Local Match for High Speed Rail?


Earl is suggesting that even with current funding challenges, Oregon and Washington should set aside some funds to serve as a match to get a share of the $8B in high speed rail funding in the stimulus bill.

I nominate shifting all Columbia River Crossing funding to this effort…


42 responses to “Local Match for High Speed Rail?”

  1. A critical segment of the Seattle to Portland part of the Northwest High-speed Rail Corridor is, ironically, the Columbia River Crossing.

    Freight train congestion at the Vancouver and North Portland junctions will probably require that passenger trains bypass this segment if they are to run fast and frequently between these cities.

    This bypass which would be about three-miles in length would probably have to be elevated most of its length with a new high-level bridge over the Columbia River.

  2. As ridicuous as some may think it is…we need to invest in rail…freight, passenger, and transit way more than in highways. OR and WA should look for $ now to match these initial federal High Speed Rail funds to achieve “higher speed” rail in the Eugene-Vancouver BC corridor until we figure out how or where to do the real thing.
    Start with the 1910 Columbia River railroad bridge…rebuild it with a lift span, better connections at both ends and possibly a third track. Make room for more and faster Cascadia trips, more containers to the NW’s key container port in Tacoma, and “NES” Northside Express Service from Vancouver to Portland.

  3. ValkRaider,

    The High-Speed Rail Corridor doesn’t have any vehicle traffic lanes. If your asking, “How many traffic lanes are needed on the I-5 freeway bridge in combination with HSR?” – I suspect that the current twin bridges with their six lanes are sufficient, especially if local access is provide to Hayden Island and light rail is built to Vancouver.

  4. Lenny, did you mean instead to say rebuild the bridge _without_ a lift span, or is there a reason a new bridge should include a lift span?

  5. This is one “pork barrel” project I could be more supportive of. With increased population in the Northwest sooner or later (although I certainly am not in favor of spurring it on by massive federally financed projects) plus the certainty of increasing commerce between Portland and Seattle, we would probably be faced with airport expansion, which would also cost money.

    I think a high speed rail line–from city center to city center, would be very well used. I am cautiously curious about the mag-lev train: Could a standard track be placed within the concrete, magnetized track a maglev would use–thus doubling up the use of the right-of-way? Could the components of a maglev system be mass produced sufficiently that the costs come down. What would be so expensive about concrete rails and magnets—at least if they are not way off the ground like some of the present concepts?

  6. Ron –

    In all of the examples of maglev I’ve read about, none have been constructed which are compatible in some way with conventional rail operation.

    There aren’t many commercial maglevs in the world yet, and they’ve been pretty expensive to construct. Perhaps as the technology advances, costs will come down.

    For our own region, even “medium-speed” conventional rail in the 120mph range would be a vast improvement… especially given proper schedule reliability.

    Think Portland-to-Seattle in under two hours, city-center to city-center, no security lines, room to stretch your legs and walk around.

    I think the best thing we can do in the near term is grade-separate and add trackage wherever we can, while doing so in such a way that the structures and tracks involved can support future electrification and operation of high-speed trains, while in the short term running conventional diesel equipment at higher speeds.

  7. I realize present models of maglev are expensive. I wonder why?? I will give you an example of a technology that was vastly more efficient over the previous technology at moving a given mass. The benefits far outweighed the costs–once the necessary insight of applied science had been achieved. The now-humble freight car with steel wheels on steel rails–invented I guess two hundred years ago—is still regarded as highly efficient. At least that’s what the rail companies tell us through their TV commercials.

    Dynamite would be a good example of a technology that had a massive improvement of efficiency. Radiowaves. Seatbelts. Turn signals. Lots of small things have made big improvements. So why not in the maglev technology?

    So I am wondering why a maglev track would still have to be built hell-for-stout? It’s just holding the magnets isn’t it?–the train doesn’t actually rest on it. I suppose you have to have enough strength to keep the magnets apart.

    BTW, the design I saw appeared to show the two concrete rails fairly widely spaced—and that is why I conjectured about standard gauge track inward from the concrete rails—if you could gain enough room for them.

    Just food for thought. Portland to Seattle in one hour.

  8. Ron, I agree with you on this one. We should definitely look at HSR as soon as possible.

    Even though it’s not economically realistic yet, and may not be for a few decades, or maybe a century, it still seems we should design any ground-up HSR solution to be compatible with the California HSR. Yes, they may not be connected for 50 or 100 years, but it would be a shame if our HSR network had to be fully replaced because of incompatible track types (or similar.)

