5 ms·

There are now only 3 decent sized concentrations of people in that corridor, but maybe building something like this would allow a whole new 1MM person metro to

There are now only 3 decent sized concentrations of people in that corridor, but maybe building something like this would allow a whole new 1MM person metro to develop, e.g. around Olympia or in the Skagit Valley

fnordpiglet 3y ago
I sincerely hope not. Sprawl is the anti pattern maximizing human impact. The skagit valley in particular is beautiful - the last it needs is a suburban megaplex.
- forrestthewoods 3y ago
  Huh. That’s the opposite of sprawl. It’s having dense points along the route. It doesn’t make any sense to have high-speed rail that only stops in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. For it to even possibly make sense there needs more to be more points along the way. And those points need to be very dense by transit. Aka the opposite of sprawl.
  - quailfarmer 3y ago
    I don’t think that’s a given. If you’re constantly stopping/accelerating, average speed is much lower. The rail from downtown Seattle to the airport has a comical number of stops that barely see any traffic. The optimal system to connect a large number of places is a car. The optimal system to connect a small number of places efficiently is a train.
    - forrestthewoods 3y ago
      For some definition of small. Which I suspect is larger than “180 miles apart”. I quite frankly just don’t see the value is connecting Portland and Seattle by high speed rail. Who gives a shit? Spend billions of dollars so that hundreds, perhaps even a whole thousand, of people can take a weekend trip that is slightly faster than a 3 hour drive? I’d rather see Renton and Kenmore/Bothell quintuple in density and get connected by a nice, fast loop. Seattle to SeaTac probably has about the right number of stops. Well, a few too many, but should be more than zero. Those stops just need to have something at them. We built a minimal amount of transit and then failed to upzone the neighborhood.
      - rendang 3y ago
        There's been quite a lot of building around Northgate, Othello and Columbia City. I'm surprised there hasn't been more upzoning at Rainier Beach, though - maybe displacement concerns on the part of planners
      - andbberger 3y ago
        > I quite frankly just don’t see the value is connecting Portland and Seattle by high speed rail. Who gives a shit? Spend billions of dollars so that hundreds, perhaps even a whole thousand, of people can take a weekend trip that is slightly faster than a 3 hour drive dramatically faster. travel time between portland and seattle along a realistic route is on the order of 90m with a few stops and 60m non-stop. about as long as my commute from SF to palo alto. at those distances a high speed rail connection is transformative, it would turn portland and seattle into one large metro area. portland and seattle are ideally situated in terms of population and distance for high speed rail. but if you don't see the point in investing in high speed rail in general, I would suggest that you take a look at the latest news on the arctic sea ice and review what your state is spending on highways every year
        forrestthewoods 3y ago
        High-speed rail isn’t really for daily commuters. Shinkansen tickets are quite expensive. We’re talking $100 each way. I don’t see trains having a huge advantage over a clean grid and EV fleet. And the latter is much easier and faster to build.
        Karrot_Kream 3y ago
        EVs still emit brake particulate matter, generate roadway noise, put pressure on roadway infrastructure (either for maintenance or expansion), and still tie up the driver's time in transit. Rail does none of those things. It's a matter of political will in the US, and most Americans tend to be fine wasting lots of time driving.
        3y ago
    - starkparker 3y ago
      The Tokyo-Nagano leg of Hokuriku Shinkansen has at least seven stops over about 140 miles of rail, an average of less than 25 miles per stop; it still makes the trip in an average of 1 hour 40 minutes vs 3 hours or more by car, and it replaced a conventional rail line that took 2 hours 50 minutes to go from Ueno (one stop closer from the Shinkansen's Tokyo station) to Nagano. Even the 320-mile Tokyo-Osaka Nozomi Shinkansen, the fastest Shinkansen train that makes the fewest stops and has the longest average distance between stops of any Shinkansen, makes at least four stops between, averages fewer than 120 miles between stops, and has two sibling lines that make more stops on the route. Portland to Seattle is 145 miles by air and 178 miles by Amtrak. Seattle to Vancouver is about 120 by air and 155 miles by Amtrak. An equivalent Portland-Vancouver Shinkansen that didn't have any stops other than Seattle would have the fewest service stops of any Shinkansen line, and the most distance between stops by at least 25 miles/stop.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    The document referenced in the link specifically advises to not set up stops between but to build transit from stops to the major stations. Spreading the density out from the major stations along the route is exactly what sprawl is. I’m not sure I understand how it can be any other way. By making the urban cores more attractive and able to access other urban cores you encourage density growth in and around that core. Encouraging growth along the corridor encourages lower density construction over more land area. That’s what sprawl is. Finally why does it not make sense to only stop in the most dense cores of the region? The whole point of high speed rail is to be high speed. Each stop slows the train. Spur transit brings people from around the region to the transit hub. Most of the economic activity happens in and around these urban cores and most transit across the corridor is between the cores. Building services to commuter communities certainly relieves density pressure on the cores, but that only really helps people who would live in the urban core but for whatever reason can’t afford or doesn’t want to live there. Their commute pattern is from their suburban sprawl commuter community to their proximate core. Spur regional transit can handle that if it’s a priority. (See seattle light rail plans)
- rendang 3y ago
  An advantage of building on farms or other greenfield land is that you can start off with dense, walkable planning rather than car-oriented suburban expanse.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    You can, but will you? I don't think so (for reasons that are complex and thus not worth writting in a comment box)
- foota 3y ago
  Ok, but how about South of Olympia? :-)

fnordpiglet 3y ago

I sincerely hope not. Sprawl is the anti pattern maximizing human impact. The skagit valley in particular is beautiful - the last it needs is a suburban megaplex.

