Even if we had all the rail in the world we'd still have the problem of not having anyplace to go to. Both New York and DC are closer to Philly than Portland; Vancouver is farther than New York, a bit closer than DC. And while those are both lovely cities, neither of them is NY or DC.

Ms. Lee is enthusing about a condition that doesn't exist here, even without trains.

The reason more people don't ride Amtrak to Portland isn't because there aren't more trains. There just aren't enough riders.

Lee turned out alright for us, actually. We gave up nothing of value to Philly, and when we loaned him to Texas for a few months we got the nucleus of our future team from them. Basically we got Smoak, Beavan, Lueke, and Lawson for nothing.

Seattle was never a suitor for a long term contract with Cliff Lee. Too much of our money goes to Ichiro and Felix (and busts like Figgins) to pick up someone like him for 5-7 years.

And the real reason he went to Philly is that he can do way better in the NL, and the Phillies are the best NL team.

This is why Fnarf never gets invited to all the cool parties in Vancouver BC, Portland OR, Eugene OR, San Francisco, or LA.

I've been to ten times as many cool parties in those cities as you have, Willie boy. You've never been to a cool party; one of the conditions of a party being cool is that you're not there.

And how far, exactly, do you think SF and LA are? Seattle to LA is as far as Philly to freaking Miami.

Oh, and Seattle has taxis. The Lees aren't riding the subway.

@1 It isn't distance, though. 200km--the distance between Vancouver and Seattle--is nothing.

To give you an idea on what real rail service means: Toronto and Montréal are 2 1/2 times as far away from each other (539 km) as Vancouver and Seattle, but it takes the same amount of time to take the train. You can take the train faster than you can drive it (it takes a little over four hours by train, and five by car, if you don't get stuck in traffic, which you will).

I agree that, other than Vancouver and Portland, Seattle doesn't really have anywhere else to go. But man, when I lived there, I would have loved a high-speed rail corridor between the three cities. So would, I think, a lot of the other thousands of people who drive that stretch of I-5. When the bus is faster and more reliable than the train (and between Vancouver-Seattle it is), it's time to admit the rail infrastructure has a problem.

Fnarf @4,

The Lees aren't riding the subway? You sure? You ever deal with stadium traffic in Philly? I betcha they ride the Broad Street line from time to time.

(Oh... and Philly and D.C. are about the same distance apart as Seattle and Portland.)

Rail infrastructure leads to good baseball?

Wish that would work for the Cubs. Red line stops right by Wrigley Field. Sigh....

@6: Yeah, he's making $20m a year and riding the subway? I'm guessing not.

Seattle-Portland: 175 miles
Philly-DC: 135 miles

Not really "about the same." Plus, while I like Portland, there are a whole lot more reasons to go to D.C.

I get your overall point, but it's quite a reach from what Kristen Lee said. And bottom line, no big-name free agent is coming all the way out here unless the team develops its farm system and builds a winner.

It is a function of Seattle's sports curse that the only two professional teams that are doing any good at all these days are soccer and women's basketball.

shrugs

@6, I dunno. But she doesn't say anything about subways, only inter-city. The article says the Lees aren't even living in Philly full time; only in the summer (which seems peculiar to me; I've been in Philly in the summer and it's not a whole lot better than Dallas, heat-wise).

And while Seattle-Portland is about the same as Philly-DC as the crow flies, the crow gets to fly over some awfully big mountains that the car and the train alike have to go around. It's half again as far.

@5, yes, the rail infrastructure has a problem. Whose problem is it? BNSF's. They own the tracks, and they have unlimited priority over Amtrak. So when they decide it's time to shunt a locomotive back and forth at 2 MPH for an hour or two, they do it; and Amtrak has to wait. There's no other way to get there.

Seattle's train service could and should be improved. But there are a number of roadblocks in the way. And it's ridiculous to say that if we built the world's greatest rail service, New York City would magically appear on the end of it. I don't think Ms. Lee is going to get too excited about Kelso.

The Northwest is never going to be the East Coast. But there's enough population to support a much better regional train system (Acela-style soon, and full HSR in the longer run) with Seattle in the center, Vancouver on the North end, and Portland and the Willamette Valley as far as Eugene on the south end.

Distances are even plausible (i.e. <500 miles) between an archipelago of smaller metro areas--Seattle to Spokane (600k metro area) to Boise (500k metro area) to Salt Lake City to Las Vegas, at which point you can connect to California's rail network. Each pair of those cities would be competitive with flying with true HSR, even if almost no one would ride the whole distance. Fast train connections further east are simply too far to make them competitive, as is any connection south of Eugene. But there's enough demography in the right geographical constraints to support a fairly extensive Northwest train system of real quality.

@4 lol. Dude, I've done watermelon raves at fuckin WSU and bang out three-day parties with press, military, and geeks in all those places.

In fact, doing the NYC to DC pub crawl is almost half as fun as doing the multi-country rave/party trains in Europe.

A 90 minute ride is a world of difference from a three hour drive plus customs. Especially when the train has an active bar.

