The president of Microsoft said during a conference in Portland he hopes for high-speed rail to come to Oregon.
In an interview with KGW News, Brad Smith spoke with Laural Porter on Tuesday at the seventh annual Cascadia Innovation Corridor (CIC) conference and talked about high-speed rail acting as one solution to America's affordable housing issue.
Discussing the struggle many Americans are having with finding economical housing, Smith said, "It's interesting because at one level housing feels very local, but when you see the common problem up and down this corridor, you see the problems we share and then you even see common solutions like high-speed rail."
"If we built it together, it would make it possible for people to, say, live further away from a job and that too would open the door to more affordable housing," he added.
When asked what the plan was for high-speed rail in the region connecting Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia, Smith said that "it is a dream that is now being pursued with a real plan that I hope and believe will become our reality."
The Cascadia Innovation Corridor's high-speed rail project initially had $250,000 in funding raised by Oregon, Washington and British Columbia and Microsoft Corporation, Smith explained, adding that the project now has backing from Washington, D.C. through an infrastructure bill.
He said that the project would also aim to get funding from the Department of Transportation.
Smith explained that the next steps would be to start "really mapping out exactly where the rail line would go, and exactly how we'll fund and manage that construction and operate that."
A major benefit of high-speed rail Smith explained was that "it can connect us in ways that are just not feasible today."
He said, "The future I think we should all pursue is one where somebody can get on a train in Portland and get off the train in Seattle in less than an hour even after two or three stops. Imagine what that does for people that people can work in one place, live in another."
The high-speed rail project Smith was discussing comes as part of the Cascadia Innovation Corridor project.
Newsweek has contacted the media office of Brad Smith via email for comment.
What Is the Cascadia Innovation Corridor?
The Cascadia Innovation Corridor is a cross-border project aiming to connect Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia in the "world's first sustainable mega-region, as characterized by robust economic growth, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and affordable housing for all residents."
In 2021, as part of that year's CIC's conference, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, former Oregon Governor Kate Brown and former British Colombia Premier John Horgan agreed to push the development of an ultra-high-speed train as a priority in the region.
This year, the project also announced it would aim to tackle the housing crisis by creating around 1.4 million new homes.
In a press release shared by the project's website on Monday, it wrote affordable homes were "out of reach for too many families" in the region, and that the project would bring "this critical issue to the forefront."
Sustainability is also a big part of the project as the CIC developed its Cascadia Vision 2050, which specified how the mega-region could "serve as a global model for sustainable growth."
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