I decided to do some better calculations on the Mt. Vernon, Burlington, and Bellingham bypass. I have that knocking Seattle-Vancouver down to 54 mins conventional, 55 mins tilting. That's 18 and 17 minutes saved. Brings the whole thing down to 3h3m conventional and 2h49m tilting. I probably lowballed the cost. Additional Nukage is 25 buildings, mostly homes, with probably 100 properties in the way. The tunnel would need to be about 2 miles longer than I figured, so cost is likely closer to $8 billion than $6.5 billion.
The main issues i see with creating hsr or metro in most coastal cities is that ur building on literally the most expensive and difficult to build on from a permitting and regulation stance. building something like hsr in these areas is often prohibitively expensive. Thats why the vegas brightline ends in rancho
@@jerredhamann5646 A lot of that is solved by being able to use freight rights of way for an electrified high speed train. It would be slower, but you'd have a core route. Ideally your trunk would then bypass the core at speed.
@@LucidStewjust increase frequencies of connecting trains brightline west would be better off going to San Diego via I-15 and offer connections to the inland empire line
The Amtrak Cascades serves the public need for passenger-rail more than adequately. Train travel is NOT about speed. Rather it is about enjoying the ride and the scenery which is not possible in a freeway median nor miles of tunnel. Studies have been conducted that suggest the Cascades average speed can be increased a bit. Personally, I'll be supporting a route From Eugene through (Corvallis and Albany) to Salem, adding distance but providing service those communities. I believe the Talgo fleet of 7 trainsets should return to the corridor. HSR at 125+mph is in the early process of being planned to death, as in, planners get paid to put together a proposal they know will not be built.
Awesome route @LucidStew! As someone who's lived in the PNW my entire life, works for WSDOT, and is an avid supporter of high-speed rail in the region, I'd make the following suggestions respectfully: 1. Consider increasing your costs by about 20%, if not 25%. We're overdue for the Cascadia Megathrust Earthquake, an expected 9.0 mag from South Oregon to British Columbia that has a 20% chance of occurring in just the next 50 years! We'd want to make sure such a massive infrastructure investment will still function, or at least be easily repairable, after such an event or we're just throwing money away. It will require high-cost seismic standards, which includes dealing with our many river valleys that are filled with highly liquifiable soils/silts, meaning even your ground level sections may need to have reinforced foundations or subbase, and all bridge structures will need to have foundations extending into bedrock, which in some areas is well over 200 feet or more below ground. Can't tell you how many new WSDOT bridges have had bored foundations extending 300 feet or more! 2. The region's population is spread out in many moderate sized cities/metros, so having only major stops in the biggest metros could severely hamstring ridership potential. A two-tier service level, with local and express service, has been shown by the most recent studies as having the largest ridership potential and cost benefit. Potential local stops in Albany/Corvallis, OR; Salem, OR; Longview, WA; Centralia/Chehalis, WA; Olympia, WA; Tacoma, WA; Everett, WA; Bellingham; WA, and possibly Abbotsford, BC (depending on route chosen), could greatly boost the populations served and make securing political buy-in a lot easier (not every city above needs a stop at first, but infill stations later on could be very useful too). This also mirrors the very successful Japanese High Speed rail system, which has local and express services and works to significant effect (not to mention frequency of service most countries can only dream of providing). Regional Commuter Rail is likely not going to ever efficiently connect these cities as BNSF simply won't allow Amtrak to run more trains or have schedule priority, and if we invest in HSR, money for local commuter trains will likely be harder to come by as the focus for decades will be on building and completing the HSR network first. 3. Don't forget about Native American tribal reservations!!! This is a big deal for the PNW. Your selected route through the Nisqually River Valley east of Olympia would be dead on arrival as the Nisqually Tribe would absolutely be sure to stop it from ever happening, it's a sacred valley to them. You'd want a route that either minimizes the crossing distance with a high viaduct, or just tunnels beneath.... both very expensive. Avoiding tribal lands as much as possible is strongly recommended because the tribes are federally protected and very happy to exercise in court the sovereign treaty rights they have historically been denied for so long. 4. You're 100% right on the money regarding tunneling under the major Portland/Seattle metros. There're few feasible options that can avoid this without even more expensive costs. These areas are just too densely built and topographically varied to allow for better alignments. Outside the metros though, especially in rural areas, don't be afraid to straighten curves or make bypasses of challenging terrain. Timberland, and farmland to an extent, is very very cheap compared to urban sprawl, so maximizing speed and efficiency where you can should be done even if it costs a bit more. 5. It's pronounced Sheh-hailis, not T'chalis * flashbacks to Hermione Granger in Harry Potter * ; ) Honestly, I think you did a great job. But being very familiar with the area and construction costs here, I do think your cost estimate is low for the challenging geology and terrain we have to deal with. Hope the above makes sense and I look forward to more from your awesome channel. : )
Definitely appreciate the input. 300ft to bedrock was an eye-opener for sure. With my estimates being influenced by projects occurring in California, I should naturally have some protection for seismicity built into the cost. Some of that is also going to factor into regional variance discussed in the cost algo part. I do have Washington as one of the more expensive states. Sensitivity to tribal lands was one reason I steered clear of the Somas route. The maps I checked indicate the route I chose near the Nisqually reservation and community steers well clear of their borders, however. Unless they have trust lands I'm unaware of, I don't think they can reasonably obstruct such a route. I am aware that environmental impact reports must consider far more than routing, but at the same time I'm not attempting to actually build the thing, so I can and will take some liberties.
@@LucidStew Thanks so much for the quick response!!! : ) And you're welcome! Regarding the 300-foot-deep foundations, I will say that it's not always that bad, 100 to 200 is more common. Some river valleys are worse than others, the Chehalis, Duwamish, Snohomish, and Fraser get extremely silty the closer you are to the Puget Sound / Coast, so a generally rule of thumb is to expect higher foundation costs in river valleys that are closer to large bodies of water. (Though parts of the Willamette can get dicey too as a lot of those soils were backwater silt deposits from the Brett's Floods and so can be very fine in nature.) Glad you already have decent seismicity factored into your costs!!! If that's the case then perhaps only 10% increase, if any... just because there are deep foundations that will be needed for some areas. As to the Nisqually, you are correct that the reservation itself does not extend into the alignment you chose, however there are some off-reservation lands owned directly by the tribe there, as well as a dozen or so tribal families scattered throughout the valley outside the reservation. The tribe would heavily support those families interests and absolutely use any EIS process to minimize or stop any route they feel destroys too much of the valley or is too impactful to the Nisqually River itself. One option you could consider is a seldom used and partially abandoned BNSF line extending from Tenino to Yelm, Roy and then north to Lakewood thru JBLM. Very flat, rather straight... and barely used at all. Have to deal with BNSF's typical BS, but might be worthwhile to bypass the tribe and tribal adjacent lands. (see: geo.wa.gov/datasets/d840cbadf3d04ccea6ee1063b01d802f ) Regardless, as a thorough preliminary route I think you did a great job and it's very practical all things considered. Ultimately we just need to move from the "study hell" phase to the "funding hell" phase and get things moving forward towards design and construction. Can't waste too much more time as we have a lot to do to catch up to California and it's very on-track and on-budget HSR corridor. ; )
@@cobaltblue42 I'm assuming WSDOT is going come up with something blended, like CAHSR. Trying to keep it pure HSR looks like such a massive challenge. I also get the sense from WSDOT docs I've read that the agency is VERY keen to avoid CAHSR's mistakes, perhaps to a fault, such that they may chicken out when it comes time to pull the trigger. Also, on the subject of the next study, if the various bodies involved were THAT enthusiastic about it, they'd surely be able to come up with the funding for it. It all just strikes me as noncommittal and it's tough to build a $80 billion megaproject without being committed. Ask CAHSR! 😄
@@LucidStew you're close to the money there. There are those in the agency and region that want a true HSR project for the entire route, like what's seen in Japan, but everyone knows the cost of that for our region would be insane. A blended approach like you suggest is most likely the route that will be taken. We absolutely do not want a repeat of CAHSR lol, and so yes, everyone is very noncommittal, "well it could be this, or that, and maybe cost this much". Ultimately, when it comes to WSDOT, we can't actually make the final call, or really pursue the projects we'd like to. Our state legislature fully controls our projects and budget. The legislature, with the governor, directs us to "study" things and "work towards certain goals" but ultimately, they are the ones that have to decide how they want to move forward. I, and I'm sure many of my colleagues, would love to just start the detailed planning and design process already, but until the politicians make the final decisions, we can only hand them the studies they ask us to make. And I'm really afraid, in a major election year, including for governor, that there will be absolutely no progress made on this issue until after the elections, assuming the new legislature and governor are friendly to the idea. What I'd absolutely love to see happen, but doubt it will, is to directly invite the JRTT from Japan to help design and construct the system for us. Would be a great opportunity for international cooperation and would secure an agency at the forefront of HSR transit to assist us with making it happen. Their climate and geology is very similar, and while they do use a different system of measurement, that's just unit conversions, pretty simple compared to other engineering tasks lol. Just tired of seeing states/agencies struggle to build an industry from the ground up that doesn't really exist in the US. Makes it really easy for contractors and consultants to take advantage of projects like CAHSR when it's never been done before, making it hard to have actual accountability. Probably just a dream on my end though and I'm sure doing this would add its own set of problems.
As someone who lives in Eugene, I love that people consider it a large enough population for HSR. I think realistically though if the project were to be underway, the connection to Eugene is probably the first the thing to be dropped for budgetary reasons even if Portland to Eugene would be a game changer for both my personal travels and my job.
The Oregon legislature could prove tricky for the project if the Eugene extension is NOT included. Politically, this project would run through and potentially serve the entirety of the western portions of populated Washington state. Meanwhile, if it terminated in Portland, the rest of Oregon would get jack squat.
Something people fail to realize is that one of the most well ridden and profitable portions of the Amtrak Cascades is the segment between Portland and Eugene. It genuinely sees higher overall consistent ridership and demand than the rest of the line. It was also the first segment to regain that same ridership and some new as well after it was reinstated post pandemic, as well as the most vocal riders of it for the months Amtrak put off opening it back up to service again. So in all honesty, it has a much stronger influence on this HSR project than people realize, and it definitely packs a punch WAAAAY above it's weight class (size).
@@LucidStew I know many of us Oregonians would absolutely make a very public and loud stink about it too until they reintegrate that segment. It has a ridership well above what most would ever expect, too. So it already punches above it's size. Also, the sheer amount of folks moving from the Portland metro down into the Eugene metro lately is growing and it's noticeable. It's difficult for us not to meet people who themselves have had neighbors, coworkers or friends move down there from up here recently. They're growing a lot lately, and that definitely is going to grow the demand as well.
Portland could also throw weight to get Eugene the connection. It's entirely possible that the city of Portland itself would protest the removal of Eugene. Portland killed the Columbia River Crossing because they refused to fund it unless Vancouver committed to a MAX line extension into Vancouver. Vantucky wanted 13 car lanes and no public transit, and Portland told them to get fucked.
Random thought right at the start: Eugene being the smallest of the four cities sitting at the end of the corridor is actually a good thing for getting HSR built. Why? Because it means that connecting the 3 bigger cities looks better numbers-wise than if it had been big-big-small-big.
This is a project I am really looking forward to. Any major, disruptive transit project is worth it in the long run. It would save so much time over driving (which is what the vast majority of us do here in the Great Pacific Northwest.
Always worth it. But that's exactly it - _in the long haul._ People want results yesterday, not today, not tomorrow, three weeks out or god forbid a couple months down the road. And when they don't get it, they quickly get upset and want to say "See! WE TOLD YOU THIS WOULDN'T WORK AND WASN'T WORTH IT!" while trying to shut the projects down completely. No one has patience anymore. And considering it averages about 3 1/2 hours to go from around Sunset hwy around Beaverton/Aloha to SeaTac with a relatively uncongested freeway, that proves how needed and beneficial this HSR system would be.
Not just any major transit project, high speed rail specifically has the highest level of benefit to costs when controlling for all negative/positive externalities (the EU did a study on this years ago). It is literally the most efficient use of transit money.
@@TheCriminalViolin Amtrak Cascades travel time from Portland to Seattle is 3.5 hours, more than adequate speed, same as your freeway drive. We do not need a damn bullet train lie.
@@artlewellan2294The idea is, it gives a much faster trip to and from each city than it is to drive it. It is also safer overall, much more relaxing and easy going for most people to ride a train, and it then would not only help take a lot of drivers on these trips off the freeways, freeing up a lot of congestion, it would also be ensuring it competes well with potential air travelers too, taking a plane to and from these places. Why you'd strongly prefer the status quo is beyond me and many, many other people.
Too many tunnels of course. Also your choice in southern Washington is an area prone to landslides-which is why the freeway was located near the river. Obviously a challenging route
You've really knocked this one out of the park my friend! I'm literally about to board Amtrak cascades from Seattle to Vancouver and will be thinking about this the entire time. I would love to also see this route featured in your taking back the streets series, as I think I-5 has plenty of space in the Seattle area, especially if you take the express lanes... what we'd lose in speed might be worth it since we'd effectively be eliminating the 19 or so miles of tunnels this alignment would require. But again, fantastic, I'm forwarding this to everyone I know in the area who cares about this stuff to hopefully get some local traction.
I would think that stations in Salem (OP capital), Tacoma, Olympia (WA capital), Everett, and Bellingham may be needed to garner enough support, although express runs can be operated such as are planned with CAHSR. British Columbia may also want a station serving the Surrey/Richmond market as well. I do think that the extra tunnel south of Bellingham to eliminate the 90 mph section would be worth it for the 20 min time savings. With airline fees for anything and everything only increasing while the experience is decreasing, and if Boeing planes keep dropping things out of the sky, demand for HSR should be quite high.
There's a problem with systems that try to please everyone: they'll either end up too slow or too expensive. Regional rail can handle all the smaller regional stops. If it were up to me, the thing would stop at Portland from the north.
@@LucidStew Politics forces compromises. I imagine it would be hard for WA and OR residents to agree to pay for it if the only stops were in Seattle and Portland. That's why CAHSR will stop in Burbank, Palmdale, Hanford, Merced, Gilroy, and Millbrae. However, they will add substantial ridership. The San Joaquins Amtrak line is the nation's 5th busiest outside of the the NE corridor and serves more riders than the Cascades Amtrak line with 847k vs 669k in 2023. However, CAHSR will offer a number of express runs throughout the day for the LA to SF run. So, I believe it's doable without degrading service.
@@bryanCJC2105 If you look at the CAHSR ridership estimates for the completed system, the percentage the Central Valley contributes is quite small outside of Sacramento, which is predicted to have a strong connection with Los Angeles. The intermediate stations are mainly politics. The big metros provide the ridership. If you have the capacity to provide both intercity and express on a system, then that of course is less of a concern. However, I would argue the funding for that should be local. I'm looking at it more in terms of what you get for the cost and 107 miles of HSR is a big regional expense to connect Salem and Eugene at ~800k combined. 3 times that population and now you're on par with the rest of the system.
The ideal function here in my mind is run the HSR as a true HSR, meaning, it only serves the main cities, so these four. But with it, you implement a second phase, which is regional rail (or IC/ICE if that better matches your own definitions of the types) which then focuses on proper intercity services. It would then be those trains that would serve the other cities/populations centers between the major cities, connecting the entire route up at a more local level. Think Vancouver > Surrey > Bellingham > Everett > Seattle > SeaTac (people always forget that Seatac is a actual city itself, not just the airport) > Tacoma > Olympia > Kelso/Longview > Vancouver > Portland > Tualatin > Salem/Keizer > Eugene. Something like that would strike a balance between a solid distance between each stop achieving the localized access, while also ensuring good speed and time as well. It's a healthy balance. If one wanted it to be even more local, then sure you could add more stops, however that would massively slow the route down, and may make it comparable or slower than driving, which obviously then makes it non-viable as a option. There's such a thing as too many stops. And that as another addition would mean you absolutely would need to clear out another ROW for it to run along so that it doesn't slow down the HSR and ICE lines. Realistically from a logistics perspective, it may even be necessary to add additional track segments that branch off the main HSR route for the ICE route, too (it technically has to anyway in order to access Kelso/Longview with a station there, as well as Olympia, Tacotown & Everett.
