My armchair perspective of this is that rails-to-trails is a federally-sanctioned move and adding transit use to those rails is both difficult and politically h

My armchair perspective of this is that rails-to-trails is a federally-sanctioned move and adding transit use to those rails is both difficult and politically hard. It is difficult because leaving the rails as-is means small rail operators like Ballard Terminal will insist on still being able to run one freight train a week so that means transit has to compete for time slots and the operating agency has to buy FRA mixed-use compatible train sets (expensive, slow, noisy) or plead for a waiver like Denton’s DCTA got (not gonna happen in this administration). It is politically hard because, to pick on Kirkland, people get very cranky about rail near neighborhoods and they insist that it brings “the wrong people” and the idyllic pictures of fit people walking and jogging and cycling with their kids along a leafy path...not that “terrible” transit that will “destroy” quality of life. So trails move on and transit has to fight some other time.