Puget Sound is an enormous geographic region. Light rail doesn’t even serve most of Seattle’s needs (yet). There’s currently one line to the airport. The largest residential neighborhoods in the city aren’t even close. It’s not viable for “getting around” outside of very narrow cases. It’s a backbone for a system that is still being built.
Probably not, but then why should it? Freight is a massive industry for port cities, not to mention the huge amount of downstream folks across the country that depend on them. A few folks being a bit later on their already-long journey is hardly too steep a price to pay for the continued efficiency of the rail network.
I think you lost track of the context. You claimed Portland/Seattle is an easy train in response to someone asking if it solves the problem of freight priorities.
No. Was on one while we were waiting for a freight train. Conductor even had a funny comment about how we were waiting for a priority <cough> Amazon prime packages </cough> train.
