These moves have created obstacles for funding the massive undertaking and finding a path to cross-border collaboration with the Canadian province of British Columbia, which would be needed for the rail line to cross the Canadian border to Vancouver. If that wasn’t enough, large infrastructure projects — from freeway expansions to light rail — are facing massive increases in construction costs, which is likely to greatly impact high-speed rail projects as well.

Conference talks remained high-level and largely sidestepped the issue of how to finance the project. A 2017 feasibility study commissioned by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) estimated Cascadia “ultra-high speed rail” would cost between $24 billion and $42 billion — and that was before the era of high construction cost escalation hit.

The two-day conference, held in Downtown Seattle at the Sheraton Grand Hotel, included many top state and local officials and several senior corporate executives in attendance. Several speakers hinted that a public-private partnership was the way to go and would be able to leverage private investment to surmount funding challenges, but nobody unpacked exactly how that would work at this preliminary phase.

Many speakers stressed that the need for a high-speed rail was still acute, given the traffic gridlock common on I-5. Those issues are only likely to snowball as the Cascadia megaregion grows. Defined as stretching from the Portland metropolitan area to British Columbia’s Vancouver metro area and the swath of Western Washington in-between, the Cascadia megaregion is a fast-growing area with a population of nearly 10 million. The region is expected to grow by 3 to 4 million residents by 2050.

The 315 miles (507 kilometers) between Vancouver and Portland could be spanned in as little as two hours with high speed rail, depending on the number of stops and the maximum speeds achieved. Unlike adding another freeway lane on I-5, high-speed rail can scale more efficiently under increased demand, rather than quickly succumbing to congestion issues and getting trapped in a cycle of induced demand.

Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello stressed that high-speed rail could free many of his constituents from soul-crushing long commutes.

“Nearly a quarter of [Pierce County workers are] coming to King County every day to seek a better paying job. Some even have to go as far as Snohomish County for work. These commutes often take 60 minutes, 90 minutes and a little bit of your soul every single time,” Mello said. “Imagine building something today that offers your children a new world of choices about where to go to school, where to work, and where to live, because non-polluting high-speed rail can quickly connect them, not just between Tacoma and Seattle or Seattle and Everett, but all the way to Portland, or all the way to Vancouver, British Columbia.”

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson had a program slot, and former Washington Governor Chris Gregoire had several, acting as the de facto master of ceremonies.

For most of her time since leaving elected office in 2013, Gregoire has led Challenge Seattle, a corporate supergroup that describes itself as an “alliance of 23 organizations who represent some of the Seattle region’s largest employers and most successful innovators.” One of Challenge Seattle’s major focuses has been high-speed rail, which the group has pitched as advancing the economic competitiveness of Cascadia as compared to other mega-regions around the globe. Challenge Seattle was the organizing force behind the conference, with Gregoire also chairing the Cascadia Innovation Corridor steering committee.

Her work with Challenge Seattle has allowed Gregoire to remain highly influential, even more than a decade removed from elected office. Ferguson said Gregoire was a mentor to him and that he valued her counsel, and advised business and governmental leaders to treat her as a conduit for feedback to him.

“Governor Gregoire has me on speed dial, I can assure you,” Ferguson told conference goers. “I talk to her frequently, and so feel free to go via Governor Gregoire as well, if you’re trying to get a message to me.”

Ferguson also credited Gregoire with working with him to pass housing legislation earlier this year. He said housing remained his top priority as governor. Gregoire highlighted that a Cascadia high-speed rail line was also a housing intervention — though she steered away from earlier messaging hyping the idea of building new cities from scratch at intermediate stations between the three high-cost metro areas.

“High-speed rail is a housing strategy,” Gregoire said. “That’s what we’ve thought of it all the way along. It will spark new walkable communities around stations where people can live closer to where they work, where small businesses can thrive, and where families can spend more time together and less time in commuting and traffic. This isn’t just a train. It’s an investment. It’s an investment in our people, in our families, in our neighborhoods that make this region extraordinary. It’s a down payment on a more connected, more vibrant, more affordable Cascadia, one that gives every resident more choices, more opportunity and more time for the things that truly matter.”

Former transportation secretary Ray LaHood (an Illinois Republican appointed by President Obama) stressed the importance of keeping the project moving in hope of capitalizing on a more friendly federal administration down the line.

“If you lay your plans now and you’re all involved and things aren’t quite right, maybe with the national government, we know that’s going to change,” LaHood said. “And if you’re well-positioned, when the next president comes along and has high-speed rail as a priority, boom, you’re first in line.”

LaHood was highly critical of Republicans who spurned rail investment, pointedly calling former Florida Governor Rick Scott (a fellow Republican) an “idiot” for turning down $2.4 billion in federal grants to construct high-speed rail in his state.

