By: Dave Ross
KIRO-AM 710
December 14, 2007
MP3 audio file of second hour of Dave Ross Show, 12/14/07.
Dave Ross: And joining us at 10:23, here's Bruce Agnew, Director of the Cascadia Center, and somebody who has been proposing that we keep the 42 miles of rail on the Eastside for use as a mass transit line. Bruce, I understand there's been a kind of a breakthrough. They're not going to rip up the rail right away, after all.
Bruce Agnew: That's right Dave, and we're quite pleased. The decision by the Port and the County to move ahead and begin a public process this next year to figure out how to do rail, rail and trails simultaneously, is good news for everybody on the Eastside and throughout the region.
DR: Well, I think so. This is 42 miles of track which connects Renton and Snohomish. There's a lot more people living there than when Burlington Northern first built it, and the idea that the track would be ripped up...Now, I know that the track is in bad shape. It may have to be replaced eventually, but to me, keeping it there was just as important for symbolic purposes as it was in terms of it being a practical rail line, because my feeling, and I think other people in the...at least some of the suburban mayors agree, that if you take that rail out, it would be politically impossible to ever get it back again.
BA: Yeah, I think that was a compelling public argument, and the Port Commission highlighted that when they made their decision. They'd been hearing from mayors and city council folks and citizens up and down the corridor for some time. Actually, we hired a BNSF Operations Chief and he said that the tracks are marginal but there's a new machine that the Class 1 railroads use that can go in and rehab the track, put in new concrete ties instead of wood ties and do it at about $800,000 per mile and do it at about a mile per day. So you add that up, and it wouldn't take much to rehab those tracks. I think the real issue is, how do you pay for purchase of the train sets and, I think this is to Ron Sims' credit and the bicycle advocates, how do we find a way to finance this with private sector developer contributions and maybe some Sound Transit funding now that Prop. 1 has gone down, and put a really first class rail and trail network in there, so everybody can use it and the neighborhoods would be pleased with that kind of development.
DR: See, I wouldn't think that money would be a problem there because Seattle just spent, what, $52 million dollars on a one-mile trolley system, and that'd be enough to rehab, basically more than enough to rehab all 42 miles of that track on the Eastside, right?
BA: Well our eyes need to turn to Texas, because in Austin, they had a 32-mile rail corridor that was abandoned...and they put in new diesel multiple units, DMU units, and rehabbed the track, stations, lots of development, and it came out to about $90 million for 32 miles. So you look at these numbers, and 42 miles with a first class trail system and I think, somewhere between $100 (million) and $200 milllion, we can do it. And, as the streetcar was able to use about $25 million from the private sector, I think the private developers along that corridor would be interested.
DR: I would think so. And those figures are....breathtaking. I mean, that's like what it would cost to build one mile of highway, on absolutely flat land with no problems.
BA: Oh absolutely - 42 miles from Renton to Snohomish, just, what a spectacular public asset, and again, credit to County Executive Ron Sims and the County Council and the Port Commission for moving forward on this and keeping it intact, and now let's move forward next year in community meetings and figure out the best way to get rails and trails going.
DR; That's the good news. The one fly in the ointment is the tunnel on (Interstate) 405 which the (state) DOT is gonna chew through, pretty soon. Is there going to be any money to restore that link to keep the rail line intact?
BA: Well that's a good point. The DOT saved about $3 million by severing the track, which caused a lot of concern from many of us in the rail advocacy community. But I think we can talk to (WSDOT Sec.) Paula Hammond and the governor and the legislature this session and figure out a way we can ensure that is restored now that the public support is growing for rails and trails in the entire corridor.
DR: In other words, it's just cheaper to eliminate that tunnel than simply widen it?
BA: Yes. The way that it was explained to me in the PSRC study that we participated in, they saved a chunk of money by being able to sever that line. But again, the original proposal by the county executive was to put a trail there, so they're going to have to re-establish the connection anyway. So why not do it with a rail system also, that's engineered throughout the entire corridor?
DR: Yeah, that makes sense to me. What's the next step in terms of the private (sector) component of this, because I know that All Aboard Washington was talking about putting these developments alongside the track. I mean, is that truly there, or is that vaporware?
BA: No, we've gotten a lot of calls from real estate developers along that entire corridor. There's some exciting new developments that are being looked at in (the) Bel-Red (Road) area, the Bel-Red corridor. I think if we formed around the stations - there would probably be 12 or 13 stations - local improvement districts, just as were formed around the streetcar, and these developers contributed both the trail and the rail and the station(s), you could envision 50, 60, 70 million dollars in private capital that would go toward that track improvement. Then, the legislature last year approved a very important piece of legislation, called the Transportation Benefit District where you define a district - it can be multiple cities - and you can earmark taxes in that district for that transportation improvement. So we ought to take advantage of that law. It specificallly allows public private partnerships, and then it's just a question of working with the community to make sure this thing is designed from the community up, at the grassroots level, not from a regional agency down.
DR: Well that is very exciting news Bruce, it's a nice end-of-year Christmas present, and thanks for coming on.
BA: Well thanks for your support Dave, and (to) all your listerners.
DR: Bruce Agnew of the Cascadia Center. So it looks like these rails are going to be saved and maybe next year we'll see some beautiful architectural drawings of a transit-oriented development, which can be the model for the rest of the region.
