Hello Vancouver Island Rail Supporters!
We’re giving our iron horses the love they need to rise up stronger than ever, and we’re all fired up from the attention the Island Rail Corridor is getting right now too! It’s fitting given that this is the Chinese Year of the Fire Horse.
Port of Nanaimo CEO makes the case for rail at the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities
Just today at the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, Ian Marr, CEO of the Port of Nanaimo shared the need for an integrated network of transportation infrastructure on Vancouver Island to support Canada’s new trade corridors. He specifically mentioned they want to restore the Island Rail Corridor, connecting communities directly to the DP World Short Sea Shipping operation at the Port of Nanaimo expecting to move 1.2 to 1.4 million TEU's annually to and from the rest of the country. In case you don’t know rail speak, a TEU is a “Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit” container of goods.
Ian Marr went on to say they were creating logistics parks and joining partnerships with First Nations up and down the rail corridor, indicating that it would create industrial space for manufacturing and other business opportunities. Finally, he mentioned a long-term vision of restoring the corridor from Victoria up North to Campbell River, and out to Port Alberni!
I’ve been making the case for freight rail on Vancouver Island since 2022 because that is what will bring in the revenue necessary to pay for track maintenance in perpetuity. I wasn’t the first and, thankfully, I'm not the last! Keep in mind that the TEU’s they want to move are in addition to the commodities identified in the 2022 Freight Analysis, so the case for rail just keeps getting stronger and stronger.
The City of Victoria is being presented with 3 LRT Projects
An inquiry that started with a comment on social media bared fruit. There are three LRT initiatives happening across the region. There’s:
- A long-term plan from BC Transit / VRTC to implement light rail along Highway 1 following completion of the Bus-on-shoulder lanes (why if it already has BRT on it?),
- A study by the CRD, via its Transportation Committee, on implementing rapid transit in the region (why duplicate effort?), and
- The Reconciliation Corridor initiative that's led by First Nations and supported by Liberal MP’s Stephanie McLean and Will Greaves.
A CRD Director who is directly involved in all three was nice enough to get back to me. His biggest concern is that he felt the transportation landscape is too fragmented. He went on to mention that he supports the CRD’s efforts to create a new Transportation Commission that would absorb the VRTC and create one regional transportation body for buses, trains, roads, and active transportation. We support that too, but his words about the clear and present danger of a fragmented landscape are concerning me.
There is debate on whether or not to use the completely unused rail corridor while it’s under a Reconciliation Corridor Agreement?
I don’t know about you, but I want to know the names of every councillor that doesn’t have the basic critical thinking skills required to understand that there is only one way to go in the short term, the rail corridor. They can restore it with minimal disruption because it’s not used. It can be restored the cheapest and the quickest because they don’t have to work around active traffic and… Federal/Provincial funding.
Every person on a train is a car off the old island highway or the #1 highway, directly shunting those people right through congestion. That reduces GHG’s and uses one of the most desirable forms of transit possible that attracts passive riders, LRT/Tram Trains. This needs to get sorted out, so I’m feeling an email campaign coming on.
With a fractured landscape it will take Provincial clout to straighten these people out. Please email the Honourable Mike Farnworth, BC Minister of Transportation and Transit at TT.Minister@gov.bc.ca, and George Anderson, Parliamentary Secretary of Transit at G.Anderson@leg.bc.ca and urge them to make it clear to the South Island Councils and Mayors that focusing on this currently unused corridor while it’s under a reconciliation Corridor agreement is the only way to go. After all, their own Mandate letters say, “Reconciliation is not just a priority—it is foundational to our collective future.”
I would also recommend letting your municipality know directly that the likelihood of succeeding goes up dramatically when there’s Federal interest, federal money, and alignment with reconciliation.
Liberal MP Stephanie McLean recently recognized that Federal Funding should be part of a project like this and stated that there’s new energy and significant movement for getting a commuter rail for the West Shore into Victoria.
All Aboard!
Warren Skaalrud,
Petitioner and Founder and President,
Restore Island Rail Society