The Cascadia project appears to be many years away from the construction grant phase. Chelsea Levy, project manager for Cascadia high-speed rail at the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), updated attendees on where planning stood. WSDOT secured a $49.7 million federal grant in December 2024 — the waning days of the Biden Administration — to fund the creation a service development plan for Cascadia high-speed rail. WSDOT is leading project development, since the majority of the proposed railroad would be on Washington soil.

“We’re currently in project planning,” Levy said. “We’ll need not only approvals, but additional funding to advance the environmental review processes, both in the U.S. and Canada in the future, and similar to other large megaprojects, large-scale projects, high-speed rail would pursue final design and construction once funding is secured and the environmental review is complete. Specific to high-speed rail, these are the major activities of the service development plan to be completed by 2028.”

Levy laid out four phases for the agency’s service development plan. Those four phases would narrow down corridor options, but not get so far as landing on a final alignment with specific station locations. “A future step after this process, will identify and evaluate potential station locations and further evaluate route options,” Levy noted.

The Trump administration not only dealt a blow to transit funding, but also to the fundamental premise of cross-border collaboration. Rob Fleming, Former British Columbia Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, flagged this issue during his remarks on October 29.

“So we’re not in a great place to be having this discussion on our side of the border. Canadians are, in fact, busy making contingencies with new trade markets all over the world, and some of this pivot is happening pretty fast. For example, in just nine months, Canadian trade with the United Kingdom is up 75% and our trade with the European Union is up 38% and I don’t know how much of that comes from the Cascadia corridor region. I suspect some, but not overly a lot.”

While Cascadia leaders appear to hope the Trump tariffs are a blip that the next president or a more strident Congress could undo, other obstacles for high-speed rail will outlast Trump. One central tension of the conference surrounded the fact that many of the business leaders lobbying for high-speed rail have also pushed back hard against tax hikes on corporations or the wealth they create for shareholders and executives.

Raising the billions necessary for building high-speed rail will be difficult in such an environment. For his part, Governor Ferguson noted for now he remains tax-averse in a press scrum after his conference appearance — after he also fought tax-the-rich efforts during a chaotic spring session.

“I’m skeptical of additional revenue at this time,” Ferguson told the Washington State Standard.

Correction: The original version had a transcription error in a Chris Gregoire quote, incorrectly replacing commuting with community in this sentence: “It will spark new walkable communities around stations where people can live closer to where they work, where small businesses can thrive, and where families can spend more time together and less time in commuting and traffic.”

The post Cascadia Forges Ahead on High-Speed Rail Despite Headwinds first appeared on The Urbanist.

Passage of House Bill 1837 in both chambers of the Legislature this session means that Paterson’s wish might finally come true. HB 1837 sets targets to boost Amtrak Cascades frequencies, reliability, and speed. Meanwhile, Amtrak’s soon-to-be upgraded SoDo rail yard built will host new and improved Amtrak Airo trains to one day accommodate that vision.

In 2024, only 48% of Amtrak Cascades trains arrived within the defined on-time performance window of 10 minutes. The bill lays out a long-range vision to bring that number up to 88% – and keep it there while expanding service. 

HB 1837 sets a service target of at least 14 round trips per day between Seattle and Portland and a minimum of five round trips per day between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. This would more than double service, as Cascades schedule currently tabs six daily round trips to Portland and two daily round trips between Seattle and Vancouver.

The bill does not allocate funding to guarantee these upgrades are achievable. Instead, it establishes planning and coordination priorities for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) as it manages existing intercity passenger rail investments.

According to the bill, WSDOT must integrate performance targets like speed, reliability, and emissions into all ongoing and future planning for the Amtrak Cascades line, which runs from Vancouver, British Columbia to Eugene Oregon via Western Washington’s I-5 corridor.

While in the Senate, the bill was amended to remove speed benchmarks originally set on the bill. Instead the bill calls for an independent study by the Joint Transportation Committee to review WSDOT’s service development plan to guide that benchmark setting.

Laws like these are nothing new.

In 1993, the state Legislature passed legislation setting high-speed rail goals, such as 2.5-hour trips between Seattle and Portland by the year 2000 and 150 miles-per-hour service (241 kilometers per hour) across the state by 2030. 

However, the current top speed on Amtrak Cascades is 79 mph, trip times between Seattle and Portland continue to exceed three hours, and ultra-high-speed rail dreams remain in the planning phase. The 1993 targets ended up being aspirational rather than galvanizing the state to action.

For advocates like Paterson, the passage of HB 1837 signals that long-awaited upgrades may finally be on track.

Rep. Julia Reed (D-36th, Seattle), sponsor of the bill, said the measure provides clear guidance to WSDOT while enabling the state to stay competitive for federal funding.

“The bill basically sets target goals for the Cascades service development plan, which is a federally required plan that WSDOT puts together that lays out how they plan to develop the service for the Cascades in the coming years.”

Republican obstruction could imperil plans

The Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program and other fund matching programs would be the likely source of grants to states to make improvements on their rail system. However, the Trump Administration has been much more hesitant to make transit investments, particularly in Democratic-run states.

