Drafter
Clerk 09/13/2019
Title
A MOTION naming the Eastside Rail Corridor "Eastrail."
Body
WHEREAS, on July 20, 2005, King County enacted Ordinance 15233, authorizing the Eastside Rail Corridor acquisition project for the preservation of transportation right-of-way in eastside King County cities and unincorporated areas, and
WHEREAS, on December 17, 2007, the county executive, the Port of Seattle and the BNSF Railway Company entered into a memorandum of understanding laying the groundwork for the Eastside Rail Corridor ("the ERC"). The ERC was first defined by the council through this memorandum of understanding executed under Ordinance 15995 as the coupling of the Woodinville Subdivision and Redmond Spur, a forty-two-mile corridor vital to the economic future of King County and six separate Eastside jurisdictions, and
WHEREAS, the ERC is comprised of approximately forty-two miles of corridor owned and managed by King County, Snohomish County, the cities of Kirkland, Woodinville and Redmond, the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (Sound Transit) and Puget Sound Energy, and
WHEREAS, the council established the Eastside Rail Corridor regional advisory council ("the ERC RAC") on December 10, 2012, under Motion 13801, and
WHEREAS, in 2013, the ERC RAC "Creating Connections" report recommended that a strategy be developed to brand the entire corridor, and
WHEREAS, the council approved a memorandum of understanding, Motion 14922, on August 14, 2017, to restructure the ERC RAC to include additional jurisdictions and stakeholders as members as well as to expand its scope of work to align with the 2013 "Creating Connections" report and the 2016 work plan adopted by the ERC RAC. In accordance with Motion 14922, the ERC RAC serves as a venue for coordinating efforts of member jurisdictions to advance common goals such as advocating for the funding and implementation of Trail Master Plan improvements and collaborating to develop a brand identity for the corridor, compatible with existing identities in several ERC RAC member jurisdictions, and
WHEREAS, on August 24, 2018, the ERC RAC entered into a contract with a consulting firm to begin the process of branding the ERC, and
WHEREAS, after a robust public outreach process, four potential names were proposed by the consulting firm. The public provided input on these four names through an online survey that received one thousand eight hundred sixty-three responses. A series of stakeholder meetings and focus groups were then held to solicit feedback on potential logos and taglines for the brand, and
WHEREAS, following a deliberative process, on January 25, 2019, the ERC RAC unanimously adopted "Eastrail" as the new name for the ERC and on April 5, 2019, it adopted a corresponding logo to use for signage to unify and promote the corridor, as well as the tagline "Let's Connect" for use in communications about the Eastrail, and
WHEREAS, Eastrail is a multiuse corridor intended to welcome and serve diverse populations throughout the Eastside, including those that have historically had disproportionately limited access to parks, trails and open space, and have experienced other social injustices. King County is committed to engaging these populations to ensure that Eastrail is accessible to all people, and
WHEREAS, the segments of the ERC with the established identities "Cross Kirkland Corridor" and "Redmond Central Connector" will retain those identities at the discretion of the city of Kirkland and the city of Redmond, respectively. Those identities will be nested within the Eastrail brand;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT MOVED by the Council of King County:
The Eastside Rail Corridor is hereby named Eastrail in accordance with the name change adopted by members of the Eastside Rail Corridor regional advisory council on January 25, 2019. No rights, liabilities or obligations relating to the corridor are modified or cancelled by this name change, and all references to the former name may be
understood to refer to the same corridor under its new name of Eastrail, which continues as a corridor of regional significance.