If necessity is the mother of invention then the current economy may well be the catalyst for creative problem solving when it comes to the area’s transportation woes.

For the past three years Covington, Maple Valley and Black Diamond have been working together on a commuter rail concept that would use diesel multiple units, or DMUs, on existing Burlington Northern Santa Fe lines to shuttle commuters from here to Auburn.

But, as the economy has taken its toll on the checkbooks of government at all levels, leaders from the cities have realized there needed to be a shift in focus.

After studying the issue, officials said, they realized the price tag for a long term commuter rail plan as they envisioned would cost tens of millions of dollars the cities don’t yet have.

So, now they are pulling back to look at a bigger picture.

Covington Councilman Wayne Snoey, who has led the committee on DMU, said he realized about four years ago that transportation was becoming a significant issue and improving the ability to get from point A to point B in Southeast King County could have a positive impact on other issues he’s passionate about such as services for children and families.

“The reason transportation is so important is you don’t have an economy without it,” Snoey said. “Without an economy there’s a lack of funding. So, I thought, what’s the best way to affect human services. That’s the motivation, how to be most effective, and how to impact future generations.”

When the DMU concept was first brought up in the summer of 2008 at a joint meeting of the three city councils, Snoey said, Covington took the lead.

“I said, ‘We’ve got to actually do something,’” he said. “Because I proposed it, I ended up being the chair of this group. It revolved around expanding the DMU concept into a real idea.”

Noel Gerken, a long time Maple Valley City Council member, has been active in regional transportation discussions for a number of years and said it seemed a natural fit for him to serve on this committee.

“Partnering is the future for government because government funding and revenues is down,” Gerken said. “You’ve got to have a certain amount of funding just to submit requests for more money. You really need to work regionally and partner.”

In addition to Covington, Maple Valley and Black Diamond, representatives from Auburn and Enumclaw attended meetings of the group that is now know as the Southeast Area Transportation Solutions, or SEATS, Coalition.

“It’s important for Covington to be part of a transportation advocacy coalition because our scientific surveys tell us transportation, specifically traffic, is among our residents’ highest priorities for city government, and because an adequate transportation network is essential to continue to grow our business community and build a more traditional town center,” wrote Covington City Manager Derek Matheson in an email. “Federal and state transportation money is so scarce these days — and there are so many states, counties, and cities asking for that scarce money — that lawmakers take notice and want to help when they see three cities with the same request.”

The coalition began by winning a $400,000 grant to pay for a feasibility study, Snoey said, to determine if the area needed additional transportation options. The process took about a year and a half.

“Turns out, yes, there was a need,” he said. “Transit has not followed growth. So, we got that done in September 2010. Concurrent with that we lobbied the federal government with the assistance of Dave Reichert’s office… and we got $360,000.”

That paid for the second phase study to find out what it would cost to actually implement the DMU concept.

The news from that, however, was not as encouraging.

Snoey explained the upgrades to BNSF’s track would cost upwards of $100 million due to strict federal guidelines which regulate how freight and passenger rail share track.

“The feasibility study said there’s a need for transit, either rail or bus, but the rail piece would be very expensive because of the silly federal rail rules,” Gerken said. “The rules are over 100 years old… you end up buying bigger and slower and more expensive rail cars than you need. It’s a pretty big capital investment to make the rail piece go. So. it’s not really practical.”

The study also showed that such a commuter rail line with stops in Covington and Black Diamond would have the ridership and it would likely generate revenue similar to what other services of that nature create.

The price tag, however, made the members of the coalition rethink the strategy.

“We realized because this would be a 10 year process we needed to come up with something in the interim,” Snoey said. “Our meetings continued. The process started with DMUS and has morphed into an interim solution to back in September 2011 where we renamed our organization.”

The name change was intended to reflect the change in its mission.

“We’ve expanded from just looking at DMU to transit in general,” Snoey said. “We’re looking at integrated solutions.”

Gerken said the decision was made for the group to continue meeting.

“We’ve moved on recently from DMU to transportation advocacy in southeast King County,” he said. “We are basically lobbyists for southeast King County transportation issues. We have two main focal points, we have two state highways, we have 169 and 516. I feel good, I think we’ve got a working group, we have an understanding of need and we have an understanding of funding and moving forward

I think it’s natural to move forward and broaden our scope.”

So, in the meantime, there’s been the recent success in lobbying the state Legislature for money to study the state Route 516 corridor Snoey noted. That process is about half done and is another step to being included in big picture planning done by the Puget Sound Regional Council as well to make it easier to get additional money from the state and federal governments.

The next step, Gerken noted, is to get onto the state Legislature’s transportation budget package.

“We’re going to educate and make our legislators more aware,” Gerken said. “We’re going to hand out materials, touching base with them, having meetings and advocate … with the hope they can fit that into the transportation package, if they have one… they have a $2 billion hole to fill and until they get that done they can’t deal with that, so, it might not happen.”

Whether it’s commuter rail or buses or some combination, Snoey explained, something has to be done to alleviate current choke points as well as prepare for future growth particularly with the potential development in the Donut Hole in Maple Valley as well as YarrowBay’s master planned communities proposed in Black Diamond.

“I’ve been a huge proponent of buses and I’ve not been big on light rail,” Snoey said. “But, now I think it has a place. Light rail is a 100 year investment. It may not look like a good short term investment. But, if you look at all the great cities of the world they all have great mass transit systems because you can never build enough roads. We have to have mass transit.”

Gerken stated, “It’s not just about commuting, it’s about services, it’s about economic development,

it’s about quality of life.”

Mass transit planning, however, has not been a historically easy or popular thing in the Puget Sound area and the region is way behind on such infrastructure funding, Snoey said.

But, there also has to be a balance and mass transit has to work in tandem with those who do use the roads, or else neither will be effective he added.

“Not everybody can ride the bus,” Snoey said. “So, we have to allow for both, those people who can’t and those who can. The delta is those who can’t ride the bus, if things slow down enough, people won’t ride the bus.”

It’s also important to reiterate the importance of transportation to the economy.

“Everything we use in and around our home is delivered by truck,” Snoey said. “We need to have good freight mobility. It’s a key component.”

And this is why the coalition exists, because transportation is a regional issue, and there’s power in numbers.

“The SEATS Coalition is trying to figure this all out rather than each city doing its own battle,” Snoey said. “At this exact moment I’m working on a simple trifold brochure… that outlines our key projects, our mission. This year wee need to introduce our priorities and our mission (to key community groups and the legislature). Going forward, if you don’t have coalitions… you are unlikely to get state or federal funding. We’ve been ignored in South County for too long. We’re going to be visible.”

Gerken said the coalition will also advocate for improving Metro’s service in Southeast King County particularly through a public relations campaign to increase ridership on Route 168 which is currently funded by a two year grant that increased headways from an hour to half an hour.

“Those are our three focuses, the two (state) highways and Metro,” Gerken said. “And at a lower level we’ll continue to focus on the rail piece. You’ve got to have the team together and have the plans…. so when there’s an opportunity you can strike. That’s what we’re waiting for. So, we’ve got the whole spectrum of funding opportunities covered.”

Being creative while the economy slowly climbs out of the downturn, Gerken said, will serve the coalition well later.

“I think eventually things will turn around,” he said. “There will be more opportunities downstream and we’ll be ready to roll.”

The coalition has been effective thus far, Snoey said, and can take examples from other ways the cities are working together to show what they can do as partners.

“It’s being good stewards of the public money,” he said. “We’re trying to be creative.”