In fact, Amtrak has already laid off roughly 20% of its top-level managers and executives in a cost-cutting move in the early days of the second Trump Administration. While the feds hope to save about $100 million in annual costs with the layoffs, it could hinder Amtrak’s expansion plans.

Local Republicans share Trump’s hesitancy to invest in transit upgrades. Sen. Curtis King (R-14th, Yakima), who voted against the bill, said he’s skeptical of the practicality and affordability of the bill, saying that it will only result in more funding needs.

“We don’t know anything about it, and to wait 10 years to find out, I have a real concern with that,” King said.

However, for Reed and supporters of the bill, this passage is an essential part of taking steps into improving the train system.

“I’m not under any illusion that we’ll just snap our fingers and this service will automatically appear,” Reed said. “It’s going to be expensive. It’s going to require state investment, but we can’t even start making those investment decisions until we hear from WSDOT what it would take to meet those goals.” 

The bill also mandates a new annual reporting requirement. By December 1 of each year, WSDOT must submit a detailed update to the Legislature on implementation progress, project performance, and any barriers encountered, such as right-of-way constraints or scheduling conflicts with freight railroads.

For Bill Moyer, executive director of Solutionary Rail, that level of accountability is key.

“We finally have a vision bill,” Moyer said. “This is not just about trains, it’s about climate, it’s about housing, it’s about mobility justice. And it’s about connecting communities throughout the corridor, not just Seattle and Portland.”

Moyer’s group helped lead the charge in advocating for HB 1837, pushing lawmakers to recognize the value of improving existing rail service as a climate-friendly and socially equitable mode of travel.

Overcoming freight obstacles

One of the issues for intercity passenger rail is that Amtrak doesn’t own most of the tracks it runs on. In Washington, that means coordination with freight rail giants like BNSF Railway. Federal law gives freight operators incredible leverage over the tracks in shares with Amtrak and other transit agencies. That means passenger trains are frequently stuck behind freight trains, throwing off Amtrak’s schedules and meaning unexpected delays for riders.

Back in 2003, BNSF agreed to work with Amtrak and WSDOT to improve the system by 2023 with a master agreement. In 2006, WSDOT released a long-range plan that outlines their plans of improving Amtrak Cascade. Yet hitting the 2003 targets has remained elusive without greater investment and coordination.

“We feel that WSDOT has not tried hard enough to work with BNSF to achieve the goals of the long-range plan,” Paterson said.

However, Paterson feels confident that growing support for a more robust interstate transit system will allow WSDOT and Amtrak to achieve the goals laid out on the bill.

HB 1837 doesn’t solve the entire freight rail issue, but it does task WSDOT with improving scheduling coordination with freight rail to reduce passenger delays. 

Complement or competition for high-speed rail plans?

For supporters of the bill, this isn’t just a technical planning measure, it’s about restoring a public good.

Sen. Marko Liias (D-21st, Edmonds), chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, said during final passage that HB 1837 lays the groundwork for restoring the Amtrak Cascades to its former glory.

Some critics argue that Washington should be focusing instead on a more ambitious ultra-high-speed rail project linking Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, B.C. That proposal, backed in part by Microsoft and Amazon, would build entirely new rail infrastructure aspiring to hit top speeds exceeding 200 miles per hour.

Meanwhile, other rail advocates argue more incremental Cascades improvements are more quickly attainable, economical, and practical and that a brand new high-speed rail line could turn into a boondoggle.

But Reed says HB 1837 doesn’t compete with the ultra-high-speed vision, but rather complements it.

“I think it’s a false choice to say we’re either going to have intercity rail or high-speed rail,” Reed said. “I think the truth is that intercity rail is already here and needs to be improved and high-speed rail is something we have to build in the future.”

HB 1837 is now awaiting a signature by the governor. It will become law by default on May 20, unless it is vetoed.

SoDo rail yard overhaul lays groundwork for service upgrades

In a hard-hat tour earlier this month, Amtrak unveiled progress on its SoDo rail yard expansion, which was funded by Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Amtrak President Roger Harris led the tour and stressed the importance of the Seattle hub.

“The Pacific Northwest is a key priority for Amtrak, with the popular Amtrak Cascades line between Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, B.C. and points in between, as well as our Long Distance Coast Starlight and Empire Builder trains connecting the region,” Harris said in a statement. “This critical investment will help us meet growing customer demand for a new era of rail with brand new trains that will upgrade safety, reliability, and comfort.”

The nearly $300 million project will create maintenance bays to service the Amtrak Airo train sets and provide capacity for future service expansions, which will be needed to hit frequency goals. Amtrak expects to open the new facility in 2027. Airo trains are set to begin entering service on the Cascades in 2026.

Those Airo trains will be faster, bigger, and more accessible – plus they will also address a service pinch created by the deterioration of aging Horizon train cars across Amtrak’s fleet, which has hit the Cascades particularly hard. This spring, Amtrak scrambled to replace Cascade’s 26 shelved Horizon train cars with alternate Amfleet I train cars. However, those replacement cars have less passenger capacity than Horizon had offered. The new Airo sets will be a reprieve, especially at peak demand times when train capacity will be stretched. 