@@LucidStew Firstly, I appreciate your videos and the information in them. They are excellent. I respect your work a great deal. According to CAHSR 2020 Business Plan Ridership and Forecasting Report Table 5.3, 2040 ridership estimates for the SJV (all stations from Stockton to Bakersfield and excluding Sacramento) are as follows: San Joaquin Valley to Bay Area 5.2 million SJV to Los Angeles 5 million Intra-SJV 1.9 million Other to SJV 700k (not sure what that is) SJV to San Diego 400k SJV to Sacramento 300k Total SJV trips = 13.5 million/ annually Planned total HSR trips = 38.6 million San Joaquin Valley trips % to total = 34% That's pretty significant. Total Sacramento ridership (a single city market) to all other markets is projected to be 2.4 million or 6% of total ridership. LA to Bay Area ridership is forecasted to be 7.2 million or 19% of total riders Top 3 trip generators are projected to be: #1 Bay Area - Southern CA at 7.2 million #2 Bay Area - San Joaquin Valley at 5.2 million #3 intra SoCal trips 5.1 million Sacramento County has a population of 1.5 million and will generate 2.4 million trips. Using that ratio, Eugene/Salem at 800k people could generate well over a million rides/year. That could be pretty significant being that the entire Vancouver to Eugene corridor contains only about 9 million people or about 1/4 the size of the CAHSR market.
I've always been a big fan of the Portland STU system. Sure, it *is* a gadgetbahn, but the way it glides under the big span of the Fremont bridge is just so glorious.
Funny enough, I'm a lifelong born and raised westsider who has been to the heart of Portland many times in my life, AND a mass transit whore (have been since I was in diapers, no joke), and I have NO clue what the hell the STU even is. Never heard of it. Surprised it got mentioned, but the Aerial Tram didn't (despite how genuinely useless of a advertisement project it was for both OHSU and TriMet). What the hell even is it?
This should have been built 20 years ago, but it's still not too late to consider it today. I'm familiar with the Washington - Portland topology thanks to a flight simulater I used to play a long time ago, and it was based around there (Flight Unlimited 3). The region is my favourite part of the US, and British Columbia is stunning too. To me, Cascadia HSR would be the most exciting railway project in America. Thanks for doing this, really enjoyed it.
Instead of tunneling under Seattle for a downtown station, it might be possible to put your HSR station in Bellevue instead without tunneling, going fully above ground with land acquisition instead. While transit connections would not be as good as they are in Seattle proper, there will be a Link light rail and bus connection to downtown Seattle as of 2025. So it could still work.
Bellevue makes more sense. People can ride the world’s only floating bridge light rail into Seattle from the better off (more newer hotels, and bustling second core of business in Puget Sound that could get great support from HSR) from Bellevue. Regional stops like Tacoma already served from Seattle and Amtrak.
@@Liggie55821 even just some minor improvements to the existing Cascades (including running more per day) could be huge for the world cup (since obviously it's way too late for anything like this).
I mean, given that driving (especially with the border crossing) between Vancouver and Seattle is currently a 4-hour affair (could be worse with traffic), cutting down on tunneling and just making slow-speed passenger-only tracks in existing ROW would probably still be worth it even if it cuts down on time. Especially since a “one-hour” airport penalty is not nearly enough. Airports are away from the CBDs of the cities, and getting there only an hour before your flight is really living life on the edge.
There's a lot of time savings to be had by doing immigration checks before boarding. It's a little harder if you've got multiple stops on either side of the border, but that can be solved by joining two trains and splitting before the border proper
@@counterfit5 You can just design better station arrival procedures. Require a passport number for a cross border ticket, and have the trains arrive at specific platforms in BC. These platforms can be connected to immigration/security facilities just like airports. The reverse can also be true - it can be a preclearance facility for Canada - US travel, like they have in Vancouver's airport.
@@seanschannel3264that’s how the current Amtrak Cascades works. You either do US pre-clearance or Canada Border check at Pacific Central. The Amtrak platform is surrounded by a massive security fence and is separate from the ViaRail platforms. Occasionally agents will board the train and check passports at the actual border as well.
Hell yeah. You love to see it. Considering the iv bridge would be 7.5 billion or just goes to show how much rail is cost effective. Driving to Seattle takes 3 hours if you don't hit traffic.
I strongly agree that this HSR should begin at Eugene! Thank You! The Eugene/Springfield population is much bigger than 400k with all the nearby smaller towns and relatively dense expanded rural housing. It would also be a good commuter extension from/to Salem and Portland.
As a Vancouverite, Pacific Central station is much better. It’s actually better connected for most people and exising surface station with surface tracks to use. Waterfront would be horrendously expensive for negligible gain. Less tunnelling to get to Pacific too. Stations at Bellingham and Seatac would be needed.
Cool, thanks for the local perspective. The more I looked at Vancouver, the more I realized its transportation situation is somewhat I foreign to me. No freeways near the city core. I'm used to them going THROUGH. Fascinating.
Yeah, tunnelling under the entire length of Vancouver to get to Waterfront makes zero sense. Pacific Central is right on the edge of downtown, and right next to a SkyTrain station. The problem with it is that there's no good high-speed route from the border to it; the existing Amtrak Cascades route on freight ROW takes FOREVER to get to the border. An option I've seen in other studies is terminating the line somewhere south of the Fraser River, like Surrey. Surrey is poised to surpass Vancouver's population, has an existing SkyTrain connection to the rest of the region including downtown Vancouver, and has more SkyTrain expansion in the works.
@@LucidStew possibly. There's some soil condition issues there; that island is going to liquify and sink into the ocean when the big one hits Vancouver.
Passing though Salem, OR without stopping? I'm sure the state capital would like a station, and actually get one. Far from every train would stop there though?
@@LucidStewI disagree. Most HSR services in Europe still have stops at small cities in between. This line only having 4 stops would be a non stater, especially if Eugene gets a stop which is Smaller than both Vancouver, WA and Tacoma. Most major metros will have 2-3 stops with in them. From previous studies I’ve seen Eugene, Salem, Portland, VancouverWA, Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, Bellingham, and Vancouver would be non-negotiable stops given their size and regional importance. That will be 10 stops on 400+ mile route which seems about right. You probably will have 3 stops in Seattle, 2 in Portland and 2 in Metro Vancouver.
All of those politicians who would use the route would be using your tax dollars to pay for the trip. Bypass it and keep the train moving fast or just go from Vancouver to Vancouver with Bellevue in between and leave Portland out.
I'm curious if using the I-205 corridor for its entire length would allow HSR to run through Portland without needing a 19-mile tunnel? We would lose the direct connection to the city center but it would still get us plenty close enough, I think, especially if you connect it to the MAX lines that run through that corridor. In this case you would be putting HSR bridges over the Willamette and Columbia, but that would still be a fraction of the cost of the tunnel.
@08:45 -- I believe that it's "Che-HAIL-us" not "Che-HALL-us". My great grandfather emigrated there from Switzerland at the turn of the previous century and I visited to discover evidence of his owning land there. I excited about all of the possible high speed rail corridors! I've ridden the Amtrak Coast Starlight route (taking my bike from Los Angeles and back to pedal on the Washington rail trails) and enjoyed it very much.
Great job! $79 billion seems like a bargain for such a system, given that the eastside access tunnel in NYC cost $10 billion. I also wonder if they should just build the station in Surrey, BC, rather than downtown Vancouver for cost savings. Surrey has good connections with the Skytrain network.
My guess is all three cities wouldn't have stations downtown for this reason. Seattle's would be in Bellevue, Portland on the outskirts and Vancouver would be surrey. Its very similar to how most European cities run HSR tbh. It's not super common for these stations to be in the center of the city but rather be at a good transportation link.
It at least makes more sense to go through the heart of Portland and Seattle, as the HSR would go from one side of the city to the other, but Vancouver would be the northern terminus of the line.
Very interesting. Only thing I'd say is that it's ok for HSR to go through cities at conventional speeds. Sure it might not be as fast but lots of HSR services around the world make it work since all that tunneling is a bit nuts. You could probably save the average rider an equal or greater amount of travel time by investing the tunneling budget into local transit upgrades which would buy say, a downtown transit tunnel for Portal MAX or a big chunk of a new line for Vancouver Skytrain. Plus thos investments would be useful for stuff other than intercity trips.
A blended system of some sort seems far more likely to me, but the exercise here was trying to get it to average 150mph. Even with the long tunnels through the metros its a fail in that regard. Maybe with 30 more miles of tunnel. The conclusion I came to while making it is that this approach doesn't seem particularly realistic, my route is slow compared to some others that have been proposed.
@@LucidStew No worries! I'm just one of those people who doesn't properly listen to and/or read the methodology requiring others to take time and explain things. The internet is a fun place 😊
I-5 north of downtown seattle you can use express bus/carpool lanes. WSDOT didn't have a problem letting ST use extra i-90 lanes for light rail. That would probably explain why the cost estimate is slightly above high end
Perhaps, but certain assumptions make a route impossible as opposed to merely improbable, and I tend to err to the side of improbable when dealing with sensitive areas.
When I was living in Vancouver there was always an interest in high speed rail to Seattle. It would greatly help with housing affordability too. Skytrain has some fairly good reach but it’s not as efficient as proper inter urban rail. While this wouldn’t be it, it would be neat to see a NEC style quad track arrangement allowing high speed long distance and inter urban services on the line. Living in abbotsford wouldn’t be such a drag if getting to either downtown core only took 30-45 mins or so.
@@nat_pen_rose Seattle doesn't even beat Los Angeles and San Francisco which Vancouver obliterated in terms of expensive cost of living 😆 It really is incredible to see how Vancouver could soon beat New York City for the most expensive city in the western hemisphere. congratulations to all Vancouver people...I guess.
On the East Side Access in NYC the MTA had up to 36 workers on 1 boring machine and for the 2nd ave. subway. In Europe they do the same job using only 12 workers. My point is your estimate of $79B will balloon like in California... way over $100B with all that tunneling needed.
The tunnel boring expense isn't exact, but its pretty realistic. I'm not using a European paradigm for tunnel costs. Those are based on real-world expenses in the U.S.
$79 billion geez, but for real though so many people complain about the cost of these projects when they don’t even realize that the Shinkansen route in Japan had similar problems, it’s annoying. I just want this project to start construction either this year or next year.
The environmental studies alone will take easily a decade. Nothing fast happens in the Pnw. Look at link rail. It won't reach Everett amd Tacoma for another decade lol.
@@cmdrls212 a decade would be pretty damn quick for those draft eis lol if there are shovels in the ground before 2050 i would be very pleasantly surprised
Tunnel is the only way to deal with Portland, Oregon and Vancouver Washington. The main problem is that the tunnel would have to be pretty deep underground to safely cross the willamt and Columbia Rivers. That would make a connection to the Portland airport quite difficult and there is a high danger of liquidfaction ( major earthquake)
I'm not sure of the geology of the area. My understanding is that the airport is built on fill, but I'm not sure where the bedrock is there. I only looked up the depth charts of the rivers in terms of depth for a tunnel. Fairly deep tunnels are not necessarily a problem, they're just going to require more robust means of getting people to the surface quickly.
@@LucidStew Cascadia subduction zone which stretches from Vancouver Island all the way to Crescent City California. they say a full rupture would create a 9.2 earthquake. they estimates a possible casualties and 2000-3000 and homeless between 1,000,000-2,000,000. and it is due to the fact Portland Oregon is built on reclaimed land. about 50% of the city. Which includes the Gas and Oil pipelines that run throughout the city. However it is consider the second biggest possible disaster. San Andrea Third. New Madrid Semic zone ( borders of Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee.) It would be the biggest disaster in human history only from 2 8.0 earthquakes. you don't want to know the possible deathtoll. but here's homeless possibilities: 7,000,000! with damanges reaching Minneapolis and New York City and Dallas!
I know you wanted to keep this video focused but the Tri Cities + Spokane HSR would definitely work as well and for Oregon a secondary rail system connecting Medford Salem and Bend would be a great transportation system for the two states. You could even expand the system to Boise and Salt Lake City.
Hi Stew, First off, I have to say that I have been actively watching for a while now and love the content you make. I have a engineering proposal for the route through Portland. I imagine this would result in a longer travel time, but could be significantly cheaper. Instead of a tunnel between Tualatin and Portland, I would suggest a single track along the right of way of OR-217 then join up with the Red and Blue Max Lines at US-26. The route could potentially use or parallel the Robertson tunnel beneath Washington Park, then connect to the proposed MAX tunnel from Goose Hollow Station to the Lloyd Center. From the Lloyd center, the route could parallel existing MAX tracks/I-84 as I would argue there is sufficient space for a single track. Then connect with I-205 and cross the Columbia River in the median of the existing bridge Sharing this route would also allow for easy transitions to the MAX Red Line which was just double tracked to the airport. I would recommend reading the MAX Tunnel Study Findings for more information. This is a tunnel that would make significant changes to the MAX system considering the need for greater capacity on the steel bridge.
Though I understand your proposal and it makes some sense, it would ensure we'd need to discount the major issues it would cause with scheduling and frequencies, and single tracking it for so much would prevent a lot of potential trains from being able to continue on schedule through along the line, as it would be taken up by one train traveling one direction. Further, unless you build another tunnel, you really don't have the space for it around the Robertson area, and even that would be heavily space constrained. Furthermore, if you double track it (as it should be logistics-wise), then you definitely do not have the space to build the tunnel (or two). And sharing with MAX makes the least amount of sense as that too would heavily conflict with each other. One of them would require more rights to the ROW of the tracks than the other, and that is always going to be TriMet with MAX. It additionally would mean these HSR trains would have to HEAVILY slow down for the portions it shared tracks with MAX, because the LRTs are capped at 55mph top speed (they're made with that cap), and worse, the catenary and rails are not of the grade capable of handling high speeds, either. And in summer, MAX trains get capped at 30mph due to concerns that the friction and heat would melt the catenary wires, as well as that the pantographs and the rails themselves would warp. And that means the HSR trains would be further slowed and screwed by sharing any tracks at all with the MAX trains during any days it is 90f or above (that's the safety rules). And uhh, in case you didn't realize... today was 90 or above, depending on where in the metro you were. PDX hit 91. Last year we had three days in MARCH that hit 90+ in the metro. So those rules apply anytime that temp is forecasted to be reached. So the concept you proposed kind of implodes on itself to be blunt with you. It simply isn't logical and doesn't make sense. And I think we can both agree that either system, MAX or Cascadia HSR getting heavily slowed down or otherwise logistically stuck restricted to the other's requirements and ROWs isn't right either, especially to the riders of either system. The primary focus always needs to be on maximizing reliability, frequency and ridership, with emphasis on the latter's consistent use and satisfaction. Riders are the literal life blood of transit. They have to be your primary focus every time, with the logistics following right behind in importance of focus. Trying to engineer our way into "easier" and potentially "cheaper" methods doesn't do that at all.
I wonder if some of the tunnelling could be reduced by serving the city centres on spur lines rather than on the mainline? Obviously such an approach isn't ideal operationally, but in my opinion it's a compromise I'd be willing to make when the alternative is that NOTHING gets built!
Normally, yeah, but where is the bypass going? You also have a problem on spur lines here because there's also no room for THEM. Really depends what you could talk freight into, but like with Seattle even that won't help. It's just a really tough route for the concept.
Could take the I-5 express lanes for HSR from downtown Seattle up to Northgate. From there would need to be a tunnel, unless you could feasibly run HSR on the Link Light Rail tracks (which could be worth investigating).
Love this series. I wonder if you'd ever consider sharing routes w/ regular rail near termini. Kinda like the French and Italian HSR networks where typically the 10 or so miles from the city center are thru slower, conventional routes (obvs will lose time but 15 mile tunnels cost $$$$)
The current assumption here is that freight rail right of way will prove extremely difficult due to the freight rail companies. The little section south of King Street in Seattle by the BNSF yard, I was assuming a huge concrete barrier between the two based on demands by UP and the FRA for CAHSR. I initially had a route put together that utilized some freight ROW coming into Portland from the south, but I finally realized that it was so slow and circuitous that driving straight through underground just made more sense even if it was more expensive.
