Memorandum of Understanding Establishing a Framework for Intensified Cooperation:
A few years ago BNSF (Motto: we’ll find a logo we like - some day) announced the sale of their rail spur between Renton and Snohomish. They use it about once a day for bulk cargo. I’m too lazy to research what.
King County wanted the corridor for a bike trail but without actually paying money. The county established a framework of intensified cooperation with the Port of Seattle. The Port would buy the rail corridor and then trade it to King County for the King County Airport, better known as Boeing Field. No, that’s not where Boeing builds 737s. In fact Boeing doesn’t build airplanes at Boeing Field.
The county and the port had this kind of worked out and were only waiting for BNSF to finish its major improvements in Renton. Believe me, Renton needs it. Once these are complete BNSF will no longer need the part that runs north from Renton to Snohomish.
Have you looked at a map yet? It helps.
Then a wild group jumped up and said it would be stupid to use that 42 miles just for a bike path and why don’t we also run commuter trains on it? They used it for the Dinner Train and people liked that. Right? They say there will still be enough room for a bike path beside the track. Maybe cost $250 million or so. Not bad compared to building a proper 42 mile commuter rail line from scratch.
And then it gets complicated.
(Get the map now) The Port of Seattle currently owns the big Seattle airport called Sea-Tac. It was named that when we thought Tacoma was going to be important. They also own the ship docks in Seattle, hence the name “Port of Seattle.”
Well the Port of Seattle is building a third runway at Sea-Tac. In order to raise the ground to the level of the existing runways they needed about half a million truck loads of dirt. We know where to get that – Maple Valley. That’s one of the reasons the Maple Valley Highway is so dump truck intensive.
However, the previous Port comish got a little too cozy with the contractor and it appears they spent about $97 million more than they should have for dirt. Dirt rolling on the Maple Valley Highway is more valuable than I thought. I should have grabbed a handful.
Now I’m wondering if the whole framework of intensified cooperation is still on. The dirt hauling audit is resulting in criminal charges and that might result in somebody questioning how the Port could just trade away the dang airport. Just asking that question could delay the process for years.
But back to the commuter rail cum bike path. These heavy thinkers are pretty sure we could replace the existing rails with high speed rails and run fast commuter trains between Bellevue and Snohomish. The road that we drive up there on now is called highway 9. It’s a bear. You need a real reason to go. If there was a fast commuter train people would probably ride that instead. Or ride a bike. Either way is better than highway 9.
Here’s a potential problem. We’d never be able to get approval to run fast trains on the route. Traffic in Totem Lake is so bad at the grade crossings that the Dinner Train had to stop at a red light. If you ran a commuter train every 15 minutes Totem Lake would gridlock so bad they’d have to close CompUSA and Larry’s Market. Oh, wait, they already did that…. See?
Anyway, the existing rail line twists and turns, crosses I-90 and I-405 (3 times), and has about 100 grade crossings plus a huge 100 year old wooden trestle. That’s really why BNSF wants to stop running trains. It’d cost an untold fortune to put in the federally mandated safety improvements to prevent trains bumping into commuters. Some of those grade crossings are major 6 lane streets. And let’s not even discuss Bellevue.
OK, that’s just whining. The real reason I don’t like that commuter rail plan is the current route doesn’t go near Lake Boren. What’s the point of spending money on commuters if they can’t visit Newcastle? But I do like the entertainment. These heavy thinkers will have trouble thinking their way out of the grade crossing issue. Not to mention getting $250 million in funding that doesn’t include cost of the actual trains. Oh, I just mentioned it. But I like to watch as long as they don’t raise my taxes.
Al
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