Beyond serving the Cascades line, the SoDo facility will also maintain other Amtrak and Sounder services that go through King Street Station, which is just north of the facility.

The post Washington Legislature Greenlights Framework for Amtrak Improvements first appeared on The Urbanist.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to plan for future growth and transform how our region moves, and this funding keeps us on track to seize it,” Washington Governor Jay Inslee said in a statement. “Such a project has enormous potential for reducing emissions and improving quality of life for people across the Cascadia region.”

The award from the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program will advance plans into a less theoretical sphere. A joint press release from Inslee, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, and British Columbia Premier David Eby noted that the grant will support “technical planning across the Cascadia region and robust engagement and collaboration with local and regional elected officials, Tribal governments and Canadian First Nations, and communities along the corridor to understand their priorities for the future transportation system.”

WSDOT and its partners had sought $198 million planning grant in 2023, but secured only $1 million. The $49.7 million award still falls short of that request, but provides enough funding to advance plans a lot farther along.

The grant gets in the door just before a rail-friendly President Joe Biden passes the reins to a far more transit-averse president in Donald Trump. Federal administrators often delayed transit grants or blocked them entirely under Trump’s previous administration. Unless Republicans change their tune and back rail transit investments, Cascadia rail boosters may need to time their next round of funding requests to a Democratic administration.

“Since 2017, leaders in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia have explored how high-speed rail could better connect the Cascadia region, boost economic competitiveness, and mitigate climate change,” the Governor’s Office noted. “This is the first significant investment that will advance the technical and engagement work needed to explore potential route options. 

A 2017 feasibility study estimated that a Cascadia high-speed rail line in the I-5 corridor would cost between $24 billion and $42 billion to construct, but likely operate at a profit once fully up and running. The study projected that conventional high-speed rail could achieve top speeds of 250 miles per hour, and even higher for maglev technology.

Those capital costs estimates were formulated before a period of high inflation, particularly in the construction sector, which is straining infrastructure project budgets across North America. But since expanding I-5 freeway capacity also faces similar constraints and cost escalation issues, it could well be that high-speed rail remains a prudent investment to meet transportation needs in the region, even at higher costs.

The Washington State Legislature approved $5 million in matching funds for the high-speed rail program. The FRA requires 10% local matching funds to advance the project through Step 2 of the FRA’s Corridor Identification and Development Program, which ultimately could make it competitive for construction grants that make the project a reality. The new award may be sufficient to complete the entirety of Step 2 of the process, though The Urbanist has reached out to an Inslee spokesperson to confirm this. Step 3 would be preliminary engineering and environmental review study work under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), which requires a 20% local match.

Governor Inslee and the state legislature also added high-speed rail planning to a broader “I-5 Master Plan” effort, toward which they allocated $16 million in their last budget. “These funds are essential to drive the next phase of work, including extensive community engagement and tribal and agency coordination throughout the 277-mile-long corridor spanning nine counties,” WSDOT noted. “This engagement, extensive technical analysis, and coordination with Cascadia High-Speed Rail, Amtrak Cascades, and air mobility planning will inform the safety, equity, mobility, and resiliency benefits identified for the corridor under the I-5 Master Plan.”

While I-5 repair work has sought to incorporate high-speed rail into its designs, the Interstate Bridge Replacement megaproject in Clark County has not. This oversight could leave the high-speed rail project needing to add another costly multi-billion-dollar bridge over the Columbia River.

With some sections in a deteriorated state, I-5 faces considerable maintenance needs which have a high price tag, even before considering expansion. Outgoing WSDOT Secretary Roger Millar recently warned lawmakers they need to invest in maintenance rather than continuing to focus on highway expansion in order to prevent the system from degrading.

Millar has long advocated for high-speed rail, noting it would be more effective at meeting rising trip demand due to the geometric efficiencies of transit over private automobiles — not to mention the greater speeds.

“If you were to direct us to add a lane in each direction to I-5 between the Oregon border and British Columbia. that would be $110 billion-ish to build and would probably take as long as it would take to build a high-speed rail system between the communities,” Millar told state legislators during a 2019 briefing. “And it would add a lane of travel in each direction and would probably be full of traffic by the time we got finished building it. And it would still take you all day to get from Portland to Vancouver, B.C. With the investment in ultra high-speed rail, we’re talking about an hour to Vancouver or maybe an hour and a half down to Portland, and that would be a gamechanger.”

A 2021 poll found that 67% of Washingtonians support connecting the major cities of the region with development of high-speed rail.

“Our transportation system, and how we use it, must change as our technology and workforce needs evolve,” Oregon Governor Tina Kotek said in the release. “High-speed rail should be part of our region’s future. These federal dollars are a smart, proactive investment — not only in a transportation option, but in new opportunities for building more housing and creating family-wage jobs across our two states.”

