Cascadia high-speed rail plan due in 2028 will not pick a route or stations
By Oleksandr Batrak
Published October 9, 2026
Washington State’s Cascadia high-speed rail plan, due in 2028, will set out possible routes, service options and funding models but will not choose a preferred route or stations.
High-speed train passing a station platform. Photo: WSDOT.
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) wants public views while that work continues. An online questionnaire is open from Oct. 5 to Nov. 13, 2026. It covers both halves of the agency’s Cascadia High-Speed Rail and I-5 Program: the rail study and a long-range plan for Interstate 5 in Washington. WSDOT estimates it takes 8–10 minutes to complete.
What the 2028 plan will and will not settle
The rail study is a Service Development Plan, started in January 2025 by WSDOT and its partners in Oregon and British Columbia. It tests whether high-speed trains linking the Vancouver, British Columbia, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, metropolitan areas would be economically and technically viable. By 2028 it should lay out potential routes and describe options for governing and financing the project. It will also examine service concepts, such as how many stops trains would make and how often they would run.
WSDOT is just as clear about what the document leaves open. It will not pick a preferred route, and it will not identify where stations would go. For now the aim is a range of options for further study. A June 2025 status report to the state legislature added that the plan should also include early engineering, high-level cost estimate ranges and a proposed phased implementation plan.
WSDOT has already narrowed the geography once. A broad study corridor drawn between the second and fourth quarters of 2025 gave way to narrower potential route areas over the first three quarters of 2026. Since mid-2026, the team has been identifying and evaluating route and service options, preparing a financial plan and economic evaluation, and looking at governance for later phases.
Cascadia high-speed rail corridor and I-5 study area. Graphic: WSDOT.
Growth forecasts and the limits of Amtrak Cascades
WSDOT’s December 2025 market analysis expects the megaregion to add about 3.4 million residents by 2050, roughly 25% more than in 2025, along with about 1.8 million jobs. Cars currently carry about 98% of trips of 100 to 300 miles linking the three metropolitan areas.
The existing train service has little room to grow. Amtrak Cascades runs on host-railroad tracks that it shares with freight and other trains. In 2024 its trains between Vancouver and Portland arrived on time 48.5% of the time, against a goal of 88%. Cascades trains top out at 79 mph, while WSDOT defines high-speed trains as running faster than 160 mph. The agency says a high-speed line would complement Cascades rather than replace it and would likely need new, dedicated tracks.
Amtrak Cascades on-time performance by segment, 2024Segment
Trains arriving on time
Vancouver, British Columbia – Seattle
42.5%
Seattle – Portland
50.6%
Vancouver – Portland, whole route
48.5%
Goal under the service agreement
88%
Both segments fell well short of the goal in 2024, with the cross-border section the weakest. Trains count as on time when they arrive no more than 10 minutes late, under the agreement between Amtrak, BNSF and WSDOT. Source: WSDOT, December 2025 market analysis.
Federal funding and the steps after 2028
Funding comes from the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program. The FRA granted $500,000 for the first, scoping step in December 2023 and $49.7 million for the second step, the Service Development Plan, in late 2024. Washington’s state legislature added $5.5 million as the required state match.
Moving beyond the plan is not automatic. Under the federal program, capital projects from a completed plan may enter a third step of preliminary engineering and environmental review. That move is at the FRA’s discretion, depends on available funding and requires a 20% non-federal match. In its June 2025 report, WSDOT also told lawmakers that it would not proceed with a programmatic environmental review, or with other work tied to the federal program, unless the legislature authorized it. Canadian parts of the project would go through federal and provincial assessment processes. WSDOT lists work after 2028 as still to be determined.
Cascadia high-speed rail in the federal Corridor Identification and Development ProgramStep
Scope
Federal funding for Cascadia
Non-federal match
Status
Step 1: scoping
Scope, timetable and costs of the Service Development Plan
$500,000, awarded December 2023
Not required
FRA approved the deliverables on Nov. 18, 2024
Step 2: Service Development Plan
Route and service options, governance and investment options, high-level cost ranges, phased implementation plan
$49.7 million, awarded late 2024
At least 10%; the state legislature provided $5.5 million
Under way since January 2025, due in 2028
Step 3: preliminary engineering and environmental review
Engineering and environmental review for capital projects named in the plan
To be set during Step 2
20%
Possible after the plan, at the FRA’s discretion and subject to funding
The project is in the second of three federal steps. A third step would need FRA approval and a 20% non-federal match. Sources: WSDOT, June 2025 status update and project page.
What the 2019 business case estimated
Published cost figures for the line predate the current plan. A 2019 WSDOT business case put up-front construction costs for a line at $24 billion to $42 billion, a range based on a 2017 estimate. It described trips of under an hour from Seattle to Vancouver and from Seattle to Portland at about 220 mph and conservatively estimated 1.7 million to 3.1 million riders a year at opening. The new plan is due to produce its own high-level cost ranges.
