(The following story by Adam Wilson appeared on The Olympian website on December 26.)
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Floods closed the major railroad running near Interstate 5 earlier this month, but for only half the time the road was shut down.
The episode highlights rails’ growing importance to the state’s economy. Trucks carry the majority of commercial goods and products in Washington, but railroad freight will increase by 60 percent in the next 17 years, a state study predicts, driven in part by growing international trade at state ports.
“That’s one thing customers are concerned with, what’s your rail capacity,” said Patti Grant, spokeswoman for the Port of Olympia. “Rail is growing, up and down the West Coast. And that’s a good thing; the more that goes by rail, the fewer trucks on the road, the lower the congestion.”
Each day, 50 freight trains and 10 passenger trains use the corridor near I-5, owned and operated by BNSF Railway.
Floods closed it near Chehalis for more than two days, and traffic was routed east over the Cascades or along the Columbia River, said company spokesman Gus Melonas. He said it was the most significant delay on the tracks in at least a decade, but the railroad did not have a dollar estimate of the damage.
The publicly owned freeway was closed for four days. The Department of Transportation estimated closing the state’s main north-south highway to trucks cost $4 million a day in economic activity.
“What has happened over the past year is that the state has realized that the state has had to develop more policy on freight rail,” said Patrick Jones, executive director of the Public Ports Association of Washington.
Three-quarters of all the cargo containers coming into Washington ports are shipped out by rail. The same is true for out-of-state products brought to the ports to be shipped overseas.
“The privately owned rail system is very, very important to our port competitiveness,” said Jones.
The state traditionally has been cautious about spending money on private railroads, a policy that has roots in the state Constitution, which prohibits lending to corporations.
The main public investment in trains has been the Amtrak Cascades service, which carries 420,000 riders a year between Portland and Vancouver, British Columbia.
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In the last four years, however, the state has spent more on freight rail construction, including $375,000 for a new spur track to the Port of Olympia docks, purchasing a 300-mile short line used to ship Palouse crops for $28 million, and spending $7.4 million on new connections to the Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad near Centralia.
The state Transportation Commission submitted a report to lawmakers this year advising them to fund freight projects that offer maximum economic benefit but are unlikely to be paid for by the major railroad companies, which have higher national priorities.
“We try to start not with a project — with a here’s a solution, let’s go find a problem — we try to provide rigorous and sound analysis on what would be the most sound investment,” said Barbara Ivanov, freight systems director of the Department of Transportation.
An example of a supported project, however, went nowhere this year. The Auburn-to-Pasco line operated by BNSF passes through Stampede Tunnel, which is too low for double-stacked railroad cars.
Gov. Chris Gregoire proposed spending $25 million to raise the tunnel’s ceiling enough to allow the double-stacked cars, but she suggested the Legislature use state construction dollars, not transportation funds.
“I said, it may look like transportation; this is in fact economic development,” Gregoire said. “I’ve got to get those crops from Eastern Washington to port timely, efficiently and in a way that doesn’t damage the crop. The best way to do is through Stampede Pass — (I was) immediately told ‘That’s a transportation project, you can’t take it out of the capital budget.’ ”
Freight rail projects were included in the last two major gasoline-tax packages passed by the Legislature, but the public won’t tolerate another tax increase, said the lead Republican on the Senate Transportation Committee, Sen. Dan Swecker.
“Any kind of rail (project) is really basically a freight project. And the freight projects are the ones where they’re looking at that container tax,” Swecker said.
A Democratic proposal for a $50 tax on each 20-foot cargo container coming into Washington ports didn’t make it far this year, faltering under pressure from ports and others who said it would make Washington a less attractive place for ships to unload.