The Cascadia region is expected to experience major population growth over coming decades, due to strong economies and a temperate climate that may attract climate refugees from other states. The three metro areas are already home to around nine million residents and expected to collectively add three to four million by 2050, according to governmental projections.

The three jurisdictions under the Cascadia rail umbrella share not just similar climates, but also similarly strong creative economies. Tying the region together with high-speed rail could strengthen those economies, a 2019 business case analysis found. That study’s analysis of wider economic benefit estimated building high-speed rail would support 160,000 additional permanent jobs.

“Our unique partnership to advance high-speed rail — representing two countries, two U.S. states and one Canadian province — enables us to make visionary investments in our region’s future through a sustained commitment to collaboration with our neighbors,” British Columbia Premier David Eby said in a statement.

A 2020 report looked at the cross-jurisdictional governance entity that would be need to build and operate a Cascadia high-speed rail line. Leaders appear to be leaning toward a public-private partnership model.

Plenty of steps remain to build Cascadia high speed rail a reality, but the grant adds a bit of momentum to tide the project over during a new federal administration that may not be offering much help.

The post WSDOT Wins $50 Million Grant for Cascadia High-Speed Rail Planning first appeared on The Urbanist.

In this sequel, Stew analyzes top speeds and the trip times that would be possible based on the geometry of I-5. High speed trains need very straight tracks to operate at top speeds — 186 miles per hour (or 300 kilometers per hour) for the purpose this analysis — and I-5 isn’t always straight enough to accommodate. Curvy sections would operate at slower speeds.

Nonetheless, a high speed rail line using I-5 freeway right-of-way could still greatly improve travel times along the corridor. Lucid Stew highlights sections where the train can max out its speed, and some segments that are slower and problematic due to the curvy geometry or relatively close stop spacing. In addition to take straight track, it takes some distance to open up to full speed. End to end, the trip would take just over five hours to go from Eugene to downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. Here’s what Stew found for travel times per major segment.

• Eugene to Portland: 1 hour, 7 minutes. 93 mph average, with stops in Albany and Salem.
• Portland to Seattle: 1 hour, 58 minutes, 87 mph average, with stops in Olympia and Tacoma.
• Seattle to Vancouver, BC: 2 hours, 71 mph average, with stops in Everett, Bellingham, and Surrey.

Some tunneling could improve track straightness and thus travel times, but it would also balloon project costs, which are already likely to be considerable. On the other hand, the benefits are also significant as Stew founded tunneling through the problematic sections and dropping a few stops could drop the end-to-end time to three hours and 20 minutes, significantly faster than the five hour time possible with I-5 right of way exclusively and more stops.

The Washington State Department of Transportation continues to study high speed rail with a small planning grant from the Federal Railroad Administration, and hopes of securing a larger grant to advance planning much farther along. Washington State has already been discussing with British Columbia and Oregon how to route the line and structure the cross-jurisdictional entity to make Cascadia high speed rail a reality. Nonetheless, the dream remains many years away.

Polls have found strong public support for high speed rail in the region. The alternative of widening I-5 freeway could be even more costly, while being a less effective transportation solution that is less popular with the public.

The post Sunday Video: Replacing I-5 Lanes with Cascadia High Speed Rail first appeared on The Urbanist.

The post Sunday Video: A Realistic Cascadia High-Speed Rail Line first appeared on The Urbanist.

The post Sunday Video: North American High-Speed Rail Lines That Should Already Be Running first appeared on The Urbanist.

On Friday, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) unveiled its selection of rail projects that will be getting a windfall via President Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This “Corridor Identification and Development” (Corridor ID) program selected dozens of proposed corridors across the country, including three in the Pacific Northwest. Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) proposals for Amtrak Cascades enhancements and the new Cascadia Ultra High-Speed Ground Transportation corridor both made the cut.

Leading local officials and corporate leaders have expressed interest in connecting Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, British Columbia with high-speed rail and while the grant announced Friday is small, it could signal greater federal support down the road.

“WSDOT is very pleased to receive federal support for both important passenger rail programs,” Secretary Roger Millar said in a statement. “These two complementary systems would connect with one another to transport people in efficiently, reliably and in environmentally friendly ways. We’re planning improvements for current rail passengers, as well as envisioning an even more robust system in the future.”

Another proposal sponsored in Montana also made the cut and would restore Amtrak’s North Coast Hiawatha long-distance service. Potential routings could serve several cities in Washington and Oregon.

As result of the selections, the FRA will provide up to $1 million in grants to WSDOT to continue work on planning infrastructure improvements and expanded frequencies for Amtrak Cascades and planning the new Cascadia High-Speed Ground Transportation corridor.

