- OLYMPIA, Wash. — Legislation calling for increased frequencies and reduced travel times for Amtrak Cascades service has passed the Washington state House of Representatives and moved to the Senate.
House Bill 1857 passed by a 68-29 vote last Wednesday, March 12, beating a deadline for bills to advance out of their house of origin by about an hour, the website The Urbanist reports.
The bill calls for service to be more than doubled, to a minimum of 14 daily round trips between Seattle and Portland, Ore., and five between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, and for infrastructure improvements to improve trip times [see “Washington state legislation calls for more, faster Amtrak Cascades service,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 6, 2025].
The legislation as passed was slightly amended, most notably increasing by 15 minutes the target times for the service, to 2 hours, 45 minutes between Seattle and Portland and 3 hours between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia.
The bill now has until April 8 to advance out of committee in the Senate, and would need to be passed before the end of the legislative session on April 27.
Does the bill include an appropriation for capital and an appropriation for O+M? Or, are the trains supposed to run faster and more frequently because the legislators say so?
Also I might ask, does the railroad that actually owns the route have any say in the matter.
Finally it being an interstate route has anyone asked Amtrak.
The more we have learned about the costs and other issues involved in high speed, high frequency passenger rail, the less the politicians pay attention.
WSDOT would need to spend a whole big chunk of shekels within the four borders of that photograph. How? Increased frequencies will require a second platform, thus a footbridge with stairs and an elevator at each tower.
I challenge each of the 68 legislators in favor of the bill to tell us how much their plan will cost, up front, then each year going forward. If they don’t know the cost, that’s fine and okay, but they shouldn’t have voted for the bill until finding out.