41–50 of 311 posts
They allocated $150M according to the article. I can't see that being enough to even break ground on a single mile of track. If California boondoggle is any indication, it will be enough to staff an army of middle managers, bureaucrats, and environmental impact and DEI staff for a year, and, of course, pay out some political kickbacks.
There are now only 3 decent sized concentrations of people in that corridor, but maybe building something like this would allow a whole new 1MM person metro to develop, e.g. around Olympia or in the Skagit Valley
> If a rail is built successfully, there will be an extraordinary increase in transportation abilities — saving commuters time while reducing environmental harm. This high-speed rail is intended for people getting between home and workplace on a daily basis? Edit: I'm not asking whether it can be used for daily commutes, but is daily commutes the reason for building this? Or what is the reason?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure it is useful to transport 2000 kg of metal occupying a half of a rail car, just to move 80kg meatbag for a distance of 173 miles.
It's useful because the rail doesn't go to your exact destination. You will need to drive there. It is expensive to have a separate car in both cities instead of just taking a single car with you.
Extremely unlikely. The population density just isn't there. There are 12m people in Washington and Oregon combined, a substantial portion of whom are not on the I-5 corridor. The corridor in general is about 800km long. Compare to ~70m within 500 km of Paris.
I'd say the vast majority of the population of Oregon and Washington is along the I-5 corridor.
> If a rail is built successfully, there will be an extraordinary increase in transportation abilities — saving commuters time while reducing environmental harm. This high-speed rail is intended for people getting between home and workplace on a daily basis? Edit: I'm not asking whether it can be used for daily commutes, but is daily commutes the reason for building this? Or what is the reason?
I have several friends that commute from Portland to seattle via bus or Vancouver to seattle via car or occasionally seaplane taxi. I’m sure they would really appreciate a high speed rail infrastructure particularly if it exits at a transportation hub as they propose.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure it is useful to transport 2000 kg of metal occupying a half of a rail car, just to move 80kg meatbag for a distance of 173 miles.
It's useful because the rail doesn't go to your exact destination. You will need to drive there. It is expensive to have a separate car in both cities instead of just taking a single car with you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure it is useful to transport 2000 kg of metal occupying a half of a rail car, just to move 80kg meatbag for a distance of 173 miles.
It's useful because the rail doesn't go to your exact destination. You will need to drive there. It is expensive to have a separate car in both cities instead of just taking a single car with you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the layout. They had a nice bypass set up, but the first day the train derailed and it has just recently re-opened. Sharing track with freight is a PITA: the freight trains don't care about going fast (so no really straight tracks) and they often have priority especially if the cascade is running off schedule, causing even more delays. Not sure where they are going to build new straight-enough HSR track unless…
Legally, Amtrak is supposed to have priority, and freight trains are required to pull off. But freight trains usually get priority because that's what the railway wants, and Amtrak doesn't have the political muscle to do much. But it's illegal. https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Amtrak-has-priority-o...
Have they never heard of a country called Japan?