WSDOT’s Cascades work is primarily focused on the Portland to Vancouver, British Columbia segment, but the department will also coordinate with the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to fold in its planning work for the Portland-Eugene segment. In October, WSDOT outlined some preliminary concepts for service growth over the next 20 years. On the high end, the concepts chart Cascades service levels reaching 16 daily roundtrips between Seattle and Portland plus six daily roundtrips between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. ODOT has indicated that it could pursue up to six daily Cascades roundtrips between Portland and Eugene.

WSDOT is also working through its high-speed rail body of work, which could eventually bring bullet trains to Cascadia serving a half-dozen or so major cities between Vancouver, British Columbia and Portland with potential extension to Eugene. To date, the department has completed a feasibility study, business case analysis, and framework for high-speed rail authority. Work is now underway to develop scenario planning as well as a coordinating, governance structure given the binational, tri-state/provincial nature of the project.

As part of Friday’s announcement, federal officials were particularly bullish on backing high-speed rail corridors like Cascadia’s.

“Corridor selections announced today create a strong pipeline of projects that will drive future passenger rail expansion in America,” FRA Administrator Amit Bose said in a statement. “The Federal Railroad Administration is particularly excited about the potential of the Cascadia High-Speed Rail Corridor selected through FRA’s Corridor Identification and Development Program. This program provides the necessary tools to advance the Cascadia Corridor, and FRA is eager to work with the Washington State Department of Transportation and other stakeholders to do just that.”

In addition to its Corridor ID effort, WSDOT filed an application for the FRA’s Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail grant to further support the Cascadia high-speed rail program. The department had hoped to win support for $198 million in deeper planning and early design work but wasn’t successful in this year’s federal funding cycle. It was up against some big competitors in California and Nevada. Proceeding through the Corridor ID process, however, would help the Cascadia high-speed rail project become more competitive in future funding cycles.

Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority in Montana will also receive up to $500,000 in grants to support its work on planning restoration of the North Coast Hiawatha long-distance service. The service would be routed from Chicago to Seattle or Portland via Spokane and Pasco. It would also travel through parts of Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. It essentially is an alternative routing of the Empire Builder and would restore an Amtrak route that had been discontinued in 1979.

Janet Matkin, WSDOT’s rail communications officer, said that the department isn’t a party to the Montana-sponsored proposal. The department is instead focused on its own state-sponsored intercity passenger rail programs. But if the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority is successful in its effort, it seems some coordination could be useful to align overlapping Amtrak services across Washington and Oregon.

Matkin also said that WSDOT hasn’t filed any other Corridor ID applications at this time. There is, however, some rail advocacy support in the Pacific Northwest for restoration of the former Amtrak Pioneer long-distance service between Seattle/Portland and Boise as well as a new east-west intercity passenger rail corridor between Seattle and Spokane via Yakima and Pasco. WSDOT did publish a preliminary study of the latter in 2020.

All three Pacific Northwest projects selected to enter the Corridor ID program will start with Step 1. As part of this, project sponsors are expected “to develop a scope, schedule, and cost estimate for preparing, completing, or documenting its service development plan,” according to the FRA. If successful, the projects can advance through the next stages of Corridor ID’s three-step process.

In Step 2, projects would be required to formally develop a Service Development Plan (SDP) in collaboration with the FRA. That step would come with additional federal funding, which is dependent upon completion of the scoping work of Step 1. Project sponsors would also have to put up 10% in matching funds to qualify for grant funding. Then in Step 3, a project sponsor would advance to project development by carrying out environmental review and conducting preliminary engineering, with the understanding that the project is likely to be implemented. The SDP would help determine the level of grant funding that the project is eligible for in Step 3, but project sponsors would also have to provide 20% in matching funds.

Each step may take around a year, but could take more or less time, depending upon project complexity and sponsor readiness. The FRA has outlined a broad rubric of how much effort that sponsors will need to put into projects. Existing corridors like Cascades that are seeking improvements will require less work than entirely new lines Cascadia high-speed rail or the North Coast Hiawatha. But WSDOT has already done substantial work for both of their projects, so they may be in a higher status of readiness than similar projects across the country.

Projects that complete the three-step process would be in line for federal funding to implement them.

As to the future of the Corridor ID program, the FRA plans to make it a permanent framework with routine opportunities to propose new corridors and enter into the program. So while this is the first selection of corridors into it, additional cycles for funding and participation in the process will be available. The goal of it is ultimately to help states and other project sponsors go through a vetting and readiness process for projects that could be realized, expanding intercity passenger rail.

With dozens of projects entering the Corridor ID program this year, the FRA could have quite the pipeline of projects ready for deeper federal investments in just a few years, some of which could be headed right for the Pacific Northwest.

The post Feds Grant $1 Million to Study Cascadia High-Speed Rail and Amtrak Cascades Upgrades first appeared on The Urbanist.

In this episode, co-hosts Natalie and Ray discuss a recent report about planning for high speed rail from the Urban Infrastructure Lab at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments. The report looks at a half dozen other high-speed rail projects around the world and draws lessons from their construction and operation. The biggest takeaway of all: plan to provide great high speed rail service. It’s a little different than the infrastructure plans Cascadia normally undertakes. Here’s a link to the report.