In Europe the HSR network can run on established conventional passenger rail routes in metropolitan areas. Often they even belong to the same state rail company which makes it an obvious choice in contrast to the U.S. freight rail companies which have no inherent interest in sharing their tracks.
@@junglist_ikonin 2002 I took the TGV between Paris and Grenoble. Going to Grenoble I had to change trains, but coming back it was a single seat on a TGV, so that method definitely works.
@@LucidStew I always ignore freight companies because, if we're being hypothetical, I assume that in alternate USA where HSR is actually being built, the railroads are nationalized. Maybe it's wishful thinking but...
@@dwc1964 But it can be done just fine and reasonably if engineers and developers here just learned from the now really old systems in Japan that is the Shinkansen. A connection to the very underappreciated Redding would definitely be rad. Wouldn't mind as a Oregonian going there via HSR for a visit or two to snoop around.
While highly unlikely, given the current uncertainty of CAHSR & no firm commitment from the State DOTs on Cascadia HSR, I would love to see the State Agencies collaborate on linking up the systems, allowing electric trains to travel up and down the West Coast. I could see CAHSR initially extending from Sacramento up to Redding, Cascadia continuing down to Medford and the tracks eventually meeting halfway somewhere around the vicinity of the Mt Shanta area
I'm curious how the Portland Downtown Tunnel Trimet is currently studying as a way to by-pass street running in the city core would affect this plan, your aligns with the general location of TriMet's tunnel plan.
Excellent presentation. However, another tunnel to King Street Station in Seattle will be problematic. There are two tunnels under downtown Seattle now, the BNSF tunnel and Sound Transit's Line 1 tunnel. By the time the HSR project gets underway, there will be a third tunnel, Sound Transit's Line 2 tunnel to Ballard that will meander under the Westlake and South Queen Anne neighborhoods. It might be better to run the HSR tunnel farther east under the south Sixth Avenue industrial area and reactivate the former Union Station that was used by the Union Pacific and Milwaukee railroads in the 20th century as the Seattle terminus. Exiting downtown northward the HSR tunnel would need to avoid conflict with the Line 2 tunnel under the Westlake neighborhood and the Line 1 tunnel that runs under the Ship Canal and then crosses northwest through the University and Roosevelt districts.
Cascadia HSR should already be a thing, hate how long this country takes to progress with things other countries have been doing or already done for decades now.
Happy to see commuter rail stops in Olympia, Kelso and Tacoma stripped from mach maps. Happier to see both A) a solution (tunnel) to crossing the Columbia River as ongoing billion dollar preliminary plans to replace the bridge there don’t include a regional rail option, and B) a stop at PDX as that eliminates the need for further air traffic to SeaTac and even YVR flights as PDX would service those areas with HSR. I only wish LS would have shown a slightly different route that would have eliminated at least the downtown Seattle tunnel (for a shorter one perhaps) going up I405 with a station in Bellevue as opposed to Seattle. This route seems to be preferred 2/1 in the recent studies and I was curious to see the cost and time estimates from Lucid Stew on this bold choice. Surprised and glad to see that 167 was his choice to enter King County - great idea, and well done overall. With Cascadia firmly in the CID, they may get funding in the next round of federal allotments this year for a final study examining said route selection before the final EIS can be complete. Exciting times! Really great work. Thank you
"Sheh-haah-lis" hahaha. It's hilarious the timing of watching this, and I just got done commenting on a video about I-84, and how people from elsewhere tend to almost overthink and thus fixate on very deliberate and clear syllable enunciation in our places names here in the Northwest, which then leads to even more hilarious and botched enunciation than if they had just gone lazy with it. It is said "Sh-hay-lis". So all the other similarly spelled names here are said in the same way. Think Chehalem. Sh-hay-lum or "Sh-hay-lim". Che and Chi are also enunciated the same way. So it's "Shi-nook" and not "Chy-nook". Think of how someone would say it somewhat lazily and lightly slurred, slow down the speech a bit, and wha-bam! You got how we speak here. It to me is more than worth it, as I am sure you're well aware of by now given some of my past comments haha. This is one of the intensely rare instances where the "TAKE MY MONEY" meme is applicable for me. And we all know it always will encounter steep cost-overruns, but even then, as long as we at least get something like this with good frequencies? I'm all about it. My bias however will ALWAYS be grade separation wherever possible, because I will forever live in my utopian imagination of what the best, most sound route would be. And that would be VERY VERY VERY spendy, because... well max quality everything, and plenty of via-ducting, tunneling and elevated stations. And of course... Shinkansens only. :) Edit: I've finally gotten around to making my own video building and visualizing Cascadia HSR muhshelf :)
@@babybloc As an Oregonian I am/was always mispronouncing Washington names lol. I still do actually, have to remind myself how many of them are pronounced and many I just can't remember how they are said. I know the river names better than the city names though, at least.
I think any new HSR program that happened in the PNW needs to either include the option for local service to be included on the ROW, or needs to make serious investments in the current Amtrak Cascades route. I also think you could shave a significant amount of tunneling off of the Seattle area if you used SR-99 ROW to around Everett.
You don't want stops every 20 miles. It wouldn't allow the trains to get up to full speed. If the regions decided to have regional rail services, they could hook in to the trunk and build stations, but you'd want HSR to skip all that. For SR99, do you mean like remove the road and replace it with the train?
Re Vancouver- pacific central station would probably be better than Waterfront for an international train, simply because they already have a border pre-clearance facility there
I feel like better Amtrak Cascades service would be more realistic and cost effective than full blown HSR, especially given how slow the route's gonna be anyways. I'd rather see Amtrak Cascades running regular 120mph trains consistently.
For regional stops in Tacoma, Olympia, Salem yes. You could even add better service out of Seattle on Amtrak to that list and have the HSR bypass Seattle all together to the nicer, more hotel and business centric ( honestly even Amazon has more office space in Bellevue these days), Bellevue which could support and grow into a rival to Seattle. Nothing wrong with an Amtrak regional train hub in Seattle with a Bellevue high speed rail station that serves Seattle by the worlds first and only floating bridge light rail in just about ten minutes.
I understand why a lot of people consider this to be one of the less viable high speed rail corridors. You need to skip over a lot of potential stops like Salem, Tacoma, and Bellingham to be able to maintain high average speeds without overinflating cost, and it still comes out pretty expensive. I think a Milwaukee-Chicago-Lafayette-Indianapolis corridor would be much better value for the money.
Yeah, was waiting on the north Seattle clusterf***! My idea involves a four-track cut and cover tunnel under Rt 99/Aurora Ave. Two for HSR and two for subway/RER/S-Bahn that way there’s local benefits to compensate for the disruption. Honestly didn’t try even try to get through Portland, but probably would have a high speed bypass using I-205 and slow speed to serve the downtown. You’d still need to tunnel (or figure something out) for the section when Max uses the median. The problem though is that comparatively few people are going to want to completely bypass Portland, so we’re probably stuck with a slow crawl through Portland.
SR99 might be a little cheaper, but even there you have sections you need to bore due to grade separation or to maintain speed. It'd probably be faster though because you wouldn't have the slow part on the freeway. I had considered an I-205 Portland bypass. Some of the constraints on freight or I-5 could probably be handled if one doesn't care much about speed through Portland on a branch loop. The biggest reason really for going underground through Portland is that it would be SO slow otherwise and you're still going to need at least one tunnel...
@@LucidStew I wish you all the luck in the world trying to build HSR through Portland without a stop there. It's probably the city in the US that would react the most drastically to that idea. You can get away with a lot less tunnel in Portland. You tunnel from Union station south across the river to around US-26, then follow the river along 99E and use a 0.25 tunnel to cross into the existing freight rail corridor to the east of 99E. Follow that south to OR-224, which then lets you follow I-205 back to I-5 near Wilsonville. Going north from Union Station you tunnel to around Columbia Boulevard, and then there is enough space on the freight right of way to add HSR with a lot fewer curves up through Vancouver towards Longview. The I-205 to OR-224 turn would be pretty gnarly, and you might want to tunnel that too in order to keep the speed higher, but it's probably a much cheaper option that would add less than 5 minutes to the total travel time, and is probably a big factor in why the official estimates are so much lower, but I absolutely guarantee you that no one in any kind of decision making position would even consider tunneling that much through Portland. EDIT: BTW, Chehalis is pronounce "Shuh-hay-liss"
Hi Stew, love your work! Just wanted to check - some of the lower-speed (e.g. 90mph) sections of your corridor: are you assuming a non-tilting train? If so, could an Avelia Liberty-type train with 6 deg. tilt boost curve speed by 25% - so 90 might become 115mph? As I understand things, the Avelia Liberty should also be able to achieve 200mph on straight sections. Your thoughts? Regards, Warwick
Thanks! I am assuming a conventional train, but I also give some tilting times near the end. Since its pretty curvy, there is a nice improvement with that technology.
Your time estimate doesn't factor in the additional travel from the airport to the city center, making HSR significantly faster than flying. I added the travel time from each airport to city center, under *perfect* traffic conditions, to update your comparison. Portland-Vancouver: Flying 2h55m HSR 2h22m Seattle-Vancouver: Flying 2h38m HSR 54m Portland-Seattle: Flying 2h24m HSR 1h28m Eugene-Seattle: Flying 2h42m HSR 2h9m City center-airport times are: Vancouver 22min, Eugene 16min, Seattle 16min, Portland 18min I included the tunnel bypass option because it would be awesome for the train to literally be faster than flying from the moment of takeoff and landing (without airport time).
That's correct because not everyone lives in the city center so I'm not biasing toward that. Conversely, if someone lived right by the airport, flying times would improve. If you're talking about limited stations, they're going to serve the whole area, much like an airport does. If you're talking about regional stops on the trunk, those wouldn't be served by an express.
What software did you use to create the animations overlaying the aerial imagery? Also, how did you calculate the maximum speeds for the curves? I want to create my own HSR animations too, but I will go much further to have the ambition of doing one for maglev in 70% atm. That will make such a vactrain as feasible as a subsonic jet airliner, but with downtown stations. That is totally unlike the Hyperloop because each package of pods it will be as high capacity as a light rail train consist (and hopefully a Shinkansen) and the moderate pressure reduction is orders of magnitude easier than a 99.9% vacuum. It can just use existing A320 fuselages that are coupled together and fitted with Chuo Shinkansen propulsion.
The software in Unreal Engine 5. Curves are based on standards you can find with a search. I then I roughly measure the circle that lines up with the apogee of the curve. This is not exact as the measurements are not and there are also multiple curves within curves with HSR curves.
For the Seattle segment, I often think about converting the express lanes on I-5 to be a rail corridor. That or just taking over highway 99, which is very straight (compared to I-5) all the way up to Everett. Even south towards Tacoma it would be a pretty nice route, and it passes right by SeaTac airport. I don't see that ever happening though.
Seattle is a difficult segment and I think if its going to happen, there are some difficult, hard to sell, decisions to make. I like this region because its such a challenge. I've already started on working on another video there, and I think I'll have a third approach as well eventually.
First off, a huge thank you for putting this together. I think this is like the best case scenario in terms of route and speed we could ever hope for as it relates to the Cascadia route. However, having said that, I don't think this will ever happen--at least in this best case scenario. It would probably make more sense to focus HSR between Portland-Seattle-Vancouver and push for more reliable/frequent but slower service between the smaller cities like Eugene, Salem, Vancouver, Olympia/Tacoma, etc. I don't think you could leave those smaller cities out of the route and still have hope for funding unless the route was purposely shortened between the three major cities and there were residual benefits to those cities along the corridor of new tracks. South of Portland would need something, though, since new tracks wouldn't benefit them in the abridged version of Cascadia HSR.
There is some difficult in that politically as there have been bills in the state Senate previously that would mandate a Eugene connection. Honestly, I was very down on Eugene going into production, and I still think it should be left off, but its potentially a very fast connection and growth in the Salem and Eugene areas could end up justifying it. I doubt it, but maybe.
@@LucidStew As an Oregonian, a Eugene-Portland connection would be just as useful as a Portland-Seattle connection, and maybe even more so for me. Would make traveling the southern part of the state, like Crater Lake National Park, far more attainable for a day trip from Portland. As a hiker, I'd get a ton of use from it. With how popular hiking is in the whole PNW, I wonder if people would use it a lot for extending their hiking range/travel radius. I know it would open up a ton of places in Washington and BC for me too, as far as hiking goes.
I love your stuff always. But as a general critique I’d love if you put speeds and distances in km - in parenthesis below the miles is fine. I mention for this video especially as you have a Canadian connection involved so it seems especially important to consider the measurements used internationally. 😊
Tilting trains generally have a top speed of 300kph. Generally, top service speed of a conventional is 320kph. It varies based on radius, but active tilt is roughly 15% faster in curves. If you have a straight route, tilt runs slower.
It's a nice route! It should definitely have a few infill stations such as Selem (which has a poulation of 250,000 proper and 400,000 metro) and maybe some other towns along the way, but that one is probably the largest without a stop
Tunneling into downtown Eugene already makes that alignment too expensive to be considered. Wouldnt the most realistic alternative be to place the HSR station nearer Gateway Street/exit 195 where it could be serviced by LTD or EMX connectors into Eugene/Springfield? I dont personally find it neccessary to connect directly into downtown where either tunneling or acquiring the right of ways is too expensive for such a small city.
@@LucidStewno. I was referring to Gateway street. Rather a HSR station right before exit 195 would function just fine with connector service from the LTD/Emx lines. Tunneling into such a small city makes no financial sense the urban popultion of EUG/Springfield would be better served with a station at that large open parcel adjacent the intersections of Gamefarm & Crescent or perhaps running the line along the I5 to a station near Franklin Blvd nearer the University Dist.
@@isaiah_hi93 We're talking about an $80 billion project. A billion here or there isn't a huge deal. Downtown has everything you could want for a stop. You have dense housing and redevelopment opportunities. You have transit dispersal. You have good access to the university. Why start over from scratch in a field that would be best accessed by cars?
As a Metro Vancouver resident I think the diversion east to Sumas has a lot going for it. The corridor could support higher speed commuter or regional rail. The route would easily support a stop at Abbotsford Airport, a underused but large airport with great potential. Also this route would much more likely attract funding from the Canadian and British Columbian governments.
Terminating somewhere like Langley or Surrey makes a lot of sense when you take into account the SkyTrain expansion. Getting HSR into Vancouver-proper at actual high speed is a pipe dream.
@@grahamballantyne1129 Amtrak HAS looked at terminating Amtrak Cascade service at a new station adjacent to Scott Road Skytrain Station in Surrey instead of continuing on the BNSF route to Pacific Central Station. Right now it takes a good hour to zig zag to the station which is OUTSIDE the downtown Vancouver core, while the Skytrain gets you downtown in about 25 minutes.
This is cool and all, but I am concerned that you would consider demolishing the centers of small towns for the ROW, but (at 9:20) insist that removing two lanes of freeway traffic would be impossible.
The nukes make it look worse than I have it on paper. You're only talking about 6-7 structures there. I can't make assumptions about removing freeway lanes just like I can't make assumptions about being able to requisition freight rights of way. I can however, assume that eminent domain would be used for a public project, because that is commonly the case. If you like the idea of removing freeway lanes, see my Taking Back The Streets video.
Hi Lucid Stew - great video, as always! I'd appreciate it if you'd consider putting together a blended route, with high speeds in rural areas, and tracks in existing freight ROW's in urban areas. It seems like there might be additional room for separate track within sections of the ROW that the cascades+coast starlight use to access Portland right now, although a better way to cross the Willamette (instead of the steel bridge) would be needed.
I have it planned eventually, but I'm giving the Pac Northwest some breathing room atm. Might be a different story if WSDOT could get their act together and get their latest study going.
@@LucidStew Fair enough - although it seems like the lack of major funding for the project might make WSDOT reluctant to prioritize the project. It bugs me that these projects only move forward into the planning phase once money is secured, because it means that there's never any long-term vision.
