Suburbs Want Help If Train Traffic Increases Auburn, Kent Officials Ask For Study Of Potential Effects

Wed., Aug. 21, 1996

Associated Press

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. should help cover local government costs resulting from additional train traffic through the suburbs between Seattle and Tacoma, a federal panel has been told.

Officials from Auburn and Kent asked the Surface Transportation Board on Friday to study traffic congestion and other environmental effects if the rail line is reopened through Stampede Pass.

Consideration of those potential problems is “conspicuously absent” from the railroad plan, they argued.

Auburn planning director Paul Krauss, in a separate letter to the panel Monday, argued that the board should consider the full capacity of the line, rather than just initial train traffic.

Under a plan announced in April, Burlington Northern Santa Fe would buy Washington Central Railroad for $40 million, acquiring a second link to the larger railroad’s main east-west line at Pasco via Stampede Pass.

The proposal is subject to approval by the federal board.

Rail lines through Stevens Pass and the Columbia River Gorge are running full, and the merger “is essential to opening a third route” between Puget Sound ports and Midwest distribution centers, said Dick Russack, a spokesman for Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

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