Reversing an earlier position, King County Executive Ron Sims last week announced his support for preserving the tracks along a 42-mile BNSF Railway corridor running through Kirkland from Snohomish to Renton.

In a letter to the County Council, Sims wrote “one of our primary objectives is to ensure that both transportation and trail uses are possible.”

With Sims’ support, all three parties involved in the $107 million deal to purchase the tracks from BNSF — the Port of Seattle and King County Council are the others — have agreed to keep the tracks. Sims had earlier said he wanted the tracks torn out to make way for a mixed-use bicycle and pedestrian trail.

The Port will buy the corridor directly from BNSF, but the agency doesn’t have the authority to operate the rail line so will transfer that responsibility to a third party.

Rail advocates feared tearing out the tracks would either make putting rail along the corridor at a later date more expensive (new-rail laying machinery relies on old tracks) or impossible if the trail was built down the middle of the corridor.

A significant length of the track runs north/south through Kirkland from Totem Lake through the Highlands.