Cascadia high-speed rail plan due in 2028 will not pick a route or stations
By Oleksandr Batrak
Published October 9, 2026
Washington State’s Cascadia high-speed rail plan, due in 2028, will set out possible routes, service options and funding models but will not choose a preferred route or stations.
High-speed train passing a station platform. Photo: WSDOT.
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) wants public views while that work continues. An online questionnaire is open from Oct. 5 to Nov. 13, 2026. It covers both halves of the agency’s Cascadia High-Speed Rail and I-5 Program: the rail study and a long-range plan for Interstate 5 in Washington. WSDOT estimates it takes 8–10 minutes to complete.
What the 2028 plan will and will not settle
The rail study is a Service Development Plan, started in January 2025 by WSDOT and its partners in Oregon and British Columbia. It tests whether high-speed trains linking the Vancouver, British Columbia, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, metropolitan areas would be economically and technically viable. By 2028 it should lay out potential routes and describe options for governing and financing the project. It will also examine service concepts, such as how many stops trains would make and how often they would run.
WSDOT is just as clear about what the document leaves open. It will not pick a preferred route, and it will not identify where stations would go. For now the aim is a range of options for further study. A June 2025 status report to the state legislature added that the plan should also include early engineering, high-level cost estimate ranges and a proposed phased implementation plan.
WSDOT has already narrowed the geography once. A broad study corridor drawn between the second and fourth quarters of 2025 gave way to narrower potential route areas over the first three quarters of 2026. Since mid-2026, the team has been identifying and evaluating route and service options, preparing a financial plan and economic evaluation, and looking at governance for later phases.
Cascadia high-speed rail corridor and I-5 study area. Graphic: WSDOT.
Growth forecasts and the limits of Amtrak Cascades
WSDOT’s December 2025 market analysis expects the megaregion to add about 3.4 million residents by 2050, roughly 25% more than in 2025, along with about 1.8 million jobs. Cars currently carry about 98% of trips of 100 to 300 miles linking the three metropolitan areas.
The existing train service has little room to grow. Amtrak Cascades runs on host-railroad tracks that it shares with freight and other trains. In 2024 its trains between Vancouver and Portland arrived on time 48.5% of the time, against a goal of 88%. Cascades trains top out at 79 mph, while WSDOT defines high-speed trains as running faster than 160 mph. The agency says a high-speed line would complement Cascades rather than replace it and would likely need new, dedicated tracks.
Amtrak Cascades on-time performance by segment, 2024Segment
Trains arriving on time
Vancouver, British Columbia – Seattle
42.5%
Seattle – Portland
50.6%
Vancouver – Portland, whole route
48.5%
Goal under the service agreement
88%
Both segments fell well short of the goal in 2024, with the cross-border section the weakest. Trains count as on time when they arrive no more than 10 minutes late, under the agreement between Amtrak, BNSF and WSDOT. Source: WSDOT, December 2025 market analysis.
Federal funding and the steps after 2028
Funding comes from the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program. The FRA granted $500,000 for the first, scoping step in December 2023 and $49.7 million for the second step, the Service Development Plan, in late 2024. Washington’s state legislature added $5.5 million as the required state match.
Moving beyond the plan is not automatic. Under the federal program, capital projects from a completed plan may enter a third step of preliminary engineering and environmental review. That move is at the FRA’s discretion, depends on available funding and requires a 20% non-federal match. In its June 2025 report, WSDOT also told lawmakers that it would not proceed with a programmatic environmental review, or with other work tied to the federal program, unless the legislature authorized it. Canadian parts of the project would go through federal and provincial assessment processes. WSDOT lists work after 2028 as still to be determined.
Cascadia high-speed rail in the federal Corridor Identification and Development ProgramStep
Scope
Federal funding for Cascadia
Non-federal match
Status
Step 1: scoping
Scope, timetable and costs of the Service Development Plan
$500,000, awarded December 2023
Not required
FRA approved the deliverables on Nov. 18, 2024
Step 2: Service Development Plan
Route and service options, governance and investment options, high-level cost ranges, phased implementation plan
$49.7 million, awarded late 2024
At least 10%; the state legislature provided $5.5 million
Under way since January 2025, due in 2028
Step 3: preliminary engineering and environmental review
Engineering and environmental review for capital projects named in the plan
To be set during Step 2
20%
Possible after the plan, at the FRA’s discretion and subject to funding
The project is in the second of three federal steps. A third step would need FRA approval and a 20% non-federal match. Sources: WSDOT, June 2025 status update and project page.
What the 2019 business case estimated
Published cost figures for the line predate the current plan. A 2019 WSDOT business case put up-front construction costs for a line at $24 billion to $42 billion, a range based on a 2017 estimate. It described trips of under an hour from Seattle to Vancouver and from Seattle to Portland at about 220 mph and conservatively estimated 1.7 million to 3.1 million riders a year at opening. The new plan is due to produce its own high-level cost ranges.
