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Within the 2023-2025 state transportation price range just lately finalized, there’s a obvious omission: funding for passenger and freight rail. [“Highways, ferries get big slice of $13.5B budget,” April 26, Northwest] Why is that this essential? The newest IPCC report repeats the pressing name not just for slashing emissions but in addition for rising vitality effectivity by 2030. Amtrak passenger trains and freight trains, each “class 1” and shortline, are at the least thrice extra vitality environment friendly than vehicles and vans per passenger and ton mile. Mode-shift to trains ought to be a precedence in Olympia, but it surely isn’t. Olympia’s give attention to highways journey — and an extremely excessive velocity passenger prepare that’s a part of a “imaginative and prescient for 2050,” not for 2030 — doesn’t make local weather sense. It’s irrational that our leaders neglect Amtrak north-south from Vancouver, Canada to Portland, Oregon and east-west from Seattle and Auburn to Yakima and Spokane. Our current rail community is an answer to many issues, however possibly it’s simply not in style with vitality traders who’re threatened by its vitality effectivity.
Mary Paterson, Seattle
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