@13 watermelon raves at WSU! My god, you're superstar!

The parties I go to don't have press, military, or Will in Seattle, and are better off for it.

@12, how are they going to get around BNSF? It only takes one trip to Portland that's routed through buses because there's some stoppage somewhere to turn off a whole trainload of customers permanently. And south of Portland, Amtrak dumps onto buses more than it goes through on rails. Even if the rails are upgraded to take faster trains, you still have to wait and wait for freight. It's very frustrating to ride to Vancouver in a train that's theoretically capable of 90 MPH or whatever the Acelas can do but is restricted to 25 or less because of local conditions.

What we need is new dedicated right-of-way, but the only one that's even remotely conceivable is the freeway, and that's politically infeasible.

Those mountain routes are scenic but without frequent population centers will never happen. I don't see ten new million-plus cities springing up between here and Salt Lake. Stuff's just too far apart.

It is a little frustrating that even at $22 million per mile or whatever it is, we could get true HSR to Portland for about the same as the car tunnel through downtown, but it's not even up for discussion.

I lived in center city Philadelphia center city in the 80s. Philly is a bargain as cities go; however, the beauty of it was that because of high restrictions and other factors, it is a very low density city. You can easily find parking right in front of the brownstone I lived in, and drive from one end to the other and find (free) parking near South Street...which was one of the hippest places in the free world...at one time.

One thing that's bad -- oil refineries. Phily is upwind from many of them, and during hot summer nights, you would puke in the streets from the stench.

@17, huh? Philly's the fifth-densest city in the US, after only New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston. It's more than TWICE as dense as almost every city west of the Mississippi, aside from SF, LA and Seattle.

Philly has changed since the 80's man. You cant find parking anywhere in Center City. I grew up there and lived across the bridge in Camden. You can certainly find parking in Camden, but your car will not be there when you get back.

But back to this Lee deal. Is Philly's staff going to be better than the Braves' of the Maddux days? Yall remember that staff?

Man, this proves why Philly rules the world, and is not just Philly soft Pretzels. The city of brotherly love is bringing the super bowl ring and with this pitching staff, the world series. Flyers cant be far behind. At this rate, Temple is going to win the tourney and the Union will pimp the Sounders next year.

"No doubt the decision had something to do with the opportunity to join Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels in potentially the most dominant pitching rotation ever."

You must mean "the most dominant pitching rotation ever aside from San Francisco."

Fnarf @16,

There's a lot that can be done just upgrading portions of the line. Freight priority is a real issue, and true HSR or European-class standard rail would need dedicated tracks, but you can get a lot of improvement just by adding sidings in trouble areas or putting in bypasses (like the one to skip Point Defiance) or other upgrades.

California does have a plan to build dedicated HSR right-of-way, if it can find the funding. The real problem here ultimately is money. The best thing to do now is get California's system built to show that rail can work in this country.

#18.

Right, what would I know, having actually lived there.

I can't compete with a cigar chomping Seattle blowhard in a bathtub who sees the entire world through a magic soap bubble.

Real Life Experience: 0
Pompous Proclamation: 1

@ 22 I grew up there, lived there all my life and I can tell you Philly is not the affordable abandoned city it was in the 80's. You said you lived there in the 80's. Hell, Fishtown was affordable back then. There is no parking available in Center City, though Plenty of parking available on Diamond St across from TEMPLE. ;)

@22

Never let facts get in the way of your worldview, right?

@20: You're speaking from experience -- from 25 years ago? And Seattle is just as it was in 1985, too, right?

@22, "density" is simply something you can look up. Your statement "it is a very low density city" is simply false. It's not true. It doesn't have anything to do with soap bubbles or proclamations. You're just wrong.
New York 26,403 per square mile
San Francisco 16,634
Chicago 12,750
Boston 12,166
Philadelphia 11,234
DC 9,776
LA 8,205
Seattle 7,361
Minneapolis 7,019
St. Louis 5,760
San Jose 5,758
PDX 4,288
Las Vegas 4,154
Houston 3,897
Denver 3,979
Dallas 3,697
Boise 3,169
Phoenix 2,937
San Antonio 2,809
Salt Lake City 1,666

etc.

So, my two factual statements -- "Philly is the fourth densest" and "Philly is more than twice as dense as almost every city west of the Mississippi" are both true.

Score that however you want. You're still a clown.

Lets not forget that the Mariners were supporters of both Sound Transit and the Monorail. OK, I don't know where they were on that last "death to the monorail" election, but they were definitely reliable supporters of it before that.

As far as Cliff Lee goes, it will be cool if we get to see a Mariners-Phillies World series, with Justin Smoak at the plate against Lee. Even better if it happens in a year when the Yankees and the Rangers go home in October.

Fnarf dear, you know I adore you and would gladly bear your children, but many of your assertions about local Amtrak service are at best a bit retro. I don't have much time - I'm actually on board the Empire Builder, which will be leaving soon, then bye bye internet - but quickly:

* Demand exceeds supply across the system, and especially on the NW trains.

