Despite the difficulties of coming up with a budget, the state Legislature found a way to give a local coalition $400,000 in seed money for a commuter rail project as the legislative session wrapped up last week.

Officials from Covington, Maple Valley and Black Diamond worked for months advocating for a money to study the possibility of a diesel multiple unit, or DMU, rail line that would connect Maple Valley and Covington to the Sounder rail line in Auburn.

An initial request of $600,000 was put to the Legislature and though the full request wasn’t funded, Anthony Hemstad, who has lobbied on behalf of the coalition, was pleased to have gotten a good chunk of the funds.

“Hopefully this will be the start of something big,” Hemstad said in an e-mail. “It could be transformational for these communities.”

Covington City Councilman Wayne Snoey was also pleased to see the efforts of the three-city coalition pay off.

“The staff and city councils of the cities of Covington, Maple Valley and Black Diamond worked very hard in a collaborative effort to secure funding for the Southeast King County Commuter Rail and Transit Center study,” Snoey said in an e-mail. “As the fastest growing area of King County, we are all too familiar with the problems of too much traffic and not enough roads to handle it. We all know that there will never be enough money to build roads. The obvious solution is to create transit centers in the suburban areas of Covington and Maple Valley to cut down on the number of vehicles heading to the already overcrowded urban transit centers.”

Snoey added that using the existing Stampede Pass rail line than runs through Covington and Maple Valley is “the best solution.”

“This funding from the state Legislature will allow the study to focus on the existing railway and the use of specialized transit vehicles combined with transit centers in our two Cities,” Snoey said. “Transit use in King County has grown faster than almost any other area in the United States. This has stayed high, even though gas prices dropped dramatically. We now know that commuters will regularly use transit if it is clean, reliable and on-time. This study is the first step towards solving traffic problems in Southeast King County in a significant way, combined with the environmental benefits of less cars being driven every day.”

Maple Valley Councilman Noel Gerken, who served with Councilman Glenn Smith, Snoey, other elected officials and staff members from all three cities on a DMU committee said this was good news.

“I am very excited,” Gerken said. “To get funding in this year’s budget demonstrates that DMU commuter rail has real promise. I believe the feasibility study will show that DMU is cost competitive. I think the southeast King County DMU line can be a model for the state, including the eastside rail corridor.”

Covington City Manager Derek Matheson was also optimistic about the funding approval, but tempered the enthusiasm with a reminder that it still has to be approved by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

“We’re thrilled we’ll have the opportunity to work with Maple Valley, Black Diamond, and others to find out whether commuter rail is a viable option to reduce traffic congestion and complement our land use planning efforts here in Covington and throughout Southeast King County,” Matheson said.

Christy Toddy, who served as Maple Valley’s interim city manager as the concept began to take hold, was appreciative of the legislature’s support.

“We are very thankful that our coalition for this project was so successful in garnering support from our respective legislators on the need for a southeast King County commuter rail option, and we are grateful that in this time of scarce resources, our legislators were willing to recognize this as a key priority for transportation funding,” Todd said. “Our coalition of cities, and our respective lobbyists kept this at the forefront of our community’s needs. This has truly been an intergovernmental effort that demonstrates how successful we can be by working together.”

This idea was introduced last summer at a joint city council meeting of Black Diamond, Covington and Maple Valley.

DMU is not light rail nor is it a locomotive but being diesel fueled the rail cars could run on biodiesel which gives it the potential to be a green commuter method.

Another critical issue that cuts to the heart of the reason behind the concept is to make commuting easier for residents of all three cities, which all are still bedroom communities.

With YarrowBay planning to develop large swaths of real estate in Maple Valley and Black Diamond in the next decade, it is vital to officials with both cities to find alternative ways for future and current residents to get around.

This idea is still in its infancy and getting some money for a feasibility study is the first step. A study would figure out how much it would cost, how the DMUs would share track with existing freight runs, who would own and operate the commuter line, among other details.

Maple Valley officials also submitted a funding request to the federal government for cash from the proposed $800 billion economic stimulus package, though it is doubtful money will come out of that, the idea is to at least get it on the fed’s radar.

Once money is obtained for the feasibility study, it could take about a year to complete the study, according to Hemstad.