@@theclevercrow4470 I think a big component of that is a lack of leadership at the federal level. These are megaprojects. Some steady source of funding, similar to the Federal Highway Trust Fund, is needed to enable them to plan beyond the next few years. The start and stop nature of federal funding has been a big hinderance for every project but Brightline West, which is low cost enough to be enabled by a single injection of cash.
I agree, Seatac airport would be important stop to add! It's over a hill, but it should be possible to add a stop and connect it via gondola or APM to Seatac.
@@mixi171 it not about local flight but seatac alaska ans asia hub something that portland never sustained delya tries to build a asia hun in portland 20 or t 30 years ago but it failed.
@@LucidStew also have you ever tried to take transit as a family with even realtivly light luggae because of the number of people it kinda dosen't work fot the other passengers unless it is at a time that tne trasit vechicle is kinda empty they aren't desinged to operated airport lines.
Thank you for this thorough yet approachable analysis! Do you know if there is a need to construct safety barriers between the highway and rails when running HSR down a highway median such as in this plan (or Brightline 2)? (I am thinking about a situation where a vehicle drives off the road into the median at 60+ mph the same time an HS train is passing in the opposite direction at 150+ mph.) P.s. Imho, it should be a goal of such a project to connect directly to SEA-TAC airport given that it is almost directly in the path of the general alignment and given the fact it is reportedly reaching capacity ... with a HSR stop at the airport, accessibility to SEA-TAC's many long-haul flights would be greatly increased for the region and the need for short-haul "feeder" flights would be substantially reduced along the corridor. (Would love to see something like Frankfurt's "The Squaire" replace the parking structure next to SEA-TAC, with retail, hotels, and offices above a HSR and local train station connected by skybridge to an international airport.)
Brightline West, as far as I know, will be using a barrier similar to standard freeway median barriers, but with a short fence on top. Median running alignments could also be elevated slightly, and probably would be naturally as HSR needs tighter control on rate of change in elevation than an interstate does. SeaTac is already connected to DT Seattle via light rail. It's also only 10 miles from DT Seattle. That's a local transit distance, not HSR. Traffic generated by downtown would be far higher than an airport.
Inside of Salem, I would try pulling off from via a tunnel I-5 at Kuebler Blvd, and building an underground station at Salems airport, before hooking back into I-5 at Lancing park. A connection to the state capital is very much needed, and having the airport be in a straight line from the rail is just begging for a station there. There is a bus from the airport to downtown, so the needed hookup is there.
This is awesome. What about Salem? It’s just as big a metro area as Eugene and it’s the capital. Since you couldn’t find a good way around the city anyway…the train would stop there, right?
I assume there would be more regional stations. The WSDOT study has something like 16 total. Various reason I left it out. I wanted to keep it an end to end express and had to leave Eugene in there because it's expressly part of the corridor.
From STU to another STU : A potentially less expensive alternative to going straight through the downtown core of Seattle (prohibitively expensive …they can’t even figure out how to put a second light rail tunnel there) would be a short tunnel at the end of 167 which transitions the track to follow existing (rail trail) right of way following the east shore of Lake Washington. Sound transit already has a plan to put a future light rail station at Factoria. Factoria currently has much more room to build a major train station which would be directly connected to light rail stations in downtown Seattle as well as Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland and beyond. It’s much more centrally located in the overall urban corridor. From Factoria, the line could follow the old railway corridor toward Woodinville and perhaps be cheaper to build down the rural Snoqualmie Valley before again joining the I-5 corridor between Everett and Marysville.
Going East is spot on and the correct answer Stu. Factoria truly an interesting option and probably cheaper than a Bellevue station although as you so truly put it, would be connected fairly quickly with Link in about 8min. Tear down the Target and old JC Penny and Safeway and redevelop it for a station that can have newly repurposed commercial and even hotel space on top. Brilliant. I don’t think going along Lake Shore will work and the curves would be a problem so a tunnel straight underneath from 167 is one idea although above ground with that beautiful lake should be seen if possible.
I've always found that Seattle-Vancouver leg intimidating, while the proposals from consultants over the years seemed like anything speedy was just pie-in-the-sky. I didn't do much better starting off thinking I could show them how to do it. (Vancouver with some kind of long tunnel, otherwise it's and eternity.) As a sort of indication about this segment: the luxury train is slower than Amtrak but has higher ridership. The Eugene-Portland thing in the Highway looks pretty good. I never studied that part but clearly there should eventually be a fast passenger service from Sacramento to Seattle anyway. I did do a tunnel up to Mt. Shasta, CA, which seems to shorten it a lot, though at the south end it dumps you into some more tight curvature, just to eliminate the switchbacks. The only solution I can think of is make the lttle town to the south a permanent express stop, about 5 minutes before Mt. Shasta. A few more tunnnels suggest themselves going north from there to Eugene. I did find a great way to configure Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia-Portland (there's a tunnel going NE out of Tacoma) that makes it faster than bypassing Olympia because there's no serious obstacle to having straight tracks, once you're past the Tacoma "shared assets" realm. (that's all got to be grade separated) It follows a certain less-than-Interstate highway going south into Olympia - Martin Way. I found a super place for a train station right by the capitol, except it's a stub-end terminal, which I thought could be remedied by some German or Japanese system for reversing the seats automatically. But what if passengers get chewed up in them? Still, no one likes riding backwards.
It's a lot of tunnel! I got some guff for punting somewhat with the 19 mile tunnel out of downtown Seattle. The feedback was that I should have cut and covered under U.S. 99 instead, so... a 24 mile tunnel! I just can't see this happening. I think maybe they could do a blended system, although even that would be a pain through Seattle. There is some potential for bypasses in the countryside, but the metros are hell. I also don't see where they're getting travel times between major pairs at less than an hour for less money. I got feedback from a lot of Canadians that it should just be run to Surrey and let local transit handle the rest, which sounds a little crazy, but they know their area a lot better than I do. A lot of them also liked that eastern approach to connect Abbottsford and Vancouver. I see what you're talking about there with Martin Way. Honestly, I think I just got tunnel fatigue at some point and sort of gave up on Olympia and Tacoma. Also, in hindsight, in that area I could have shortened my 13 mile tunnel by hooking up with SR512 for 7 miles, but hey, its published.
@@LucidStew Ha-ha to tunnel fatigue. That comment I wrote was unintelligible. Yes, I drew a tunnel going NE from near Tacoma. (From there it made use of disused right of way going north with no big tunnel otherwsie, I think.) On the other side (Martin Way) it only absolutely needs to be tunnelized where there's a big hill, where it first meets Martin Way on the east for a mile or two. The idea of getting the tracks in/over the median west of there is maybe possible. It's pretty boxed in though. That's in addition to tunnel starting a mile out of Olympia, mostly under roads.
As a Seattle native, I still see woefully inadequate transit in many cities along the line. And very infrequent service on the Cascades. If we are serious about cutting GHG quickly, invest in upgrades. The US has waited too long for HSR to help out. This is the same in most corridors.
I might do a similar video in the future seeing just how much the Cascades route could be improved within reason since this seems to be a popular idea in the region. That would likely only be high-ER speed 125mph diesel-electric, so not really the heart of the channel theme, but I'll have some room to expand themes slightly once this series is done.
Agreed Eugene has a pretty adequate bus and BRT system that could connect the HSR into Eugene/Springfield from say a station at exit 195 (Gateway St/Beltline) , the 105 or Franklin blvd. Tunneling or acquiring ROWs on the surface directly into city centers would unneccessarily inflate costs and cause local push back.
Consider routing from SR-167 to Bellevue Main Street light rail station. More tunneling under the narrow ithmus that is Seattle, and the reality of impacts due to tunneling, just doesn't seem to be future forward when the Pusget Sound regional growth boundaries are more centered on more reliable land and wider flat in Bellevue. Access to light rail gives access to the region, not just downtown Seattle. Besides climate realities and land availability, human settlements and commerce will shift considerably given what appears to be new post-industrial work scenarios.
Exactly. Bellevue is the route that makes sense. Nobody in a hurry to get to King St station. More amenities in a shorter distance by way of hotels and restaurants that can serve more people quicker in Bellevue than getting out in the International District where you would still have to transfer to a light rail and get out at Westlake which itself isn’t really the best location and leagues below Bellevue as of the last five years with that trend continuing.
If a route can't be found that allows for sustained high speeds between what is by far the most important city pair, Seattle and Portland, the project is a nonstarter IMHO. If that is the case, it'd be better just to add improvements to the existing BNSF route that Amtrak uses, aiming for more modest speeds of 90-110 mph, as has been proposed.
I was really looking forward to this video but this route is truly ill conceived and not based in reality. The approaches north from Seattle and South from Portland are certainly challenging but not so difficult that they require 20 mile tunnels. I really wish you would've taken more time to approach this problem more pragmatically, creatively and realistically.
The problem with this plan is that it doesn't work until ALL of the route is built, especially in the Portland-Seattle segment which would get the majority of the passenger travel. Why do we need to wait for 19 miles of tunnel to be built when we could get fast and reliable Amtrak Cascades service by 2035? Amtrak Cascades can give 2.5 hour service to Portland at 70 mph average speeds, which is the same speeds as Acela and Chicago-St Louis. That is good enough without breaking the piggy bank. Putting all our investment funds into a extravagant HSR system means that other important infrastructure projects don't get built instead.
As much as I admire all of the time and work you put into this, given all the obstacles this corridor presents (financially and geographically in particular), I almost feel like it would be more fruitful to have an HSR line connecting Bend with Portland (and a few smaller cities in between). Bend’s metro area population has exploded over the past decade and the 3.5 hour drive between it and Portland can be brutal - especially given the impact of weather, accidents, and wildfires on the commute. Plus, Redmond has an established and well-used airport with which the HSR service can more than reasonably cooperate or compete.
My own rendering of this corridor includes a bit more willingness to alter properties on the ground and a lower tolerance for speed limitations, but follows a mostly similar route with the exceptions of swinging west between Eugene and Portland to have city-center stations in Corvallis, Albany, and Salem, while also adding in several other stations in places like Everett, Tacoma, Bellingham, Surrey, etc. The way I see it, creating HSR ROWs is a once-in-a-generation infrastructure project, akin to airports or the interstate highway system. Its too important and will have impacts too far into the future to be squeemish about costs. Spending a billions of extra dollars to save a few minutes on the corridor might sound crazy now, but if you add up the economic productivity gained from those minutes from all the yearly passengers over potentially centuries of use, nearly any improvement to the ROW will pencil out. HSR in the US is a social and economic necessity for the future of this country, and we need to treat it as such.
For instance, the Eugene station could be on the backside of Gateway Mall. The Salem station at the school bus yard (which would be relocated), the Portland station near Tilikum Crossing.
@@myquealermy thought exactly except the station would be right before 195/Gateway street and serviced by connectors from Eugenes existing bus system. Otherwise running the line a little further up the I-5 where it would divert somewhere near Franklin Boulevard to a transit center there in which case its at least closer to the downtown/university district
Fun to watch. As others commented, some key cities were missed that would severely limit ridership potential. And more importantly, unless this is a 400mph maglev, the curves are unnecessarily wide. You can remove 80% of the proposed tunnelling by simply meandering the tracks along better existing ROW corridors. And finally, center-running high-speed rail down the middle of I-5 is not what professionals do... look at Japan, Europe, and even developing countries. A) Emergency/maintenance access turnarounds would be impossible, B) Infill stations not practical for intermediate stations; no one wants to walk across a noisy freeway and stand at a station in the median, and C) Major car collisions, car fires, and other emergencies can impact train efficiency, causing closures to the rail line.
The curves are based on real-world curve radii for given speeds and actually tend toward the minimum necessary. "Center-running is not what professionals do" see Brightline West. Not so much HSR, but median running trains are not uncommon. I've ridden one myself. And I didn't provision for the things you're talking about because regional rail like Amtrak Cascades can handle that. It's not necessary to put that on a high speed trunk. If you notice, all of the chosen stations are near Amtrak Cascades stops. In the case of King Street and Portland Union, they'd be right underneath.
Not generally. Usually you'd need dedicated tracks and freight is going to want those separated from its tracks in its ROW. Some of that is due to difference in superelevation and that fact that freight usually is most efficient at slower speeds. At those slower speeds, you then have an issue with freight loads tilting due to the higher superelevation an HSR train is going to require to get through a given curve. Some of it is also from freight companies trying to throw their weight around and protect their operations and rights of way. And then of course you have many other problems with sidings and keeping freight out of the way of passengers trains, which Amtrak deals with all the time even at 79mph.
Considering that Canada and the US would split some of the cost and that the province/states along with their national governments would chip in-- it's a great deal
I thought about this on the flight comparisons. Basically you have international trains with boarding limited to certain stations. Those then all have customs checks for those trains, so basically would function like an international flight from a passenger perspective.
For Canada-US plane and train routes, you go through Customs at the Canada airport/station before you get on the plane. I learned the hard way; I once arrived at the Vancouver train station for a trip back to Seattle, but I wasn't allowed on board because I was too late for the customs process. I had to shell out for an hour-long puddle-jumper at the YVR airport.
While the Pac Central option isn’t as centrally located, the reality is there isn’t much room for development downtown around Waterfront. If building there there is greater opportunity for development. Plus it’s connected to Sky Train including the new Broadway subway being built, which will better extend the transit radii. Seems like a reasonable way to save a bit, and gain something.
I decided to do some better calculations on the Mt. Vernon, Burlington, and Bellingham bypass. I have that knocking Seattle-Vancouver down to 54 mins conventional, 55 mins tilting. That's 18 and 17 minutes saved. Brings the whole thing down to 3h3m conventional and 2h49m tilting. I probably lowballed the cost. Additional Nukage is 25 buildings, mostly homes, with probably 100 properties in the way. The tunnel would need to be about 2 miles longer than I figured, so cost is likely closer to $8 billion than $6.5 billion.
The main issues i see with creating hsr or metro in most coastal cities is that ur building on literally the most expensive and difficult to build on from a permitting and regulation stance. building something like hsr in these areas is often prohibitively expensive. Thats why the vegas brightline ends in rancho
@@jerredhamann5646 A lot of that is solved by being able to use freight rights of way for an electrified high speed train. It would be slower, but you'd have a core route. Ideally your trunk would then bypass the core at speed.
A maglev is even faster and can handle the turns better
@@LucidStewjust increase frequencies of connecting trains brightline west would be better off going to San Diego via I-15 and offer connections to the inland empire line
The Amtrak Cascades serves the public need for passenger-rail more than adequately. Train travel is NOT about speed. Rather it is about enjoying the ride and the scenery which is not possible in a freeway median nor miles of tunnel. Studies have been conducted that suggest the Cascades average speed can be increased a bit. Personally, I'll be supporting a route From Eugene through (Corvallis and Albany) to Salem, adding distance but providing service those communities. I believe the Talgo fleet of 7 trainsets should return to the corridor. HSR at 125+mph is in the early process of being planned to death, as in, planners get paid to put together a proposal they know will not be built.
Awesome route @LucidStew! As someone who's lived in the PNW my entire life, works for WSDOT, and is an avid supporter of high-speed rail in the region, I'd make the following suggestions respectfully:
1. Consider increasing your costs by about 20%, if not 25%. We're overdue for the Cascadia Megathrust Earthquake, an expected 9.0 mag from South Oregon to British Columbia that has a 20% chance of occurring in just the next 50 years! We'd want to make sure such a massive infrastructure investment will still function, or at least be easily repairable, after such an event or we're just throwing money away. It will require high-cost seismic standards, which includes dealing with our many river valleys that are filled with highly liquifiable soils/silts, meaning even your ground level sections may need to have reinforced foundations or subbase, and all bridge structures will need to have foundations extending into bedrock, which in some areas is well over 200 feet or more below ground. Can't tell you how many new WSDOT bridges have had bored foundations extending 300 feet or more!
