Governor Inslee + Premier Horgan push back against Tim Eyman, call for high speed rail

This week, Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee is host­ing British Colum­bia Pre­mier John Hor­gan, the leader of the Ever­green State’s north­ern neigh­bor, as part of an effort to strength­en cross-bor­der ties in this great green region we call Cascadia.

Hor­gan and Inslee par­tic­i­pat­ed in sev­er­al events yes­ter­day in Seat­tle and sev­er­al more events are planned for today at the Capi­tol in Olympia, includ­ing a spe­cial address by Hor­gan to a joint ses­sion of the Wash­ing­ton State Legislature.

This is not the first meet­ing between the two men. They have become good friends since Hor­gan’s ascen­sion to the pre­mier­ship in British Colum­bia.

One of the cross-bor­der ini­tia­tives the two lead­ers are very pas­sion­ate about is cre­at­ing a high speed rail link between Van­cou­ver, British Colum­bia and Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton, with mul­ti­ple dai­ly roundtrips. A new high speed train would offer faster and more fre­quent ser­vice than Amtrak Cas­cades does today.

While our team at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute strong­ly sup­ports Hor­gan and Inslee’s vision of a high speed rail net­work for Cas­ca­dia, we want every­one to know we are in dan­ger of los­ing our exist­ing Amtrak Cas­cades ser­vice next year if we don’t stop Tim Eyman’s lat­est incred­i­bly destruc­tive ini­tia­tive, I‑976.

Many peo­ple don’t know that Amtrak Cas­cades is actu­al­ly a ser­vice of the States of Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon. The line is oper­at­ed by Amtrak, but most of the fund­ing for it comes from the state lev­el. WSDOT’s rail pro­grams, which include Amtrak Cas­cades, get their fund­ing from what is known as the Mul­ti­modal Account.

I‑976 would elim­i­nate the prin­ci­pal rev­enue sources for the Mul­ti­modal Account.

With I‑976 des­tined to appear before Wash­ing­ton vot­ers this autumn, I asked Inslee and Hor­gan to com­ment on the prospect of Amtrak Cas­cades ser­vice between Seat­tle and Van­cou­ver being elim­i­nat­ed at their media avail­abil­i­ty today in Seat­tle. Below is a tran­script of my ques­tion and their answers.

NPI’s ANDREW VILLENEUVE: A ques­tion for both of you. Anti-tax activist Tim Eyman has pro­posed a statewide ini­tia­tive that would elim­i­nate most of the fund­ing Wash­ing­ton tax­pay­ers pro­vide to oper­ate Amtrak Cas­cades. Vot­ers will vote on it this fall. Gov­er­nor Inslee, what is your posi­tion on this ini­tia­tive? And Pre­mier Hor­gan, what is the impact to our cross bor­der rela­tion­ship if the Amtrak Cas­cades rail link between Seat­tle and Van­cou­ver goes away? 

Thank you.

GOVERNOR INSLEE: Well, you had me when you said Tim Eyman, so you don’t have to go a lot fur­ther. We need rail trans­port, and we’re going to con­tin­ue our sup­port in that regard.

PREMIER HORGAN: And from our per­spec­tive… Gov­er­nor Inslee invit­ed me to join with the High Speed Cor­ri­dor ini­tia­tive that he has under­tak­en. We con­tributed, last year, $300,000 to the first phase of the study. We’re here today to announce an addi­tion­al $300,000 towards the study to make con­nec­tiv­i­ty between our two juris­dic­tions a tan­gi­ble, real thing. We envi­sion high speed rail com­ing from Seat­tle into the Low­er Main­land with a ter­mi­nus in Sur­rey, the fastest grow­ing com­mu­ni­ty in the Low­er Main­land, which would con­nect to our Sky­Train and oth­er pub­lic infra­struc­ture to get to our air­port, to get to Down­town Van­cou­ver, and out to the [Fras­er Riv­er] Valley.

Quite the con­trary to say­ing no to more con­nec­tions through rail… we want to see bet­ter and faster con­nec­tions through rail!

GOVERNOR INSLEE: So, our pre­lim­i­nary review has shown this could gen­er­ate 1.8 mil­lion rid­ers in the first few years. So we are mov­ing to the next step, which today is to look at a gov­er­nance struc­ture for a poten­tial rail line. And in my bud­get, I’ve put in over three mil­lion dol­lars to estab­lish a poten­tial gov­er­nance structure.

We’re con­fi­dent that this is… we’re opti­mistic enough that [we’re] jus­ti­fied [in] tak­ing this next step. And that’s based on optimism.

It’s based on an opti­mistic vision of the growth we’re going to have in British Colum­bia and Wash­ing­ton because we are a world-class com­mu­ni­ty across that bor­der. We have world-class growth. We have a hun­dred thou­sand-plus mov­ing here every year or two.

And we have to have more dense and suc­cess­ful trans­porta­tion cor­ri­dors. And if you’ve trav­eled the world, and looked at what high speed rail can do in these [kind of] cor­ri­dors, you will say, our peo­ple deserve this. Our peo­ple who are world class inno­va­tors, world-class inven­tors, world class inven­tors, world class cos­mopoli­tans, [liv­ing in places] that the world is com­ing to… we deserve high-speed rail in my view, and I’m glad we’re pur­su­ing this option.

This is what real lead­er­ship looks and sounds like.

Rather than sim­ply play­ing defense against road war­riors like Tim Eyman, Gov­er­nor Inslee is going on offense in part­ner­ship with Pre­mier Hor­gan, propos­ing bet­ter and faster rail ser­vice across the Unit­ed States-Cana­da bor­der at the Peace Arch.

As Gov­er­nor Inslee said, we need rail trans­port. Today, Amtrak Cas­cades pro­vides our only inter­na­tion­al rail link to Van­cou­ver, British Colum­bia. It’s a valu­able ser­vice and one we don’t want to lose as we pur­sue devel­op­ment of a high speed rail line.

It is essen­tial that we pro­tect Amtrak Cas­cades, Sound Tran­sit’s ST3 sys­tem expan­sion, King Coun­ty Metro ser­vice hours, fer­ry ser­vice, and trans­porta­tion invest­ments across our state from Tim Eyman’s self-serv­ing demo­li­tion derby.

Please join NPI in tak­ing a posi­tion against I‑976, either as an indi­vid­ual or on behalf an orga­ni­za­tion that you rep­re­sent. Togeth­er, we can unite Wash­ing­ton in oppo­si­tion to this harm­ful ini­tia­tive and keep our state and region mov­ing forward.