Plans for a high-speed rail line that connects Seattle to Portland and Vancouver, B.C., are slowly moving forward — although it will likely be decades before anyone can board one of the trains.
Why it matters: The Cascadia region is expected to gain at least 3 million residents by 2050. A bullet train could help move those people quickly, cutting car and plane trips that generate emissions and fuel climate change.
Catch up quick: In December, the federal government awarded a $49.7 million grant to underwrite four years of planning for a Pacific Northwest high-speed rail line.
- Washington’s Legislature also budgeted $7.5 million in matching funds in April — part of a larger pledge to spend up to $150 million in state money on the project over the next several years.
- Oregon and British Columbia contributed funding for earlier high-speed rail studies, plus signed a memorandum of agreement in 2021 pledging to help advance the project.
How it works: The goal is to reduce travel time between Seattle and Portland to a little over an hour, with similar travel times planned between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., Steve Peer, a Washington State Department of Transportation spokesperson, told Axios.
- The high-speed trains would use a separate track from Amtrak trains, so they could move faster and wouldn’t have to stop for other rail traffic.
- The trains would likely travel 200 miles an hour or more, Peer said.
What’s happening: With the federal grant, state officials will look at route and service options, conduct early engineering work, and produce “very high-level cost estimates,” Peer said…