BNSF Corridor – Cascade Bicycle Club and Cascadia Center share their views
As a follow up to Debra Sinick’s two posts on this website regarding the BNSF Trail/Rail issue, Kirkland Views has provided the opportunity for other advocates to present alternative views on this subject.
Cascade Bicycle Club
David Hiller, Advocacy Director for The Cascade Bicycle Club has sent us the following statement:
The Cascade Bicycle Club supports dual use on the BNSF eastside rail corridor. However, a previous analysis (the HDR study done for PSRC) dismissed the viability of rail transit on the corridor in the short-term. Additional analysis is being done at the request of the legislature in the form of a rail feasibility study. The Cascade Bicycle Club will look to the second study, as we did the first, to determine the best uses on the facility – and we hope others will as well. If it’s found that rail transit is not currently supportable along the corridor, we will ask that King County be allowed to build an interim trail on the existing rail bed between Bellevue and Woodinville – putting the corridor into immediate public use while protecting it for future rail transit. That way, we could provide thousands of Eastside residents a clean, reliable, and inexpensive transportation option in just a few years.
Cascade Bicycle Club’s website specifically addresses the BNSF line at http://www.cascade.org/Advocacy/BNSF.cfm
Cascadia Center for Regional Development
Matt Rosenberg of The Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center for Regional Development, has given us permission to re-publish a piece by Bruce Agnew which originally was published in the Puget Sound Business Journal on October 5, 2007.
RAILS AND TRAILS COULD COEXIST EASILY ON EASTSIDE
By: Bruce Agnew
Puget Sound Business Journal
October 5, 2007
Imagine a crisp fall morning bike ride along glistening Lake Washington at Gene Coulon Park in Renton. Your family decides to hop on the new double-decked, domed “Colorado Rail Car” like the one you used to explore Denali National Park on your Alaskan cruise. You store your bikes on the train’s rack and head to the coffee car. Traveling north to the Woodinville wineries, you disembark — knowing the trains run every half hour — have lunch, and jump back on to continue to Snohomish.
There, with views framed by the Cascades, you take an extended bike ride up the Centennial Trail to Lake Stevens, and return to Snohomish to shop for antiques. Tired from the daylong trip, you board the train southbound and rest until it pulls into the station near your downtown Kirkland home.
This scenario need not be merely imagined. A wonderful 41-mile Eastside rail corridor runs from Renton to Snohomish on track formerly used for Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight trains. On the heels of a Puget Sound Regional Council study, King County Executive Ron Sims originally proposed public ownership of the rail corridor and a trail-only configuration from Renton to Woodinville.
Subsequently, Sims and King County Council members brokered a “Principles of Dual Use” agreement among transportation and trail advocates. A high capacity transit study by Sound Transit is now in the Roads and Transit package facing voters in November.
The problem with “high capacity transit studies” by government agencies is that they take a long time and usually result in proposals that cost billions instead of millions. Why not consider a low-key demonstration project — initially from Snohomish to Bellevue and later south to Renton after Interstate 405 expansion is completed — using a new self-propelled rail car called a Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU)? They are inexpensive, can burn biofuels, carry bikes and be maintained by community college-trained diesel mechanics.
Two popular DMUs are manufactured by Colorado Rail Car and Siemens. They’ve been operational for six years around West Palm Beach, Fla., and are planned for an 18-mile Washington County, Ore., route; a 22-mile Oceanside-Escondido (Calif.) line; and Amtrak’s Vermonter service.
A single double-deck car can carry 188 passengers and costs about $4 million, or approximately $17,000 per seat — much less than a standard commuter rail operation. Their lower weight requires less investment in track; the bi-level feature allows shorter platforms. They cut emissions 72 percent and noise levels 75 percent, compared with standard commuter rail.
A “Rail and Trail” corridor opens more financing doors than a trail-only project, which competes for scarce parks funding. Connected to bus routes, passenger ferry stops and even Microsoft’s new Connector employee bus service, the project would be eligible for a new federal “Small Starts” program grant for projects under $75 million.
Many communities along the corridor would like to transform back yards of car lots, warehouses and overgrown brier patches into a front yard of compact, livable communities. A rail and trail combination with a safety barrier and separate north and south trails along the old BNSF line is ideal for that.
Kirkland Mayor Jim Lauringer recently outlined a vision of mixed-use software companies, housing and parks at a potential station on Central Way, within walking distance of downtown. Another station near Home Depot and Best Buy in Bellevue could be linked to Bellevue’s transit center across I-405 by shuttle bus.
The rail and trail combo can work for commuters from fast-growing east Snohomish County. Currently there is no direct bus transit service connecting the fast-growing east Snohomish County communities of Snohomish and Monroe with Bellevue. The 41-mile rail corridor travels by several major park-and-ride lots with good east-west connections to Bellevue and Seattle. Certainly, Community Transit, Metro and Sound Transit can pool resources with private employers and recreational interests for the relatively low operating and maintenance expenses of the corridor.
