By: Jordan Lindstrom
Kirkland Courier-Reporter
January 23, 2008
Original article
Installing a 42 mile commuter-rail line and pedestrian trail running north/south through Kirkland from Snohomish to Renton would cost hundreds of millions less than adding a single lane of freeway along the same distance. And a commuter rail line has the potential to move thousands more people each hour than another lane of freeway.
That’s the common-sense message commuter-rail advocates pitched to a packed Kirkland City Council chambers at a forum last Wednesday. The event was organized by the Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center think tank and attended by sympathetic speakers from All Aboard Washington, Eastside Rail Now!, Transportation Choices Coalition and the Cascade Bicycle Club.
Speaking to a crowd of more than 80 people, about a third of whom were associated with the forum’s organizers, rail advocates urged the audience to first look at numbers: Over 180,000 commuters a day move among Woodinville, Redmond, Kirkland, Bellevue and Renton. The Puget Sound area is expected to add another 1.7 million people by 2040, and infrastructure needs to be built to handle that growth.
Updating the aging tracks to handle a commuter line and building a trail alongside would cost somewhere between $200-300 million, while the current cost of Interstate-405 expansion is in the billions, Cascadia Center director Bruce Agnew said.
Organizers then reminded the audience that the Port of Seattle has not yet finalized the deal to purchase the corridor from BNSF, and the commuter-rail idea is strongly opposed by King County Executive Ron Sims. Therefore, organizers said, it’s important to write to the Port and local elected officials in support of putting the corridor in public hands and installing a rail line.
The message was backed by Kirkland mayor Jim Lauinger, who opened the meeting by telling forum organizers “we wish you luck in your endeavor, and we are with you in spirit at this point.”
The Kirkland City Council, along with the councils of neighboring cities Bellevue and Woodinville, has sent a letter to King County in support of using the corridor for a commuter rail service.
Not everyone at the forum, however, was behind the idea of the rail line.
Alan Skow, who recently bought a home in the Houghton neighborhood that immediately abuts the tracks, was one of the few at the forum who questioned the necessity of using the corridor for commuter rail. He said when he and his wife purchased their house in 2005, they did so only with the understanding that the corridor would be used for a trail exclusively.
But now talk of the commuter rail line has dented the value of the couples’ home -- Skow said his house value dropped $20,000 the same day the Courier-Reporter published its first article on the topic -- and has them pondering sleepless nights next to the tracks.
He said if the rail line does go in, he’ll probably sell, or “at the very least push for compensation.”
Forum organizers countered by saying the specialized diesel engines that could run on the track would be significantly quieter than traditional trains. Also, trails often have a positive affect on home prices, they said.
Outside of homeowners’ concerns about noise and foot traffic outside their back doors, however, questions remain about paying for the train service -- and how many people would actually use it.
Agnew said he envisions that a “substantial portion” of funding would come from private donors and investors, similar to the way the South Lake Union streetcar received help from Paul Allen and other developers. And he also admitted that, while the train service would operate between prime commuter locations, a “data gap” does exist, and no one is quite sure how many people would use a commuter rail service.
He said the Cascadia Center is planning to conduct a ridership study within the next two to three months.
For more information on the Center’s proposal, visit www.cascadiaproject.org/surfaceandmarinetransportation/rail.php.
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