* BNSF is a great partner railroad, and works hard to both earn their incentive payments and honor the original contract with Amtrak to give passenger trains priority (in exchange for not having to run their own passenger trains anymore)

* most people who end up on buses do indeed come back: repeat travel is a big part of the passenger base, and most people take it in stride

* there will be a fourth train south of Portland to take the place of one of the four thruway buses, thus making it four trains and three buses.

* Long-distance trains are not about end point to end point. Neither are the Cascades for that matter. That's an old Heritage Foundation talking point that makes the trains look inefficient.

* You're right about high-speed rail on the western lines. But that doesn't preclude conventional rail in the rural area, which tend to be underserved by other forms of public transport.

That's it. Merry Xmas everybody!

@28, yes, Catalina, we've had this discussion several times before. The problem you are focused on the current service, which is nice, but is small potatoes compared to the amount of auto and air traffic. For instance, there are more than 50 flights a day from Seatac to Portland (21 to Spokane), and of course god knows how many car trips down I-5; 240,000 says Wikipedia (148,000 for I-90), though that's the whole length of it.

As it is currently configured the train is a usually pleasant but slow and possibly inconveniently-timed way to get to Portland. What I'm talking about is east coast levels of service -- a two hour trip leaving every hour, Vancouver and Spokane ditto (three hours to Spokane would be nice). It's a nice diversion, a pleasure trip. It's not practical for business travel and never has been.

In contrast to the highways and skyways, your Empire Builder averages fewer than 1,500 passengers a day. It's a good thing, but not a major part of our transit infrastructure as would be found in Europe or even on the east coast. Of course, our country is just too large and empty to serve distances like this; if you ran the Empire Builder out of Paris it would take you as far as Jerusalem or Moscow.

I didn't say long-distance was about end-to-end; in fact, I posited ten new million-plus cities in-between here and Salt Lake, which would create enough volume to justify frequent and high-speed service. Those cities don't exist. I know some people get on and off at Ephrata or Kelso, but they are few in number.

Fnarf, darling, I know all that. I may be beautiful, but I'm not dumb.

I was just correcting your wrong assertions about no one wanting to ride, people storming off in a huff, etc. The service could be much better, but it's not all that bad. You don't need to deride what we have to make your entirely valid points about what we could have.

I know how touchy you are on the subject of your beloved Amtrak. Trust me, I love it too. But it has shortcomings.

Those things are related. "No one wanting to ride" IS true, in relation to car traffic. High speed could change that. But we'll never get true high speed.

Note that the planned improvements in the "Pacific Northwest High Speed Rail Corridor" define "high speed" as 75 miles an hour, which would get you to Portland in two and a half hours. That's peachy, but 75 MPH in most parts of the world is not high speed, it's normal speed, or a little slower than normal. High speed means 160 MPH (Shinkansen), 186 MPH (TGV), 220 MPH (China), etc. The European Union requires a speed of 120 MPH as the minimum that can be labeled "high speed".

Think about getting to Portland on an express in an hour!

That's the kind of thing that makes US rail a third-world experience. Our up-and-coming plans put us at a level that much of the world was at in 1950. Still, we're better off than Mexico, which has no passenger rail at all (except for a couple of short tourist runs).

That's not a slam at Amtrak, Catalina. It's a reflection of our lack of investment in infrastructure.

Oh Fnarf. Me touchy? I am the very soul of stoicism, even when it comes to Our Beloved Amtrak. But really - "third world"? Do you even know what third world is? (I don't. The closest I've ever come to third world is Omaha).

I'm now leaving Wenatchee. We shall have to continue this tomorrow, perhaps in Whitefish. If I'm up by then. I'm on vacation, you know.....

Goldy: I'm no expert on Philly, but I do know where their baseball park is. By comparison, Safeco Field is closer to "center city highrise apartments" and "cultural amenities" than Citizen's Bank Park is.

DOUG @33,

Well first, at the risk of offending Seattleites, let me just say that Philadelphia offers much, much more in the way of cultural amenities than Seattle ever could. Seattle's got Philadelphia beat in terms of natural splendor, but cultural amenities... not so much.

Second, the stadiums in both Seattle and Philly are both situated on rail stops (light and subway, respectively), and while the distance from say, City Hall to the Linc may be considerably longer in miles than say, West Lake to Qwest, they both complete the trip in about 10 minutes.

I'm not offended by that statement. Wasn't Philadelphia our nation's first capital? If it didn't offer "much more in the way of cultural amenities than Seattle" I'd be pretty pissed as an American.

That said, Seattle's stadiums (stadia?) are so much better situated to what our city has to offer culturally (which, agreed, is less, or at least different, that what Philly has) than Citizen's Bank Park is.

By focusing on rail traffic you ignore foot traffic. Do people walk from the Philadelphia Art Museum (which is awesome) to the baseball stadium? No. But I've walked from the Seattle Art Museum to Safeco Field. It's easy.