It's been slightly more than two decades since the U.S. government decided the 466 miles of creaky rail lines running from Eugene northward through Portland and Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia, should constitute a high-speed rail corridor, ripe for the next not-quite-bullet train to zoom passengers between destinations and open things up for freight.

As it stands today, however, only 5 or 6 miles of track in the 125 miles between Portland and Eugene can support the maximum allowable train speeds of 79 mph, meaning the rest of the ride is a shuffle that takes longer than a car would along Interstate 5. The federal government's idea of high speed, meanwhile, has passenger trains topping out at 120 mph, collapsing the distance between cities while expanding the rail corridor's capacity to move more freight more cheaply and on time.

If you thought bringing a comparatively slow-motion MAX train from Portland into Clackamas County or over an I-5 bridge into Vancouver, Wash., throws challenges, try rebuilding the Portland-to-Eugene run at a yet-unknown cost with yet-to-be-sited passenger stations in-between.

To the credit of

, Tuesday night marks

early this year to consider what a high-speed line between Portland and Eugene might look like -- or not. Paying for it will come later.

ODOT is on partial stipend to do the planning. The Federal Railway Administration paid Oregon specialists $4.2 million to undertake the corridor study, while ODOT is paying an additional $5.8 million. And the reasons are contained in just three words: anticipated transportation needs.

Oregon pays Amtrak to run its Cascades line up and down the corridor twice a day, on privately owned tracks, and ridership has grown significantly in the past five years. The Willamette Valley population is expected to grow by 35 percent over the next 25 years, while freight volume in Oregon is expected to grow by 60 percent. Separately but significantly, the state's gasoline tax has started to flatten out with the rise of fuel-efficient cars, limiting the money that would otherwise be available to expand or build roads to accommodate all the growth. Weirdly, so many roads lead to rail.

But it's too soon to tell how a high-speed line would work in Oregon. Washington state already has won $800 million in federal money for overhauls to its portion of the north-south high-speed rail corridor. But Oregon's stakeholders are especially concentrated along the Oregon corridor, notably in the metropolitan regions of Portland, Salem-Keizer, and Eugene-Springfield. And the most basic details -- route alignment, to name one -- have yet to be determined.

ODOT officials heard suggestions last year from folks who wanted a revival of rail service, for example, from Eugene through Veneta, population about 4,600; as well as upgrades along a line running north through McMinnville to Lake Oswego but fatally bypassing Salem, a major city. At

, ODOT officials will say why some suggestions meet the test of expanding the speed and capacity of the Portland-Eugene line and why others do not. It's a whittle-down process that, owing to dense federal requirements, will take years before any train truly whizzes by in these parts.

But the open forums are opportunities for Oregonians to make their priorities clear now and not later. One suggestion already heard by ODOT and still in play is to build an entirely new rail line within or just outside the right-of-way of I-5, a bold yet expensive proposition.

If we've learned anything about government process and designing tomorrow's transportation infrastructure, it's that it takes time, sustained attention and informed citizens. More than TriMet light rail and perhaps as much as the Columbia River Crossing, the high-speed Pacific Northwest rail corridor is a project of sufficient complexity and economic consequence to deserve our best attentions now. The open houses are a start.