We would love to hear your plans for what to do in a neighboring city if it was only an hour train ride away. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.  

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The post The Urbanist Podcast: UW Looks at Getting Cascadia High Speed Rail first appeared on The Urbanist.

In September, after several months of delays, Amtrak Cascades service from Vancouver to Seattle finally resumed, after over two years of suspended service since March 2020. In December, Amtrak revealed new Siemens trainsets and locomotives to enter service in 2026 for the Cascades route, which are anticipated to be more comfortable and environmentally friendlier than current equipment. 

And yet the scale of this returned service seems pitiful. In one of the most economically prosperous regions on the continent, on a route passing by the homes of nearly 9 million people, we have to wait until March for a single passenger train to cover the entire route each day. 

Things used to be better, and not just pre-pandemic. A 1950 schedule for a predecessor of the Cascades service – the Great Northern Railway’s The International – provides clues for this. Following the path of today’s Cascades, the International offered three daily services both northbound and southbound, with additional stops in Everett, Mount Vernon, Bellingham, Blaine, White Rock, and New Westminster, the latter three of which are no longer accessible by rail. The train was state of the art for its time, featuring aerodynamic, streamlined cars and locomotives, both observation and café cars, as well as locally-inspired artwork such as bas reliefs of fauna, fish, farms, and industry, sculpted from Oregon myrtle wood. The $5.25 coach fare – equivalent to about $64 today adjusted for inflation – is comparable to today’s fares for the Cascades, which ranges from $44 to $82 at time of writing. 

Furthermore, a fourth local train ran daily in both directions, providing small towns, suburbs and rural areas with car-free access to larger cities, a practice that was discontinued in 1956. Back then, a full streamlined route from Vancouver to Seattle could be expected to last about four hours, while the local would take about six hours. Today’s Cascade route is scheduled to run somewhere between the two, at just under four and a half hours. 

Once in Seattle, passengers in the 1950’s could expect to be able to smoothly transfer onto trains to Portland or Chicago. The departure of today’s lone Cascades train from Vancouver at 5:45pm arrives in Seattle at 10:10pm, meaning travelers wishing to move to further destinations must find a room to stay overnight in Seattle.  

Even with more than 70 years of population growth, economic development, and technological advancement, regional intercity travel has been left to decay. Indeed, before leaping ahead to “ultra high-speed ground transportation” for the region, it might be worthwhile to reinforce the slower train which already exists, albeit in a rather lamentable condition. 

For travelers, each additional barrier presented to taking the train provides additional reasons to drive or fly instead. Those barriers include uncertainties over delayed or suspended services, limited scheduling, inconvenient timing, slow travel speeds, and more. Running more frequent service to better accommodate peoples’ busy and flexible schedules would do much to address many of these issues. 

Transportation reform is imperative. In a region, province, and state where transportation comprises the largest single source of carbon emissions, change is imperative. The impacts of climate change, from storms to wildfires to extreme heat, are already being felt. Reducing carbon emissions in longer-distance transportation will necessarily mean replacing traffic on I-5, as well as those short flights from Seattle to Bellingham and Seattle to Vancouver.

The economic costs of continuing our reliance on air and auto travel must also be considered, with the Washington State Department of Transportation saying as much in its business case for high speed rail:

“UHSGT [ultra high speed ground transportation] could mitigate the need for some future infrastructure projects such as further major expansions of US I-5, estimated to possibly exceed $108 billion or building an additional runway, which could exceed $10 billion. In addition, UHSGT provides greater reliability and increased capacity than highway or airport options. Reliability on high-speed rail services can reach 99% on-time performance compared to less than 80% for air services and widely variable auto journey times.”

To avoid the social, climate and economic costs of building more runways or highway lanes, both current and future trips made by aircraft and auto will have to be replaced by ones made via bus and rail — a shift which is unlikely to happen at the necessary scale unless these forms become significantly more practical to take. Although not true high-speed rail, even a more frequent slower train would not be subject to the perennial traffic jams on I-5, and cost far less in operating and capital costs than building “just one more lane”. 

When arriving at the Main Street-Science World Station on the Expo SkyTrain Line in Vancouver, part of the announcement chime intones, “Exit here for long-distance rail and bus services from Pacific Central Station”. At time of writing, the current extent of those rail services – a once-daily Amtrak Cascades train to Seattle in either direction, a twice-weekly (chronically delayed) Via Canadian eastbound train to Toronto, and a once-weekly westbound Canadian arriving from Toronto, for a grand total of 10 trains per week – this SkyTrain announcement can seem more aspirational than actually informative.

Although it is good for policymakers to be setting their sights high and examining the prospect of high-speed rail zipping through the Cascades at some point in the future, perhaps a deeper look should be taken at services like the The International that were abandoned. Returning pre-pandemic services like the recent announcement of a second Cascades round-trip from Vancouver to Portland in March is a good start. But reaching further back to the 1950s shows what kinds of service the region has lost. In 2023, perhaps this technologically advanced, growing region can aspire to what it had 70 years ago.

