Typically, a message full of angry labels like Duane IIIg’s letter accusing our city council members of being “small minded” and “socialist” is easy to dismiss as a rambling diatribe. But when the misinformation within it concerns the Eastside Corridor, repeating common assertions that are 180-degrees away from proven reality, it is time to speak out for the public good.
The correct sentence in his letter was: “The rail corridor is not going away.” The corridor is rail-banked — a federal program that preserves valuable rail corridors intact over the decades by authorizing their use in the meantime for an “interim trail.”
The governmental managing authority who ensures the continued viable existence of such a rail-banked corridor is even called the “trail maintenance authority.”
In other words, it is precisely the creation of this interim trail, and the government agency overseeing a vibrant public asset rather than a derelict one, that ensures the future option of rail usage at whatever time it becomes financially viable.
The interim community trail that some rail enthusiasts so vehemently attack is what keeps the land a well-managed, contiguous right-of-way for future rail, rather than squandered privately through residential encroachment across an abandoned and derelict resource.
Much of the reason for this shrill and self-damaging opposition to a community trail is the misplaced belief by some rail fans that rail’s future is now — that the same usages BNSF Railway found financial non-viable when it discontinued freight and (the Dinner Train) excursion rail just a few years ago are now magically a good investment.
This is the argument that GNP Railway made before going bankrupt, oddly while claiming easy access to billions of dollars in federal funding for commuter rail. And it is the argument that some of the same players, now regrouped as the Eastside TRailway Alliance, are making today as they try to fund and launch a private excursion line with public tax dollars.
To its credit, Eastside TRailway Alliance has generally scaled back from the promises of whooshing commuter rail and its hundreds of millions in subsidized capital costs that were GNP’s undoing.
The newest rendition of a subsidized private project is a quaint little excursion experience called the “Tasting Train,” paid for with far fewer millions of your money, though actual estimates of hard costs for rails/ties, crossings, stations, and trains are hard to nail down.
Because the goal is to have Kirkland residents go north to spend money, the plan is naturally well supported up north. Anyone who opposes this plan is apparently devoid of vision and community goodwill.
As a Kirkland taxpayer, I respectfully disagree. Like the city of Kirkland, in its official Statement Of Interest on the corridor, I understand and accept the permanent rail right-of-way that comes with rail-banking. I acknowledge Sound Transit as the regional rail authority for responsible future decisions.
And I believe that an interim five-mile-long walking, jogging, and biking corridor through the heart of a fragmented Kirkland, free of speeding cars and safe for walking to schools or parks, is a huge and welcome vision.
At the crushed-gravel level of service, it’s even paid for mostly by the rails it recycles, and ties into the regional trail system! The self-funded Cross Kirkland Trail will do more to unify Kirkland’s 13 neighborhoods and build much-needed community than any expensive promises the Eastside TRailway Alliance can market to us at our own expense. So do something about it. Ask thoughtful questions and follow the money!
Bob Forgrave, Kirkland
