Photo: pixabay The province is raising $300,000 to advance the next phase of a proposed high-speed rail line that would connect Vancouver to Seattle and Portland. The move comes as business leaders across the Cascadia region meet at the Cascadia Innovation Corridor (CIC) conference in Blaine, Wash. The funding will go toward the next phase of the rail line’s feasibility study, which is being led by the Washington State Department of Transportation. The study aims to break down future funding requirements, develop a public engagement strategy, how to integrate the proposed rail line with regional transportation and develop plans for environmental review processes. The amount of $300,000 from the B.C. it comes after Washington state lawmakers appropriated $150 million in March to help develop the high-speed rail line. Meanwhile, Washington is contributing US$4 million to this next phase of the province-backed study. “We have to recognize the fact that a project of this magnitude will not happen without public-private partnerships. Any side that takes sole responsibility is going to fail,” Mark L. Riker, executive secretary of the Washington, D.C. Commercial Building and Construction Council, said Monday during a panel at the CIC conference. A CIC-commissioned report released on Monday urges stakeholders across the region to support the high-speed rail initiative. “Increased economic activity, job creation and greenhouse gas reductions are some of the many benefits of a high-speed rail link across the Pacific Northwest,” said Rick Glumac, BC Premier’s Liaison to Washington State . Earlier phases of the high-speed rail study estimated the project would facilitate between 1.7 and 3.1 million single-track trips annually by 2040, with the Vancouver to Seattle route accounting for between 425,000 and 775,000 of those trips (about 25 percent one hundred). The rail line also has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to six million tonnes in its first 40 years of operation, according to estimates. The project is currently estimated to cost $42 billion, although earlier phases of the study concluded that revenues would cover those costs by 2055.
