Talks continue over Eastside rail corridor

The Port of Seattle is continuing its negotiations with BNSF Railway Co. to buy the Eastside rail corridor, but the expected completion date has been pushed back to Feb. 15, said port spokeswoman Charla Skaggs, who declined to provide further details.

In mid-January, King County Councilmen Bob Ferguson and Larry Phillips wrote that the purchase price would be $103 million, $4 million under what the port commission authorized port Chief Executive Tay Yoshitani to spend on the Snohomish-to-Renton rail corridor, including overhead.

Commissioner Pat Davis has said that the port could over time spend an additional $87 million in possible interest payments.

Should the port choose to divest itself of any part of the corridor in the future, Phillips and Ferguson wrote that the county would have 120 days to buy the property and that the port would offer the property "to any other public agency that provides mass transit, rail services or trails" for another 120 days after that.