Quote:
Originally Posted by Torture
I live near Centre street and I'm concerned but the city seems to be aware of the concern and trying to not mess it up. The low floor trains that they are using for the Green line can integrate with the street environment much better than the current train lines as they essentially run at the same level as the traffic. It won't be 36 St NE.
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You're really talking at cross-purposes here. The "problem" that the low-floor train cars "address" is the construction of more imposing, grade-separated stations isn't required. The future Green Line stations will be much like the fancy schmancy bus stops built for the Max BRT lines. In this respect it means you won't have a multi-storey structure looming over houses in the father-flung neighbourhoods the line will eventually serve.
However, there's nothing about the low-floor trains that makes them any better or safer at interacting with pedestrian and vehicular traffic. They're still big rail vehicles that present a danger at every single at-grade crossing. 36 St NE sucks because the rail line itself presents a massive impediment to cars and pedestrians being able to cross from one side to the other. It cuts connectivity down drastically. That is what I envision when I see the revised Green Line routing. Not as much of an issue going up the hill from the Centre Street Bridge, but it will become a problem north of 7th Ave. That the "stations" at 9th Ave and 16th end up being more like glorified bus platforms is irrelevant.