Cascadia High-Speed Rail

Alignment

Cascadia High-Speed Rail would connect Vancouver, British Columbia, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon, on new dedicated tracks, with a target top speed above 160 mph. It would complement Amtrak Cascades, which shares freight tracks and has limited capacity, by making fewer stops at much higher speeds. The Vancouver–Portland corridor is about 315 miles, 277 of them in Washington, which is why WSDOT leads the planning. WSDOT’s 2019 business case assumed about 220 mph, trips of under an hour between the major cities, 21 to 30 daily round trips, and 1.7 to 3.1 million riders a year at opening. No route or station sites have been chosen. Ideas discussed for the Canadian end include downtown Vancouver, Surrey City Centre, and Vancouver International Airport, and Sea-Tac Airport has come up on the U.S. side. The line on this map is only an indicative trace along the I-5 corridor through the three cities, not a proposed alignment.

WSDOT is now preparing a service development plan under the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development (Corridor ID) program. Work began in January 2025 and is due in 2028. It will identify and narrow potential routes and service options, and set out financing and governance options, but will not pick a preferred route or station locations; those, along with environmental reviews in both countries, would come in later phases that are not yet funded. The Oregon Department of Transportation, Oregon Metro, and the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Transit are partners in the plan. WSDOT now runs the project together with its I-5 Master Plan as the Cascadia Program, led by program administrator Ben Tripousis.

Updates

2026-11 — Public survey closes as route work begins

WSDOT’s online survey on high-speed rail and the I-5 Master Plan ran from October 5 to November 13, 2026. WSDOT said the first year of the service development plan would identify “potentially feasible” route options, to be refined in the second year. The 2017 cost estimate of $24–42 billion predates recent construction cost increases.

2026-10 — WSDOT presents its combined Cascadia Program

WSDOT presented high-speed rail and the I-5 Master Plan together as its Cascadia Program, noting that the megaregion is expected to add 3.4 million people by 2050. Tripousis told OPB that funding is the biggest obstacle to building the line, and declined to give a cost or completion date because early numbers “get set in stone.”

2026-03 — Updated market analysis published

WSDOT published an updated executive summary of its 2025 market analysis. It forecasts that 80% of I-5 in Washington will be at medium or high congestion by 2050, up from 59% today, and that intercity rail and air travel have limited room to grow.

2025-10 — B.C., Washington, and Oregon reaffirm cooperation

At the Cascadia Innovation Corridor conference in Seattle on October 29, B.C. Premier David Eby, Washington Governor Bob Ferguson, and Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed a Memorandum of Reaffirmation that lists connectivity, including high-speed rail, among its priorities. Ferguson said he was skeptical of new revenue for now, and former B.C. transportation minister Rob Fleming said Canada’s priorities had shifted toward new trade markets amid U.S. tariffs.

2025-04 — Legislature funds the program for 2025–27

The 2025–27 state transportation budget (ESSB 5161) included $7.5 million from the Climate Commitment Act for the high-speed rail program. In June 2025 WSDOT sent the Legislature a project status report, and in August it launched a public engagement website.

2024-12 — $49.7 million federal grant awarded

The FRA awarded WSDOT $49.7 million under Step 2 of the Corridor ID program to prepare the service development plan. The Legislature provided a $5.5 million state match from the Climate Commitment Act in 2024, bringing the planning budget to $55.7 million including the earlier Step 1 grant.

2023-12 — Corridor accepted into federal pipeline

The FRA accepted the Cascadia corridor into the Corridor ID program with $500,000 for initial scoping. Corridor ID is a development pipeline, so the project can advance to later phases without competing again if it meets the program’s requirements.

2016–2020 — Early studies

Washington Governor Jay Inslee and B.C. Premier Christy Clark agreed in 2016 to explore a high-speed system. WSDOT followed with a feasibility study in 2017, which estimated a cost of $24–42 billion, a business case in 2019, and a framework for governance in 2020.