Rabid Transit Update

First, there was a note in the Newcastle News that a City Councilman is leading the charge to preserve the 42 miles of BNSF track from Renton to Snohomish. He’s actually serious. As I mentioned before, the most compelling reason BNSF wanted to sell the track is the cost of mitigating the grade crossings. It’s got to be enormous.

The second reason, of course, is the lack of business. The corridor no longer serves bulk customers. For railroads to make money they need to haul bulk cargo. Things like cars, coal, 737 bodies, and passengers. But the eastside cities have gone to office intensive businesses and bedrooms. The other big railroad cargo category is containers. We don’t have any container facilities over here in Bellevue. While I’m advocating using the railroads to carry as many of those annoying big truck trailers as possible I don’t see them being delivered to places between Renton and Snohomish.

There’s a third reason BNSF wants to sell the track: the State DOT is destroying part of it. The I-405 project will remove a section of track that goes over the Wilburton Tunnel right now. They had planned to use chance to do the job. What they were hoping for was a big accident in the tunnel that would require emergency demolition, but they finally gave up on that. The emergency demolition would have been required since major accidents attract about 200 emergency vehicles and they figured demolishing the tunnel would be the only way to find room to park them. But no such luck. They even changed the lane markings at random hoping to trigger a big wreck, but it just made people more alert. This is pretty much typical of DOT ideas – THEY DON’T WORK!

But the point is BNSF wanted to get rid of that 42 miles of right of way because it was no longer an asset. And the Port of Seattle was the designated buyer. The plan was that the Port would trade it to King County for the Boeing Field Airport. This was almost a good solution except that the Port Commission got in trouble with auditors due to some over charging of tax payers for hauling dirt. Hauling dirt is one of our main industries and spending a few minutes along the Maple Valley Highway will confirm that. Dump trucks loaded with dirt are bumper to bumper. Both ways. You’d think a couple of phone calls could cut that in half but what do I know?

Anyway, King County would eventually acquire the 42 mile corridor and they planned to designate it a park and install a bike path. That’s right, a bike path to Renton. Go figure!

But the Light Rail nut farmers, including the Newcastle councilman, want to run commuter trains on that track. And, if you don’t have a practical mind, it seems logical. Here’s an existing rail line relatively parallel to I-405 that could be used to get hundreds of drivers off the freeway every day. It would only cost $200 million to build stations, buy trains, and hire sign wavers to stand of street corners and yell at cars. Except the grade crossing mitigation would cost billions, but we don’t mention that. Sure, building a light rail from scratch costs billions but it’s designed as a light rail and includes flyovers and tunnels. Trying to retrofit this line would cost lots more.

Have I tipped my opinion?

Also, I’m apparently being recalled to active military duty. I got a letter from the Army today with all kind of stuff about what a great bunch of guys the Army is. There’s even a metal pin. I suppose it’s supposed to go on my uniform someplace when I report in. But where do I report?
I’ve decided: I’m going to report to the Newcastle City Council. I’ll tell them I’ve been recalled to active duty and that my first assignment is to clear a corridor for commuter rail between Renton and Snohomish. Poof! I’m done. “Just use the existing rail,” is what I’ll say. Then Honorable Discharge follows. The stunned looks will suffice as concurrence and its back to civilian life for me. Boy, the Army is easy.

Worried yet?

Lastly, I’m pronouncing the Renton Saturn dealer is a bunch of pusillanimous prevaricators. These boneheads recently sent my father-in-law off with his newly serviced Saturn and one of the items marked as “done” was “check outside lights” which they didn’t do. He has a brake light out. They didn’t check. For that they get a mention in the Lake Boren Report. If they goof up again, watch out. I might tell them I’m in the Army now and watch them quake.
Has Duvall Avenue closed yet? I need to go check.

Al

Early Results:

Option 1 – “Blog and email you the text of each new post.”

This is probably going to win, along with Option 4. I started posting my blog and it still needs a few tweaks. For one thing each new topic will have to be a new post. But on the blog it’ll read about the same. The newest post is at the top and then as you read down each paragraph is an earlier post.

Option 2 – “Blog and email just announcements of new posts.”

This one discriminates against those who are using dialup and other “last century” technology so, even though it has some favor it’s not going to win.

Option 3 – “Forget the whole blog thing.”

This is an obvious red herring. Once you get the blog bug its here to stay and I just gave this one because technically it’s possible. But nobody voted for it anyway.

Option 4 – “Do whatever I feel like and let you know.”

As mentioned above I’ll be doing the blog and keeping everyone informed by email. In essence the whole thing becomes Option 5.

Options for Report

Polling My Readers:

The World Wide Web or Internet as we call it has a very interesting component that I have not yet exploited. It’s called the “blog.” I read blogs because they’re interesting to me. The interest comes from the fact that I want to know what’s going on with the people who write them.

So my question to you, my reader, is whether you would like to see the Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report in a blog. And I’ll get to that question after a few more words:
First of all: once when you publish a blog it can get to more readers than the writer knows about. So people who actually live in Newcastle may read it and wonder how I could be so wrong.
My three rules are:
1. Accuracy – optional.
2. Plagiarism – I’m not above it.
3. Frequency – whenever I’m not busy with other time wasting junk.

One or two of these rules might offend some people. And I’m kind of sensitive so I’d be annoyed if I got flamed because of some fun I poke. If I publish a blog I’d need to have a small section near the top that states the rules and the essential point of the blog.

My essential point is that Newcastle is a pretend city, created secretly by Bellevue, as a buffer from Renton. And as a pretend city Newcastle has this grandiose pretend plan for a major Puget Sound Area Transit Center on the shores of Lake Boren. Lake Boren is a pretend lake that would be classified as a pond in most places. But the people who live in Newcastle probably think it’s the best lake west of the Pecos.

In fact Newcastle and Lake Boren do exist and the people who live there probably take themselves seriously. So my words might annoy them. My hope is nobody gets too annoyed. Or I might apply rule number one to them. Pusillanimous Prevaricators!

My biggest issue right now is that everyone who gets these random reports seems to enjoy them (or they are exceedingly polite) and I don’t want to take that away. If I switch to a blog format it means readers may have to go to the blog URL to read the reports.

Option: I could put up a blog but still email the text reports to you. Which would give you the option of reading the email or the blog.
Other option: Send an email to you each time I post a blog update so you can go to the URL to read it.
Other other option: Forget the whole blog thing.
The key primary advantage of a blog (at least the kind I would use) is that I could include links to pertinent web sites, photos (my own, of course), and more corroborating information. In other words I could provide more proof that I’m not making this stuff up. Well not all of it anyway.

So I’d like you to tell me what to do:

Option 1 – Blog and email you the text of each new post.

Option 2 – Blog and email just announcements of new posts.

Option 3 – Forget the whole blog thing.

Option 4 – Do whatever I feel like and let you know.

Voting will close shortly after January 2 when everyone gets back to normal. But don’t worry, I’ll probably count votes that come in after that. My main concern is that I’d really like to know what you want.

I’m not going to stop the Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report. I just want to improve the distribution. So please let me know your thoughts. Maybe there’s an Option 5 that I haven’t thought of. Really, there’s something I may not have thought of. Amazing.

Hoping to hear from you,
Al