Eastside Rail Now!


Double stack container train passing through Bellevue in 2007
Eastside Rail Now! is a grassroots environmental and rail advocacy organization that was founded in early 2007 to fight King County Executive Ron Sims' plan to scrap the strategic Eastside railroad and replace it with a paved road for bicycles. This completely senseless action wasted more than $160 million of taxpayers' money. Worse yet, after removal it has become vastly more costly and extremely difficult politically to put the tracks back in, thereby setting back transportation and environmental progress on the Eastside by decades!

The Eastside railroad was particularly well suited for use as the core of a low cost and environment-friendly regional commuter rail service. This is because it paralleled I-405, which is the most congested freeway in the entire Northwest, and passed through or near most major destinations on the rapidly growing Eastside. Because the tracks were in fair-to-good condition, an initial, pilot commuter service using state-of-the-art DMUs could have been launched on the railroad in just a few months. And a full-scale commuter service, with trains running over existing tracks all the way to Everett and beyond in the north and to Tacoma and beyond in the south, could have been in operation in two years or less.


To learn more about the Eastside Railroad please visit:

      The Eastside Railroad
      About Eastside Rail Now!
      The Great I-405 Boondoggle
      How Rail on the Eastside Can Help Fight Global Warming
      The Eastside Railroad and Regional Resilience
      King County Executive Ron Sims' KUOW Interview
      Ron Sims' Urgent Plea to Scrap the Railroad Immediately
      Downtown Bellevue's Grand Esplanade,
      FAQ: Downtown Bellevue's Grand Esplanade,
      Proposed Extension to the UW Bothell Campus
      Bellevue-Overlake-Microsoft-Redmond Connector Line
      The PSRC Study
      Scenes Along the Eastside Railroad
      Index





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