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
@smitha The Amtrak station in Vancouver is nowhere near the airport or to my location, and is not connected to local public transit very well. There's also a bus but this isn't an option for me without a car to get to it.
IIRC Sounder only goes to Everett.
@ingalls @smitha Also Amtrak/Sounder doesn't connect well to SeaTac either. The Tukwila station is closest to the airport but you need to take a bus to connect to the terminal. Getting off Amtrak at King Street Station in downtown Seattle and connecting to Link light rail to get to SeaTac is arguably better.
Your point is a good one, all three major airports are connected to local rail transit but are very much not connected to Amtrak.
@ingalls @smitha Although I disagree that all three airports are "near" to the city centers... for each one it feels pretty long on local transit to get downtown! 47 min from PDX, 40 min from SEA, 26 min from YVR.
When we build a new #HighSpeedRail alignment, we only need to hook up to one airport in the region. All other HSR stations should be placed closer to the city centers. Rail passengers from all over the region could use that one airport for medium & long haul flights.
@ingalls @smitha I'd also humbly suggest that none of the YVR/SEA/PDX airports needs to connect to High Speed Rail. Here in #BellinghamWA we have an airport with lots of spare capacity. Connect HSR to our airport and to the city centers in Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland. You all can use our airport for medium and long haul flights!
#CascadiaRail #HighSpeedRail #HSR #transit #airports #AirTravel
Mark Ingalls
Smitha 🌸🌋🎻
Alan McConchie