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Thanks for your comments. The bottom line for me is smart choices need to be made that benefit the people of King County. A trail is a fabulous asset along with fiscally responsible transit decisions. These decisions cannot be made quickly.

I agree this trail would be filled with people. It’s a pretty exciting thought. I think our city would benefit from the trail being so close. It would be fun to hop on the trail and head downtown or over to Houghton Center. This is a great opportunity for us and for Kirkland.

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You are right on. I’m not sure if our governments (too many are spoiling the community) can ever make a decision on this in my lifetime, but the sensible ideas often seem to take a backseat to spending our tax dollars on wasteful projects and corporate interests. They’d have us waste our precious taxes on a money losing operation that serves few and pollutes our neighborhoods, and then tell us how we don’t have money for parks, Medic One and the police (eyes are rolling!).

There clearly are better places to put light rail, which I support in geneeral, but for all of the logistical reasons mentioned in your post, the existing transportation corridors of I-405, I-5, 520/I-90, etc. really should be used, and we should definitely be using quiet, green electric trains for our 21st century plans, and those trains had better reach Seattle and SeaTac or they shouldn’t be built at all.

I mean, in 2008, do we really need noisy, smoke belching, fossil fueling burning diesel trains instead of an Emerald trail that supports clean, green and healthy lives? How lovely to add “ding ding ding ding” all day long as the trains cross all those busy intersections, snarling traffic more and endangering pedestrians and our children who cross to go to elementary and junior high schools in the Norkirk neighborhood.

I would imagine this trail will get even more usage than either Burke or Sammamish because it connects homes and stores and parks that are otherwise very hard to reach on foot or bike because of hills and busy roads that are far too dangerous for families.

When we moved to Kirkland in 1989, the rail was expected to become a trail. Instead we got a dinner train — which was fun, but clearly served a narrow, private business interest over the public’s.

I’m losing faith in our existing elected officials and will certainly be considering their votes on this project in upcoming elections. If they can’t get this decision right, they probably are not serving our public interest in other issues as well.

Thanks for your great postings and blog. I really enjoy it.

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