The Urbanist

UW's Report on High Speed Rail Planning

The Urbanist Season 3 Episode 20

Cascadia is uniquely set up as a region that would support high-speed rail. Between the linear arrangement of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC, and the just-over-100 mile distance between each one, the super region could be tied together by a fast. It's an idea being pushed by a number of actors, including the Cascadia Innovation Corridor, Microsoft, and anyone who REALLY needs to get back north for the Michelin starred roast duck at iDen & Quanjude Beijing Duck House.

In this episode, co-hosts Natalie and Ray discuss a recent report on planning for high speed rail from the Urban Infrastructure Lab at the University of Washington's College of Built Environments. The report looks at a half dozen other high-speed rail projects around the world and draws lessons from their construction and operation. The biggest take away of all: plan to provide great high speed rail service. It's a little different than the infrastructure plans Cascadia normally undertakes.

Here's a link to the report: https://mic.comotion.uw.edu/our-work/ultra-high-speed-rail-project/

We would love to hear your plans for what to do in a neighboring city if it was only an hour train ride away.  Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.  

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