PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN ) — Thirty years since it launched, Amtrak Cascades is seeing some of its highest ridership levels ever recorded.
The Oregon Department of Transportation and Washington State Department of Transportation first joined forces for passenger rail service in April 1994, with only one daily round trip between Portland and Seattle.
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The departments currently offer six round trips between the two destinations every day. ODOT spokesperson Shelley Snow explained that leaders added new routes last December to meet the demand for travel from Oregon’s largest city to Washington’s largest city.
Since then, the popularity of trains just in Amtrak Cascades’ Oregon portion — with stops in Portland, Oregon City, Salem, Albany and Eugene — has increased as well.
“We’re seeing high ridership on the entire corridor, but particularly high for Oregon, because we don’t have that same population base, of course, that you have in the Portland and Seattle area,” Snow told KOIN 6. “So while that’s been nice, steady growth between Portland and Seattle, where we’ve really seen significant growth is between Portland and Eugene.”