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“The first question is, is there a demand for this kind of service? I think what this study is going to show is very much there is a great demand for it. Which frankly is not too surprising when you look across the world at the success of these high speed corridors. We look at envy in Asia and Europe for what is available to metropolitan areas.

“The second question is potential financing. We’re going to look at this report in detail but we’ve been advised it will show this is something that could be self-sustaining in a sense from an operational perspective.

“There are a thousand questions about how to do the exact financing, those are questions we’ll have to grapple with. But I will just tell you I’m bullish about this corridor between British Columbia and the state of Washington. I believe we should have nothing but optimism about our growth potential. And growth potential will be accelerated to the extent we can travel in an hour rather than three hours in safety and comfort.

“It’s hard for me to believe that our tremendous province and state that is so forward looking and so technologically advanced would not have growth that would be well suited for this type of transportation infrastructure.”

Premier John Horgan said he’s flagged two concerns already, which include the curvy rail line alignment from the U.S. border and the potential slowdown caused by customs.

“The biggest challenge as it has been on increasing Harbour Air traffic between Seattle and Vancouver is Canadian Border Services. I’ve discussed with the prime minister as recently as last week, when it comes to the nerd bird (direct float plane links between Seattle and downtown Vancouver) and getting our air travel more seamless. If we’re going to have high speed rail we’re going to need to have border checks and customs activity done along the way, because if we stop for an extended period of time we’re defeating the purpose,” said Horgan.