2. The region's population is spread out in many moderate sized cities/metros, so having only major stops in the biggest metros could severely hamstring ridership potential. A two-tier service level, with local and express service, has been shown by the most recent studies as having the largest ridership potential and cost benefit. Potential local stops in Albany/Corvallis, OR; Salem, OR; Longview, WA; Centralia/Chehalis, WA; Olympia, WA; Tacoma, WA; Everett, WA; Bellingham; WA, and possibly Abbotsford, BC (depending on route chosen), could greatly boost the populations served and make securing political buy-in a lot easier (not every city above needs a stop at first, but infill stations later on could be very useful too). This also mirrors the very successful Japanese High Speed rail system, which has local and express services and works to significant effect (not to mention frequency of service most countries can only dream of providing). Regional Commuter Rail is likely not going to ever efficiently connect these cities as BNSF simply won't allow Amtrak to run more trains or have schedule priority, and if we invest in HSR, money for local commuter trains will likely be harder to come by as the focus for decades will be on building and completing the HSR network first.
3. Don't forget about Native American tribal reservations!!! This is a big deal for the PNW. Your selected route through the Nisqually River Valley east of Olympia would be dead on arrival as the Nisqually Tribe would absolutely be sure to stop it from ever happening, it's a sacred valley to them. You'd want a route that either minimizes the crossing distance with a high viaduct, or just tunnels beneath.... both very expensive. Avoiding tribal lands as much as possible is strongly recommended because the tribes are federally protected and very happy to exercise in court the sovereign treaty rights they have historically been denied for so long.
4. You're 100% right on the money regarding tunneling under the major Portland/Seattle metros. There're few feasible options that can avoid this without even more expensive costs. These areas are just too densely built and topographically varied to allow for better alignments. Outside the metros though, especially in rural areas, don't be afraid to straighten curves or make bypasses of challenging terrain. Timberland, and farmland to an extent, is very very cheap compared to urban sprawl, so maximizing speed and efficiency where you can should be done even if it costs a bit more.
5. It's pronounced Sheh-hailis, not T'chalis * flashbacks to Hermione Granger in Harry Potter * ; )
Honestly, I think you did a great job. But being very familiar with the area and construction costs here, I do think your cost estimate is low for the challenging geology and terrain we have to deal with. Hope the above makes sense and I look forward to more from your awesome channel. : )
Definitely appreciate the input. 300ft to bedrock was an eye-opener for sure. With my estimates being influenced by projects occurring in California, I should naturally have some protection for seismicity built into the cost. Some of that is also going to factor into regional variance discussed in the cost algo part. I do have Washington as one of the more expensive states.
Sensitivity to tribal lands was one reason I steered clear of the Somas route. The maps I checked indicate the route I chose near the Nisqually reservation and community steers well clear of their borders, however. Unless they have trust lands I'm unaware of, I don't think they can reasonably obstruct such a route. I am aware that environmental impact reports must consider far more than routing, but at the same time I'm not attempting to actually build the thing, so I can and will take some liberties.
@@LucidStew Thanks so much for the quick response!!! : ) And you're welcome! Regarding the 300-foot-deep foundations, I will say that it's not always that bad, 100 to 200 is more common. Some river valleys are worse than others, the Chehalis, Duwamish, Snohomish, and Fraser get extremely silty the closer you are to the Puget Sound / Coast, so a generally rule of thumb is to expect higher foundation costs in river valleys that are closer to large bodies of water. (Though parts of the Willamette can get dicey too as a lot of those soils were backwater silt deposits from the Brett's Floods and so can be very fine in nature.)
Glad you already have decent seismicity factored into your costs!!! If that's the case then perhaps only 10% increase, if any... just because there are deep foundations that will be needed for some areas.
As to the Nisqually, you are correct that the reservation itself does not extend into the alignment you chose, however there are some off-reservation lands owned directly by the tribe there, as well as a dozen or so tribal families scattered throughout the valley outside the reservation. The tribe would heavily support those families interests and absolutely use any EIS process to minimize or stop any route they feel destroys too much of the valley or is too impactful to the Nisqually River itself. One option you could consider is a seldom used and partially abandoned BNSF line extending from Tenino to Yelm, Roy and then north to Lakewood thru JBLM. Very flat, rather straight... and barely used at all. Have to deal with BNSF's typical BS, but might be worthwhile to bypass the tribe and tribal adjacent lands. (see: geo.wa.gov/datasets/d840cbadf3d04ccea6ee1063b01d802f )
Regardless, as a thorough preliminary route I think you did a great job and it's very practical all things considered. Ultimately we just need to move from the "study hell" phase to the "funding hell" phase and get things moving forward towards design and construction. Can't waste too much more time as we have a lot to do to catch up to California and it's very on-track and on-budget HSR corridor. ; )
@@cobaltblue42 I'm assuming WSDOT is going come up with something blended, like CAHSR. Trying to keep it pure HSR looks like such a massive challenge. I also get the sense from WSDOT docs I've read that the agency is VERY keen to avoid CAHSR's mistakes, perhaps to a fault, such that they may chicken out when it comes time to pull the trigger. Also, on the subject of the next study, if the various bodies involved were THAT enthusiastic about it, they'd surely be able to come up with the funding for it. It all just strikes me as noncommittal and it's tough to build a $80 billion megaproject without being committed. Ask CAHSR! 😄
@@LucidStew you're close to the money there. There are those in the agency and region that want a true HSR project for the entire route, like what's seen in Japan, but everyone knows the cost of that for our region would be insane. A blended approach like you suggest is most likely the route that will be taken. We absolutely do not want a repeat of CAHSR lol, and so yes, everyone is very noncommittal, "well it could be this, or that, and maybe cost this much".
Ultimately, when it comes to WSDOT, we can't actually make the final call, or really pursue the projects we'd like to. Our state legislature fully controls our projects and budget. The legislature, with the governor, directs us to "study" things and "work towards certain goals" but ultimately, they are the ones that have to decide how they want to move forward. I, and I'm sure many of my colleagues, would love to just start the detailed planning and design process already, but until the politicians make the final decisions, we can only hand them the studies they ask us to make. And I'm really afraid, in a major election year, including for governor, that there will be absolutely no progress made on this issue until after the elections, assuming the new legislature and governor are friendly to the idea.
What I'd absolutely love to see happen, but doubt it will, is to directly invite the JRTT from Japan to help design and construct the system for us. Would be a great opportunity for international cooperation and would secure an agency at the forefront of HSR transit to assist us with making it happen. Their climate and geology is very similar, and while they do use a different system of measurement, that's just unit conversions, pretty simple compared to other engineering tasks lol. Just tired of seeing states/agencies struggle to build an industry from the ground up that doesn't really exist in the US. Makes it really easy for contractors and consultants to take advantage of projects like CAHSR when it's never been done before, making it hard to have actual accountability. Probably just a dream on my end though and I'm sure doing this would add its own set of problems.
This is content for people having a mental health breakdown to disassociate to. Thank you.
I think you just described the process of me making one of these...
I have spent the last 9 months watching this type of content. I am offended... by your accuracy.
No way, I'm having this exact scenario
As someone who lives in Eugene, I love that people consider it a large enough population for HSR. I think realistically though if the project were to be underway, the connection to Eugene is probably the first the thing to be dropped for budgetary reasons even if Portland to Eugene would be a game changer for both my personal travels and my job.
That was my first thought, but with a large university there, it could punch above its weight.
The Oregon legislature could prove tricky for the project if the Eugene extension is NOT included. Politically, this project would run through and potentially serve the entirety of the western portions of populated Washington state. Meanwhile, if it terminated in Portland, the rest of Oregon would get jack squat.
Something people fail to realize is that one of the most well ridden and profitable portions of the Amtrak Cascades is the segment between Portland and Eugene. It genuinely sees higher overall consistent ridership and demand than the rest of the line. It was also the first segment to regain that same ridership and some new as well after it was reinstated post pandemic, as well as the most vocal riders of it for the months Amtrak put off opening it back up to service again. So in all honesty, it has a much stronger influence on this HSR project than people realize, and it definitely packs a punch WAAAAY above it's weight class (size).
@@LucidStew I know many of us Oregonians would absolutely make a very public and loud stink about it too until they reintegrate that segment. It has a ridership well above what most would ever expect, too. So it already punches above it's size. Also, the sheer amount of folks moving from the Portland metro down into the Eugene metro lately is growing and it's noticeable. It's difficult for us not to meet people who themselves have had neighbors, coworkers or friends move down there from up here recently. They're growing a lot lately, and that definitely is going to grow the demand as well.
Portland could also throw weight to get Eugene the connection. It's entirely possible that the city of Portland itself would protest the removal of Eugene. Portland killed the Columbia River Crossing because they refused to fund it unless Vancouver committed to a MAX line extension into Vancouver. Vantucky wanted 13 car lanes and no public transit, and Portland told them to get fucked.
Random thought right at the start:
Eugene being the smallest of the four cities sitting at the end of the corridor is actually a good thing for getting HSR built. Why? Because it means that connecting the 3 bigger cities looks better numbers-wise than if it had been big-big-small-big.
This is a project I am really looking forward to. Any major, disruptive transit project is worth it in the long run. It would save so much time over driving (which is what the vast majority of us do here in the Great Pacific Northwest.
Always worth it. But that's exactly it - _in the long haul._ People want results yesterday, not today, not tomorrow, three weeks out or god forbid a couple months down the road. And when they don't get it, they quickly get upset and want to say "See! WE TOLD YOU THIS WOULDN'T WORK AND WASN'T WORTH IT!" while trying to shut the projects down completely. No one has patience anymore. And considering it averages about 3 1/2 hours to go from around Sunset hwy around Beaverton/Aloha to SeaTac with a relatively uncongested freeway, that proves how needed and beneficial this HSR system would be.
Not just any major transit project, high speed rail specifically has the highest level of benefit to costs when controlling for all negative/positive externalities (the EU did a study on this years ago). It is literally the most efficient use of transit money.
@@TheCriminalViolin Amtrak Cascades travel time from Portland to Seattle is 3.5 hours, more than adequate speed, same as your freeway drive. We do not need a damn bullet train lie.
@@artlewellan2294The idea is, it gives a much faster trip to and from each city than it is to drive it. It is also safer overall, much more relaxing and easy going for most people to ride a train, and it then would not only help take a lot of drivers on these trips off the freeways, freeing up a lot of congestion, it would also be ensuring it competes well with potential air travelers too, taking a plane to and from these places.
Why you'd strongly prefer the status quo is beyond me and many, many other people.
Too many tunnels of course. Also your choice in southern Washington is an area prone to landslides-which is why the freeway was located near the river. Obviously a challenging route
If you want even remotely high speed in an urban area, you need to use the 3rd dimension (usually down).
You've really knocked this one out of the park my friend! I'm literally about to board Amtrak cascades from Seattle to Vancouver and will be thinking about this the entire time. I would love to also see this route featured in your taking back the streets series, as I think I-5 has plenty of space in the Seattle area, especially if you take the express lanes... what we'd lose in speed might be worth it since we'd effectively be eliminating the 19 or so miles of tunnels this alignment would require.
But again, fantastic, I'm forwarding this to everyone I know in the area who cares about this stuff to hopefully get some local traction.
I've had requests for I-5 border to border, so that's likely in the cards sometime in the future.
This was epic. You did the exact route I hoped you would. I would love to see a national high-speed, intercity, long distance train network
I would think that stations in Salem (OP capital), Tacoma, Olympia (WA capital), Everett, and Bellingham may be needed to garner enough support, although express runs can be operated such as are planned with CAHSR. British Columbia may also want a station serving the Surrey/Richmond market as well. I do think that the extra tunnel south of Bellingham to eliminate the 90 mph section would be worth it for the 20 min time savings. With airline fees for anything and everything only increasing while the experience is decreasing, and if Boeing planes keep dropping things out of the sky, demand for HSR should be quite high.
There's a problem with systems that try to please everyone: they'll either end up too slow or too expensive. Regional rail can handle all the smaller regional stops. If it were up to me, the thing would stop at Portland from the north.
@@LucidStew Politics forces compromises. I imagine it would be hard for WA and OR residents to agree to pay for it if the only stops were in Seattle and Portland. That's why CAHSR will stop in Burbank, Palmdale, Hanford, Merced, Gilroy, and Millbrae. However, they will add substantial ridership. The San Joaquins Amtrak line is the nation's 5th busiest outside of the the NE corridor and serves more riders than the Cascades Amtrak line with 847k vs 669k in 2023. However, CAHSR will offer a number of express runs throughout the day for the LA to SF run. So, I believe it's doable without degrading service.
@@bryanCJC2105 If you look at the CAHSR ridership estimates for the completed system, the percentage the Central Valley contributes is quite small outside of Sacramento, which is predicted to have a strong connection with Los Angeles. The intermediate stations are mainly politics. The big metros provide the ridership. If you have the capacity to provide both intercity and express on a system, then that of course is less of a concern. However, I would argue the funding for that should be local. I'm looking at it more in terms of what you get for the cost and 107 miles of HSR is a big regional expense to connect Salem and Eugene at ~800k combined. 3 times that population and now you're on par with the rest of the system.
The ideal function here in my mind is run the HSR as a true HSR, meaning, it only serves the main cities, so these four. But with it, you implement a second phase, which is regional rail (or IC/ICE if that better matches your own definitions of the types) which then focuses on proper intercity services. It would then be those trains that would serve the other cities/populations centers between the major cities, connecting the entire route up at a more local level. Think Vancouver > Surrey > Bellingham > Everett > Seattle > SeaTac (people always forget that Seatac is a actual city itself, not just the airport) > Tacoma > Olympia > Kelso/Longview > Vancouver > Portland > Tualatin > Salem/Keizer > Eugene. Something like that would strike a balance between a solid distance between each stop achieving the localized access, while also ensuring good speed and time as well. It's a healthy balance.
If one wanted it to be even more local, then sure you could add more stops, however that would massively slow the route down, and may make it comparable or slower than driving, which obviously then makes it non-viable as a option. There's such a thing as too many stops. And that as another addition would mean you absolutely would need to clear out another ROW for it to run along so that it doesn't slow down the HSR and ICE lines. Realistically from a logistics perspective, it may even be necessary to add additional track segments that branch off the main HSR route for the ICE route, too (it technically has to anyway in order to access Kelso/Longview with a station there, as well as Olympia, Tacotown & Everett.
@@LucidStew Firstly, I appreciate your videos and the information in them. They are excellent. I respect your work a great deal. According to CAHSR 2020 Business Plan Ridership and Forecasting Report Table 5.3, 2040 ridership estimates for the SJV (all stations from Stockton to Bakersfield and excluding Sacramento) are as follows:
San Joaquin Valley to Bay Area 5.2 million
SJV to Los Angeles 5 million
Intra-SJV 1.9 million
Other to SJV 700k (not sure what that is)
SJV to San Diego 400k
SJV to Sacramento 300k
Total SJV trips = 13.5 million/ annually
Planned total HSR trips = 38.6 million
San Joaquin Valley trips % to total = 34%
That's pretty significant.
Total Sacramento ridership (a single city market) to all other markets is projected to be 2.4 million or 6% of total ridership.
LA to Bay Area ridership is forecasted to be 7.2 million or 19% of total riders
Top 3 trip generators are projected to be:
#1 Bay Area - Southern CA at 7.2 million
#2 Bay Area - San Joaquin Valley at 5.2 million
#3 intra SoCal trips 5.1 million
Sacramento County has a population of 1.5 million and will generate 2.4 million trips. Using that ratio, Eugene/Salem at 800k people could generate well over a million rides/year. That could be pretty significant being that the entire Vancouver to Eugene corridor contains only about 9 million people or about 1/4 the size of the CAHSR market.
I've always been a big fan of the Portland STU system. Sure, it *is* a gadgetbahn, but the way it glides under the big span of the Fremont bridge is just so glorious.
Some might say it's redundant because it replicates 90% of the route of both MAX and the streetcar, but all I can say to that is: "I like STU".
@@LucidStew what is stu
Funny enough, I'm a lifelong born and raised westsider who has been to the heart of Portland many times in my life, AND a mass transit whore (have been since I was in diapers, no joke), and I have NO clue what the hell the STU even is. Never heard of it. Surprised it got mentioned, but the Aerial Tram didn't (despite how genuinely useless of a advertisement project it was for both OHSU and TriMet). What the hell even is it?