    I know, people say it wouldn’t compete with flying, but it’s 635 miles (driving from San Fran’s Caltrain station to Union Station in Portland.) That’s about the same as San Francisco to San Diego, according to the trip planner at http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/map.htm .

    I’d take the train every time, even at 4 hours if it’s only $70, and I can use my cell phone and internet at the same time. As it is, last time I flew to San Francisco at 10:10 am, I had to leave at about 7:30, and got in at 1:00 pm to the city of San Francisco. With airport security, the airport delays, the time it takes to get waaaaaaaay out to the airport, etc would make me choose a downtown to downtown train for that distance.

    Maybe LA or San Diego would be pushing it from here, but Portland to San Fran could be a decent route. Especially with stops in Eugene, Salem, over through Bend, Klamath Falls, Redding, Chico, then into Sacramento. Not tomorrow, maybe not for 100 years, but we might want to keep it on the table.

    One concern though is that something like even just the PDX to Vancouver BC rail really could induce commuter growth in areas like Kelso/Longview, Chehalis/Centralia, and Olympia/Tracy. I suppose even if it did, it would be the same sadists that are willing to the drive now.

  9. Ron –

    I’m all for pushing technology to the next level, but a long-distance maglev system isn’t just pushing technology, it’s building something that’s never been built before, when other available technology can do the same job quite well.

    Given the Shanghai maglev’s cost in 2004, a Portland-to-Seattle maglev would cost somewhere between $10 and $20 billion dollars, and that’s assuming the Chinese weren’t underreporting costs. Given our (rightfully) strict environmental standards and protections of property owners, the cost could be significantly higher here.

    There are no maglev vendors or demonstration lines anywhere in the world which show compatibility with steel-railed vehicles.

    It’s just holding the magnets isn’t it?–the train doesn’t actually rest on it.

    The trains aren’t flying like an airplane. Magnetic levitation doesn’t magically remove mass. The guideway does indeed support the full weight of the train. (There is an equal and opposite force between the train and the guideway.)

    We can get sub-2hr service to Seattle in just a couple of years for 1/10th of the cost of maglev, or less.

    Once you get to reliable sub-2hr times, does getting to 1hr gain you that much more ridership compared to other modes?

    Also consider that a line would serve a corridor, making multiple stops, such as Tacoma and SeaTac. Each stop requires deceleration, dwell, and acceleration. Sub 1-hr times may not actually be possible, even with maglev, depending on which stops are served.

  10. Also consider that a line would serve a corridor, making multiple stops, such as Tacoma and SeaTac. Each stop requires deceleration, dwell, and acceleration. Sub 1-hr times may not actually be possible, even with maglev, depending on which stops are served.

    Ridership and station capacity seem to be the limiting factors for almost all modes. I’d guess we could in time add Vancouver/Seattle/Portland trains, but we’d need to start off serving everyone in between to add ridership.

    I’d hope the region could find a reasonable way to build a proper high speed network. In the long term I’d love to be able to ride one train between Seattle, Portland, San Fran, LA and San Diego.

    Maybe I’m not typical, but I go to California more than I go to Seattle. Maybe the people I know aren’t normal, but they go to San Fran more than Seattle too.

    Even if I-5 is the long-term plan for HSR, we should start planning our connection to California’s system. Maybe it would allow people who would otherwise take Greyhound to avoid a diesel-chugging bus, but is that so bad?

    I can’t imagine Portland being a day trip away from San Francisco could really hurt us, or the state as a whole. Especially if Bend, Redding, and Chico are bonus stops, and you can go from the state capitals of the three mainland Pacific states of the USA by high speed rail.

    Maybe San Diego to Seattle is better served by air, that’s fine. Why can’t Portland to San Francisco or San Jose be comparable to San Fran to San Diego? Why not connect Sacramento to Salem to Olympia? Not tomorrow, but maybe by 2100. Wouldn’t the ROW costs (and such) be cheaper if we started planning now?

  11. Bob asked why the railroad bridge should be rebuilt with a lift span. Here is why:

    The current bridge has a swing span, which has a pivot in the center, narrowing the channel on each side. It is slow to open. During a large portion of the year, barges, which would fit under the high, non-lift spans of the I-5 bridge, must, due to river currents, use the I-5 lift spans instead. A relocated lift span on the railroad would align with the high spans on the I-5 bridges, eliminating all I-5 bridge lifts due to barge traffic. This has been a proposal of the Columbia River Towboat Association since the late 1990’s.