Proponents of the trail-only approach had argued early on that the tracks were in poor shape and conversion to rail transit would cost billions. Our colleagues at the state rail advocacy organization, All Aboard Washington, estimate a $30 million price tag for commuter and freight service in their private bid to take over the tracks.
Cascadia Center, which is supportive of King County and the Port of Seattle’s negotiations for public ownership, has independently hired a team of respected retired rail executives, including Read Fay, a former operations executive for BNSF, to walk the tracks and provide an estimate of what it would cost to have the DMU units travel at a top speed of 40 mph.
The track is already in place, and the ultimate cost, the experts said, would be in the tens of millions, rather than billions, of dollars. An intact rail-trail corridor could provide valuable mobility options for the I-405 corridor during expansion construction as well as insurance in case an earthquake destroyed highway bridges. Carefully integrated with other transit modes and systemwide congestion pricing on our major highways, an Eastside commuter rail line would contribute greatly to the emergence of the Eastside as an economic powerhouse.
Bruce Agnew is director of the Cascadia Center at Discovery Institute in Seattle. To see renderings of potential Eastside stations, visit: www.cascadiaproject.org.
See: My “Take Away” from the Port of Seattle Eastside Rail Open House by Debra Sinick
See: BNSF Corridor gives this Eastside Trail advocate a new view on NIMBYs
Posted by Rob Butcher on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Filed under Guest Commentary · Tagged with BNSF Trail/Rail, Transportation
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The Port of Seattle is very pleased that through our investment, the Eastside Rail Corridor will soon be in public ownership – and that citizens throughout King and Snohomish Counties are already communicating about how the corridor can be used going forward. The Port does not own the corridor yet; the acquisition process has been both lengthy and complicated. Below are a few key points to keep in mind as we move forward.
* The Port is making this investment to preserve dual-use options in the corridor for public-access trail and transportation uses. The Port is committed to development of a trail along a significant portion of the corridor, and we are partnering with King County to that end. The acquisition includes an application to the Surface Transportation Board for rail-banking along the southern portion of the corridor, and for rail-banking to occur, a trail must be developed.
* The federal Surface Transportation Board has not approved the transfer yet; when we’ve received their approval, the Port will launch a public process to hear from King County and Snohomish County communities about how the corridor should be used going forward. The Port Commission recently clarified that no passenger rail decisions – whether for excursion or commuter rail – on the line south of Woodinville will be made before the public process concludes. The Port intends to continue freight service to shippers and possibly an excursion train in the section north of Woodinville to Snohomish.
* Until the STB has approved the transfer, the Port will not enter into any discussions about alternate uses for the corridor. Rail carriers have contacted the Port about providing service; we are directing them to BNSF to discuss their Third-Party Operator selection process.
* There are several other rail discussions happening independent of the Port’s involvement: the State Legislature asked Sound Transit, along with the Puget Sound Regional Council, to study the feasibility of using the corridor for commuter rail on the Eastside, and that study must be complete by early 2009; Cascadia, part of the independent think tank the Discovery Institute, is generating public discussion about commuter rail; and Snohomish County has entered into an agreement with GNP for a portion of the rail line beyond the boundaries of the Port’s purchase area.
The Port of Seattle is committed to seeing the Eastside Rail Corridor used in ways that benefit all of the citizens of the region, and we look forward to hearing from the many communities and stakeholders involved as our public process begins. For up-to-date information about the acquisition process, please visit the Port’s website at http://www.portseattle.org/business/realestate/eastsiderail.shtml .
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I like the idea of mixed use. The idea of utilizing the rail corridor only for biking/walking makes it virtually empty and useless during many of the cold, rainy months in our area. And not everyone can bike to work for a variety of reasons,(disabilities, lack of adequate shower facilities, etc.). It should beenfit everyone and should give us all an alternate to our cars. I feel for the people who own property that borders the rail line, but the rail line has been there longer than the houses. It’s a risk you take. We should do something that benefits the majority, not just a few. I bet if there were a trial run, it would end up very popular in a very short time.
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If we have a trail without rail, I am afraid that we will never be able to reinstall rail. Whenever a proposal to bring back rail travel arose, there would be an uproar about running trains through our residential neighborhoods.
This may sounds like a poor reason, but it’s a political truism.
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WtbK — I don’t think residents near the tracks have anything to worry about. The trains are quiet and even if they run fairly frequently, it would not be bothersome, or so it seems to me. Nothing compared to living by the freeway, for example. I live a block away myself, and I’m not worried. The fact that we could build a system that could be a great alternative to clogged roads — and at a deep discount compared to light rail — is not an opportunity to be missed.
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