@@wolfy_dragonalso confused and I live in Portland. I don’t know anything that goes under the Fremont bridge except more cars lol.
This should have been built 20 years ago, but it's still not too late to consider it today.
I'm familiar with the Washington - Portland topology thanks to a flight simulater I used to play a long time ago, and it was based around there (Flight Unlimited 3). The region is my favourite part of the US, and British Columbia is stunning too. To me, Cascadia HSR would be the most exciting railway project in America.
Thanks for doing this, really enjoyed it.
Instead of tunneling under Seattle for a downtown station, it might be possible to put your HSR station in Bellevue instead without tunneling, going fully above ground with land acquisition instead. While transit connections would not be as good as they are in Seattle proper, there will be a Link light rail and bus connection to downtown Seattle as of 2025. So it could still work.
Bellevue makes more sense. People can ride the world’s only floating bridge light rail into Seattle from the better off (more newer hotels, and bustling second core of business in Puget Sound that could get great support from HSR) from Bellevue. Regional stops like Tacoma already served from Seattle and Amtrak.
Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver also all have MLS soccer teams that get good attendance.
I just like trains and soccer.
soccer train!
Everyone forgets about the Winterhawks here in Portland, too. Forgetting about the WSL teams however, I can't blame anyone for lol. Or the WNBA teams.
With the 2026 World Cup coming to both Vancouver and Seattle, an operational HSR line here would've been sweet.
@@Liggie55821 even just some minor improvements to the existing Cascades (including running more per day) could be huge for the world cup (since obviously it's way too late for anything like this).
I mean, given that driving (especially with the border crossing) between Vancouver and Seattle is currently a 4-hour affair (could be worse with traffic), cutting down on tunneling and just making slow-speed passenger-only tracks in existing ROW would probably still be worth it even if it cuts down on time. Especially since a “one-hour” airport penalty is not nearly enough. Airports are away from the CBDs of the cities, and getting there only an hour before your flight is really living life on the edge.
There's a lot of time savings to be had by doing immigration checks before boarding. It's a little harder if you've got multiple stops on either side of the border, but that can be solved by joining two trains and splitting before the border proper
@@counterfit5 You can just design better station arrival procedures. Require a passport number for a cross border ticket, and have the trains arrive at specific platforms in BC. These platforms can be connected to immigration/security facilities just like airports. The reverse can also be true - it can be a preclearance facility for Canada - US travel, like they have in Vancouver's airport.
@@seanschannel3264that’s how the current Amtrak Cascades works. You either do US pre-clearance or Canada Border check at Pacific Central. The Amtrak platform is surrounded by a massive security fence and is separate from the ViaRail platforms. Occasionally agents will board the train and check passports at the actual border as well.
Hell yeah. You love to see it.
Considering the iv bridge would be 7.5 billion or just goes to show how much rail is cost effective. Driving to Seattle takes 3 hours if you don't hit traffic.
I strongly agree that this HSR should begin at Eugene! Thank You! The Eugene/Springfield population is much bigger than 400k with all the nearby smaller towns and relatively dense expanded rural housing. It would also be a good commuter extension from/to Salem and Portland.
Best damn train channel strikes again!! 6 billion is totally worth it for 20 min
Love watching these with my kids at bedtime
Haha, that's awesome! Tell the kids that Lucid Stew said to remember to brush their teeth before bedtime! 😁
I love this video! I want Cascadia HSR in my lifetime sooo badly
As a Vancouverite, Pacific Central station is much better.
It’s actually better connected for most people and exising surface station with surface tracks to use. Waterfront would be horrendously expensive for negligible gain. Less tunnelling to get to Pacific too.
Stations at Bellingham and Seatac would be needed.
Cool, thanks for the local perspective. The more I looked at Vancouver, the more I realized its transportation situation is somewhat I foreign to me. No freeways near the city core. I'm used to them going THROUGH. Fascinating.
Plus less of the 2 mile radius circle, and basically none of the ½ mile radius one, is water
Yeah, tunnelling under the entire length of Vancouver to get to Waterfront makes zero sense. Pacific Central is right on the edge of downtown, and right next to a SkyTrain station. The problem with it is that there's no good high-speed route from the border to it; the existing Amtrak Cascades route on freight ROW takes FOREVER to get to the border.
An option I've seen in other studies is terminating the line somewhere south of the Fraser River, like Surrey. Surrey is poised to surpass Vancouver's population, has an existing SkyTrain connection to the rest of the region including downtown Vancouver, and has more SkyTrain expansion in the works.
@@grahamballantyne1129 Another option would be the airport.
@@LucidStew possibly. There's some soil condition issues there; that island is going to liquify and sink into the ocean when the big one hits Vancouver.
Passing though Salem, OR without stopping? I'm sure the state capital would like a station, and actually get one. Far from every train would stop there though?
This is just the express. Nothing like this is going through downtown Salem. There isn't room. That's what regional rail is for.
@@LucidStewI disagree. Most HSR services in Europe still have stops at small cities in between. This line only having 4 stops would be a non stater, especially if Eugene gets a stop which is Smaller than both Vancouver, WA and Tacoma. Most major metros will have 2-3 stops with in them.
From previous studies I’ve seen Eugene, Salem, Portland, VancouverWA, Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, Bellingham, and Vancouver would be non-negotiable stops given their size and regional importance.
That will be 10 stops on 400+ mile route which seems about right. You probably will have 3 stops in Seattle, 2 in Portland and 2 in Metro Vancouver.
All of those politicians who would use the route would be using your tax dollars to pay for the trip. Bypass it and keep the train moving fast or just go from Vancouver to Vancouver with Bellevue in between and leave Portland out.
I'm curious if using the I-205 corridor for its entire length would allow HSR to run through Portland without needing a 19-mile tunnel? We would lose the direct connection to the city center but it would still get us plenty close enough, I think, especially if you connect it to the MAX lines that run through that corridor. In this case you would be putting HSR bridges over the Willamette and Columbia, but that would still be a fraction of the cost of the tunnel.
There are some issues with local transit taking up the ROW that keep that from happening. You also have some major challenges around Oregon City.
@08:45 -- I believe that it's "Che-HAIL-us" not "Che-HALL-us". My great grandfather emigrated there from Switzerland at the turn of the previous century and I visited to discover evidence of his owning land there.
I excited about all of the possible high speed rail corridors!
I've ridden the Amtrak Coast Starlight route (taking my bike from Los Angeles and back to pedal on the Washington rail trails) and enjoyed it very much.
Hehe. I like trains.
Me too!
Sub earned on first video of yours I’ve seen. Awesome attention to detail.
Thank you!
Great job! $79 billion seems like a bargain for such a system, given that the eastside access tunnel in NYC cost $10 billion. I also wonder if they should just build the station in Surrey, BC, rather than downtown Vancouver for cost savings. Surrey has good connections with the Skytrain network.
My guess is all three cities wouldn't have stations downtown for this reason.
Seattle's would be in Bellevue, Portland on the outskirts and Vancouver would be surrey.
Its very similar to how most European cities run HSR tbh. It's not super common for these stations to be in the center of the city but rather be at a good transportation link.
It at least makes more sense to go through the heart of Portland and Seattle, as the HSR would go from one side of the city to the other, but Vancouver would be the northern terminus of the line.
As usual, excellent analysis.
How interesting! I recently did a similar 30-minute presentation at my local train club on this system and others only a few months ago! Epic video! 😊
I need it. I NEED IT!!!!
Amazing work. Would love to see this come into being
Very interesting. Only thing I'd say is that it's ok for HSR to go through cities at conventional speeds. Sure it might not be as fast but lots of HSR services around the world make it work since all that tunneling is a bit nuts. You could probably save the average rider an equal or greater amount of travel time by investing the tunneling budget into local transit upgrades which would buy say, a downtown transit tunnel for Portal MAX or a big chunk of a new line for Vancouver Skytrain. Plus thos investments would be useful for stuff other than intercity trips.
A blended system of some sort seems far more likely to me, but the exercise here was trying to get it to average 150mph. Even with the long tunnels through the metros its a fail in that regard. Maybe with 30 more miles of tunnel. The conclusion I came to while making it is that this approach doesn't seem particularly realistic, my route is slow compared to some others that have been proposed.
@@LucidStew No worries! I'm just one of those people who doesn't properly listen to and/or read the methodology requiring others to take time and explain things. The internet is a fun place 😊
Lovely and thought-provoking episode as always, thanks! That was a lot of tunnel!
I-5 north of downtown seattle you can use express bus/carpool lanes. WSDOT didn't have a problem letting ST use extra i-90 lanes for light rail. That would probably explain why the cost estimate is slightly above high end
Perhaps, but certain assumptions make a route impossible as opposed to merely improbable, and I tend to err to the side of improbable when dealing with sensitive areas.
This just reminds me of the Super Train concept in the movie Singles.
Great coffee seems entirely possible.
All Hail the Seattle Super Train
When I was living in Vancouver there was always an interest in high speed rail to Seattle. It would greatly help with housing affordability too. Skytrain has some fairly good reach but it’s not as efficient as proper inter urban rail. While this wouldn’t be it, it would be neat to see a NEC style quad track arrangement allowing high speed long distance and inter urban services on the line. Living in abbotsford wouldn’t be such a drag if getting to either downtown core only took 30-45 mins or so.
Seattle is as unaffordable was Vancouver 😂
@@cmdrls212 Seattle is just as expensive as Vancouver but much more affordable (higher wages)
@@nat_pen_rose Seattle doesn't even beat Los Angeles and San Francisco which Vancouver obliterated in terms of expensive cost of living 😆 It really is incredible to see how Vancouver could soon beat New York City for the most expensive city in the western hemisphere. congratulations to all Vancouver people...I guess.
On the East Side Access in NYC the MTA had up to 36 workers on 1 boring machine and for the 2nd ave. subway. In Europe they do the same job using only 12 workers. My point is your estimate of $79B will balloon like in California... way over $100B with all that tunneling needed.
The tunnel boring expense isn't exact, but its pretty realistic. I'm not using a European paradigm for tunnel costs. Those are based on real-world expenses in the U.S.
$79 billion geez, but for real though so many people complain about the cost of these projects when they don’t even realize that the Shinkansen route in Japan had similar problems, it’s annoying. I just want this project to start construction either this year or next year.
The environmental studies alone will take easily a decade. Nothing fast happens in the Pnw. Look at link rail. It won't reach Everett amd Tacoma for another decade lol.
@@cmdrls212 a decade would be pretty damn quick for those draft eis lol if there are shovels in the ground before 2050 i would be very pleasantly surprised
Tunnel is the only way to deal with Portland, Oregon and Vancouver Washington. The main problem is that the tunnel would have to be pretty deep underground to safely cross the willamt and Columbia Rivers. That would make a connection to the Portland airport quite difficult and there is a high danger of liquidfaction ( major earthquake)
I'm not sure of the geology of the area. My understanding is that the airport is built on fill, but I'm not sure where the bedrock is there. I only looked up the depth charts of the rivers in terms of depth for a tunnel. Fairly deep tunnels are not necessarily a problem, they're just going to require more robust means of getting people to the surface quickly.
@@LucidStew Cascadia subduction zone which stretches from Vancouver Island all the way to Crescent City California. they say a full rupture would create a 9.2 earthquake. they estimates a possible casualties and 2000-3000 and homeless between 1,000,000-2,000,000. and it is due to the fact Portland Oregon is built on reclaimed land. about 50% of the city. Which includes the Gas and Oil pipelines that run throughout the city. However it is consider the second biggest possible disaster. San Andrea Third. New Madrid Semic zone ( borders of Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee.)
It would be the biggest disaster in human history only from 2 8.0 earthquakes. you don't want to know the possible deathtoll. but here's homeless possibilities: 7,000,000! with damanges reaching Minneapolis and New York City and Dallas!
Was waiting for this video as a metro vancouver resident, the tracks would pass right in front of me
I know you wanted to keep this video focused but the Tri Cities + Spokane HSR would definitely work as well and for Oregon a secondary rail system connecting Medford Salem and Bend would be a great transportation system for the two states. You could even expand the system to Boise and Salt Lake City.
Hi Stew,
First off, I have to say that I have been actively watching for a while now and love the content you make.
I have a engineering proposal for the route through Portland. I imagine this would result in a longer travel time, but could be significantly cheaper.
Instead of a tunnel between Tualatin and Portland, I would suggest a single track along the right of way of OR-217 then join up with the Red and Blue Max Lines at US-26. The route could potentially use or parallel the Robertson tunnel beneath Washington Park, then connect to the proposed MAX tunnel from Goose Hollow Station to the Lloyd Center.
From the Lloyd center, the route could parallel existing MAX tracks/I-84 as I would argue there is sufficient space for a single track.
Then connect with I-205 and cross the Columbia River in the median of the existing bridge
Sharing this route would also allow for easy transitions to the MAX Red Line which was just double tracked to the airport.
I would recommend reading the MAX Tunnel Study Findings for more information. This is a tunnel that would make significant changes to the MAX system considering the need for greater capacity on the steel bridge.
Though I understand your proposal and it makes some sense, it would ensure we'd need to discount the major issues it would cause with scheduling and frequencies, and single tracking it for so much would prevent a lot of potential trains from being able to continue on schedule through along the line, as it would be taken up by one train traveling one direction. Further, unless you build another tunnel, you really don't have the space for it around the Robertson area, and even that would be heavily space constrained. Furthermore, if you double track it (as it should be logistics-wise), then you definitely do not have the space to build the tunnel (or two). And sharing with MAX makes the least amount of sense as that too would heavily conflict with each other. One of them would require more rights to the ROW of the tracks than the other, and that is always going to be TriMet with MAX. It additionally would mean these HSR trains would have to HEAVILY slow down for the portions it shared tracks with MAX, because the LRTs are capped at 55mph top speed (they're made with that cap), and worse, the catenary and rails are not of the grade capable of handling high speeds, either. And in summer, MAX trains get capped at 30mph due to concerns that the friction and heat would melt the catenary wires, as well as that the pantographs and the rails themselves would warp. And that means the HSR trains would be further slowed and screwed by sharing any tracks at all with the MAX trains during any days it is 90f or above (that's the safety rules). And uhh, in case you didn't realize... today was 90 or above, depending on where in the metro you were. PDX hit 91. Last year we had three days in MARCH that hit 90+ in the metro. So those rules apply anytime that temp is forecasted to be reached.
So the concept you proposed kind of implodes on itself to be blunt with you. It simply isn't logical and doesn't make sense. And I think we can both agree that either system, MAX or Cascadia HSR getting heavily slowed down or otherwise logistically stuck restricted to the other's requirements and ROWs isn't right either, especially to the riders of either system. The primary focus always needs to be on maximizing reliability, frequency and ridership, with emphasis on the latter's consistent use and satisfaction. Riders are the literal life blood of transit. They have to be your primary focus every time, with the logistics following right behind in importance of focus. Trying to engineer our way into "easier" and potentially "cheaper" methods doesn't do that at all.
I wonder if some of the tunnelling could be reduced by serving the city centres on spur lines rather than on the mainline? Obviously such an approach isn't ideal operationally, but in my opinion it's a compromise I'd be willing to make when the alternative is that NOTHING gets built!
Normally, yeah, but where is the bypass going? You also have a problem on spur lines here because there's also no room for THEM. Really depends what you could talk freight into, but like with Seattle even that won't help. It's just a really tough route for the concept.
@@LucidStew that's fair enough - it looks like it's a challenging route whichever way is chosen!
Very thankful you didn’t have to drop an explosion animation on my house ❤️💥
Could take the I-5 express lanes for HSR from downtown Seattle up to Northgate. From there would need to be a tunnel, unless you could feasibly run HSR on the Link Light Rail tracks (which could be worth investigating).
Sure. Things become much easier if existing systems are pushed aside, but that's part of the challenge because it's often quite unlikely to happen.