    Why a lift? In order to clear the river without a lift, the grades would be prohibitive for freight trains, so a lift span makes economic sense, and is quicker to open, wider, and more reliable than a swing span. The railroad bridge across the Willamette had a swing span until recently, when it was replaced with a lift span.

    Passenger trains, however, can negotiate much steeper grades, so a passenger train bypass bridge for high speed rail could be built that has only fixed spans. This should be an important consideration in plans for this corridor, even if for the near future passenger trains continue to mix with freight.

  12. Thanks for the info, Bob R. It’s always good to keep an eye on the cost. I had long ago raised the possibility that even the Acela technology might have room for improvement. A city center to city center service should lure people away from the airline service. The present AMTRAK is SLOW. I used to take it—but only when necessary.

  13. All we have to do to compete with air between Seattle and Portland is get the Amtrak Cascadia trip to under 3 hours and make it reliable. This is so within reach. Talgo trains can go 120 mph…its the track top speed limit of 79 mph that is hanging things up.
    WSDOT and ODOT should come up with some match (CRC PR $, lottery funds?) to get a piece of federal High Speed corridor funds to do the necessary upgrades sooner than later between Eugene and Vancouver BC. No excuses.

  14. This is why it is so important to improve that route across the Columbia, now used by BNSF and Amtrak. I’ve seen, on this board, many individual preferences for improving transportation across the Columbia—but is there any proposal that can roll all of those ideas into one project? I think the new interstate bridge idea in the BNSF corridor would do that—not perfectly in each case, but in a treasonable approximation of what people have said they want. In politics you have to have some compromises.

    A new bridge there can: realign the commercial river traffic so that it has a safely negotiable route even with the present I-5 bridges remaining.
    It can greatly improve connections between Clark County, where many area residents prefer to live, and Washington County, where employment opportunities have been locating. It can, therefore, get a lot of traffic out of central Portland and off the I-5 route. It an save us the 20-Billion that would be required to bury I-5 under the Willamette and North Portland. And It can provide an easy link between Vancouver and their Amtrak station and the Pearl District. The local connection between Vancouver and Hayden Island is an implicit part, as well.

    I know there is a lot more that would need to be done for a Northwest HS rail system. But the public will also demand that a fix be found for present congestion on the I-5, so this other proposal would rectify that. Let’s save that $4 billion and apply it to a multimodal Interstate crossing with HS rail.

  15. What’s the point of investing in Cascadia Corridor HSR if we can’t even efficiently move people within the catchment areas of the train stations that feed the Cascadia Corridor?

    How many transit services serve the numerous train stations? Vancouver – C-Tran doesn’t even serve the Vancouver station. Oregon City? No TriMet stop nearby, the bus that comes closest doesn’t run on Sundays, is proposed to lose Saturday service, and have rush hour service hourly. It should also be noted that the service that comes closest to the station is a spur that is only served five times daily – and not on Saturdays at all. Salem? Just one route of a declining transit system. Albany? Does Albany even HAVE a transit service?

    Of course there’s that tired old argument, “We’ll just build the great wonderful light rail and Streetcars everywhere…” By the time we build that, we won’t have money for HSR.

    Job one is to get people to and from work, grocery store, banks, housing and local entertainment. Intercity transit is a luxury for the vast majority of Americans. Economically, eliminating the CRC project and dumping the money into this rail project will not benefit our region at all…except maybe turn Portland into a sprawling bedroom community to Seattle (where the jobs and industry is).

  16. I agree that it would be ideal to have excellent intracity transit to serve intercity station areas. I disagree that we oughtn’t make any improvements because we don’t currently have excellent links.

    1. Perhaps a reason many stations are underserved is because of a relative paucity of intercity services? If there were more buses and trains, there would be more reason to serve the stations. For example, Salem, Albany and Eugene Amtrak only get 2 cascades round trips, 1 coast starlight round trip, and 3 thruway round trips each day. Oregon City only gets the 2 cascades round trips.

    2. C-Tran used to run a shuttle to the Vancouver Amtrak station. I suspect this was cut along with many of their services when I-695 came along. Their current route 3 runs 2 blocks away. It could be better.

