Eastside Rail Now! (that’s their exclamation point) is holding a town hall meeting at the Bellevue library at 6:30, with registration starting at 6:00, Tuesday the 19th of February. They have a slate of speakers, including Tom Jones from the Cascadia Center of the Discovery Institute, Craig Stone from WSDOT and John Creighton from the Port of Seattle.
It’s sort of a grassroots thing and should be interesting for those Eastside Rail fanatics.
Eastside Rail Now! (that’s their exclamation point) is holding a town hall meeting at the Bellevue library at 6:30, with registration starting at 6:00, Tuesday the 19th of February. They have a slate of speakers, including Tom Jones from the Cascadia Center of the Discovery Institute, Craig Stone from WSDOT and John Creighton from the Port of Seattle.
It’s sort of a grassroots thing and should be interesting for those Eastside Rail fanatics.
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aren’t the discovery institute people the batshitcrazy loons who have been trying to kill all things transit-related in puget sound?
is their free-market invisible hand going to solve our public transit woes?
hmmmm…
I’ve read people on this blog say that for Seattle rail to make sense, it must serve high density neighborhoods. But some of these same people are for the eastside rail line, which does not cut through high density neighborhoods, with very few exceptions. To those people, I ask, are you being inconsistent in your logic?
Personally, as a pro-rail eastsider, I am not for the dinner train line being made into a public transit rail line. I want to see it be made into more a Burke Gilman/Sammamish River Trail bike and pedestrian trail.
I am only for light rail when the line makes sense. This is why I’m against the political, zig-zagging downtown to Seatac line, and this is why I’m against the Renton to Woodinville dinnertrain line.
As a pro-rail Eastsider (who lives AND works in a single city!), I’d prefer that the line not be turned into a damn rec trail that will be virtually impossible to recover for rail uses. For fuck’s sake, the Burke-Gilman is basically perfect for intracity (and even intercity) light rail (or streetcars on their own rights of way) for Seattle but do you think it will ever be returned to that use due to NIMBYism? If the rails-to-trails stuff preserved the actual rail line, I’d be all for it. And in this case, it COULD considering the width of the right of way but I’d be surprised if they don’t rip up the tracks.
I’ve said it elsewhere, rail “banking” in urban areas is a fraud – how many trails have been turned back to rail use nationally since it started? I’d bet the number is closer to zero than ten (I’ve yet to find a single one). Meanwhile, cities like Denver, Edmonton and Salt Lake City are expanding their rail transit networks along pre-existing but defunct rail rights of way that haven’t been turned into trails.
As to ERN! in particular and their motives. Well, the Cascadia Center has shilled for everything from high-speed rail between Vancouver and Seattle (not a bad idea), BRT instead of LRT (a bad idea) to a submerged bridge across Lake Washington (a bizarre idea) but has targeted ST in their free-marketeer sights. In short, they are not to be trusted but if nothing happens to the right of way due to their meddling for five to ten years, that’s probably the best possible outcome. And if their heavy-rail doodlebug ends up being relatively successful then that’s cool, too (if it’s run like actual commuter rail, it won’t be, though). The worst outcome is that trains run for awhile but they shutter it saying it loses money. A PR hit for mass transit on the Eastside, certainly but hey, net result (no stupid rec trail) is just fine.
And sam, density and transportation planning cannot be separated so easily; even to say that one follows the other is a bit of a misunderstanding. Mass transit (rails and bus) service should be only a bit lower than water, sewer and power in planning new housing and commercial developments and improving existing ones but, well, it’s been treated like afterthought in most cases.
Sam @ 2,
I just want to say that I am against building the “Eastside rail” project until at least Eastlink gets built.
My problems with it are these:
1) It doesn’t go through downtown Bellevue, which is obviously the capital of the Eastside. It goes about half a mile on the otherside of 405 from DT bellevue.
2) It doesn’t go through Redmond, which is the second most important job and residential center over there. The closest it gets to Overlake or Redmond is where it crosses 520.
3) It doesn’t even get to Downtown Kirkland, and instead gets to about 85th and 405 which is a far cry and a long walk in the rain from the employment centers there.
