In last week's Seattle Times, Larry Phillips, Jane Hague, and John Creighton all weighed in with an opinion and an update for the eastside rail corridor, the BNSF tracks. Jane Hague and Larry Phillips are King County Council members. John Creighton is a member of the Seattle Port Commission. 
How quickly things have changed in a few weeks. Earlier in July, I reported that the railroad was dealing exclusively with the county and the Port of Seattle to do a three way deal which would give the tracks to the county for a trail. The railroad is still working with the county, but it appears that King County Council's plan has changed. Ron Sims has signed a "Principle of Dual Use" agreement which is looking to both rails and trails. Kirkland is considered part of the Sound Transit region for review. This agreement was signed on June 13th of this year. I never heard any press about it and I am wondering if anyone did. The newspapers were still talking about the trails only and the fact that the railroad was going to deal only with the county. I talked about this in my previous post just about a month ago.
The Roads and Transit package, which is to be voted on this fall, includes funding not only for Sound Transit, but also for a study of the joint rail and trail operation on the BNSF line that goes by The Highlands. Issues being looked at for this line are whether it works as a trail, for high capacity transit or freight mobility.
Ironically, I noticed several freight trains coming by the last few days with Boeing fuselages. The fuselages are probably going down to Renton from Everett. The freight trains are moving at a reasonable pace and are not very long. They always blow the whistle when they cross over the intersection that is near my home.
Issues to consider:
The intersection behind Peter Kirk Elementary is key because many c
hildren cross the tracks on the way to school.Can you imagine room for a trail and a train along the same line? It does not appear to be that big of an area.
Where would commuters park? Where would there be train stops?
Eastside development will focus first on a commuter rail line along highway 520 between Seattle and Redmond. This has been on the books for evaluation for quite sometime. However, this change in BNSF railroad is something that appears to be very new.
I mentioned this issue to several Highlands people. One person felt there would be quite a bit of development needed to create safe passage for people and cars. I met with another Highlands resident who works on environmental issues. She thought it would take 20 years just to do an environmental study alone, never mind building the rails and trails! Her thought was the combined rails and trails theme was very far off, if it ever happened.
What are your thoughts?
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