Maintain rail link

Lance Dickie’s Friday column provides a look at long-range thinking versus short-term thinking [“Putting the pedal to the metal,” Opinion, March 15].

The Eastside Trailways Alliance is thinking long range, as BNSF and Sound Transit should have done. Kirkland’s city manager needs to wise up and realize the value of leaving the tracks in place, rather than wasting considerable time and material ripping out a piece of the existing Eastside rail corridor and thereby throwing away the Bellevue to Snohomish rail link. Think about the possibilities for commuters who live in the North King and South Snohomish suburbs and work at Microsoft or Google!

–Peter Hawley, Covington