Don

Unfortunately, because the main BNSF line is east of the city of Olympia, there is no direct route. We do have bus service from the station (Intercity Transit) which comes by every 50 minutes to downtown Lacey and Olympia. We also have taxi cab service.

Would be my pleasure to show you around. Let me know.

Richard DeGarmo

Metropolitan Tokyo-Yokohama is roughly the same population as California. Almost all of California’s population is within San Francisco/San Jose service area of the proposed HSR. Distances between cities compares favorable with short hops by air which sets up HSR ideally to compete. What’s more California is still growing where the population of Japan has leveled off or is actually shrinking so 20 years from now HSR in California looks pretty good.

The distance from San Francisco to Los Angeles is similar to London to Paris. Compared to building a tunnel under the English Channel (shared with freight) the challenges in California seem fairly tame.

California is going to have 220 mph trains in 10 or 12 years, and it practically defines sprawl.

I will bet you an enormous sum of money that, no, California will not have 220 mph trains in 10 or 12 years, certainly not going from NorCal to SoCal. Their proposal is one of the most dishonest rail proposals I have ever read.

The top speed, trackage, and cars– The only reason that they proposed 220 mph trains is that that was the requirement in the state legislation authorizing the bond proposal. (Technically, the legislation placed limits on door-to-door transit times; see Senate Bill 1856.) But the CAHSR proposal actually suggests going along existing trackage in several areas, sharing it with Caltrain and even freight. If you share trackage anywhere, then the FRA regulations are going to be much more onerous. The FRA requires a much higher level of safety for trains than for automobiles, or than anywhere else in a world. That’s a different discussion, but the end result will be heavier cars than in Europe and Japan, less able to reach top speed (or be as energy efficient.)

The average speed– Despite that, they’re claiming an average speed that exceeds that achieved anywhere in the world, whether on the shinkansen in Japan or the TGV in France, of 197 mph from Gilroy to Palmdale, for example. Nobody comes close to that on any line throughout the world. The top speeds might be possible, but there’s no way they achieve the average speeds promised. Look at Cascades– the biggest amount of time lost is where the train slows down to 10 mph (!) in some urban areas. But CAHSR proposes blazing through urban areas at 100+ mph.

The passenger load– The CAHSR proposal suggested that, judged by load (passenger-mile per route-mile), the CAHSR will have the highest load factor in the world, again exceeding the shinkansen or TGV, despite the higher population and higher population density in the regions served by the shinkansen. (And that fact that more people travel via other transit means in Japan, lower car ownership, etc.) They’re predicting a load factor of 85%.

The cost– The $9 billion in bonds won’t come close to constructing it. Even if CAHSR got all of the $8 billion in the stimulus, leaving none for the other corridors, it still wouldn’t do.

Community opposition– The NEPA requires community involvement. People are going to say that “they’re in favor of the train but…” they don’t want local roads closed, loud construction, houses demolished, higher density transforming their neighborhood (see complaints here in Seattle in Roosevelt about density), or fast trains. The Interstate Highway System construction ran roughshod over community wishes; the NEPA was one of the results. We all like paying attention to the community, but that means that the plans will be delayed and will not escaped unscathed. Another legacy of the IHS.

The timeline– It will slip, both because of not enough money being appropriated yet (hello Port Defiance, on a larger scale), and because of environmental obstacles and mandatory community consultations, among other things.

This has given it the world speed record for a diesel train.

Canada has been studying and envisioning a high speed rail link between Calgary and Edmonton and may start construction on its route in 2010. While we in the States have talked, for several years, we have only sat and continued to envy the world.

You’re giving Canada a little bit too much credit. I mean, all over the USA we’ve been “studying and envisioning” high speed rail links and had plans to “may start construction” in various places. There’s a difference between studying and envisioning and doing it.

Your article also ignores the important impact of the National Environmental Policy Act. It takes 7-10 years of EISes to get a real megaproject started. Look at the timeline for the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor. Environmental review just takes that long. It’s a little less for upgrades to existing roads or rails, but still substantial.

The big difference with roads is that there’s a pipeline of existing projects. While it takes years to do an EIS for a new project, while that’s going on there are other ones ready to go whose EIS work has already been completed. When stimulus funding is available, those plans are done and they’re “shovel-ready” projects.

The current environmental regulation perversely makes it really difficult to switch our national strategy to incorporate new HSR tracks. You’re faced with telling voters, “Well, we can build some roads that we’ve already studied, or we can wait seven years until we finish the environmental impact studies for this new rail, and then start construction, which will take several more years.” Luckily some projects, like Cascades or even SEHSR, have studies that are largely completed, and would be able to use money soon for at least incremental upgrades. But it’s taken a long time to get there.

