Posted on March 31, 2025April 1, 2025 by Ross Bleakney
The Transit Riders Union alerted us to important legislation in Olympia that could use your help. The Urbanist covered this bill earlier in the legislative process, which seeks to improve service on Amtrak Cascades. To achieve these goals, WSDOT would likely implement upgrades described in the most recent service development plan.
The following is largely copied from Mary Patterson’s post (which you need to be a member to view):
The Amtrak Cascades bill ESHB 1837 has now been scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Transportation Committee and organizers have a goal of 2000 “pro” sign-ins by the time that window closes at 3pm on Tuesday April 1st (tomorrow). Here’s the link to the sign-in page for the bill. Choose ESHB 1837, your preferred testimony style, and “Pro” as your position.
Even though this bill is common-sensical and cost-efficient, it is actually ground-breaking in the way it requires WSDOT to communicate more fully with legislators about rail-planning — and in the way the bill sets ambitious goals for Amtrak Cascades between Vancouver, B.C. and Seattle and Portland (12 stops in Washington): (If you’re a fan of the Ultra High Speed Rail project, this is not that, but it would come a lot sooner than Ultra and could act as a sort of “local” service that feeds into the Ultra express service if the Ultra express were to happen.) There was a plan for this level of service with even shorter trip times back in 2006, but WSDOT mostly ignored it, so sadly we’re fighting for it again. 25-30% of Washingtonians don’t drive and some who do drive would like not to — so we need trains for the longer distances the way we need buses for the shorter distances. Plus, trains are a climate and health solution — but that’s a longer story. After signing in “Pro,” it would be a good idea to let your own Senator know you want them to vote for this bill when it gets on to the full Senate floor.
Looks like we have an idea which runs the Amfleets are going to replace.
3 cars is going to be a very short consist, wonder what they’ll do with the overbookings. I hope that’s going to get better as more cars get here.
ReplyWhen Amtrak has an issue with canceled trains, they immediately set the available number of seats to zero.
That’s how they keep passengers from booking any more seats so they can order substitute buses to cover those who already have booked (less the inevitable amount that canceled because it’s a bus, not a train).
When the horizon car issue occurred, they just set the availability count low enough for a few buses rather than what a full train would hold.
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In a day and age where we can’t even build regional light rail efficiently, the idea of wasting even more money on Amtrak anything is ludicrous. Washington needs to get back to common sense and let the federal government and the private sector deal with long distance rail. We already have enough problems even moving the people in the sound area to tackle yet another boondoggle of a train line that has so little ridership.
ReplyCascades isn’t long-distance rail. It’s also entirely funded by a partnership between WSDOT and ODOT. Funding improvements to connections between the major economic centers of the PNW is common sense, actually.
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