Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
Yes. How much would that cost to replace, how much would it improve journey times and how many more trains could be run? And that bridge is not going to be the only bottleneck.
We do have some data here - that Cantrail bus Amtrak connects with (I was wrong to say they run it) runs 4 times a day with a 3hr30 journey time. Maybe there are other bus services, but that's not many people who will forgo the car to take public transit at that speed. So for a train to be competitive and worth providing, you're going to have to get the journey time we'l below that of the already provided bus.
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Prior to the pandemic, there were at least two additional bus services: one was Greyhound from Vancouver to Seattle (operated by Greyhound USA and not affected by the shutdown of Greyhound Canada in Western Canada in 2018); additionally there was also a bus connecting Vancouver with SeaTac Airport, though I'm not sure if it stopped in Seattle or Tacoma proper. I think that bus also went to Bellingham's airport.
There were quite a few buses per day running between Seattle and Vancouver, but they had inconvenient schedules for day trips to Seattle, and are also inconvenient for those who live east or south of Vancouver. When I drove to Seattle in early 2019 and was living in Burnaby, it was far more convenient to rent a car nearby and drive straight to the Pacific Highway border crossing, instead of having to take two SkyTrain lines into Vancouver to Pacific Central Station, and then catch a bus from there.
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