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T H E VANCOUV E R COURI ER FRI DAY, OCTOBER 1 , 2010
travel
Second daily Amtrak train will be cancelled if border fees re-imposed, say officials
Heading to Portland? Leave the car at home... while you can Michael Kissinger Staff writer
PORTLAND, OREGON—Although I didn’t hear The Clash song “Train in Vain” once during a recent carless vacation to Portland—where my girlfriend and I rode the rails, enjoyed free public transit, pedalled around town on two wheels and walked everywhere else—it would have been a fitting soundtrack. Just over a year ago, Amtrak added a second daily train to its Cascades route running to and from Vancouver. But despite its popularity (nearly 245,000 passengers rode between Portland and Vancouver last year) and the Washington State Department of Transportation’s assertion that “the second train has brought an estimated $11.8 million in economic benefits to British Columbia,” the Canadian federal government, in all of its supposedly green-minded wisdom, recently announced it was re-imposing $550,000 in border fees. Washington State officials say such a move will effectively kill the second train. Which would be a shame. Having travelled to Portland half
the historic train station to the Portland State University campus. Not only did it drop us in front of our downtown hotel The Nines—which occupies the top nine floors of the circa-1909 Meier & Frank department store building—the short trip didn’t cost a thing since it was within the city’s 330-block “Free Rail Zone,” meant to encourage the use of public transit and alleviate vehicle congestion in the downtown core. To further do our part for the environment, we visited The Nines’ space age bachelor pad known as Departures on the stylish, outdoorpatio-ensconced 15th floor and conserved water by only drinking bourbon sidecars and prosecco, gaining further insight into the definition of “happy” hour. Trains, light rail and bicycles: Spending a weekend in Portland without a vehicle is easy thanks to free public tranGood thing we went to bed early, sit in the downtown core and bike friendly streets. photos (left) courtesy Travel Portland photo (right) Michael Kissinger because our Saturday began at the ungodly hour of 9 a.m. for a threea dozen times, always in a gas- side rarely seen from the bustling upon when behind the wheel. and-half-hour culinary tour courhungry car, and always with an Interstate 5, we passed the time After arriving at Portland’s tesy of Pedal Bike Tours (pedalhour-plus wait at the border, playing travel scrabble, reading, Union Station at 3 p.m., we biketours.com), which also offers we appreciated the scenic eight- watching movies on our comput- hopped aboard the city’s new- a caffeinated Coffee Crawl and hour train trip this time around. er and drinking beer and wine est addition to its MAX light a beer-soaked journey along the Not only did it offer unhurried from the bistro car in our seats— rail system, the one-year-old treacherous Oregon Brewery Trail. views of the coast and country- activities that are, sadly, frowned “Green Line,” which connects Continued next page