WA: population: 7,785,786 area: 184,827 km^2 density: 39.6/km^2
In almost no way are they comparable. 1/10th the population, 1/2 the area, 1/8th the density.
Most of the population of Washington and Portland Metro live inside a long rectangle with an area of 10-15000 square miles. Call it 400 people per square mile. Or probably 15000 people per mile of track which likely is a better number.
There are plenty of 200mph+ lines all across Germany to count as "solid HSR connections", even the last 5-20 miles runs slower.
The justification for it, however, is not "WA is just like Germany".
First of all, it's gone to be a relatively single-line system, paralleling I-5, which is quite unlike Germany,
Second, even with the full west-of-cascades population, you're still not even remotely close to the population of Germany. You not even really that close to the population along any of the busiest lines within Germany,.
Of course not, they're not the same. But we are still talking about a region of about 8-10 million people. It's also a region that has grown by 2 or so million people in a decade. Washington alone has had a pretty steady 14-20% growth per decade since the 60's. Oregon is fairly close in its decadal growth as well. So by the 2030's we might be talking more like 12-13 million people in the region.
That's plenty sufficient density to start investigating if an HSR is economically feasible and advisable.
(Edit: Just for self elucidation, I looked at the number of people that live in the Hamburg - Frankfurt corridor, since that's about the same distance as Portland to Vancouver, BC. Just going off the 'megaregions' that are crossed, its about 20 or so million, give or take a couple. That's only 2x the density of the cascadia region. Berlin - Essen also seems to be about the same distance, and also about 20 million people.)
> Yeah fine, I fully believe in the Vancouver->Vancouver (cough) train line.
At that point, just extend it. Put a bridge over the river and have a train terminal somewhere near PDX. The further continuation into Salem and Eugene is a little iffy, that I will concede, but Vancouver WA to Portland is practically spitting distance.
However, I will also note that factors are 2 are far larger than the ones that often make or break social or economic plans. So saying "that's only 2x the density of Cascadia" is not necessarily very encouraging.
Lots of good reasons to justify train system expansion (even ... explosion), but not "it's just like Germany".
Obviously a lot of people object to writing checks that are perennially siphoned off by white collar crooks — but yes, the problem is those people from that town.
They’re just rubes who don’t understand your obvious greatness and should feel privileged to pay for your graft!
I know perhaps I shouldn't be this negative, but... let's use Germany as an example, as it is roughly comparable to Washington and Oregon. Its residents now have a 49 Euro ticket anywhere in the country, useable on multiple forms of transit. We don't even have buses, trains, etc connecting our major cities. Don't even get me started on other social issues like health care, child care, etc. And as long as Eastern Washington continues to send Republicans only to Olympia, ain't a damn thing going to change for us over here. At least we are finally getting some decent internet - decades after most cities in Europe had comparably fast / cheap internet. Maybe someday we'll have more than one functioning mobile provider.