Should rails be pulled out along the BNSF Trail corridor?

Two weeks ago, Woodinville and Redmond City Council's met in Redmond Chambers. The conversation centered on transportation. Several Woodinville councilmembers Glickman and Price were most outspoken in favor of keeping the BNSF rails for a super-light mass transit line. Mayor Marchione likened the rails as "a knife through the heart of our Downtown". My next post will address the joint-city meeting. Please enjoy Shaw Etchever's informative analysis of the BNSF corridor.

Letter to the Editor - no trains along the BNSF Trail
--by Shaw Etchevers
Posted on KirklandViews by Admin on Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 23:10

The joint Puget Sound Regional Council/Sound Transit Study called for by House Bill 3224 (or ST-2) confirmed how little benefit taxpayers would get by spending over $1 Billion dollars on the Eastside corridor to run passenger trains, no matter where the money comes from. And, this does not even include other important hidden costs.

But, not surprisingly, there are already pro-train people projecting 154,000 ‘North-South trips/day on the Eastside’ by 2030, rather than the mere 6,270 trips/day projected for 2020 by the ST-2 between Tukwila and Everett. So, let’s consider the effectiveness of this new number and see how cost-effective the same 1 Billion dollar investment (railroad-only cost, no trail) would be. 154,000 trips/day (yr 2030) = 77,000 people traveling round-trip during the day. Using only buses that carry 75 people seated, we’d need 2,053 bus-trips per day (154,000 / 75). Everybody seated!

If we spread the bus service over only 12 hours/day to move those people, we’d need 171 buses, assuming that the buses can make - on average- ONLY 1 trip per hour. That means that we’d be able to transport 12,825 seated people per hour (171×75). If we get the fancier buses at $1 Million each, the total cost would be $171,000,000 (assuming that we buy them all today and park most of them until 2030!). That is 17% of the estimated rail-only cost on ST-2.

171 buses deployed each hour would theoretically allow individual bus-departures every 21 seconds throughout the Eastside. Thus, if they were to start from, say, 11 key points, they could run every 4 minutes. Or, if 14 key starting points were chosen, they could run every 5 minutes.

WHAT’S OVERLOOKED
Service
The 171 new buses could have many starting and ending points, as well as stops along the way and serve the people who live in the denser/central areas, as well as those farther away. They would run on existing roads and use P&Rs.

Trains envisioned in the ST studies would make stops only every 3 to 5 miles in odd locations requiring transfers to buses. However, this is the type of service provided elsewhere in the world to connect central stations of cities far apart, not in the same urban area. Buses, tramways and subways are used in urban areas, depending on the city size and density. In King County, we don’t need many major train stations, only a good one in Seattle that is well connected.

Buses could also start immediately on the Eastside for a fraction of the $171,000,000 cost estimated for 2020 or 2030, and routes could be modified at will over time to achieve optimal results and eventually mesh up with the Light Rail line that will be built.

Urban Sprawl
The train will service mainly people living near the outer limits of the RR route. Thus, it will actually encourage further growth away from Bellevue and Redmond, rather than motivate people to live near downtown areas. This will make the future regional traffic problem worse, rather than better.

Urban Planning Issues
Any effective, urban, train or light-rail transportation system will eventually REQUIRE a DOUBLE track, greater frequency and many more stops. So, looking into the future, what would the Eastside and Kirkland look like with a double rail bed through the middle of existing residential areas of the city, instead of on some of its existing streets or highways? Where would the trail be?

UNTIL we have just a few attractive ‘dense-living areas’ with a wide range of apartment prices on the Eastside, we will NOT reduce car driving. We will simply waste taxpayers’ money. There are currently too many must-go-to areas, for work, exercise, and doing errands, dispersed around the Eastside, to which one must drive a car to get to them in a timely fashion.

To achieve higher density in and near downtown areas on the Eastside, they must be people friendly, not just business friendly. Downtowns need to be places where people WANT to go to relax, not places where they HAVE to go to shop or do business. They should include many types of amenities, galleries, pedestrian-only streets, and summer and winter parks.

The North-South through traffic challenge cannot be solved by using trains. But, discouraging car-use by people near city centers will help a lot. Over the very long term, new roads and/or tunnels will have to be built. Meanwhile, the loss of a potential ‘linear park & trail’ for the Eastside along the BNSF Corridor would be a tragic loss for a large swath of the heaviest residential area on the Eastside. This linear park and non-motorized transportation corridor could service many cities and neighborhoods, as well as connect innumerable already existing parks, bike trails and even some beaches on Lake Washington. All of this, without people having to get into a car or, if coming from farther away, by simply driving to the closest P&R.

A well-developed, multi-use linear park would be an enormously attractive urban feature for young and old Eastside residents. Its cost? About $60-70 Million dollars (if the RR tracks are removed). Best of all, if the density of the Eastside ever justifies the use of the space for something else, the corridor will still be there. In the interim, one or more generations of people would have enjoyed this public asset.

SHOULDN’T THE $1 BILLION SAVED after buying the 171 buses and building a multi-use Trail/Park ($1.3 Billion, minus $171M in bus cost and $70M in Trail cost) BE BETTER used on Education, low-cost Housing, downtown Transportation, urban improvements, etc.?

Sincerely,
Shawn Etchevers