On Monday Metropolitan King County officials and Port of Seattle Commissioners met to sign the paperwork for the complicated deal between the Port of Seattle, King County, and the BNSF railroad. The Port will buy the BNSF tracks from the railway and allow King County to keep the right of way in the public domain.

But what’s the future of the rail line? What’s the future of a trail?   I’ve added links to the some of the news articles about the deal and will highlight some of the key issues raised in each article.  It’s interesting to compare what’s reported in each article. The different newspapers do not see the issues in exactly the same light.  This is not surprising since the issues surrounding the trail and/or rail line are still unclear and very much up in the air. 

Several constants in this saga are:

The BNSF is selling the rail line to the Port for $107 million dollars.

The Port has granted King County an easement to develop a trail on 32 miles of the corridor.

Federal law requires the train line be “rail banked”, kept for possible future use as a train line. The tracks will remain in place. This will keep the line available for public use and ownership.

The port will receive $1.9 million dollars from King County for the use of an easement for a hiking/biking trail along the Renton to Woodinville stretch of the rail line and the 7 mile spur from Woodinville to Redmond.

The Everett Herald had an interesting story summarizing Monday’s inking of the deal.  The Herald reflected the Snohomish County Council point of view.

“ Snohomish County wants leverage sooner and is working to keep the rails in place for commuter trains all the way to tech job centers on the east side of Lake Washington.

“We think we can have the rails and the trails,” Somers (Snohomish County Council Chairman) said.

Somers is pushing for a deal with a private company called GNP Railway to provide daily commuter trains on the route from Snohomish to Bellevue as soon as next year. The county is negotiating with the company chairman Tom Payne.

“If we can team up with Tom Payne and get status with the federal government, the port and King County have to deal with us.”

Snohomish County wants rail. 

“The port isn’t interested in long-term ownership of the corridor, so questions to be worked out include who would ultimately own the corridor and run commuter rail over it, said Port Commissioner John Creighton. “We’re holding the corridor now, but if Sound Transit determines it can make use of the corridor, we would like to sell it to Sound Transit, get our money out, and invest it in our core business.”

Both The Seattle P-I and The Seattle Times weighed in with their take on the future for the rail/trail.  The Seattle P-I’s article was the most comprehensive summary of the story.  Here are some additional issues raised in the P-I article:

Previously, a study was done to the tune of $800,000 by The Puget Sound Regional Council.  This study stated:

“In May 2007 the Puget Sound Regional Council published a study that found Sound Transit and the state Department of Transportation’s strategy of using a series of rapid buses to serve commuters was more feasible than developing high capacity rail transit along the Eastside rail corridor.”

A new survey is being conducted and will be completed by February, 2009.  The cost for this study is $340,000, after $800,000 has already been spent to say the commuter line is not viable in King County!  Part of the money for the study is being paid by the Discovery Institute, which has a vested interest in seeing the commuter line developed, since this very group is hoping to develop the commuter line.  This second  study is being conducted with funds from a source that hopes to gain from the outcome of the study.  Hmm…. 

It’s important to have thorough and impartial studies completed, studies which demonstrate the actual cost per rider and the full cost of developing the trail and rail line.  It’s important to have the proper public process for the trail and/rail line.  Whatever is decided  must be the result of careful, thorough analysis and not just a band-aid solution resulting from the failure of Proposition 1.