Rail-to-trail-to-rail

Preservation of the 40-mile Eastside rail corridor for future use as a high-capacity passenger-rail line is a priority and a promise that must be repeated early and often as a bicycle trail is developed.

Future public transit use, in tandem with a recreational trail or as a replacement, is one of the primary appeals of complicated and expensive land sales and swaps among King County, the Port of Seattle and BNSF Railway. Those entities pledged their loyalty this week to agreements that launch further negotiations toward Port ownership of the county airport near downtown, the county getting an underused freight line and money to build a bike path, and the railway getting money and government cooperation on aggressive freight-mobility plans.

This region has precious few north-south corridors to handle or contemplate handling predictable population growth and the equally predictable commutes to the employment that helps sustain Puget Sound's economic health and livability.

In the absence of immediate plans for high-capacity transit, the option and public pledges will need to be nurtured and preserved. That needs to be highlighted in political rhetoric and official documents, the signage along a developed trail and, perhaps, the continued, purposeful physical presence of rails.

Part of the region's livability is a continued effort to expand and link existing bicycle paths so they represent both recreational and commute alternatives. Looking ahead to preserve options for high-capacity transit does not preclude such improvements.

Julia Patterson, vice chair of the King County Council, made the point on these op-ed pages Wednesday, that a trail and rail line can exist side by side, as they do in Myrtle Edwards Park.

Future use of the Eastside rail corridor by commuters will not be in jeopardy from land-use planning, finances or technology. The danger is politically convenient lapses of memory and a craven refusal to follow through on a promise.