The BC NDP government is on the right track with its March 16 high-speed rail initiative announcement.
Better Cascadian connections with Washington state and Oregon will accelerate development of the region’s innovation talent and tech-hub ambitions.
But B.C.’s $300,000 contribution to a study of a transportation corridor that would cut the Vancouver-to-Seattle travel time to around one hour from three comes late in the game in recognizing the need to leverage the combined resources of B.C. and its West Coast American neighbours.
According to the Washington state economic analysis cited in the announcement, a high-speed transportation link connecting Vancouver with Seattle and Oregon could create up to 200,000 jobs for workers in this province and in the Cascadia Innovation Corridor states. That’s significant.
The good news for business in B.C.: Premier John Horgan appears to appreciate the need to remove cross-
border enterprise barriers and to promote entrepreneurial resource pooling with like-minded regions.
Better news for businesses in B.C. would be an appreciation from his government of the need to remove, rather than erect, investment barriers elsewhere in this province.
Higher payroll costs and carbon taxes, misguided real estate speculation levies and other punitive initiatives from Horgan’s government will increase the competitive disadvantage this province already faces when compared with the United States and other regions.
High-speed rail links between B.C. and Washington state should have moved from discussion to reality long ago. Passenger rail links from Metro Vancouver to Whistler, the Howe Sound corridor and elsewhere in the province also need to be a provincial transportation, job creation and enterprise priority.
While the investment in studying a high-speed north-south transportation corridor linking B.C. to its Cascadian cousins is a promising first step in a long-overdue process, getting beyond studies and photo ops on that initiative will be the real business litmus test for the BC NDP government.
