation for homes to mitigate interior impacts. Impacts to exterior property areas–our yards, decks, patios, etc.–are not protected, according to Sound Transit.
Based on all of this, it reasonable to conclude that homes sitting above Bellevue Way and 112th Avenue SE–the vast majority of homes within the FTA’s 175-350 foot screening area and up to 1,000 feet from the lines–will have little or no noise attenuation from an estimated (actual, based on Central Link’s operating experience) 80+ decibel sound event that will occur every five to seven minutes twenty hours per day seven days per week. Even if interior impacts are mitigated with insulation, exterior property areas will suffer unmitigated noise impacts in excess of FTA standards.
This is why people are desperate to have their properties condemned. Their comments and pleas are not support for B2M. They are pleas to be left with something other than an unlivable home.
I stand by my comments.
I hope that you will each carefully consider what the B2M proposal will do to the livability of south Bellevue neighborhoods.
Respectfully yours,
AARON M. LAING