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State transportation officials outline Cascadia high-speed rail work and joint I‑5 master plan
Summary
WSDOT and federal partners are advancing a service development plan for Cascadia high‑speed rail while coordinating it with an I‑5 master plan; state officials described grant awards, matching funds and a four‑year development window but said major design, environmental review and cost questions remain.
Ron Pate, acting assistant secretary for Urban Mobility Access and Mega Programs at the Washington State Department of Transportation, briefed the Senate Transportation Committee on Feb. 13 on the agency’s combined work on the Cascadia high‑speed rail program and the I‑5 master plan.
Pate said the agency consolidated the two efforts after legislative direction to “move those programs together” and told senators the combined approach is intended to surface tradeoffs among freight, intercity passenger rail, highway needs and other multimodal systems. “It’s one of those programs that we feel is really important to talk about together,” Pate said.
The update put several concrete items on the table: Washington was accepted into the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development (CID) program and in December was awarded…
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