Progress Illinois

Last week, we flagged a nonsensical Daily Herald editorial questioning Gov. Pat Quinn and Sen. Dick Durbin's attempt to secure stimulus money set aside for high-speed rail (HSR). We initially pointed out that the $8 billion in stimulus funds earmarked for HSR would be divvied up elsewhere regardless of whether Illinois tried to get a piece of the pie to improve travel along the Lincoln Line, which stretches from Chicago to St. Louis.

But the editorial board also had this to say about the idea of constructing a comprehensive rail network incrementally:

[A]n expensive proposal that would trim the travel time of just one stretch of rail from five and a half hours to four hours seems hardly to suggest the start of a well-planned rail network.

This is an odd critique; all large projects have to begin somewhere, especially when the necessary investments have been absent for decades. And incremental advances made on a similar West Coast rail line disprove the Herald board’s reasoning.

The Cascade Corridor Amtrak line -- connecting Vancouver and Eugene, Oregon via Portland and Seattle -- serves a region home to seven million people. And since the 1990s, All Aboard Washington’s Michael Skehan writes, Washington and Oregon’s respective transportation departments have cooperated to study, define, and build HSR along the corridor, even as federal funding dried up. Instead of building a vastly more expensive, technologically advanced bullet system with its own right-of-way, they used state funds to improve the existing infrastructure. Their work has paid off:

The results since service began in 1999 has been impressive, to say the least. Seattle to Portland travelers choose rail over planes by more than two to one. Ridership in the corridor continues to grow at double-digit rates. Fuel economy of the train, per passenger mile are double that of cars or planes. CO2 emissions on our trains are less than half of either cars or planes.

What’s more, officials estimate than when completed, the system would require no taxpayer support.

That being said, they still have a ways to go. Despite purchasing trains that can travel in excess of 110 mph, their average speed is 70 miles per hour due to "needed safety improvements mandated by the federal government." This explains why Oregon and Washington are also vying for a slice of the stimulus money to pave the way for faster travel times.

The Cascade Corridor’s gradual success under less-than-optimal circumstances proves there is value in bolstering existing routes, especially between two cities in close proximity. It also calls into question the wisdom of lawmakers and policy analysts unwilling to push for safer and faster transit options.