OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington state lawmakers have introduced legislation seeking to significantly increase Amtrak Cascades service in the Portland, Ore.-Vancouver, British Columbia corridor, as well as cut travel times.
House Bill 1857 and its Senate companion, SB 5667, call for a minimum of 14 round trips daily between Seattle and Portland and five between Seattle and Vancouver, with travel times of 2 hours, 30 minutes for the Seattle-Portland trip and 2 hours, 45 minutes between Seattle and Vancouver. Under current schedules, there are six round trips daily between Seattle and Portland, with one-way travel times of 3 hours, 25 minutes, and two Seattle-Vancouver round trips, with travel times of 4 hours, 25 minutes.
The bills call for at least 88% on-time performance, and would require the state’s Department of Transportation to “prioritize the targets” set in the legislation as the DOT identifies the infrastructure improvements and coordination with host railroads that would be required. Full text of the House version is available here.
State Rep. Julia Reed (D-Seattle) is sponsor of the House bill, with 16 co-sponsors. That bill is currently scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Transportation on Feb. 10. State Sen. Javier Valdez (D-Seattle) is sponsor of the Senate bill, which has six cosponsors.
The news site The Urbanist reports the bill is backed by a coalition including the Climate Rail Alliance, Solutionary Rail, and the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. That coalition said in a press release that the legislation “is needed to address concerns that WSDOT’s plans for the Amtrak Cascades are not sufficiently robust.”
The Urbanist also notes the legislation does not address funding to achieve its goals.
All very nice — except that neither Washington State nor Sound Transit owns most of the tracks. Is there anything in the legislation that would cause the freight railroads to agree to these frequencies, travel times, and OT metric? Sounds like the Washington State legislatures are playing with trains.