Building a second north-south freeway and railway parallel to I-5 in Snohomish County would be too difficult, according to a state Department of Transportation report published online Tuesday.

The state spent $500,000 to consider building a new “commerce corridor” along a route that would have gone from Oregon to the Canadian border.

The corridor could have included eight lanes of freeway, a railway for moving freight and people, and space for utilities such as electricity and natural gas lines.

“The corridor as it is defined currently is too long, has too many components and is too complex,” the report states.

The state recommends pursuing a smaller corridor from I-90 south to Chehalis. It also suggests that more study be done on how to move freight more efficiently through the Puget Sound region.

“I think, if there’s any potential, you would find it in a truck route in the central Puget Sound” area, said Barbara Ivanov, the state’s director of freight strategy and policy.

The state will forward its recommendation to the Legislature after it holds public meetings in Bellingham and Chehalis in November.

According to estimates, it could take up to 50 years to build such a second north-south corridor and would cost $42 billion to $50 billion.

The proposed corridor would have entered Snohomish County south of Monroe and cut a path north between Lake Stevens and Granite Falls on its way to Skagit County.

Backers of the study said an alternate to I-5 is worth considering because it could help the region keep its competitive edge, making it easier to ship goods to and from Asia and Canada, and promoting new job growth in the region.

Critics said the state should focus on fixing I-5 rather than on building a new freeway, which they said would destroy the rural character of the Cascade foothills and promote urban sprawl in what are now hard-to-reach rural communities.

Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@heraldnet.com.

2 trying to unseat 3-term legislator

* Republican Margaret Wiggins and Libertarian Gordon Bohnke are challenging incumbent Democrat Ruth Kagi.

By Bill Sheets

Herald Writer

State Rep. Ruth Kagi, D-Lake Forest Park, will again try to fend off a challenge from Republican Margaret Wiggins of Bothell, who ran against her two years ago.

Libertarian Gordon Bohnke of Edmonds is the third candidate in the race for the Position 2 House seat in the 32nd District.

Kagi, seeking her fourth term, lists reforms in criminal justice and social programs as her biggest accomplishments. She sponsored the drug-sentencing reform act, which allows local jurisdictions to give people convicted of drug possession the option of treatment instead of prison.

“There are people who are going to prison because they’re drug addicts,” Kagi said. The point of the treatment option, she said, is to “hold them accountable for their recovery and not waste $25,000 a year on a prison bed.”

Wiggins said she supports the drug sentencing reform but believes that she, better than Kagi, could convince Republicans that it should be expanded to all jurisdictions.

“I don’t think she (Kagi) needs to be there for that to happen,” Wiggins said.

Another of Kagi’s successful bills required that decisions in child welfare cases be more “evidence-based,” she said. She also passed a bill that a child in the foster care system be kept in the same school, if possible, when moved from one home to another.

Kagi said her priority would be to continue to reform and improve social services.

Wiggins said her biggest reason for running is to improve the state’s economic climate.

“We are still in a recession in this state, while the rest of the country is coming out of it,” she said.

Wiggins said reducing regulations on business and doing performance audits on state agencies, to keep taxes down, are the best ways to help the economy.

She opposes any tax reform that would include an income tax.

“I’m mad at the fact that the Democrats are floating the income tax song and dance again,” she said.

Bohnke is not so much concerned with either of the other two candidates as he is with getting out the Libertarian message. He ran once before, in 2000 in the 21st District.

His biggest issues are to reduce taxes “and eliminate programs that they pay for and replace them with free-market private enterprise.”

He said Libertarians oppose any kind of government intrusion, including on civil liberties. “That’s not what our country was founded on,” he said.

Rep. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds, is running unopposed for her second full term in the Position 1 House seat.

Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com