Email from G. Lamson re: E&N Corridor Rail
Correspondence supporting bus use for the E&N Corridor as an alternative to rail and suggesting multi-use vision for the land.
From: Glamson Sent: June-04-18 7:32 PM To: Mayor And Council Email mayorandcouncil@viewroyal.ca; barbara.desjardins@esquimalt.ca; meagan.brame@esquimalt.ca; beth.burton-krahn@esquimalt.ca; lynda.hundleby@esquimalt.ca; olga.liberchuk@esquimalt.ca; susan.low@esquimalt.ca Subject: E&N Corridor Rail not viable and need for alternatives
E&N Corridor Rail not viable and need for alternatives
Dear Mayor Screech, Mayor Desjardins and councils:
I would like to commend Premier Horgan for his bold vision of buses for the E&N Corridor east of Langford. Buses, unlike rail, are flexible and could use part of the corridor or use it as a one-way path while using the road network in the other direction. Buses could bypass the portion of the Corridor in the Esquimalt First Nation. Buses, unlike rail, can operate at different scales with moderate operating costs. Rail would need very high ridership to have low operating costs per passenger on this Corridor, unlikely for many years, within our lifetimes or ever. Buses are getting cleaner as well, moving to battery power. Both of the two major manufacturers in the country, New Flyer and Volvo (Quebec) battery buses are being developed as are countless other ones around the world.
The political solution to the rail quandry is to deal with the Island Corridor Foundation, who unfortunately are focussed exclusively on rail. By law, only railway use will ensure that the formerly First Nations reserves lands used for the railway remain part of the contiguous corridor and for rail to continue, a contiguous corridor is needed. The ICF claims that the E&N Railway will be needed, if not now, then in the far future. The ICF is straight-jacketed by a rail-only vision from Vic West to Courtenay.
The ICF needs to look beyond rail as other uses have more value than an uneconomical railway. The small portions of railway bisecting reserves, of the Esquimalt, Snaw-naw-as, Kwalicum, Cowichan and prevent these First Nations from developing or efficiently using their land. The railway also is a safety issue for them. Modifying this vision away from rail to multiple uses - twinned highway in the Goldstream area of the Malahat, bus lanes between Langford and Vic West, secession of short corridor tracts of land allowing for consolidation of the few First Nations reserves bisected, and multi-use (bicycle amd walking paths) across major rivers and largely north of Shawnigan Lake - would serve many interests, and preserve the great majority of the Corridor.
The Island Corridor Foundation holds unwaveringly that rail is the future. But is rail for this corridor simply unworkable and yet being used to keep the affected First Nations from breaking up the contiguous path? This is ironically what the railway did to these same First Nations, break the reserves into pieces. The provincial government should show leadership by offering an alternative vision to rail. Starting with the First Nations consultation, the Island MLAs could offer to cede lands which bisect reserves back to First Nations and provide funding - except for a very small sement near Nanaimo - for non-rail transportion use of the Corridor. The regional District of Nanaimo and First Nations appointed directors, a near-majority of the fourteen regional district and First Nations appointed directors of the ICF, could vote to amend the vision if a firm alottment of funds were promised for specific projects and rail were firmly rejected by the provincial government. The government should garner support from each of the First Nations and peruade the Capital Regional District of its superior plans. Ben Isitt would likely have to be ejected from the directorship as he is only focussed on rail for the Island Corridor.
Rail use for the Corridor has been a distraction and the vision has never become reality. This is because all the claims made for rail - of passenger rail (and hefty government subsidies) subsidizing the upkeep of the railway to keep it maintained, of coal haulage rescuing the Port Alberni subdivision, of cruise trains plying between Nanaimo and Chemainus, of private development funds laying engineering plans for commuter rail between Vic West and Langford - have never got past the vision stage because they are not based on business plans but rather vague desires wedded to steep and recurring government subsidies. These ideas are all divorced from the economic, geographic reality of southen Vancouver Island. This is unlike the detailed plans that make other short lines or regional railways work. Other shortlines work and are profitable because of select rail-dependent industries, but this railway has had a history of marginality or losses for fifty or more years. This is all documented in the Ministry of Transportation 2010 IBI report on the E&N Railway. It paints a bleak future for the line. The report was reinforced by the virtual abandonment of the line south of Duncan and north of Parksville by industrial customers before 2005 and the forced closure in 2011 to the present of all the line except near Nanaimo.
I encourage the premier to hold fast to his claims that commuter or light rail is not economic for the Langford to Vic West portion of the rail line. I challenge the premier and leaders to lay out an alternative vision for the remainder of the Corridor, and hope a multi-use vision is adopted. This new vision should be of highway use in the Goldstream part of the Malahat, bikeways and walking paths north of Shawnigan Lake, and ceding land bisecting First Nations reserves back to them.