(The Seattle Times posted the following article by Mike Lindblom on its website on May 30.)
SEATTLE — By the end of this year, commuters will be able to board a morning train in Everett and roll along the Puget Sound waterfront into Seattle.
Sound Transit signed a preliminary agreement yesterday with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad to establish the new Sounder Northern Express. At a cost to taxpayers of $250 million, the agreement provides one daily round-trip train beginning in late 2003, with three more daily round trips at a date to be negotiated.
The agreement will become final after three or four months of negotiations on schedules, track improvements and other details.
In return for payments from Sound Transit, BNSF will add tracks and trestles that allow passenger rail without hurting freight capacity. The 35-mile northern segment is a cargo gateway through Stevens Pass to the nation’s midsection.
“This new service tells businesses that we are serious about fixing our transportation problems,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who organized a recent negotiating session in the nation’s capital to break a two-year deadlock.
“Voters told us they want less congestion on our roads,” Murray said at a ceremony at the newly remodeled Everett station. “Today we say, ‘Sounder’s on its way.’ ”
Snohomish County Executive Bob Drewel tried on a striped railworker’s cap and cried, “All aboard!” as dignitaries made their way into train cars bound for Seattle.
In a related deal, the transit agency will buy or lease 21 miles of track in Pierce County through Nisqually and Lakewood for $30 million to extend Sounder south beyond Tacoma. Sound Transit would pay for future track improvements that could total about $60 million.
Sound Transit is paying BNSF $250 million over four years to improve the north corridor, where there is only one track in some places. That amount exceeds the $186 million in the budget and is more than double the $106 million estimate (in 1995 dollars) from the voter-approved Sound Move plan of 1996.
Sound Transit also reduced the number of trains, settling for four daily round trips instead of six. All four will go south in the morning and north in the afternoon. The two discarded runs were reverse-commute routes that would have interfered with freight schedules.
In return, Sounder trains will have access for 97 years on the Everett-Seattle line, compared to 40 in the Tacoma-Seattle segment.
“Our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will take this trip for granted,” Drewel said.
“It was really important we accept four (trains),” said Everett City Councilman Mark Olson, a Sound Transit board member. “Hopefully, the experience BN has with this agreement will be such that they will entertain a future expansion.”
Besides the four round trips, Sound Transit plans to add special-event coaches to Mariners baseball and Seahawks football games.
With most seats occupied, Tacoma-Seattle commuter trains now serve about 1,500 round-trip riders each weekday, and six more round trips are to be added by 2009. The new northern express will stop in Everett, Edmonds and King Street Station in Seattle, with a Mukilteo station added in a few years.
“This is probably the most scenic commute available in the United States,” because most of it overlooks the beach, said Dave Earling, an Edmonds City Council member on the Sound Transit board.
The overall costs to build and operate the full 82-mile Sounder network are expected to exceed $1 billion through 2009.
Sound Transit said it must make a deal for commuter rail, because Snohomish County will not be reached by a planned light-rail line in the foreseeable future. Recently the Federal Transit Administration set a March 31 deadline to reach agreement, or jeopardize $50 million in proposed federal grants for north and south lines. Still, the talks went into overtime.
Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Transportation Committee, said that during her four-hour session May 7, she had some leverage because the railroad and politicians alike are frequently seeking her help on projects.
“I told them this (Sounder) was important to the people I represent, and I wanted it done,” she said.
Skip Endres, BNSF’s vice president for government affairs, said the deal strikes “a delicate balance” between freight and passenger service.
Local officials also want to build credibility with Boeing, which has cited the region’s clogged traffic as one of several drawbacks to building new jets in Washington state.
“Boeing, we’re listening,” said Drewel said. “When you talk about the importance of moving people and goods, this shows we’re doing something about that. … Sounder will move people and help carry the freight that will build the world’s best airplanes for the next century.”