WADOT just completed an $2.6 million study (Conducted over four years) recommending a bullet train to connect Vancouver B.C.  Washington and Oregon.  Partially funded by Microsoft.


WADOT Summary

Another WADOT release

Another one


I left California in the midst of their high speed rail boondoggle.   When it was proposed in 2009, that project was estimated to cost $45 billion.  In 2013 the cost estimate was up to $200 billion.
At the time a guy I knew at Burlington Northern said you aren't laying bullet train capable rail for less than a billion dollars a mile.   This "study" estimates the cost to build a bullet train line from Vancouver BC to Portland at "$24 - $42 billion."  That's less than the Cali rail system, which still isn't built.

Existing rail lines can't handle a commuter train going at these speeds, so this would have to be all new infrastructure.  

If you want to fleece the taxpayers, creating a publicly-funded private entity that is unaccountable to the voters, but gets to take all their money tonot build things is a great way to do it.
 

Great! Now they will never finish the 395 North - South Freeway... But they will keep charging us though....

They'll pass a vehicle use tax (tax per mile driven) to cover the costs of the 395...

But then they'll spend that money on something else.

Yes the high speed trains need to be build on separate tracks. It would be a tragic end of high speed train and motor vehicle if they allow roads to cross high speed train rails.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_France

I have ridden Amtrak trains several times to Vancouver BC and there is only one rail in some locations. They would need to build separate tracks and have the rails going under or over the roads. Then the train that runs from Everett they sometimes have mud slides close the train tracks for a while as well.  Huge amount of work to build and the track and train maintenance is costly too. Too expensive for the Puget Sound and we are already have too much debit.

More graft taxation in a region that never saw a tax it didn't like. Somebody's wheels will get greased, if not the ones on the train, & everyone alive now will be dead before its champagne inauguration. It's for future generations, ya know.

Gigantic capital projects > maintaining the infrastructure you already have

Ah, because the Billions California has wasted on their high speed rail is a great example...

The WADOT  study estimated the cost to build a bullet train from Portland OR to Vancouver BC is less than the Sound Transit costs.

That’s how communists like it, maybe we’ll get a Pyongyang style gigahotel that never finishes but is a monument to the cause

This

Kali North.