I will be flying from Vancouver (YVR) to Seattle (SEA) tomorrow to connect to another flight. This half hour flight is absolutely ridiculous.
Because the three main PNW airports are near the city center and are connected to local public transit, they would be awesome #HighSpeedRail terminals. Rather than flying to get to a connecting flight, I wish I could reasonably take the #train.
1/4
In 2023, 625,692 passengers flew the SEA-YVR route with 143,129 on the PDX-YVR. From Apr 2023 too Mar 2024, an estimated 609,000 passengers took the PDX-SEA route.
This represents an annual market of 1.38 million people traveling on air routes along the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver corridor. This doesn't include people already taking #Amtrak or driving by car between these three metro areas.
Cascadia #HighSpeedRail makes so much sense.
2/4
As a bonus, connecting PDX-SEA-YVR by #HighSpeedRail would alleviate capacity concerns at Sea-Tac. Instead of building a new airport somewhere on the outskirts of Metro #Seattle, #HSR would allow passengers to use #Portland and #Vancouver as relief airports.
3/4
Addendum: Obviously #HighSpeedRail needs to be a dedicated rail line. I think this could be reasonably built primarily on the I-5/I-205/BC 99 right-of-way (perhaps elevated above the median).
There would be a few slow areas (near Bellingham and Kalama for example), but I think the savings in cost, time of land acquisition, and NIMBY struggle (there will still be NIMBYs, just fewer) makes this a worthwhile compromise.
4/4
@ingalls If Washington State gets serious enough about HSR that they're putting money into construction -- not just planning -- that money needs to be coupled with process reforms.
It's paramount that we actually learn a lesson from California's effort.
Mark Ingalls
Andy
Owen
Frappe