Orphan Road

King County is organizing a series of discussions around Tranportation issues. Seems like a good opportunity for those of us who care about transit to make our voices heard.

Go to the web site to register!

King County has approved the deal to let the Port of Seattle buy the eastside rail corridor. The County's approval was important, since they were the ones who had the first rights to buy it.

While there's nothing final on Boeing Field, the memorandum does say that the Port and the County "shall develop a consultative process for considering major capital improvements at King County International Airport that would substantially affect the Airport’s regional impact."

The County's going to move to buy two segments of the trail, but I'm not clear on which segments those are. The P-I's (and the Times') description would seem to correspond roughly with segments A and D of the PSRC's study (above). But the memo istelf seems to imply that the "Southern Portion" (A+B) will be converted to a trail, while the "Northern Portion" (C+D) will be retained for freight use.

PDF of proposed passenger-only ferries to West Seattle, Vashon, and more.

That seems to be the gist of the new deal between King County and the Port of Seattle on the Eastside rail corridor. The Port is going to buy the corridor from BNSF, same as before, but now King County doesn't have to trade its Airport. Instead, King County promises to "consult" with the Port before "any major developments" (read: building a passenger terminal for Southwest or Alaska Air).

So the Port basically laid out $103M just to hedge against the possibility that King County might someday want to put a second Airport in your backyard. It's sort of like buying Marvin Gardens because the other guy already has Atlantic and Ventnor Aves. and you're worried he's gonna build hotels.

It looks like, by holding out, King County got a better deal than it would have under the original Ron Sims-Mic Dinsmore swap, which called for the County to give up the Airport. Kudos to the King County council for making it happen. Now we get a trail with even more strict assurances that it will be usable for high-capacity transit in the future.

Oops:

Voters' in northern King County will receive a supplemental edition of their state and local Voters' Pamphlet this weekend. Edition 18 was printed and mailed without the Sound Transit & RTID Proposition No. 1 pro and con statements page. The error occurred during the printing process and was discovered yesterday, after edition 18 was mailed to households in Bothell, Kenmore, Kirkland, Woodinville, and Redmond. Voters will receive their supplemental pamphlet before absentee ballots are mailed.

Noted without comment.

The Seattle Times' Bob Young was on KUOW's Weekday this morning, discussing all things Port-related. He suggested that, although its true that the Port is no longer interested in owning Boeing Field (which it would get in exchange for the BNSF corridor), it might still be interested in managing the airport.

Also, Young noted that the Port commissioners' pushback against the deal may have been motivated in part by a desire to push back against Ron Sims, who's been giving them a hard time over the Lora Lake Apartments, low income housing that the Port wants demolished in advance of the third runway at Sea-Tac.

Sims seems to enjoy sparring with the Port. Two years ago, they fought over Southwest Airlines at Boeing Field and the implications for light rail at Sea-Tac.

One more thought on the BNSF-AAW deal. Ron Sims' spokesman sounded a little bit defensive about the whole thing:

Triplett said government would be more responsive to citizen concerns than would a private firm: "Who would you rather have decide how many trains should be coming through the Eastside: a combination of King County and Sound Transit, or a private entity whose goals you don't know about?"

More likely, King County and Sound Transit are concerned about how the project will reflect on them. After all, most of the public isn't discerning enough to know the difference between a privately-financed rail project and a public one (Orphan Road readers excepted). If All Aboard Washington's plan didn't work for one reason or another, the bad press would rub off on ST, like it has with the Monorail debacle. People lose faith in the whole idea of rapid transit.

For example, I overheard someone walking by the new streetcar tracks in South Lake Union who said to a friend, "oh this is for the new Sound Transit streetcar... the streetcar to nowhere!" You have to wonder, will she vote for the Roads and Transit package this fall, or will she be turned off by the fact that Sound Transit is building a streetcar to nowhere, even though Sound Transit has nothing to do with the planning, funding, or operation of said streetcar?

Ron Sims is determined not to let that right-of-way slip through our fingers. From a King County press release:

Sims, along with the environmentalists and transportation advocates, signed a statement of Principles of Dual Use for the corridor. The principles include the promise to work with local, state and federal agencies for money to build a rail line on the 40 mile corridor being sold by the railroad. Trail advocates from the start have advocated the dual use of this critical public asset and the statement of principles signed today emphasize their absolute commitment to this goal.

"All of my documents and all of my staff presentations are about dual use. But let there be no doubt to anyone about our intention to include a rail line if we are able to secure public ownership of this corridor," said Executive Sims. "If the money were available, we'd build modern commuter or high capacity transit rail immediately."

Some transit advocates feared that once it became a trail, no one would tolerate building rail on it. But the rail advocates don't have the money or the ridership numbers to justify a train. The PSRC study recommended trail now, rail later. But Sims wants to reassure us that rail is still a priority.

Although the Port Commissioner is explicitly mentioned, there's no talk of the infamous trail-for-airport swap that the kids were crazy about back in the day.

Update: The P-I's spin: Sims is trying to buy time until he can come up with the dough.

I just noticed that King County last month created a ferry district, which will allow it to explore more passenger-only ferries. The county's main passenger ferry, the Elliot Bay water taxi, could be run year-round with the new district. Additionally, other routes connecting, say UW with Kirkland, or West Seattle with Tacoma, are also going to be explored.

All this water makes building roads and trains expensive. Why not turn our transportation liability into an asset? Ferries are easy to set up: you buy a boat, build a dock, and you're done. The downside is that there's a lot of time lost in the modal transfer. Unless you live right near the water, you have to first take a bus or drive to the dock, then wait for the ferry, etc. But for some routes -- like Kirkland-to-UW, or say Gasworks-Park-to-South-Lake-Union -- it could make sense.

Update: The UW Daily has more on the potential UW-Kirkland ferry route.

King County Councilman Larry Phillips wants the BNSF corridor on the Eastside, he just doesn't think that the County should give up Boeing Field (King County Airport) in exchange.

His stated problems with the Sims land swap boil down to: (a) he wants to keep the airport, and (b) he thinks it's worth far more than the trail (perhaps five times as much). But it's actually more complicated than that. Phillips district (PDF), which includes Seattle's Magnolia and Queen Anne neighborhoods, happens to be right in the airport's flight path. He's worried that the Port of Seattle would try to start landing commercial flights there, which would be disruptive for his constituents.

However, he knows that the rail corridor is vital, and that the idea of acquiring it is popular, so he's trying to convince all the regional municipalities, including the Port, that it's in their interest to buy the right-of-way without giving up the airport in exchange.

Note how deftly he skirts the issue of commercial flights (and the debate over rail-vs-trail) while simultaneously putting himself in the pro-acquisition camp:

King County keeps the airport we have a proven track record operating and the Port of Seattle has little interest in acquiring; and the region moves swiftly to acquire the rail corridor from BNSF either through a funding partnership or an outright purchase by the Port of Seattle.

Future generations will thank us for our ingenuity as they ride their bikes or take the train through the booming cities on the Eastside.

Clever. Everyone thinks that we should acquire the right-of-way. The question is how do we pay for it. The Port has the money, but they want the airport in exchange. As a Queen Anne resident, I don't really have a problem with more flights overhead, so I'm less sympathetic to Phillips' argument on that score. But as a taxpayer, I want to get the best deal possible. So if he's right, and the airport is actually worth 5x the trail, then obviously we need to find another way to get our hands on it.