The economic link between investment and movement of goods and people - The Seattle Times

The direct link between the improvement of transport and the economic vitality of their communities is not lost on dozens of local officials in Snohomish County.

Call it consistent optimism or a vision focused on reality. They see how the future and they are ready to say aloud.

Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon convened a meeting Tuesday, has attracted more than 125 people for the Edward d. Hansen Conference Center at Comcast Arena in Everett. For three hours, the exuberant talk has dynamic links between road improvements, rail service and bicycle paths and their impact on employment and livable communities.

Reardon and others are clearly landing jobs associated with the next generation of Boeing 737 s is a priority for the County. Movement of people and products is the key.

Identify and promote a site - to Paine Field, the long 5 or near Marysville and Arlington - also, is having the infrastructure planning to be competitive. As Rep. Rick Larsen, D - Lake Stevens, noted, investment creates jobs, not blame and finger.

Talk is already burbling on thrust on transport in the Legislative Assembly of 2012. Reardon argues that the debate must go beyond taxes of gas for the update of the public-private partnerships and to decide how to make investments.

Larsen stressed the importance of a plan of cutting-edge which feeds the skills, knowledge and, even one time, investment in infrastructure.

See the particular portrait is applicable to the rail, a term which begs definition. Opportunities abound with rail at high speed, which Larsen recalled that the audience is a contentious element in the next six-year federal transportation plan.

Freight mobility is fundamental, the basic function of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe system. Since 1998, a freight Action Strategy has strengthened the movement of goods via the corridor Everett-Seattle-Tacoma.

Bruce Agnew, Centre of Cascadia Seattle passenger Discovery Institute, long a promoter of rail service expanded, boasted a new rapid Northern Corridor of the intertwining of complementary regional economic development efforts.

Rail-Amtrak commuter service Sound Transit sounder and ST link light rail are all attract clients seeking options and alternatives. Mayor of Snohomish Karen Guzak wishes to establish links to commuter to Everett and Eastside communities. She sees bike trails as the basis for all packages of contemporary transportation improvements.

Steve Schweigerdt, representing Western conservation of Washington, D.C., focused on the Rails-to-trails, describes a national movement managed to convert the rail corridors to accommodate paths. Locally, the former route 42 miles on the Eastside BNSF is an extraordinary opportunity and a bureaucratic muddle.

As commuter options appear, they get used. Joni Earl, Director Executive of its Transit, makes the point, noting that his agency needs more places park-ride to meet the demand. Roland Behee, Director of strategic planning for Transit community, said that his agency rapid suburban express bus service, either four years of projections of the number of users.

These community leaders know commuter from suburb to suburb is growing, bike riders are not creatures and promote bus, rail and bike is not an attack on the cars. Public discourse refreshing.

Thoughtful and sensitive to the needs transportation planning is subject of mobile cargo, people and attract investment. Session of the Reardon was stripped of clichés and petty quarrels.

Column of lance Dickie appears regularly on the the Times editorial pages. Its address is ldickie@seattletimes.com

Source : Click Here