OLYMPIA — The Space Race, Star Trek and the TV cartoon, The Jetsons, stoked imaginations about the future of transportation and that imagination exists today as technological advancements from automated vehicles to fusion power tease us with generational breakthroughs for mobility.
One of those enticing transportation modes is high speed rail. The Washington State Department of Transportation is asking for public input on a possible HSR line through the I-5 corridor between British Columbia and Portland, Oregon.
WSDOT is currently conducting two projects that intersect at the junction of future travel, the I-5 Master Plan and Cascadia High-Speed Rail.
The I-5 Master Plan, WSDOT says, will create a long-term roadmap for addressing current and future I-5 needs in Washington. The Master Plan is not a single construction project, according to the WSDOT website, it is a broad plan to help direct transportation investments through 2050.
This work includes projects that focus on making I-5 in Washington state safer and more reliable, while exploring how high-speed rail could transform regional connections.
As part of that planning effort, WSDOT is seeking public input on the future of a Western Washington HSR corridor that would ostensibly shadow I-5 from BC to PDX. WSDOT says public participation and opinion is vital to understand what matters to Washingtonians for identifying future transportation projects.
The brief survey, linked here, asks a variety of questions with options for written comments to better explain your position on HSR. The last day to complete the survey is November 13. WSDOT’s info page on HSR is linked here.
A month ago, the EverettPost.com interviewed Everett City Councilman, Ben Zarlingo, to get his insight on WSDOT’s current $150 million study of HSR and what that could look like for the greater Everett area of Snohomish County.
Talk of HSR in the U.S. dates back to the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965. Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, this act marked the federal government’s first formal commitment to high-speed rail, inspired by Japan’s launch of the Shinkansen bullet train in 1964.
The Metroliner Service in 1969, operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad (and later Amtrak) between New York City and Washington, D.C., made the U.S. one of the earliest adopters of high-speed rail. However, ageing track infrastructure and tight schedules capped practical speeds well below design goals.
Amtrak, created by Congress in 1971 to take over struggling intercity passenger rail services from private freight railroads, inherited a degraded network when it started. In 2000, Amtrak launched Acela Express, capable of reaching up to 150 mph on upgraded stretches of the Northeast Corridor, remaining the premier HSR service in the country. During the last 15 years, Acela ridership between NY and DC, primarily, has averaged about 3.3 million riders a year, give-or-take, but has not developed any type of year-over-year growth since its inception.
Early private and state-backed ventures—such as Ohio’s 1982 tax proposal, the American High-Speed Rail Corporation in California was first proposed in 1979 and Florida high-speed rail—initially approved by voters in 2000, revived with federal funds in 2009, and officially canceled in February 2011—was never built by the state. Both collapsed due to high costs and change in public opinion when budget shortfalls emerged.
In 2009, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act injected $8 billion into high-speed and intercity passenger rail, reviving regional projects like 110-mph services in the Midwest (such as Illinois routes). In 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) poured an additional $36 billion into federal-state partnership (FSP) grants and launched the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development program to build out a pipeline of national routes.
Those two funding measures supported the California High-Speed Rail Authority, under construction in the Central Valley, aiming to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco with speeds up to 220 mph. The rail system was initially estimated to cost $33 billion and connect San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2020. Nearly two decades later, no rail cars are running, and no tracks have been laid, according to KCRA News and the current estimated cost of the HSR project is between $126 billion – $236 billion.
Brightline West is a private 200-mph electric high-speed rail project under construction linking Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, California. Brightline has begun core drilling work in preparation of the coming construction, but has also failed to lay any track so far in various locations on Interstate 15.
As technologies race ahead to improve transportation options, Everett has emerged as a home to several companies pushing the technological edge of the envelope that could transform the future of transportation.
ZeroAvia and magniX both call Everett home. .ZeroAvia develops and builds hydrogen-electric powertrains, fuel cell systems, electric propulsion components and hydrogen refuelling solutions.
magniX specializes in aerospace-grade electric propulsion units (EPUs) and high-density battery systems that power multiple test airframes and commercial seaplane operators.
A California-based company, Heart Aviation, has been test flying a hybrid-battery powered plane that could serve regional hubs like Seattle to Portland or Seattle to Spokane.
Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) have crossed the boundary from experimental testing into intense commercial monetization. In the consumer vehicle sector, Level 2 “Supervised” and Level 3 autonomous highway pilots are expanding, driven by automakers like Tesla (FSD v14), Mercedes-Benz (DRIVE PILOT), and GM (Super Cruise). However, the real industry disruption is happening in true Level 4 driverless fleets.
Amazon’s Zoox was founded in 2014 and designed the world’s first robotaxi, with features that echo a sci-fi Hollywood movie: fully autonomous, all-electric, bidirectional, and intentionally engineered around the rider experience. Since the very beginning, Zoox focused on delivering safe and enjoyable mobility, deploying a bidirectional electric “pod” with inward-facing seats and zero steering or pedal controls, presenting a distinct vision from conventional, retrofitted consumer sedans.
While battery-electric and hydrogen solutions dominate consumer-facing road and air travel, nuclear power is seeing a quiet renaissance aimed at military applications and grid infrastructure required to produce green fuels. Helion and Zap Energy, both HQ’d in Everett are at the vanguard of nuclear power production that would ostensibly propel AI projects that could accelerate future transportation methods.
True direct onboard nuclear propulsion remains heavily restricted to military naval vessels and conceptual space applications due to catastrophic safety risks, heavy radiation shielding requirements, and strict regulatory oversight.
Micro-reactors and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are being actively pursued by technology firms to provide off-grid, high-output energy fields. These reactors are uniquely positioned to power high-temperature electrolysis plants, solving the massive capital expense and carbon problems historically associated with manufacturing green hydrogen for aviation.