    3. I’m not sure what you mean about Cherriots “declining.” They’ve had to cut service because their property tax revenue isn’t keeping up with costs, but it isn’t dissimilar to the budget picture in most places nowadays. It is a healthy 10-15 minute walk from the station to Courthouse Square, where one can catch pretty much any route (if they are running that day). There are multiple routes that run on streets closer to the station. It could be better.

    4. Albany has a transit system. http://www.cityofalbany.net/publicworks/ats/ The central transfer point is a lovely multimodal facility which is also the Amtrak station. There is also a connection to the Linn-Benton Loop which runs to Corvallis. It could be better.

    5. TriMet does a poor job of serving the Oregon City station, but as only 2 cascades round trips a day stop there, it isn’t exactly a prime destination most of the time. It could be much better.

    6. Eugene is served by the Breeze circulator a half block from the Amtrak station. LTD’s Eugene Station, with connections to most routes, including EmX, is five blocks down Willamette Street. It could be better.

    In conclusion:
    -I don’t think the situation is as dire as you painted it.
    -Sparse intercity service doesn’t demand high levels of transit service. Additional intercity service could spur additional intracity service.
    -It could all be better.

  17. Amtrak shouldn’t be stopping at Oregon City; that was a political gesture.

    Now, a WES-style commuter system running on the UP line (I know, I know, UP and the other freight mainlines just HATE passenger services on their tracks) would benefit from an Oregon City stop–were such a thing to run at WES frequencies and serve additional Portland communities (Milwaukie, Clackamas, Canby) along the line–that might be something for transit to connect with. But having the Cascades stop in Oregon City is a big joke; the Amtrak station in Chemult sees more (dis)boardings than does the OC station.

  18. ODOT should be looking to double track the UP line to Eugene in exchange for more passenger trains, both Cascadia and commuter rail.
    WSDOT is proposing $600M worth of improvements between Vancouver and Bellingham, including 3 new train sets. What is ODOT doing?

  19. Here’s an interesting idea, concerning the notion of double-tracking the UP line to Eugene.

    Right now, geography makes that rather difficult in the Oregon City-Canby stretch, as the UP line (and OR-99#) is sandwiched in between the Willamette River and an overlooking cliff. ODOT recently has REDUCED the number of through lanes on 99E through that stretch in order to add turn lanes and such–there simply isn’t any room to add more pavement. I doubt there’s room to add rails, either; at least not without some expensive earthmoving.

    The alternate rail route between Salem and the Portland area is the old Oregon Electric/BN line, currently used by the P&W/W&P, that runs west of I-5. Reportedly, this line is in bad shape south of Wilsonville; from Wilsonville to Beaverton it was upgraded to permit WES operation.

    An obvious idea might be to upgrade the line between Wilsonville and Kaizer/Salem.

    A better idea might be to construct a new branch, roughly parallel to OR551 (the Wilsonville/Hubbard Highway), which connects the Wilsonville line to the UP mainline, possibly includiny a wye north of Hubbard. And then double-tracking the UP line south of there. An alternate route for such a branch would be to head east from Wilsonville along Arndt road, connecting to the UP south of Canby.

  20. What is ODOT doing? I don’t see much in the way of investments in rail for speeding up our commuter rail in the Valley or for getting Oregon closer to HSR in the Valley. It’s Road’s, Road’s, Road’s, at ODOT. Makes their jobs simple.

    It takes us decades to get anything done in Oregon when it comes to new infrastructure that is outside the box (Road’s, ….).

    I would ask ODOT just how many people are employed for working on planning/designing/implementing improvements to our rail systems. I just don’t understand the issue. Are the UP and BN’s of the world in control of the switches in Salem and don’t want the boat to rock?

    This is Oregon right? We are suppose to be so advanced when it comes to moving away for our current Carbon Based Transportation Structure but the State of Oregon is truly not interested in going there.

    Ray Whitford

  21. a new branch, roughly parallel to OR551

    I believe Erik Halstead has been arguing for this for a WES extension since there’s a lot less development along the westside line.

  22. I would ask ODOT just how many people are employed for working on planning/designing/implementing improvements to our rail systems.

    http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/RAIL/contact_us_directory.shtml

    My understanding is that *one* person at ODOT deals with passenger rail. Most of the 24 people in the rail division deal with regulating crossings, etc. Understand that the rail division is miniscule in the overall ODOT structure of over 3000 employees.

    a new branch, roughly parallel to OR551

    Frankly this only makes sense if you need to connect the westside to Woodburn. If Woodburn needs to connect to the metro area (in general) or Salem, the UP makes more sense. If the westside needs to get to Salem, I can’t help but believe that upgrading the existing rails is an order of magnitude cheaper and easier than a new alignment, requiring an EIS process, obtaining right of way, and building an entirely new grade, complete with a new bridge over I-5 and perhaps other necessary grade separated crossings.

