YVR pushes for high-speed rail terminus at airport, not downtown

Vancouver International Airport wants to be the northern gateway for the proposed Cascadia high-speed rail corridor linking Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver — and its CEO is making the case directly.

Tamara Vrooman told the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade earlier this spring that a future high-speed rail line should terminate at YVR, not downtown Vancouver. She pointed to how major airports worldwide — Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris Charles de Gaulle — use direct rail connections to distribute passengers across their regions while reducing road traffic.

"Airports that are in the top five, each and every one of them has a high-speed rail link," Vrooman said. "I've advocated that the best terminus for that is YVR, because we can really have a connection to the city."

The Cascadia project remains largely theoretical — the vast majority of the proposed route runs through Washington state, and construction is decades away and would likely require tens of billions of dollars. But Vrooman said YVR is already thinking ahead about infrastructure that could accommodate a rail connection 15 years from now.

Alternative proposals have floated Surrey as a potential terminus, partly to lower construction costs by shortening the distance to the Canada-U.S. border. Some discussions around Canada's Alto high-speed rail project between Toronto and Quebec City have considered serving Toronto Pearson International Airport as well as downtown Toronto.

The conversation reflects how airports are now expected to function as multimodal transportation hubs — not just flight terminals but connectors to regional rail networks. For Vancouver, landing that role could significantly reshape how residents and visitors move through the broader Pacific Northwest corridor.