All Aboard Washington remains deeply concerned with this “reorganization” of the WSDOT Rail Office, as announced on Friday the 13th. While we continue to believe the release and reassignment of those whose superb efforts, for many years, have been primarily responsible for Washington State’s rail passenger program’s being considered the “National Model” WAS A SERIOUS MISTAKE, our focus now must be on making all efforts to help ensure that Washington receives a just share of the unprecedented Federal stimulus money for passenger rail corridors like ours. Equally important, All Aboard Washington is working with State legislators, remaining staff at the Rail Office, and other highly-interested parties to help ensure that our passenger rail program is not downgraded, but takes full advantage of the rising demand for more and still better passenger train service and the unique opportunity to secure more trains and improved rail infrastructure.

AA WA’s Olympia-based Executive Director suggests that communication with State legislators, members of our Congressional delegation, top management of WSDOT, and other important public decision makers must emphasize the need to move forward with securing the maximum Federal Stimulus dollars and continuing to expand and improvement our existing Amtrak Cascades service. Efforts to discover or to assign blame for what is near-universally seen as a bad decision within the WSDOT are not productive at this time. All Aboard Washington’s primary mission must remain promoting passenger rail as an integral part of Washington State’s transportation solutions.

And as an example, I provide the e-mail I sent to my legislators-

“I am concerned that Washington State Department of Transportation is not aggressively seeking federal stimulus funding to upgrade rail passenger service in the Cascade Corridor. The Obama administration has announced their interest in funding passenger rail and we have two Democratic Senators It seems the only way we can possibly not get this funding is if Governor Gregoire and Washington State Democrats allow WSDOT to fail to apply.

I encourage you to make a phone call and express your frustration to our transportation chief about the failure, to date, to apply for hundreds of millions in Federal funding that should be readily available to us.”

The Washington Democrats may make this a safe state for Democratic presidential candidates, but my question is, do they make it a safe state for us?

Give the drivers a snackbox off of the train as bait? Surely Centennial Station is a nicer place to lay over than the Olympia Greyhound Station?

Perhaps make these routes into Amtrak Thruway services like the Monterey Salinas Transit Route 55 which runs from Monterey, CA to San Jose, CA and attempts to connect with Amtrak trains there (with joint ticketing) but can also be used by non-Amtrak travellers:
http://www.mst.org/routes/55/index.htm

Vancouver Pacific Central Station – Not sure if it has been remodeled yet but it looks incredible. Opened in 1919, Rebuilt in 1993.

Bellingham/Fairhaven Station – Opened in 1995. No scheduled remodel

Mt. Vernon/Burlington Station (also known as Skagit Station) – Opened in 2005, No scheduled remodel

Stanwood Station – Under Construction, Opens Fall 2009

Everett Station – Opened in 2002, No scheduled remodel

Edmonds Station – Opened in 1956, tentative construction date of new station, 2012.

King Street Station – Opened in 1906, has had 2 renovations done to the station in its lifetime, the 3rd, underway, should be finished in 2011.

Tukwila Station (Cascades/Sounder Only) – Opened in 2000, permanent station funded by ARRA funding and ST2

Tacoma Station – Opened in early 80s? (No info available) Moving to Freighthouse Square when Amtrak service is moved to Freighthouse Square (dependent on WSDOT)

Olympia/Lacey (Also known as Centennial) Station – Opened in 1994. No scheduled remodel.

Centralia Union Depot – Opened in 1912, Rebuilt in 2002.

Kelso/Longview Multimodal Transportation Center – Opened in 1912, Rebuilt in 1995.

Vancouver (WA) station – Opened in 1908, Partial rebuild in 1988, full restoration to be completed in 2009.

Portland Union Station – Opened in 1896 – Rebuilt in 1988. Minor work to be in 2009.

Oregon City Station – Opened in 2004 as a platform only, City of Oregon City has future plans to move ex-Southern Pacific Depot to location.

Salem Station – Opened in 1918, Rebuilt in 2000 by ODOT

Albany Station – Opened in 1909, Rebuilt in 2004 by ODOT

Eugene Station – Opened in 1908, Rebuilt in 2004 by ODOT

As it is if the long-range plan is fully implemented and the corridor electrified we’ll have a mostly 110 MPH line and higher average speeds than Acela in the NEC.

The Vancouver, WA station is actually a nice historic depot, as is Kelso. Centralia has a nice historic depot too.

Between Seattle and Portland Tukwilla is by far the worst depot, followed by Tacoma. Tacoma used to have a really nice old station but it now houses the US District Court.

I’m not sure why Tukwilla gets an Amtrak stop and Kent, Auburn, and Puyallup don’t.

From Tacoma to Centralia I could possibly see 150mph here and if shared with the BNSF ROW after Nisqually. From Nisqually to at least Centralia would be good for 125 to 150. Anything above that would require a vast amount of relocation’s or displacing home and business owners.

Centralia to Winlock would be hit and miss but again, several hundred homes would need to be displaced.

Winlock to Vancouver would be only place, if there was room with the river traffic, that may be possible for anything about 150mph. I can not see anything above 186mph however. There just isn’t the space, again without displacing hundreds or thousands of homes.

As it is, the full build out of Higher Speed Rail, according to the Long-range plan would be nearly $8 billion dollars and I believe those figures were 2003 numbers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiyByGNdRSA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBV0rNMMaWU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLu6nSInQdc