Discount airlines restore my train of thought

Charlemagne’s column in the January 29 Economist reminded me of my pet (pipe dream?) public works project.  The column describes how that advent of cheap air travel in the European Union has encouraged people to travel between countries almost on whim.  The author interviewed passengers at Stansted Airport (near London) who had paid $95 or less for their tickets.  "What these airlines do is let you live in two countries at once," said a Scottish student who was going to Spain to visit her boyfriend.  On a more macro level, the author said that "The surge in British holidaymakers buying houses in France is closely linked to the rise of low-cost airlines.  And it is not just travellers who feel the benefits.  Entire regional economies have felt the impact.  The city of Carcassonne in south-west France reckons that the 235,000 passengers who arrive every year on low-cost airlines have created over $360 million of extra economic activity."

Our mental "distance map" of the places we go is based not just on physical distance but on what it costs and how long it takes to go there.  And air travel is cheap: the article mentions the amazement of some American backpackers at Stansted whose air tickets from Stansted to Barcelona were no more expensive than their train tickets from London to Stansted.

This is not to say that Portland should try to become a discount air hub and attract European tourists.  We have no Carcassonnes to offer them.  But for about $2 to $3 billion we can shrink time and cost in a different way, which is to build high-speed rail between Portland and Seattle, eventually extensible to Eugene on the south and Vancouver, BC on the north.

Rail service is slow now . . .

. . . and the Portland – Seattle run takes about 4 hours.  That’s two hours, maybe two and a half hours, too long.  The technology to build 140 mph trains and track is decades old.  A train at that speed would go between Portland and Seattle in a little over an hour.  Let’s add stops in Vancouver, Kelso, Olympia, Tacoma, and SeaTac.  Each stop adds about seven minutes to the trip (including deceleration and acceleration).  The complete run should take about 1 hour and 40 minutes with all the stops, or about 1 hour and 10 minutes nonstop.  Portland to Seattle becomes faster than Hillsboro to Gresham.

What’s the result?  It becomes practical for Seattle business to be conducted in Portland, and vice versa.  It becomes practical for people priced out of the Seattle market to work in Seattle and live somewhere else along the train route.  The Portland metro area doubles in effective size and reach.  If the train stops not just in SeaTac (the city) but at SeaTac (the airport) then Seattle’s international air connections become ours also.  And — viewed as a public works project akin to building more freeways — unemployment plummets for the 10 years or so that the project will take to build.  Lots of benefits — no drawbacks.  Let’s start.