Love this series. I wonder if you'd ever consider sharing routes w/ regular rail near termini. Kinda like the French and Italian HSR networks where typically the 10 or so miles from the city center are thru slower, conventional routes (obvs will lose time but 15 mile tunnels cost $$$$)
The current assumption here is that freight rail right of way will prove extremely difficult due to the freight rail companies. The little section south of King Street in Seattle by the BNSF yard, I was assuming a huge concrete barrier between the two based on demands by UP and the FRA for CAHSR. I initially had a route put together that utilized some freight ROW coming into Portland from the south, but I finally realized that it was so slow and circuitous that driving straight through underground just made more sense even if it was more expensive.
In Europe the HSR network can run on established conventional passenger rail routes in metropolitan areas. Often they even belong to the same state rail company which makes it an obvious choice in contrast to the U.S. freight rail companies which have no inherent interest in sharing their tracks.
@@junglist_ikonin 2002 I took the TGV between Paris and Grenoble. Going to Grenoble I had to change trains, but coming back it was a single seat on a TGV, so that method definitely works.
@@LucidStew Yep, as always. Their monopolies will not ever go without them waging a all out war in court, and of course with hordes of lobbying.
@@LucidStew I always ignore freight companies because, if we're being hypothetical, I assume that in alternate USA where HSR is actually being built, the railroads are nationalized. Maybe it's wishful thinking but...
I can’t wait for (what I assume is) the eventual Eugene to Sacramento connection of CHSR and Cascadia HSR.
the terrain between Eugene and Redding is challenging, to say the least
@@dwc1964 But it can be done just fine and reasonably if engineers and developers here just learned from the now really old systems in Japan that is the Shinkansen. A connection to the very underappreciated Redding would definitely be rad. Wouldn't mind as a Oregonian going there via HSR for a visit or two to snoop around.
While highly unlikely, given the current uncertainty of CAHSR & no firm commitment from the State DOTs on Cascadia HSR, I would love to see the State Agencies collaborate on linking up the systems, allowing electric trains to travel up and down the West Coast. I could see CAHSR initially extending from Sacramento up to Redding, Cascadia continuing down to Medford and the tracks eventually meeting halfway somewhere around the vicinity of the Mt Shanta area
I'm curious how the Portland Downtown Tunnel Trimet is currently studying as a way to by-pass street running in the city core would affect this plan, your aligns with the general location of TriMet's tunnel plan.
We're actually going to share.
@@LucidStew hell yea multi use tunnels
Excellent presentation. However, another tunnel to King Street Station in Seattle will be problematic. There are two tunnels under downtown Seattle now, the BNSF tunnel and Sound Transit's Line 1 tunnel. By the time the HSR project gets underway, there will be a third tunnel, Sound Transit's Line 2 tunnel to Ballard that will meander under the Westlake and South Queen Anne neighborhoods. It might be better to run the HSR tunnel farther east under the south Sixth Avenue industrial area and reactivate the former Union Station that was used by the Union Pacific and Milwaukee railroads in the 20th century as the Seattle terminus. Exiting downtown northward the HSR tunnel would need to avoid conflict with the Line 2 tunnel under the Westlake neighborhood and the Line 1 tunnel that runs under the Ship Canal and then crosses northwest through the University and Roosevelt districts.
Cascadia HSR should already be a thing, hate how long this country takes to progress with things other countries have been doing or already done for decades now.
Happy to see commuter rail stops in Olympia, Kelso and Tacoma stripped from mach maps. Happier to see both A) a solution (tunnel) to crossing the Columbia River as ongoing billion dollar preliminary plans to replace the bridge there don’t include a regional rail option, and B) a stop at PDX as that eliminates the need for further air traffic to SeaTac and even YVR flights as PDX would service those areas with HSR. I only wish LS would have shown a slightly different route that would have eliminated at least the downtown Seattle tunnel (for a shorter one perhaps) going up I405 with a station in Bellevue as opposed to Seattle. This route seems to be preferred 2/1 in the recent studies and I was curious to see the cost and time estimates from Lucid Stew on this bold choice. Surprised and glad to see that 167 was his choice to enter King County - great idea, and well done overall. With Cascadia firmly in the CID, they may get funding in the next round of federal allotments this year for a final study examining said route selection before the final EIS can be complete. Exciting times! Really great work. Thank you
"Sheh-haah-lis" hahaha. It's hilarious the timing of watching this, and I just got done commenting on a video about I-84, and how people from elsewhere tend to almost overthink and thus fixate on very deliberate and clear syllable enunciation in our places names here in the Northwest, which then leads to even more hilarious and botched enunciation than if they had just gone lazy with it. It is said "Sh-hay-lis". So all the other similarly spelled names here are said in the same way. Think Chehalem. Sh-hay-lum or "Sh-hay-lim". Che and Chi are also enunciated the same way. So it's "Shi-nook" and not "Chy-nook". Think of how someone would say it somewhat lazily and lightly slurred, slow down the speech a bit, and wha-bam! You got how we speak here.
It to me is more than worth it, as I am sure you're well aware of by now given some of my past comments haha. This is one of the intensely rare instances where the "TAKE MY MONEY" meme is applicable for me. And we all know it always will encounter steep cost-overruns, but even then, as long as we at least get something like this with good frequencies? I'm all about it.
My bias however will ALWAYS be grade separation wherever possible, because I will forever live in my utopian imagination of what the best, most sound route would be. And that would be VERY VERY VERY spendy, because... well max quality everything, and plenty of via-ducting, tunneling and elevated stations. And of course... Shinkansens only. :)
Edit: I've finally gotten around to making my own video building and visualizing Cascadia HSR muhshelf :)
I was gonna comment on how he couldn’t pronounce Chehalis, while saying they’d have to blow it up
@@babybloc As an Oregonian I am/was always mispronouncing Washington names lol. I still do actually, have to remind myself how many of them are pronounced and many I just can't remember how they are said. I know the river names better than the city names though, at least.
I think any new HSR program that happened in the PNW needs to either include the option for local service to be included on the ROW, or needs to make serious investments in the current Amtrak Cascades route. I also think you could shave a significant amount of tunneling off of the Seattle area if you used SR-99 ROW to around Everett.
You don't want stops every 20 miles. It wouldn't allow the trains to get up to full speed. If the regions decided to have regional rail services, they could hook in to the trunk and build stations, but you'd want HSR to skip all that. For SR99, do you mean like remove the road and replace it with the train?
Not possible due to all the crossings. It would be a viaduct or underground. If undergroud then what's the point of following 99
Re Vancouver- pacific central station would probably be better than Waterfront for an international train, simply because they already have a border pre-clearance facility there
I feel like better Amtrak Cascades service would be more realistic and cost effective than full blown HSR, especially given how slow the route's gonna be anyways. I'd rather see Amtrak Cascades running regular 120mph trains consistently.
That makes sense.
For regional stops in Tacoma, Olympia, Salem yes. You could even add better service out of Seattle on Amtrak to that list and have the HSR bypass Seattle all together to the nicer, more hotel and business centric ( honestly even Amazon has more office space in Bellevue these days), Bellevue which could support and grow into a rival to Seattle. Nothing wrong with an Amtrak regional train hub in Seattle with a Bellevue high speed rail station that serves Seattle by the worlds first and only floating bridge light rail in just about ten minutes.
I understand why a lot of people consider this to be one of the less viable high speed rail corridors. You need to skip over a lot of potential stops like Salem, Tacoma, and Bellingham to be able to maintain high average speeds without overinflating cost, and it still comes out pretty expensive. I think a Milwaukee-Chicago-Lafayette-Indianapolis corridor would be much better value for the money.
Yeah, was waiting on the north Seattle clusterf***! My idea involves a four-track cut and cover tunnel under Rt 99/Aurora Ave. Two for HSR and two for subway/RER/S-Bahn that way there’s local benefits to compensate for the disruption.
Honestly didn’t try even try to get through Portland, but probably would have a high speed bypass using I-205 and slow speed to serve the downtown. You’d still need to tunnel (or figure something out) for the section when Max uses the median. The problem though is that comparatively few people are going to want to completely bypass Portland, so we’re probably stuck with a slow crawl through Portland.
SR99 might be a little cheaper, but even there you have sections you need to bore due to grade separation or to maintain speed. It'd probably be faster though because you wouldn't have the slow part on the freeway.
I had considered an I-205 Portland bypass. Some of the constraints on freight or I-5 could probably be handled if one doesn't care much about speed through Portland on a branch loop. The biggest reason really for going underground through Portland is that it would be SO slow otherwise and you're still going to need at least one tunnel...
@@LucidStew I wish you all the luck in the world trying to build HSR through Portland without a stop there. It's probably the city in the US that would react the most drastically to that idea.
You can get away with a lot less tunnel in Portland. You tunnel from Union station south across the river to around US-26, then follow the river along 99E and use a 0.25 tunnel to cross into the existing freight rail corridor to the east of 99E. Follow that south to OR-224, which then lets you follow I-205 back to I-5 near Wilsonville. Going north from Union Station you tunnel to around Columbia Boulevard, and then there is enough space on the freight right of way to add HSR with a lot fewer curves up through Vancouver towards Longview.
The I-205 to OR-224 turn would be pretty gnarly, and you might want to tunnel that too in order to keep the speed higher, but it's probably a much cheaper option that would add less than 5 minutes to the total travel time, and is probably a big factor in why the official estimates are so much lower, but I absolutely guarantee you that no one in any kind of decision making position would even consider tunneling that much through Portland.
EDIT: BTW, Chehalis is pronounce "Shuh-hay-liss"
Hi Stew, love your work! Just wanted to check - some of the lower-speed (e.g. 90mph) sections of your corridor: are you assuming a non-tilting train? If so, could an Avelia Liberty-type train with 6 deg. tilt boost curve speed by 25% - so 90 might become 115mph? As I understand things, the Avelia Liberty should also be able to achieve 200mph on straight sections. Your thoughts? Regards, Warwick
Thanks! I am assuming a conventional train, but I also give some tilting times near the end. Since its pretty curvy, there is a nice improvement with that technology.
Your time estimate doesn't factor in the additional travel from the airport to the city center, making HSR significantly faster than flying. I added the travel time from each airport to city center, under *perfect* traffic conditions, to update your comparison.
Portland-Vancouver:
Flying 2h55m HSR 2h22m
Seattle-Vancouver:
Flying 2h38m HSR 54m
Portland-Seattle:
Flying 2h24m HSR 1h28m
Eugene-Seattle:
Flying 2h42m HSR 2h9m
City center-airport times are: Vancouver 22min, Eugene 16min, Seattle 16min, Portland 18min
I included the tunnel bypass option because it would be awesome for the train to literally be faster than flying from the moment of takeoff and landing (without airport time).
That's correct because not everyone lives in the city center so I'm not biasing toward that. Conversely, if someone lived right by the airport, flying times would improve. If you're talking about limited stations, they're going to serve the whole area, much like an airport does. If you're talking about regional stops on the trunk, those wouldn't be served by an express.
What software did you use to create the animations overlaying the aerial imagery? Also, how did you calculate the maximum speeds for the curves? I want to create my own HSR animations too, but I will go much further to have the ambition of doing one for maglev in 70% atm. That will make such a vactrain as feasible as a subsonic jet airliner, but with downtown stations. That is totally unlike the Hyperloop because each package of pods it will be as high capacity as a light rail train consist (and hopefully a Shinkansen) and the moderate pressure reduction is orders of magnitude easier than a 99.9% vacuum. It can just use existing A320 fuselages that are coupled together and fitted with Chuo Shinkansen propulsion.
The software in Unreal Engine 5. Curves are based on standards you can find with a search. I then I roughly measure the circle that lines up with the apogee of the curve. This is not exact as the measurements are not and there are also multiple curves within curves with HSR curves.
For the Seattle segment, I often think about converting the express lanes on I-5 to be a rail corridor. That or just taking over highway 99, which is very straight (compared to I-5) all the way up to Everett. Even south towards Tacoma it would be a pretty nice route, and it passes right by SeaTac airport. I don't see that ever happening though.
Seattle is a difficult segment and I think if its going to happen, there are some difficult, hard to sell, decisions to make. I like this region because its such a challenge. I've already started on working on another video there, and I think I'll have a third approach as well eventually.
Very very interesting idea!
First off, a huge thank you for putting this together. I think this is like the best case scenario in terms of route and speed we could ever hope for as it relates to the Cascadia route. However, having said that, I don't think this will ever happen--at least in this best case scenario.
It would probably make more sense to focus HSR between Portland-Seattle-Vancouver and push for more reliable/frequent but slower service between the smaller cities like Eugene, Salem, Vancouver, Olympia/Tacoma, etc. I don't think you could leave those smaller cities out of the route and still have hope for funding unless the route was purposely shortened between the three major cities and there were residual benefits to those cities along the corridor of new tracks. South of Portland would need something, though, since new tracks wouldn't benefit them in the abridged version of Cascadia HSR.
There is some difficult in that politically as there have been bills in the state Senate previously that would mandate a Eugene connection. Honestly, I was very down on Eugene going into production, and I still think it should be left off, but its potentially a very fast connection and growth in the Salem and Eugene areas could end up justifying it. I doubt it, but maybe.
@@LucidStew As an Oregonian, a Eugene-Portland connection would be just as useful as a Portland-Seattle connection, and maybe even more so for me. Would make traveling the southern part of the state, like Crater Lake National Park, far more attainable for a day trip from Portland. As a hiker, I'd get a ton of use from it. With how popular hiking is in the whole PNW, I wonder if people would use it a lot for extending their hiking range/travel radius. I know it would open up a ton of places in Washington and BC for me too, as far as hiking goes.
I just want to shout out your excellent and thorough Creative Commons attribution!
I love your stuff always. But as a general critique I’d love if you put speeds and distances in km - in parenthesis below the miles is fine.
I mention for this video especially as you have a Canadian connection involved so it seems especially important to consider the measurements used internationally. 😊
You gotta make a tutorial on your 3d unreal process. So cool
Could someone explain why tilting train could make travel time slower? I had no idea that was possible
Tilting trains generally have a top speed of 300kph. Generally, top service speed of a conventional is 320kph. It varies based on radius, but active tilt is roughly 15% faster in curves. If you have a straight route, tilt runs slower.
@@LucidStew i see, this is very interesting. Thanks for the explanation!
It's a nice route! It should definitely have a few infill stations such as Selem (which has a poulation of 250,000 proper and 400,000 metro) and maybe some other towns along the way, but that one is probably the largest without a stop
Tunneling into downtown Eugene already makes that alignment too expensive to be considered. Wouldnt the most realistic alternative be to place the HSR station nearer Gateway Street/exit 195 where it could be serviced by LTD or EMX connectors into Eugene/Springfield? I dont personally find it neccessary to connect directly into downtown where either tunneling or acquiring the right of ways is too expensive for such a small city.
That’s a really interesting idea! Gateway could sure use the economic help, too.
The mall?
@@LucidStewno. I was referring to Gateway street. Rather a HSR station right before exit 195 would function just fine with connector service from the LTD/Emx lines. Tunneling into such a small city makes no financial sense the urban popultion of EUG/Springfield would be better served with a station at that large open parcel adjacent the intersections of Gamefarm & Crescent or perhaps running the line along the I5 to a station near Franklin Blvd nearer the University Dist.
@@LucidStew I meant the mall lol
@@isaiah_hi93 We're talking about an $80 billion project. A billion here or there isn't a huge deal. Downtown has everything you could want for a stop. You have dense housing and redevelopment opportunities. You have transit dispersal. You have good access to the university. Why start over from scratch in a field that would be best accessed by cars?
As a Metro Vancouver resident I think the diversion east to Sumas has a lot going for it. The corridor could support higher speed commuter or regional rail. The route would easily support a stop at Abbotsford Airport, a underused but large airport with great potential. Also this route would much more likely attract funding from the Canadian and British Columbian governments.
Terminating somewhere like Langley or Surrey makes a lot of sense when you take into account the SkyTrain expansion. Getting HSR into Vancouver-proper at actual high speed is a pipe dream.
@@grahamballantyne1129
Amtrak HAS looked at terminating Amtrak Cascade service at a new station adjacent to Scott Road Skytrain Station in Surrey instead of continuing on the BNSF route to Pacific Central Station. Right now it takes a good hour to zig zag to the station which is OUTSIDE the downtown Vancouver core, while the Skytrain gets you downtown in about 25 minutes.
