Airport for Bike Trail Trade is On

They're actually doing it. The Port is getting King County Airport (AKA Boeing Field) in exchange for an Eastside rail corridor and a bag of baseballs. A bunch of Agreements were signed today making it so, with the other interested party being King County. When this deal was first floated to the public in October it was made clear that the rail corridor would be transformed into a recreational trail, something that we found to be kind of neat but also kind of wasteful, although we didn't really shed many tears for the Spirit of Washington dinner train that was going to be displaced in the process. In the press release this time around the recreational possibilities of the corridor are downplayed somewhat, but that's still the intended use. The County promises to do some research into making it a transit pathway, although they insist that such a transit line isn't currently needed.

King County will take over the BNSF rail line along the eastern edge of Lake Washington. The rail corridor runs from North Renton to Snohomish. The Port, on behalf of King County, will pay BNSF $103 million for approximately 40 miles of the rail line. The Port also will contribute up to $66 million to King County toward development of a major new regional trail, in exchange for the airport.

At the same time, the County commits to preserve the option of dual use of the corridor for both trail and transportation use in coming decades. A recent, in-depth study by the Puget Sound Regional Council found that at present, there is not enough demand for commuter transit along the route to make the line economically viable. That could change in the future.

The agreements also specified that the County will ask the state for money to improve the rail access to Stampede Pass and that the Port, the County and BNSF will "identify property suitable for a major intermodal rail facility in the Central Puget Sound region" which sounds especially promising. Oh, and that, dammit, the rail corridor transferring to the County will be developed as a hiking and biking trail with an eye towards reactivating it as a transit line at some mysterious point in the future. We suspect that once a rail corridor goes bike trail it will never go back. The County Council will vote on it next.

Image courtesy of Samuel Bernofsky.