4) (This may be the most important part) the rails as they exist today are not ready for rail, and many parts would need to be replaced. Even if they are replaced, that would only lead one track for rail going both ways.
It will be useful after Eastlink I believe, but no one should even be talking about it until after then in my opinion.
But, I do agree with CJH, if you turn it into trails, it’ll never be rails again.
I’m a big advocate for preserving it as rail so that the useful segments can be adapted for future rail use. However, I don’t think that the ERN! plan is actually that good.
Plus, it’s probably just more Cascadia Center hot air.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think everything has to be about public transportation. I don’t think everything has to be a road or a track. There’s nothing wrong with having long, urban or suburban pedestrian and bike only trails. In fact, I think it’s good for us.
Not everything, but you yourself called for more intercity transit. Parts of this rail line’s right of way could be adapted to that or adapted for intracity use. And these sorts of semi-defunct rail lines are cheap compared to acquiring entirely new rights of way (good luck with that) or building grade-separation and substantially less controversial and disruptive than replacing traffic lanes with rails.
There are also already plenty of long distance rec-trails on the Eastside and plenty of green space, so I can’t see how you would prioritize them over a basic infrastructure requirement and improvement. This is really prizing sizzle over steak.
cjh, people say once we rip out the rails and put in a bike path, we’ll never get it back. That’s what I say, except I see it like this… Once it’s decided to leave in the rails, and turn into a rail line, we’ll never get back that space as a pedestrian/bike-only trail.
Generations before us created great parks and trails for us to use. I think it’s our responsibility to do the same for generations to come.
But, sam, that is not the case for most of the right of way – even though ERN! oversells this point, it is wide enough for a trail paralleling it for most of its length. So, if you left the rails in place, you are not neccessarily sacrificing the trail. Which is not the case for the King County proposal for the trail (all rails would be removed).
For instance, most of the main right of way is wide enough for double or triple tracking (and in some stretches is already double or triple tracked). The only points where it is not that wide are the two spans in Bellevue and the spur into Redmond (I think).
I’d go out and take some photos if I wasn’t at work today and tomorrow until well after dusk but simply following its route on Google or Live maps in Satellite or Aerial mode is pretty enlightening.
And why isn’t investing in our transportation infrastructure, especially efficient and high-capacity infrastructure like rail, an even greater part of our responsibility for generations to come than having keen recreation?
cjh, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I think it would be an amazing pedestrian and bike-only trail. I see it as almost like a long, thin park, much like the Sammamish river trail. Can you envision a light rail line along side the SRT, and still have it be the welcoming, peaceful trail it is? I can’t. So I’m sure studies and logic may show that the best use for it may be rail AND trails, but studies can also be made to show that half of Greenlake park should be turned into a parking garage, and park and ride lot, and I’d be against that too.
Eastside rail has a lot of merit, but not exactly the way that ERN! is proposing it.
Stopping at Renton Landing is like stopping I-5 at the ship canal bridge. The line must be extended to Tukwila and farther south (think through cars from Tacoma) to become part of the greater regional system. This allows for transfers to Amtrak trains to Portland (at Tukwila); Vancouver, B.C., and Spokane (at Everett).
Express busses should feed into stations at Tukwila and Renton to take advatage of our public investment, taking all busses off of I-405 south of Bellevue.
Yes, the line misses downtown Bellevue. But, a timed bus or LRT connection at Bellevue Station will distrubute commuters thoughout downtown and Overlake.
I have concerns about grade crossings and proximity to neighborhoods along Lake Washington, but these are all things that can be mitigated. We, as a region, can come to common ground on this.
I appreciate the grassroots support, but this project needs some adult supervision, like Sound Transit, to make it the successful long-term solution that it can be.
Finally, I’m very concerned that by minimalizing eastside rail into a single “line”, people will not see how this fits into a much larger “system”. It must connect to Everett and Tukwila.
Build it, but build it right!
“Yes, the line misses downtown Bellevue. But, a timed bus or LRT connection at Bellevue Station will distrubute commuters thoughout downtown and Overlake.”
People are not going to take a bus to the train, then a bus again to downtown, then walk to work. Traffic would have to be much much worse for that to make sense…
I want it to be a biking / running trail, like others have said the Burke and Sammamish trail are fantastic, we need more of those.