Definitifly worth it
This is cool and all, but I am concerned that you would consider demolishing the centers of small towns for the ROW, but (at 9:20) insist that removing two lanes of freeway traffic would be impossible.
The nukes make it look worse than I have it on paper. You're only talking about 6-7 structures there. I can't make assumptions about removing freeway lanes just like I can't make assumptions about being able to requisition freight rights of way. I can however, assume that eminent domain would be used for a public project, because that is commonly the case. If you like the idea of removing freeway lanes, see my Taking Back The Streets video.
Hi Lucid Stew - great video, as always! I'd appreciate it if you'd consider putting together a blended route, with high speeds in rural areas, and tracks in existing freight ROW's in urban areas. It seems like there might be additional room for separate track within sections of the ROW that the cascades+coast starlight use to access Portland right now, although a better way to cross the Willamette (instead of the steel bridge) would be needed.
I have it planned eventually, but I'm giving the Pac Northwest some breathing room atm. Might be a different story if WSDOT could get their act together and get their latest study going.
@@LucidStew Fair enough - although it seems like the lack of major funding for the project might make WSDOT reluctant to prioritize the project. It bugs me that these projects only move forward into the planning phase once money is secured, because it means that there's never any long-term vision.
@@theclevercrow4470 I think a big component of that is a lack of leadership at the federal level. These are megaprojects. Some steady source of funding, similar to the Federal Highway Trust Fund, is needed to enable them to plan beyond the next few years. The start and stop nature of federal funding has been a big hinderance for every project but Brightline West, which is low cost enough to be enabled by a single injection of cash.
why no stop at seattle o tacoma airport. or downtown tacoma.
I agree, Seatac airport would be important stop to add! It's over a hill, but it should be possible to add a stop and connect it via gondola or APM to Seatac.
Its only 10 miles from King Street and is connected via local transit. Why build a redundant system for billions?
@@LucidStew light rail takes 30min. If you want to encourage replacement of flights from Seattle to Portland, then that's quite a bit.
@@mixi171 it not about local flight but seatac alaska ans asia hub something that portland never sustained delya tries to build a asia hun in portland 20 or t 30 years ago but it failed.
@@LucidStew also have you ever tried to take transit as a family with even realtivly light luggae because of the number of people it kinda dosen't work fot the other passengers unless it is at a time that tne trasit vechicle is kinda empty they aren't desinged to operated airport lines.
Thank you for this thorough yet approachable analysis! Do you know if there is a need to construct safety barriers between the highway and rails when running HSR down a highway median such as in this plan (or Brightline 2)? (I am thinking about a situation where a vehicle drives off the road into the median at 60+ mph the same time an HS train is passing in the opposite direction at 150+ mph.)
P.s. Imho, it should be a goal of such a project to connect directly to SEA-TAC airport given that it is almost directly in the path of the general alignment and given the fact it is reportedly reaching capacity ... with a HSR stop at the airport, accessibility to SEA-TAC's many long-haul flights would be greatly increased for the region and the need for short-haul "feeder" flights would be substantially reduced along the corridor. (Would love to see something like Frankfurt's "The Squaire" replace the parking structure next to SEA-TAC, with retail, hotels, and offices above a HSR and local train station connected by skybridge to an international airport.)
Brightline West, as far as I know, will be using a barrier similar to standard freeway median barriers, but with a short fence on top. Median running alignments could also be elevated slightly, and probably would be naturally as HSR needs tighter control on rate of change in elevation than an interstate does.
SeaTac is already connected to DT Seattle via light rail. It's also only 10 miles from DT Seattle. That's a local transit distance, not HSR. Traffic generated by downtown would be far higher than an airport.
Perfect population and perfect distance for HSR, so many studies for nothing, Come On USA!
Amazing video as always @Stew👌
@Lucid Stew: How much property has the CAHSRA acquired for the ROW extensions to Merced and Bakersfield?
Inside of Salem, I would try pulling off from via a tunnel I-5 at Kuebler Blvd, and building an underground station at Salems airport, before hooking back into I-5 at Lancing park. A connection to the state capital is very much needed, and having the airport be in a straight line from the rail is just begging for a station there. There is a bus from the airport to downtown, so the needed hookup is there.
This is awesome. What about Salem? It’s just as big a metro area as Eugene and it’s the capital. Since you couldn’t find a good way around the city anyway…the train would stop there, right?
I assume there would be more regional stations. The WSDOT study has something like 16 total. Various reason I left it out. I wanted to keep it an end to end express and had to leave Eugene in there because it's expressly part of the corridor.
Okay, sweet. Thank you! I love your videos.
I wonder if it’s possible to build a high speed line from Detroit to Halifax going through Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City
From STU to another STU : A potentially less expensive alternative to going straight through the downtown core of Seattle (prohibitively expensive …they can’t even figure out how to put a second light rail tunnel there) would be a short tunnel at the end of 167 which transitions the track to follow existing (rail trail) right of way following the east shore of Lake Washington. Sound transit already has a plan to put a future light rail station at Factoria. Factoria currently has much more room to build a major train station which would be directly connected to light rail stations in downtown Seattle as well as Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland and beyond. It’s much more centrally located in the overall urban corridor. From Factoria, the line could follow the old railway corridor toward Woodinville and perhaps be cheaper to build down the rural Snoqualmie Valley before again joining the I-5 corridor between Everett and Marysville.
Going East is spot on and the correct answer Stu. Factoria truly an interesting option and probably cheaper than a Bellevue station although as you so truly put it, would be connected fairly quickly with Link in about 8min. Tear down the Target and old JC Penny and Safeway and redevelop it for a station that can have newly repurposed commercial and even hotel space on top. Brilliant. I don’t think going along Lake Shore will work and the curves would be a problem so a tunnel straight underneath from 167 is one idea although above ground with that beautiful lake should be seen if possible.
I've always found that Seattle-Vancouver leg intimidating, while the proposals from consultants over the years seemed like anything speedy was just pie-in-the-sky. I didn't do much better starting off thinking I could show them how to do it. (Vancouver with some kind of long tunnel, otherwise it's and eternity.) As a sort of indication about this segment: the luxury train is slower than Amtrak but has higher ridership.
The Eugene-Portland thing in the Highway looks pretty good. I never studied that part but clearly there should eventually be a fast passenger service from Sacramento to Seattle anyway. I did do a tunnel up to Mt. Shasta, CA, which seems to shorten it a lot, though at the south end it dumps you into some more tight curvature, just to eliminate the switchbacks. The only solution I can think of is make the lttle town to the south a permanent express stop, about 5 minutes before Mt. Shasta. A few more tunnnels suggest themselves going north from there to Eugene.
I did find a great way to configure Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia-Portland (there's a tunnel going NE out of Tacoma) that makes it faster than bypassing Olympia because there's no serious obstacle to having straight tracks, once you're past the Tacoma "shared assets" realm. (that's all got to be grade separated) It follows a certain less-than-Interstate highway going south into Olympia - Martin Way. I found a super place for a train station right by the capitol, except it's a stub-end terminal, which I thought could be remedied by some German or Japanese system for reversing the seats automatically. But what if passengers get chewed up in them? Still, no one likes riding backwards.
It's a lot of tunnel! I got some guff for punting somewhat with the 19 mile tunnel out of downtown Seattle. The feedback was that I should have cut and covered under U.S. 99 instead, so... a 24 mile tunnel! I just can't see this happening. I think maybe they could do a blended system, although even that would be a pain through Seattle. There is some potential for bypasses in the countryside, but the metros are hell. I also don't see where they're getting travel times between major pairs at less than an hour for less money.
I got feedback from a lot of Canadians that it should just be run to Surrey and let local transit handle the rest, which sounds a little crazy, but they know their area a lot better than I do. A lot of them also liked that eastern approach to connect Abbottsford and Vancouver.
I see what you're talking about there with Martin Way. Honestly, I think I just got tunnel fatigue at some point and sort of gave up on Olympia and Tacoma. Also, in hindsight, in that area I could have shortened my 13 mile tunnel by hooking up with SR512 for 7 miles, but hey, its published.
@@LucidStew Ha-ha to tunnel fatigue. That comment I wrote was unintelligible. Yes, I drew a tunnel going NE from near Tacoma. (From there it made use of disused right of way going north with no big tunnel otherwsie, I think.) On the other side (Martin Way) it only absolutely needs to be tunnelized where there's a big hill, where it first meets Martin Way on the east for a mile or two. The idea of getting the tracks in/over the median west of there is maybe possible. It's pretty boxed in though. That's in addition to tunnel starting a mile out of Olympia, mostly under roads.
As a Seattle native, I still see woefully inadequate transit in many cities along the line. And very infrequent service on the Cascades. If we are serious about cutting GHG quickly, invest in upgrades. The US has waited too long for HSR to help out. This is the same in most corridors.
I might do a similar video in the future seeing just how much the Cascades route could be improved within reason since this seems to be a popular idea in the region. That would likely only be high-ER speed 125mph diesel-electric, so not really the heart of the channel theme, but I'll have some room to expand themes slightly once this series is done.
Eugene might be a spot where to save money you put the stop right outside of town. One less tunnel.
Agreed Eugene has a pretty adequate bus and BRT system that could connect the HSR into Eugene/Springfield from say a station at exit 195 (Gateway St/Beltline) , the 105 or Franklin blvd. Tunneling or acquiring ROWs on the surface directly into city centers would unneccessarily inflate costs and cause local push back.
Consider routing from SR-167 to Bellevue Main Street light rail station. More tunneling under the narrow ithmus that is Seattle, and the reality of impacts due to tunneling, just doesn't seem to be future forward when the Pusget Sound regional growth boundaries are more centered on more reliable land and wider flat in Bellevue. Access to light rail gives access to the region, not just downtown Seattle. Besides climate realities and land availability, human settlements and commerce will shift considerably given what appears to be new post-industrial work scenarios.
Exactly. Bellevue is the route that makes sense. Nobody in a hurry to get to King St station. More amenities in a shorter distance by way of hotels and restaurants that can serve more people quicker in Bellevue than getting out in the International District where you would still have to transfer to a light rail and get out at Westlake which itself isn’t really the best location and leagues below Bellevue as of the last five years with that trend continuing.
If a route can't be found that allows for sustained high speeds between what is by far the most important city pair, Seattle and Portland, the project is a nonstarter IMHO. If that is the case, it'd be better just to add improvements to the existing BNSF route that Amtrak uses, aiming for more modest speeds of 90-110 mph, as has been proposed.
They should do that regardless. They can make all the HSR improvements and 90mph is still faster than what we got.
I was really looking forward to this video but this route is truly ill conceived and not based in reality. The approaches north from Seattle and South from Portland are certainly challenging but not so difficult that they require 20 mile tunnels. I really wish you would've taken more time to approach this problem more pragmatically, creatively and realistically.
Pretty likely no route is based in reality.
The problem with this plan is that it doesn't work until ALL of the route is built, especially in the Portland-Seattle segment which would get the majority of the passenger travel. Why do we need to wait for 19 miles of tunnel to be built when we could get fast and reliable Amtrak Cascades service by 2035? Amtrak Cascades can give 2.5 hour service to Portland at 70 mph average speeds, which is the same speeds as Acela and Chicago-St Louis. That is good enough without breaking the piggy bank. Putting all our investment funds into a extravagant HSR system means that other important infrastructure projects don't get built instead.
If you build it they will come!
As much as I admire all of the time and work you put into this, given all the obstacles this corridor presents (financially and geographically in particular), I almost feel like it would be more fruitful to have an HSR line connecting Bend with Portland (and a few smaller cities in between). Bend’s metro area population has exploded over the past decade and the 3.5 hour drive between it and Portland can be brutal - especially given the impact of weather, accidents, and wildfires on the commute. Plus, Redmond has an established and well-used airport with which the HSR service can more than reasonably cooperate or compete.
nice video, have you ever thought about sharing the details of your cost estimation model? I'd love to use it on some projects of my own!
It's really not good or informed enough for ANY other purpose. XD
My own rendering of this corridor includes a bit more willingness to alter properties on the ground and a lower tolerance for speed limitations, but follows a mostly similar route with the exceptions of swinging west between Eugene and Portland to have city-center stations in Corvallis, Albany, and Salem, while also adding in several other stations in places like Everett, Tacoma, Bellingham, Surrey, etc. The way I see it, creating HSR ROWs is a once-in-a-generation infrastructure project, akin to airports or the interstate highway system. Its too important and will have impacts too far into the future to be squeemish about costs. Spending a billions of extra dollars to save a few minutes on the corridor might sound crazy now, but if you add up the economic productivity gained from those minutes from all the yearly passengers over potentially centuries of use, nearly any improvement to the ROW will pencil out. HSR in the US is a social and economic necessity for the future of this country, and we need to treat it as such.
Too mch tunneling. I think they'd look to have the stations closer to I-5 to reduce tunneling and then build good transit connections to the stations.
For instance, the Eugene station could be on the backside of Gateway Mall. The Salem station at the school bus yard (which would be relocated), the Portland station near Tilikum Crossing.
@@myquealermy thought exactly except the station would be right before 195/Gateway street and serviced by connectors from Eugenes existing bus system. Otherwise running the line a little further up the I-5 where it would divert somewhere near Franklin Boulevard to a transit center there in which case its at least closer to the downtown/university district
Fun to watch. As others commented, some key cities were missed that would severely limit ridership potential. And more importantly, unless this is a 400mph maglev, the curves are unnecessarily wide. You can remove 80% of the proposed tunnelling by simply meandering the tracks along better existing ROW corridors. And finally, center-running high-speed rail down the middle of I-5 is not what professionals do... look at Japan, Europe, and even developing countries. A) Emergency/maintenance access turnarounds would be impossible, B) Infill stations not practical for intermediate stations; no one wants to walk across a noisy freeway and stand at a station in the median, and C) Major car collisions, car fires, and other emergencies can impact train efficiency, causing closures to the rail line.
The curves are based on real-world curve radii for given speeds and actually tend toward the minimum necessary. "Center-running is not what professionals do" see Brightline West. Not so much HSR, but median running trains are not uncommon. I've ridden one myself. And I didn't provision for the things you're talking about because regional rail like Amtrak Cascades can handle that. It's not necessary to put that on a high speed trunk. If you notice, all of the chosen stations are near Amtrak Cascades stops. In the case of King Street and Portland Union, they'd be right underneath.
@@LucidStew brightline is not an example of a professional hsr system.
Can High Speed rail run on existing freight lines with room for high speed passenger trains?
Not generally. Usually you'd need dedicated tracks and freight is going to want those separated from its tracks in its ROW. Some of that is due to difference in superelevation and that fact that freight usually is most efficient at slower speeds. At those slower speeds, you then have an issue with freight loads tilting due to the higher superelevation an HSR train is going to require to get through a given curve. Some of it is also from freight companies trying to throw their weight around and protect their operations and rights of way. And then of course you have many other problems with sidings and keeping freight out of the way of passengers trains, which Amtrak deals with all the time even at 79mph.
Yup, those off-ramps are for the express buses and carpool. Sound Transit runs almost freeway exclusive bus network regionally.
Considering that Canada and the US would split some of the cost and that the province/states along with their national governments would chip in-- it's a great deal
So worth it. I'm curious how customs might work between stops in US and Canada. Would that cause additional delay?
It would have to change to a pre-boarding method to not massively waste time
I think Vancouver would both countries customs, just like Canadian airports
I thought about this on the flight comparisons. Basically you have international trains with boarding limited to certain stations. Those then all have customs checks for those trains, so basically would function like an international flight from a passenger perspective.
For Canada-US plane and train routes, you go through Customs at the Canada airport/station before you get on the plane. I learned the hard way; I once arrived at the Vancouver train station for a trip back to Seattle, but I wasn't allowed on board because I was too late for the customs process. I had to shell out for an hour-long puddle-jumper at the YVR airport.
While the Pac Central option isn’t as centrally located, the reality is there isn’t much room for development downtown around Waterfront. If building there there is greater opportunity for development. Plus it’s connected to Sky Train including the new Broadway subway being built, which will better extend the transit radii. Seems like a reasonable way to save a bit, and gain something.