forrestthewoods 3y ago
Huh. That’s the opposite of sprawl. It’s having dense points along the route. It doesn’t make any sense to have high-speed rail that only stops in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. For it to even possibly make sense there needs more to be more points along the way. And those points need to be very dense by transit. Aka the opposite of sprawl.
- quailfarmer 3y ago
  I don’t think that’s a given. If you’re constantly stopping/accelerating, average speed is much lower. The rail from downtown Seattle to the airport has a comical number of stops that barely see any traffic. The optimal system to connect a large number of places is a car. The optimal system to connect a small number of places efficiently is a train.
  - forrestthewoods 3y ago
    For some definition of small. Which I suspect is larger than “180 miles apart”. I quite frankly just don’t see the value is connecting Portland and Seattle by high speed rail. Who gives a shit? Spend billions of dollars so that hundreds, perhaps even a whole thousand, of people can take a weekend trip that is slightly faster than a 3 hour drive? I’d rather see Renton and Kenmore/Bothell quintuple in density and get connected by a nice, fast loop. Seattle to SeaTac probably has about the right number of stops. Well, a few too many, but should be more than zero. Those stops just need to have something at them. We built a minimal amount of transit and then failed to upzone the neighborhood.
    - rendang 3y ago
      There's been quite a lot of building around Northgate, Othello and Columbia City. I'm surprised there hasn't been more upzoning at Rainier Beach, though - maybe displacement concerns on the part of planners
    - andbberger 3y ago
      > I quite frankly just don’t see the value is connecting Portland and Seattle by high speed rail. Who gives a shit? Spend billions of dollars so that hundreds, perhaps even a whole thousand, of people can take a weekend trip that is slightly faster than a 3 hour drive dramatically faster. travel time between portland and seattle along a realistic route is on the order of 90m with a few stops and 60m non-stop. about as long as my commute from SF to palo alto. at those distances a high speed rail connection is transformative, it would turn portland and seattle into one large metro area. portland and seattle are ideally situated in terms of population and distance for high speed rail. but if you don't see the point in investing in high speed rail in general, I would suggest that you take a look at the latest news on the arctic sea ice and review what your state is spending on highways every year
      - forrestthewoods 3y ago
        High-speed rail isn’t really for daily commuters. Shinkansen tickets are quite expensive. We’re talking $100 each way. I don’t see trains having a huge advantage over a clean grid and EV fleet. And the latter is much easier and faster to build.
        Karrot_Kream 3y ago
        EVs still emit brake particulate matter, generate roadway noise, put pressure on roadway infrastructure (either for maintenance or expansion), and still tie up the driver's time in transit. Rail does none of those things. It's a matter of political will in the US, and most Americans tend to be fine wasting lots of time driving.
        3y ago
  - starkparker 3y ago
    The Tokyo-Nagano leg of Hokuriku Shinkansen has at least seven stops over about 140 miles of rail, an average of less than 25 miles per stop; it still makes the trip in an average of 1 hour 40 minutes vs 3 hours or more by car, and it replaced a conventional rail line that took 2 hours 50 minutes to go from Ueno (one stop closer from the Shinkansen's Tokyo station) to Nagano. Even the 320-mile Tokyo-Osaka Nozomi Shinkansen, the fastest Shinkansen train that makes the fewest stops and has the longest average distance between stops of any Shinkansen, makes at least four stops between, averages fewer than 120 miles between stops, and has two sibling lines that make more stops on the route. Portland to Seattle is 145 miles by air and 178 miles by Amtrak. Seattle to Vancouver is about 120 by air and 155 miles by Amtrak. An equivalent Portland-Vancouver Shinkansen that didn't have any stops other than Seattle would have the fewest service stops of any Shinkansen line, and the most distance between stops by at least 25 miles/stop.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  The document referenced in the link specifically advises to not set up stops between but to build transit from stops to the major stations. Spreading the density out from the major stations along the route is exactly what sprawl is. I’m not sure I understand how it can be any other way. By making the urban cores more attractive and able to access other urban cores you encourage density growth in and around that core. Encouraging growth along the corridor encourages lower density construction over more land area. That’s what sprawl is. Finally why does it not make sense to only stop in the most dense cores of the region? The whole point of high speed rail is to be high speed. Each stop slows the train. Spur transit brings people from around the region to the transit hub. Most of the economic activity happens in and around these urban cores and most transit across the corridor is between the cores. Building services to commuter communities certainly relieves density pressure on the cores, but that only really helps people who would live in the urban core but for whatever reason can’t afford or doesn’t want to live there. Their commute pattern is from their suburban sprawl commuter community to their proximate core. Spur regional transit can handle that if it’s a priority. (See seattle light rail plans)
rendang 3y ago
An advantage of building on farms or other greenfield land is that you can start off with dense, walkable planning rather than car-oriented suburban expanse.
- bluGill 3y ago
  You can, but will you? I don't think so (for reasons that are complex and thus not worth writting in a comment box)
foota 3y ago
Ok, but how about South of Olympia? :-)