Train projects across the U.S. have new life thanks to the priorities of "Amtrak Joe" and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. To benefit, Cascadia needs an aggressive plan to build better rail service instead of a massive new airport to replace Sea-Tac.
Improved rail will help accommodate future population growth from Vancouver to Eugene without destroying the environment. The alternative is the status quo: continued runaway sprawl helped by more roads -- all supercharged by plans for a new airport somewhere in Western Washington. This can't happen if we care about climate change.
The Biden administration's enthusiasm for trains is the latest step in development of Cascadia's transportation connections. Now the region needs to resolve the scope, routing, and cost of trains, and kill the idea of a new airport once and for all.
Faster trains or much faster trains
Conventional Amtrak Cascades service, which maxes out at 79 miles per hour, has gradually become faster and more frequent, but it still takes 4-4.5 hours between Seattle and Vancouver or Portland. Washington's 2006 rail plan called for $6.5 billion in improvements to rails, signals, stations, and other infrastructure by 2023 to get much better service: 13 daily round-trip trains between Seattle and Portland in 2:30, and four daily roundtrips between Seattle and Vancouver in 2:37. Unfortunately the timeline has been extended repeatedly; the target is now 2040, according to the state's latest noncommittal update.
More recently, Microsoft and governments across the region promoted true high-speed rail (HSR) -- around 250 miles per hour -- between Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland. But issues include whether getting between the cities in an hour is even necessary. The Ultra High Speed Ground Transportation Framework insists there will be demand, though exploring maglev and hyperloop technology seems unserious.
Cost estimates range from $24 to $42 billion, depending on technology, routing, and the location of the terminal stations. Some early analysis was done in 2017 by Seattle Transit Blog, arguing for HSR between Vancouver's waterfront and Seattle's King Street Station. It would be cheaper to terminate in Surrey, with last-mile connections to downtown and other points in the Lower Mainland such as YVR.
A better option is upgrading conventional service, including with new, more direct track in sections. For example, use I-5 right of way where possible rather than slowly snaking along Puget Sound. It's not clear that the route can't be straighter without completely starting over as necessary to get to 250 mph. Current technology seems less risky and could concentrates growth in existing cores like Bellingham, Burlington, Everett, Centralia, and Kelso.
Kill the new airport
The idea of a new airport to replace Sea-Tac goes back at least to the early 1990s, with planning for a third runway. The airport is still constricted by small land area.
Washington created a commission that is supposed to recommend a location for a brand-new major airport by the end of this year. Already it narrowed the options to six existing airports: Arlington, Bremerton, Paine Field, Shelton, Gig Harbor, and South Lewis County Airport. All have problems and would encounter opposition to major expansion, not to mention disastrous environmental impacts.
Much of the need could be relieved if trains tied directly into transit and connected to Sea-Tac, similar to how DB trains connect to Frankfurt airport.
Most of Sea-Tac's traffic is small planes and, before the pandemic around 10% of daily flights were to two places: PDX and YVR. In 2019, there were 450,487 total operations (averaging 1,200 a day, or 68 an hour assuming an 18-hour day). In 2019, there were an average of 96 flights per day between SEA and PDX, and 24 per day SEA to YVR, according to Kayak.com.
According to the FAA, Sea-Tac's capacity is 56-99 flights/hour depending on weather. Shifting PDX and YVR flights to rail opens an entire hour of capacity. Much of the rest could be accommodated by up-gauging planes. By comparison, Narita airport handled most of Japan’s commerce for decades with a single runway with fewer large planes on each route. A new airport in Washington seems like another megaproject in search of a purpose.
The key is integrating planning for ground and air transportation. A $24-$42 billion rail program isn’t prohibitive if it eliminates the need for new airport. It's an investment to spur development of transit, density, and less car-intensive cities for a fraction of the cost of freeway expansion.
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