****January 2012 Focus - Focus Magazine

“
I DON’T UNDERSTAND THE LRT PROPOSAL. It doesn’t make sense
to me... With the E&N, we could use the track that’s existing, and spend
a few dollars to upgrade it. It’s mind boggling to me that that wouldn’t
be the first thing we would do.” —Jim Hartshorne
“Municipal operations is totally different from
a provincial-scale, BC Transit way of doing
things,” says Geoff Pearce, the chair of C4CR,
and Langford’s former clerk-administrator.
“We do what’s necessary, and if something
doesn’t work, we fix it and then we go on.
What we envisaged with commuter rail, starting
small and growing, was quite different from
what the Ministry of Transportation or BC
Transit says, which is, ‘You’ve got to put in
$60 million up front.’”
That incremental approach has worked elsewhere.
Cash-strapped and desperate for transit,
several American cities have converted old
freight railways over to commuter service:
one example is New Jersey’s River Line, which
uses diesel-powered vehicles that roll into
downtown Camden like streetcars. Another
example, even closer to our circumstances,
comes from Texas: in 1994, Dallas’s transit
authority bought 13 Budd cars from VIA (used
ones cost as little as $100,000) and started
running them on a bankrupt freight line for a
commuter service called the Trinity Railway
Express. Today, TRE carries 9,800 daily passengers
on new trains, and has loaned its Budd
cars to build up a new commuter line in nearby
Denton County.
Local commuter rail does face challenges
beyond finding vehicles and money. C4CR’s
$16-million scheme depended on rail coming
across the Johnson Street Bridge—and so far,
the City of Victoria has refused to investigate
whether the new bridge could have rails embedded
in its roadway (an idea pushed by this author),
fearing increased costs and construction delays.
“It’s going to take somebody to say, ‘Hey,
this is important enough, we’ll put in $30,000
to help Victoria look at that alternative. And
let’s do it now rather than later,’” says Pearce,
who wants to see the CRD create a regional
funding formula for rail on the bridge.
There’s also the question of which entity
would run the commuter service. Southern
Rail, which is currently contracted by the Island
Corridor Foundation to operate the E&N,
doesn’t have passenger insurance. Pearce says
VIA would be the logical choice, if it brings
back its Budd cars, and can be persuaded that
connecting Langford and Victoria meets its
intercity mandate. Alternatively, a whole new
intermunicipal service could be created, or
the rail system could be operated by the CRD
or BC Transit.
Unfortunately, the last two bodies currently
seem entranced by LRT. The CRD board, the
regional transit commission, and some local
politicians have already endorsed BC Transit’s
shiny $950-million plan—without much worrying
about whether austerity-preaching federal and
provincial governments will actually pay for it,
or already-public opposition from the CRD
Taxpayers’ Association and businesses afraid
of losing two car lanes along Douglas Street.
The LRT fantasy may also cost us opportunities
that are staring us right in the face.
Langford’s Westhills development has set aside
$1 million for a commuter-rail station, and
a park-and-ride system connecting it to buses.
But there’s a time limit, and if rail doesn’t materialize
by the end of 2013, Westhills will spend
that money on other infrastructure.
Jim Hartshorne, the prime project consultant
for Westhills and president of the Westshore
Developers’ Association, sat on BC Transit’s
community-liasion panel for LRT. “And I can
tell you: I don’t understand the LRT proposal.
It doesn’t make sense to me. It is, in my opinion,
doomed for failure,” Hartshorne says, even
though the LRT plans include Westhills. “We
will have to spend millions just to acquire
rights-of-way, and design a system for a billion
dollars that doesn’t appear to have a population
that could support it. With the E&N,
we could use the track that’s existing, and
spend a few dollars to upgrade it. It’s mindboggling
to me that that wouldn’t be the first
thing we would do.”
Ross Crockford is a director
of johnsonstreetbridge.org
and the author of Victoria: The
Unknown City.
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
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