Snohomish County has given a private company, GNP Railway rights to operate commuter rail in the portion of the old BNSF railway in Snohomish county. Currently that portion of the former railway is a trail. GNP railway wants to operate commuter rail service from Snohomish to Bellevue or Renton, with a station in Snohomish (the city) where there was one the larger part of a century ago.
In order to accomplish this, GNP would need to make a similar deal with the Port of Seattle, get the capital to add rails where there's currently just a trail, and build stations along the line. It sounds a little iffy to me, because I doubt the line would get enough ridership to make this a profitable enterprise, but GNP chairman Tom Payne has a history of bringing railroads from the dead:
Payne, a former locomotive engineer, transformed a failing rail line into Canada's third-largest railroad in the 1980s and 1990s. He operated a tourist-oriented excursion train out of Tacoma in 2006.
I would be awesome if this works, though I imagine some sort of public-private partnership would be needed. This is going to be an interesting one to watch.
5 comments:
While the viability of this remains to be seen this could work. Our region is behind many others in terms of transit development; one way to get back with the pack is to innovate with projects like a joint public/private commuter rail. Hey, it might even work!
SR9 is the most dangerous highway in WA and we need a more permanent solution than 'driving with your headlights on for safety'.
I hope they can make it work, but there are a whole lot of NIMBYs out there.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
And at least this keep the notion of rail on the Eastside Corridor on everyone's agenda.
I'm really excited about this one. Especially if some up-zoning around the stations occur.
If they up-zone near stations, the could get businesses to pay for a lot of the construction costs.
The best part about doing this between GNP and Snohomish Co is that the rail running rights agreement is just the start of the process to potentially get commuter rail running in 2009 between Snohomish and Bellevue.
How much CO2 will that take out of the air?
GNP also presented to KC a proposal to build a 12' wide 'base' paved trail ('pinch points' have to be worked out by the counties). The trick is to build it when the rails are upgraded and make it as safe as reasonably possible. 'Enhancements' can come over time.
NIMBY's will have to remember that the rails were there first (over 100-years) and are still active today. Their concerns are absolutely secondary to these simple facts per U.S. Supreme Court and STB rulings.
The bottom line is that a public private partnership will beat the pants off of public only studies, more process and decades and $$$billions to deliver results. Just look at Sound Transit...
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