There are two visions for future passenger rail in Washington: Cascadia High Speed Rail and Amtrak Cascades. As a result of they run at totally different speeds, the fee, infrastructure and land necessities are vastly totally different. We oppose the proposed HSR plan and advocate Amtrak Cascades as a wiser use of land.
British Columbia, Washington and Oregon signed an settlement to construct extremely high-speed rail to run at speeds of 220 miles per hour or extra from Vancouver, B.C., to Portland.
The high-speed rail proposal could be expensive, mainly in infrastructure and land necessities. An impartial guide summary and full final report to the Washington Legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee particulars the strategy’s complexity, decades-long timeline and value — seemingly as much as $150 billion. Land necessities are huge: 220 miles of straight degree proper of means and 90 miles of tunnels beneath cities. To attain excessive pace, solely three stops are indicated. There aren’t any printed stations or routes. The observe would want a strip of land the world of Seattle-Tacoma Worldwide Airport — about 3,000 acres — and take a long time, not years to construct, as is happening in California.
In the meantime, Amtrak Cascades is our present 18-stop regional line from Vancouver, B.C., to Eugene, Ore., however pace and reliability are restricted by insufficient infrastructure. Just a few U.S. trains, similar to Acela (Boston to Washington, D.C.), and Florida’s new Brightline, run quicker than 79 mph. Amtrak Cascades has by no means met the two.5-hour journey time between Seattle and Portland specified by our Legislature in 1993. It was solely 47% on-time in 2022 — clearly unacceptable.
The Washington State Division of Transportation’s new Amtrak Cascades Service Improvement Plan has five options. None will obtain dependable 2.5-hour journey instances with out new infrastructure investments. Amongst them: Level Defiance Bypass curve revision, the place speeds are actually restricted to 30 mph, a brand new fast-rail bridge over the Nisqually River for each Amtrak and Sound Transit trains, a 110-mph third observe between Lacey and Centralia, and extra.
The coalition of rail, health and climate teams that we signify advocates for these upgrades, costing lower than $15 billion, on about 300 new acres — in comparison with 3,000 for the high-speed rail proposal. That’s one-tenth of the fee, and one tenth the brand new land requirement. WSDOT, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the Nisqually Tribe, and Pierce and Thurston Counties should determine how finest to hold individuals and items throughout the Nisqually River. WSDOT’s plan to widen Interstate 5 to eight lanes will enhance the vehicle-miles traveled previous Billy Frank Jr. Nationwide Wildlife Refuge. That’s opposite to legislative intent to lower such journey, and thus greenhouse gases, statewide. An upgraded Cascades and Sounder extension to Lacey can induce I-5 drivers to shift to passenger rail to avert this egregious local weather mistake.
We should select correctly in 2024. Inform your legislators the way you and your youngsters wish to use our valuable inexperienced land. We’d like Amtrak Cascades upgrades by 2030, not extremely high-speed rail in 2050, for our well being and local weather.
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