Here in the PNW I’d take hourly Amtrak service in 5 years over high speed rail in 20. We should push for both, of course, but if we can drastically improve regular rail for a fraction of the price and in so doing build the constituency for HSR, we absolutely should.
pawnstorm
joined 4 months ago
It’s hard to overstate the impact cars have on childhood. As a parent I’m not worried about some rando snatching my kid, I’m worried about someone hitting them with a car. There are so many places in the US where it is unsafe to walk, and there’s a reason why our traffic deaths are going up while the rest of the world’s are going down.
I’m active in trying to make my city a place where kids can have the freedom to explore and grow, but it definitely feels like a “planting a tree the shade of which you will never know” situation.
Starting later this month, it will be legal to set speed limits below 20mph in Washington state, so maybe in a few years we’ll start to see autoluw streets. https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/05/19/governor-signs-washingtons-first-in-the-nation-shared-streets-law/
I agree that at a national level the NEC should absolutely be the priority, and that is where I would hope my federal taxes go. However, as Amtrak Cascades is a state-supported route which is primarily paid for by Washington and Oregon, I don’t see the problem with pushing those states to invest more of their transportation budgets in those routes.