Port of Seattle was looking to acquire the Renton-Snohomish trackage and then do some landswaps with King County, but King County Exec Ron Sims says he won't have anything to do with it unless the tracks are ripped up. There's a small but growing energy to acquire the line, keep the tracks in place, albeit upgrade, and possibly operate some sort of commuter service on it. A huge ($16 bil?) transportation package just failed at the polls up here, and without a reasonable outlook for freeway expansion along I-405 now, some folks are actually beginning to think that there might just be merit in looking at the BNSF Lake Washington line for commuter service. But lots of hurtles still out there...

-dmg