Sound Transit to look into BNSF line

Sound Transit is positioning itself to perhaps take over the Eastside's soon-to-be-abandoned Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway line someday, for future transit use with a proposed bike trail.

The agency's governing board on Thursday voted to study that corridor as part of the huge "Roads & Transit" ballot measure, headed toward a regional vote in November.

King County is already trying to acquire the 40-mile BNSF line, from Renton to Snohomish, in a deal involving BNSF and the Port of Seattle, in which the Port would take over the county's airport (Boeing Field).

But if that deal falls through, Sound Transit might step forward. In one of several tweaks to its regional plan Thursday, transit officials gave themselves the option of buying rail property, if funds are available.

The existing route is single-tracked, so it couldn't be used for transit as is, said board member Julia Patterson, a Metropolitan King County Council member from SeaTac. In the short term, population density and transit ridership at the BNSF line would be weak, so the money to launch a new line would be better spent building Sound Transit's proposed east-west line beyond Overlake, Patterson said.

Railway artist J. Craig Thorpe, of Bellevue, warned the transit board that a rail line is unlikely to return if the board hesitates and the tracks are yanked out for a bike trail, or if BNSF sells the land piece by piece. "To tear out a rail to make way for a [future] rail system is unconscionable," he said. "It speaks to the extent to which we've become a throwaway society."

In other tweaks, Sound Transit extended its light-rail proposal to 164th Street Southwest, instead of stopping in Lynnwood, and lengthened a proposed Capitol Hill streetcar route by six blocks in Seattle, to Aloha Street near Broadway.

Other recent tweaks include stretching the light-rail proposal farther south to the Tacoma Dome, instead of stopping at the Port of Tacoma.

Sound Transit now proposes 50 miles of new light rail, in addition to the 16 miles now under construction from Westlake Center to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and a planned three-mile tunnel to Husky Stadium.

To the east, the ballot measure includes a route from Seattle to Overlake, via the Interstate 90 floating bridge and downtown Bellevue.

The ballot package, to become final in May, calls for $23 billion for transit extensions and $14 billion in highway projects through 2028, and bond payments for years afterward. If finance costs and inflation are omitted, the transit spending totals $10 billion, the road plan $9 billion.

To the east, the ballot measure includes a route from Seattle to Overlake, via the Interstate 90 floating bridge and downtown Bellevue.

Microsoft will support the upcoming campaign, said Jim Stanton, a community-affairs manager for the company, headquartered at Overlake.

An earlier plan frustrated some officials because the north line stopped at Lynnwood, and the south line missed downtown Tacoma. But the agency now assumes it will receive more bonding, federal aid and fare-box money to fund longer routes.

Officials won't decide until at least next year whether the route will reach downtown Redmond.

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com