    However I hope that if HB 2408 passes, the task force will look at the range of alternatives available to get between the metro area and Salem, and not limit themselves to the P&W alignment.

  23. One problem with the existing rails is that they may or may not work depending on where you want to get in Salem. IIRC, the P&W alignment doesn’t connect easily to the Amtrak station (you can get there, but with a switchback or two). Probably not a big deal.

  24. one advantage to WES linking up to the UP line is that it can share the Salem Amtrak station instead of having a seperate Salem station just for WES by riverfront park. the better woodburn station location is on the UP line than the OE/BN line.

    i wish ODOT rail would at least now just focus on improving the tracks from the columbia river to union station, its only 5-10 miles at most. WSDOT is doing all the heavy lifting since they are covering 95+% of the Portland-Seattle route which is obviously the key part of the Cascades route.

  25. Lurker B. wrote: Frankly this only makes sense if you need to connect the westside to Woodburn. If Woodburn needs to connect to the metro area (in general) or Salem, the UP makes more sense. If the westside needs to get to Salem, I can’t help but believe that upgrading the existing rails is an order of magnitude cheaper and easier than a new alignment, requiring an EIS process, obtaining right of way, and building an entirely new grade, complete with a new bridge over I-5 and perhaps other necessary grade separated crossings.

    If I were in charge, I’d actually create a “Y” shaped system, with the new line between Wilsonville and Hubbard (following the Highway 551/former 217 right-of-way) and with the new bridge over I-5 (less than one mile).

    Traffic counts show that most folks who commute from the south do take I-5 into Beaverton, so having a line from Woodburn to Wilsonville makes sense. But a significant portion still head to the metro, as well as non-commuters. Thus service would be retained from Woodburn to Canby, Oregon City, and Portland.

    One of the big problems is (railroad) traffic congestion from Willsburg Junction to Vancouver…so getting commuter rail from Wilsonville over to the UP main and south to Portland is probably easier to accomplish.

    Using the P&W line into Salem has so many flaws that I can’t see how it can be seriously considered. The ONLY benefit is that the line is already owned by ODOT (only to north of Keizer) and doesn’t involve the UP. But beyond that sole benefit you are simply inducing sprawl in Woodburn as Jon pointed out, bypassing multiple other communities along the UP (in favor of what, Donald?!!), requiring upgrading a line that is barely suitable for freight traffic, and dealing with a horrible route into Salem to a location where a new train station and layover yard would be required taking up valuable real estate right where real estate is hard to find.

    Looking over at the UP, once you hit Salem’s Amtrak station just a few blocks to the south is UP’s switching yard which has some excess space on the east side of the yard which could accommodate a few parked passenger trains; plus the old cannery complex just east of the yard that could be razed and a maintenance facility built there along with compatible light industrial pads to use the rest of the land.

  26. Lurker B. wrote: 1. Perhaps a reason many stations are underserved is because of a relative paucity of intercity services?

    It still leaves the impression of bad service. If someone is planning a trip to/from a destination and finds only two or three transit schedules to a given point instead of flexible (i.e. every 15/30 minute) schedules, it does not encourage ridership.

    2. C-Tran used to run a shuttle to the Vancouver Amtrak station.

    My point exactly. (How many Amtrak passengers know that C-Tran will pay for a taxi fare to downtown? Is there a big huge C-Tran sign that says so?)

    3. I’m not sure what you mean about Cherriots “declining.”

    Because they have continually cut service over and over again? (The repetitive nature of that comment is intentional.)

    4. Albany has a transit system. http://www.cityofalbany.net/publicworks/ats/

    Let’s take a look at the Albany Transit System bus map and schedule:

    Route 1, Morning Express, has two trips, one that runs 6:30 AM-7:30 AM (starting/ending at the station) and one from 7:30-8:30 AM.

    Route 2, Mid-Day service serving areas east of the Station, operates between 9:00 AM with last arrival at the station at 4:00 PM

    Route 3, Mid-Day service serving areas west of the Station and North Albany, operates between 9:00 AM with last arrival at the station at 4:00 PM

    Route 4, Afternoon, makes a full-city loop beginning at 4:00 PM at the station, serves the east part of Albany, returns to the station at 5:00 PM, then runs the north/west portion making a final return at 6:00 PM and ceases service.

