A map from the Federal Railroad Administration shows the possible route for a proposed high-speed rail route in the Pacific Northwest.
Advocates have long called for bullet trains in the region that would slash commute times, create jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The plan got a boost this past December when the Biden administration provided a Corridor Identification and Development program grant of $500,000 to the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) for the Cascadia High Speed Rail project.
The grant will support planning and viability assessment for the project, which proposes a high-speed rail corridor connecting Portland, Oregon, to Vancouver, British Columbia, via Seattle, with a possible extension south to Eugene, Oregon.
The project intends to offer 30 daily round trips a day between Vancouver and Portland, according to The Seattle Times. The trains would get passengers from Seattle to Portland in less than an hour—the trip currently takes at least three or more.
The map below shows the existing Amtrak Cascades intercity passenger service route, which is similar to the proposed high-speed rail service's route, though "stations and alignments have not yet been determined," a Cascadia Rail spokesperson told Newsweek.
"We do know that the high-speed rail route will connect the metropolitan areas of Vancouver, British Columbia, Seattle and Portland, but interim stops are still being evaluated," they added.
Another $500,000 grant handed out in December was earmarked for a proposal to make improvements to existing Amtrak Cascades services between Vancouver and Eugene.
The grants "provide funding to develop scopes, schedules, and cost estimates for preparing a service-development plan for each corridor," according to the WSDOT.
The department "is very pleased to receive federal support for both important passenger rail programs," Washington state Transportation Secretary Roger Millar said in a statement in December. "These two complementary systems would connect with one another to transport people efficiently, reliably and in environmentally friendly ways. We're planning improvements for current rail passengers, as well as envisioning an even more robust system in the future."
The funding, announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration in December, included more than $8 billion to improve rail services across the nation.
Of that amount, more than $6 billion was announced for a pair of high-speed electric rail routes: one between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area and another for an initial segment of California's publicly funded effort to eventually connect Los Angeles and San Francisco, according to the Associated Press.
Almost $200 million that WSDOT is seeking to support the Cascadia High Speed Rail project was not provided in 2023, although that amount is a fraction of what is needed to start construction on the project.
Last summer, an independent review commissioned by the Washington Legislature's Joint Transportation Committee estimated that construction of a "state of the art" high-speed rail link could cost between $36 billion and $150 billion.
"Constructing an entirely dedicated corridor would require large amounts of property acquisitions and environmental impacts," the report said. "These impacts could be greatly reduced by using the existing corridor in more developed, urban areas, with the trade-off being a loss of speed."
Update 5/7/24, 7:46 a.m. ET: Comment from Cascadia Rail has been added and the headline updated to reflect that the map shows the high-speed rail service's possible route.
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