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Has anyone noticed yet that the proposed $4.0 billion Columbia River Crossing will cost more than Washington DOT's plan to upgrade the railroad between Seattle and Portland, and run hourly express trains?  These trains will carry thousands of passengers a day, and relieve the whole of I-5 between these points.  By contrast, the CRC project will do little more than create a wide spot on I-5, since there is nowhere for more traffic to go in Portland.  Even the DOTs admit that.  How about some sanity here ?

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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The paid contrarians aside, most people believe we should be making better use of the railroads in the main demand corridors, such as the I-5 corridor between Eugene and Vancouver BC.

Compared to Washington, Oregon hasn't done much yet, and this is reflected in Washington getting some $750 million to upgrade the line between Portland and Seattle, while Oregon got a few million to fix the roof at Union Station !

It will cost billions to build a true high speed rail line in the corridor, a cost that present use cannot hope to justify.  A logical first step is to work with UP to upgrade the existing line to Eugene, and build up service, and demonstrate ridership.  A later stage would then begin to build a new line suitable for high speed operations (ie. with high speed curves, and no grade crossings.)  Note that neither the near term upgrade of existing service on UP, nor a true high speed line on a new alignment is likely to use the rail line through Lake Oswego that is so controversial

There is no doubt we'll eventually need high speed rail, and it certainly isn't going to get cheaper if we wait.  We need to start a program of incremental improvements now.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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