Transport committee  Thank you very much.

Transport committee  I appreciate the opportunity to talk to the committee.

Transport committee  No, you're going to see both, and they're not mutually exclusive of each other. You're going to see a continued incremental improvement on the existing line to get up to the 110 miles per hour and increase the speeds. I think the target is to get those speeds closer to 110, which makes the trip about a three-hour trip.

Transport committee  There are a couple of questions there. One of the reasons it had so much of a tourist orientation was that you only had one train. You couldn't go back and forth on the same day by train. The other problem with the service is uncertainty because of their performance on time, which stands at 60%.

Transport committee  Thank you, Joe.

Transport committee  No. The question has to do with a second train. If we didn't have the Olympics as a pressure point, we'd still not have the second train. The second train, which is being bought and paid for by the taxpayers of Washington State, doubles Vancouver's capacity on passenger rail along the corridor.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the committee members for the invitation to make a presentation on high-speed rail inside the Cascadia corridor. I am chairman of the Cascadia Institute, which is a not-for-profit policy think tank—and “do tank”. We've been engaged in passenger rail issues in the northwestern United States and in British Columbia since about 1992.