    These buses run Monday-Fridays only with no Saturday/Sunday/Holiday service.

    Now, let’s look at the Amtrak schedule for Albany:

    Southbound Service:

    1:10 PM (bus), 4:10 PM (Coast Starlight) – are served by ATS.

    5:05 PM (bus), 7:20 PM (bus), 7:51 PM (train 507), 9:05 PM (bus) and 10:46 PM (train 509) are all without connecting transit service.

    Northbound Service:

    9:43 (Train 504), 12:30 PM (bus), 1:30 PM (Coast Starlight), 2:05 PM (bus), 3:40 PM (Train 508), are served by ATS.

    6:13 AM (Train 500), the most popular train and the one that provides morning service to Portland, is not served by ATS.

    So, for someone to travel from Albany to Portland and return, it’s pretty darn difficult to do a round-trip in one day and be able to use Albany’s transit system. Fortunately there is abundant free parking.

    5. TriMet does a poor job of serving the Oregon City station, but as only 2 cascades round trips a day stop there, it isn’t exactly a prime destination most of the time.

    What about that really big museum across the street? (I know, it’s going to close, but TriMet didn’t directly serve the museum when it was open.)

    -Sparse intercity service doesn’t demand high levels of transit service. Additional intercity service could spur additional intracity service.

    No, but if a train shows up, there NEEDS to be transit waiting to go. Look at Wilsonville – they completely redesigned their service so that when WES arrives, the buses are ready. When the buses drop you off, it’s a very short wait for a WES train.

    The same is true for Amtrak Cascades at Olympia/Lacey – every time I’m on the train at the station, there’s a waiting Intercity Transit bus just 50 feet away from the train. When I go to Seattle, I simply use an elevator, cross a bridge, and there’s a major transit stop right on Jackson. Walk just one more block and I’m at the International District Tunnel stop. If I turn and go the other way, there’s another major transit stop and the Waterfront “Streetcar”. In Los Angeles, there is a major transit plaza right at Union Station (the only complaint is that it’s on the opposite side of the tracks from Union Station…but I’m assuming most folks who use transit don’t need Union Station.)

  27. the P&W alignment doesn’t connect easily to the Amtrak station

    Especially after looking at aerial photos of the area (P&W track is on the left, UP on the right), I think its correct that it’s “not a big deal” to connect the P&W line to the UP in North Salem (and one does actually exist, but goes SW-NE). It would be like the connection to Beaverton Transit Center, except much simpler since it wouldn’t be in a street right-of-way. Overall, it means that the Wilsonvile-North Salem segment can be thought of separately from the routing within Salem.

  28. Jason – you’re right, except you still have the problem of bypassing Woodburn by running on the P&W to North Salem and building a new connector next to I-5.

    Since many in Portland equate rail with “solid land use planning”, forcing Woodburn to sprawl out west to the P&W tracks to engage in transit oriented development next to a commuter rail station would throw that concept out the window, and prove that rail does create sprawl. Especially when the UP mainline runs right through downtown Woodburn; and in the future the branchline to Mount Angel and Silverton could be used as a feeder line connecting to Woodburn (which would not be possible by using the P&W line).

  29. In Los Angeles, there is a major transit plaza right at Union Station (the only complaint is that it’s on the opposite side of the tracks from Union Station…but I’m assuming most folks who use transit don’t need Union Station.)

    You’d likely be surprised. They have about 1.5 million Amtrak customers per year. Between MetroLink, Metro Rail, and Amtrak it’s a very busy station.

  30. If I were in charge, I’d actually create a “Y” shaped system,

    Right, I would just put the middle of the “Y” in North Salem rather than Hubbard. A connection in North Salem (near Hyacinth, perhaps) would avoid the curves on the P&W track closer in to Salem, and let you use the current Salem station. It would also let you put a station in Keizer. The UP misses Keizer.

    forcing Woodburn to sprawl out west to the P&W tracks to engage in transit oriented development next to a commuter rail station

    So… don’t put a station there. Put Woodburn’s station downtown on the UP line. For all the Woodburnites (Woodburners? Woodburnians?) needing to get to the westside, it makes a lot more sense to use a bus (!!) to connect to Wilsonville. They could still take a train on the UP to get to Salem or the metro area.

