Several high-rise office towers have been constructed in the past decade and the skyline is now visible from many parts of the region. A new convention center has recently been opened that served about 175,000 visitors in 1994. A vicinity map is provided that shows the geography of the area used in this study. Downtown Bellevue is located about 6 miles east of downtown Seattle on the east side of Lake Washington. It is in the center of a large suburban area that will soon contain about 500,000 residents and has several large employers, including Microsoft and several other software companies.
Household incomes are the highest in the state and auto ownership and use rates are also very high.
I-405 has been suggested as the most likely route for a high speed train route that would link Vancouver, B.C. with Portland, Oregon at some time in the future. If such an alignment were selected, a major station would probably be sited adjacent to downtown Bellevue. It is also possible that an urban rail station might provide 2-3 urban rail stations in the downtown area at some future time. Given this context, the students were asked to design a PRT circulator system for the downtown that would serve two transportation functions. The other would be to allow people to commute to the downtown on a bus or rail system and transfer to the PRT to reach their destination in the downtown.