We have worked closely with a number of stakeholders in the corridor. I've been involved with this now for probably seven or eight years in terms of looking at rail connectivity. There's a stakeholder group out of Seattle, the Discovery Institute, that has put a lot of time into it. As well, there are some non-profit organizations here in Vancouver that have looked at Cascadia.
Of interest to stakeholders is that we see potential in what is emerging as one of the major industries, in what we call in the States the Pacific Northwest, or which we're now referring to as Cascadia. We have today some challenges, and certainly will over the balance of this decade, with the border thickening, as we say. It has become harder to make physical contact, to be able to travel as business people to and from the cities, although that still continues. As we look into the future, we would like to see a situation in which we would be able to perhaps address that issue, and we believe high-speed rail has an important potential to do it.
In addition to that, the environmental matters that we face in the Pacific Northwest are important to many of the stakeholders here. While we all know that we will depend on air travel well into the future, we're increasingly starting to see that there would be some options, ideally for a high-speed rail system that would be electrified. One of the benefits here and in the Pacific Northwest is being able to rely primarily on hydroelectric energy, which is very low in terms of emissions.
We can see the potential of improving our business connectivity, and of doing so in a way that is very environmentally beneficial. We think this is something that has been worth pursuing.
It is my own personal observation that there is much interest, both within municipalities and at the state level and within the non-governmental organizations, in really seeing some movement in this direction. I would not anticipate significant resistance to this going forward into the future.