Vision of Fast Rail for ‘Cascadia’

Northwest cities are known for their leadership in rail transit. With recent federal commitment to high-speed rail, many see a tantalizing opportunity for Amtrak to play catch-up.

More than half a billion dollars is headed to Washington and Oregon to improve train service between Portland and Seattle. But while new trains may not reach the blistering speeds needed to pull most travelers out of their cars, improved train service is bound to help create a greater sense of regional unity.

“Oregon, Washington and B.C. are known as places that have created destinations where it’s easy to get around,” said Ethan Seltzer, a Portland State University urban studies professor. “When you come to Seattle and Portland and Vancouver, you have pedestrian- accessible urbanism. We’ve created the right places for high-speed rail. But now it’s about connecting the places.”

U.S. high-speed rail is only just starting to percolate. Last year, President Barack Obama committed $8 billion in federal Recovery and Reinvestment Act money to a national high-speed rail network. This year, the administration hopes to begin spending an additional $1 billion a year over the next five years on big rail.

Proponents say high-speed trains reduce greenhouses gases generated by cars and planes and promote green jobs. In areas like the industrial Midwest and California, where there’s no room for new freeways and airports, high-speed rail may be the only way to add new travel capacity.

California is leading the way with a 200 mph bullet train system paid for by a $9 billion high-speed rail initiative that passed in 2008 and $2 billion in federal aid. But the Northwest is high on the national priorities list despite the fact that the region represents only 3 percent of the U.S. population.

At the center of local federal investment is the 17-year-old, 466-mile Amtrak Cascades line that runs between Eugene and Vancouver B.C. The line uses sleek Talgo-built rail cars that bank around corners like an airplane. It runs as a guest on freight train tracks making four daily trips between Portland and Seattle, two from Eugene to Portland and two from Vancouver to Seattle. It’s the most popular Amtrak corridor outside the Northeast and California.

Part of what makes the Northwest attractive for high-speed rail is that people can arrive at a train station and get to major destinations easily using local mass transit.

“It’s a seamless transition: going from the train station in Seattle to getting wherever you need to go in the business district in Portland,” said Michael Andersen, whose site PortlandAfoot is dedicated to getting around town without a car. “Part of that is the investment that’s been made in transit, part of that is planning for density.”

A federal grant of $598 million will fund a host of new projects that will include building extra tracks to separate freight and passenger traffic. With those improvements, maximum trains speeds are only expected to increase from 78 mph to 90 or 110 mph. That would cut the 3½-hour trip between Portland and Seattle by only 10 minutes, according to Washington state transportation officials.

“It’s not high-speed rail, it’s moderate-speed rail,” said John A. Charles, president of the free market think tank the Cascade Policy Institute. He said he likes taking the train to Seattle but that spending more than half a billion dollars in tax money is wasteful. “People see ‘The Bourne Identity’ and think it would be great to rocket around like that. It’s a boutique market for people who won’t pay boutique ticket prices. It will take huge subsidies to support.”

Even if the Cascade line can’t compete in the 220-mph bullet category, some think the line has the potential to link the region in a broader cultural and economic sense.

Seltzer and others see Portland as part of the shared cultural, economic and environmental region along the north Pacific Coast known as Cascadia.

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