The post In 2023, Cascadia Rail Could Take Lessons from 1953 first appeared on The Urbanist.

The Fighting 36th sent the resolution down to defeat by a somewhat tight vote of 20-18. As a speaker opposing the resolution, I think many attendees heard that the potential benefits of faster rail vastly outweigh the expense or open questions about the project.

It’s hard to blame the folks who worry about high-speed rail (HSR) as a boondoggle or a diversion of money. Rail boosters aren’t doing themselves any favors, and the state’s byzantine methods of developing projects sets many up to fail. No one is also showing how much benefit this project could have in real terms to people who live and work in our growing region. But that still doesn’t mean it’s smart to make these posturing anti-HSR resolutions.

Unresolved resolution

The current resolutions against high-speed rail base their arguments on the source of money. This year’s Washington Legislature approved the massive Move Ahead Washington Act, which will spend $17 billion on infrastructure over 16 years. High-speed rail was among many projects that would be funded by the Cap and Invest program established in Washington’s 2021 Climate Commitment Act. The resolution authors even say that they don’t actually oppose rail improvements, just using Climate Commitment Act money now to plan it.

The argument is that high-speed rail’s completion is too far flung in the future and the benefits too tenuous to use sparse Climate Commitment Act dollars. The $150 million to $200 million price tag for the planning of the system just does not translate to reduced carbon emissions.

Unfortunately, the resolution authors lean on misunderstanding the documents they’re citing. They picked a number from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Business Case study on HSR, which states that the project would save 6 million metric tons of carbon emissions over 40 years. A back-of-the-envelope calculation pegs that at 1% of the transportation emissions in Washington State. 

They also turn towards the Build Back Better report from the Low Carbon Prosperity Institute and Climate XChange that examines proposed green infrastructure investments. Of the projects examined in the report, high-speed rail has one of the lower impacts. All of this totals up to, in the eyes of opponents, a lot of money that won’t be getting Washington to its 2030 and 2040 carbon reduction targets.

Unfortunately, compartmentalizing these documents allows them to be misread. The Low Carbon folks did not rank projects, they modeled an extensive portfolio of investments and argued for them all — including high-speed rail — to be included. WSDOT’s report used the 6 million tons of CO2 calculation to illustrate just how many planes and cars could be replaced by rail trips. The resolution omits other numbers from the reports, including the thousand tons of particulates kept out of the ecosystem, reduced commute times, or reduced highway expansions that come from high-speed rail. These are climate benefits that are right in the wheelhouse of the Climate Commitment Act.

Focusing on that 6 million ton number is a little like saying that the benefit of drinking water is only the money saved by not buying soda. It completely ignores benefits like keeping your teeth, and avoiding kidney stones, and cutting calories. 

Not actually a terrible argument

Now, here’s the rub. Folks pointing out that the benefits of high-speed rail are tenuous and remote have a point. This is a rail system that won’t start rolling for decades and we need climate action now.

Boosters don’t do themselves any favors. The leading edge of support comes from the Cascadia Innovation Corridor. We’ve been to their conferences, which are good but austere. Their idea to stitch together the Pacific Northwest into a mega-region is forward looking and aspirational and never touches the ground where most people live. But it involves tearing up remote towns and replacing them with digi-topian “Hub Cities.” Headlining by Microsoft reinforces a tech-heavy but deeply detached perspective. 

Washington State sucks at making these projects happen. The state and local governments develop elaborate processes for getting anything new out of the ground. Compromises are made up front, then made again during the process, and then the harshest opposition comes from inside the House (and Senate). A committee studies a task force to set up an authority to oversee the project to plan for something to be built. Each new organization is met with “Do you remember the monorail expansion? I do.”

And most importantly, what gets built is left to twist in the wind. There’s not enough promoting the benefits of the infrastructure we do build. There’s an opening party, then it just becomes another part of daily life. More often than not, it’s backlash and delay. Even where we get transit right, it’s very hard to point out the specific benefit to an individual. Does light rail make it really easy to get to a Huskies game? Yes. Is that enough to help someone change the way they get groceries? Not yet, and we force years of station planning to maybe one day get it there.

All that totals up to an audience receptive to rhetoric that’s anti-high-speed rail (and anti-transit, and anti-zoning reform, and anti-social housing).

But it also means that the argument is not actually about high-speed rail. That’s why opponents can use a shell argument about greenhouse gases to get traction for defunding the project. The real argument is about failing to show a connection between expense and improvement. Today’s gap between investment and benefits is really the kernel of tomorrow’s opposition. Until tangible improvements are regularly shown to people — and loudly and repeatedly labeled that this is what your investments created — that kernel will continuously grow.

The post Anti-High-Speed Rail Rhetoric Takes Root in Local Legislative Districts first appeared on The Urbanist.