    Our disagreement can’t reasonably be resolved without a study of the various options, which hopefully will come to pass with HB 2408. Going back and forth about it on the blog accomplishes little.

    . . .

    Look at Wilsonville – they completely redesigned their service so that when WES arrives, the buses are ready. When the buses drop you off, it’s a very short wait for a WES train

    My point exactly- when you have sixteen rail round trips a day, it makes sense to make sure the station is served well. Not so much if there are two or three trains. More trains = better transit service. Putting transit where none is yet warranted is a waste.

  31. Even if there was a P&W station in Woodburn, that doesn’t mean there would NEED to be sprawl around it. The Woodburn Transit Bus (it appears their transit system is a single bus) makes an hourly loop around Woodburn.

    If there was a rail station, say where the P&W line crosses Hwy 214, it wouldn’t be that tough to redesign the bus loop to stop at the train station as well. It wouldn’t be that far out of the way; the current bus route comes within about a half mile of the hypothetical station already. Put a small park & ride near the station platform and it’s done. No “sprawl” needed.

  32. Lurker B. wrote: Right, I would just put the middle of the “Y” in North Salem rather than Hubbard. A connection in North Salem (near Hyacinth, perhaps) would avoid the curves on the P&W track closer in to Salem, and let you use the current Salem station. It would also let you put a station in Keizer. The UP misses Keizer.

    The P&W doesn’t exactly serve Keizer either, it serves the eastern city limit. The UP is just on the other side of the freeway. Chemawa would make an excellent location for a North Salem/Keizer rail station/transit center. (The area to the north of Chemawa is protected from sprawl because it’s the Lake Labish wetlands, and the Chemawa area is owned by the federal government…)

    So… don’t put a station there. Put Woodburn’s station downtown on the UP line. For all the Woodburnites (Woodburners? Woodburnians?) needing to get to the westside, it makes a lot more sense to use a bus (!!)

    How does it make more sense to use a bus when a rail option exists? (Right now it makes more sense to blanket the entire Willamette Valley with intercity bus service – it could be accomplished at a tiny fraction of the cost of JUST the railcars for a rail system, and provide far greater service). The “Y” is easily accomplished from Hubbard – yes, a little more money, but since when did “a little more money” stop any rail project (i.e. Streetcar, WES, MAX)?

    Even if there was a P&W station in Woodburn, that doesn’t mean there would NEED to be sprawl around it.

    That goes right back to “transit where transit isn’t warranted is a waste”. Then what would be the point of a transit station way out in Timbuktu off of Highway 219 (not 214 – 214 ends at I-5)?

    The idea of building a parking lot next to the platform…so we are encouraging more single-occupant vehicle trips to Timbuktu just to ride the train? Why? Yes, the Woodburn Transit bus could be rerouted, but again why?

    If the idea of building rail transit in Oregon is partially development based, then either the reality is that building a station in West Woodburn is either undesirable (because of a lack of development) or will encourage and create sprawl on top of productive farmland. For this reason alone, it makes far greater sense to keep a potential commuter rail line on the UP serving downtown Woodburn (where dense development is possible), and build a new line along the Highway 551 right-of-way, up and over I-5 (yes, it’ll cost a little more) to take advantage of the ability to encourage ridership where people live, work and play, and encourage dense redevelopment in existing cities rather than to provide transit to out-of-the-way locations.

    And if anyone wants to learn about rail-based sprawl, read the history about the Oregon & California Railroad in Salem.

  33. more single-occupant vehicle trips to Timbuktu

    “Timbuktu” = 2 mile drive. Maybe ten minutes if traffic is bad.

    The major question is: what’s the best route from Portland to Salem. Woodburn is just a stop along the way that may or may not generate significant ridership. If the P&W line is the best Salem-Portland option, then it costs very little to put a station near Woodburn, even if it’s a half mile outside city limits.

    Maybe the UP main line works better, but basing the “which line to use” decision around the Woodburn station would be letting the tail wag the dog.

  34. That was an excellent post, Erik. We really need to be careful of which railroad alignments are used for the eventual Salem commuter rail line.

    The Oregon City/Canby/Woodburn/etc/Salem line seems to offer many more accessible station stops than the other line, which seems to miss most of the population in that corridor.

    It would seem to offer better possibilities to link in with the existing transit networks like SMART, CART, Cherriots, etc…

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